Eighteenth of Year A. 11
July 2011
Throughout the Bible and particularly in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth the symbol of a feast, banquet or a meal together, is continually used to describe Eternal Life with God or to describe the Kingdom or Reign of God here on earth.
The authors are trying to describe something indescribable; the good fellowship, the joy together, the mutual acceptance, the mutual tolerance and forgiveness, the mutual love, that exists in Eternal Life and should exist among the children of God here on earth.
Jesus of Nazareth was so partial to sharing a meal with all comers - from prostitutes to Apostles, from Pharisees to tax collectors - that his enemies called him ‘a glutton and a drunkard.’
His last farewell for his followers, both men and women, was a meal together; what we call the Last Supper.
The symbol by which he wanted to be remembered forever was the Last Supper, or as we call it the Mass.
So our Mass is not a ‘teat-a-teat’ between I and God but a joyful gathering of God’s children to share a meal together as one loving family.
Hence the inappropriateness of the dash into church just as Mass starts and the dash out just as it finishes (excluding of course reasonable cause). Granted that some of God’s beloved children can be a proctological discomfort, they are, nevertheless, God’s beloved children.
Many of the parables spoken by Jesus of Nazareth (even the ones centred around feasts of banquets) end with an insert about the fate of those who refuse to attend or who attend inappropriately dressed or do not live up to the expectations of the master. These inserts, have these sort of people thrown out into ‘exterior darkness’ or ‘thrown into the fire’ etc. These inserts were not part of the parable or story as told by Jesus of Nazareth. They were added later by authors and editors who did not know and had never met Jesus of Nazareth. They were brought up in the Old Testament belief in a God who was totally focused on Himself. A God in the likeness of the kings and emperors of that time. A jealous God who rewarded loyalty and punished disloyalty.
The God of Jesus of Nazareth was totally different and no suggestion that God punished anyone, ever occurred to Jesus or passed his lips. The teaching of Jesus of Nazareth turned the teaching of the temple priests, of the Scribes, Pharisees and lawyers upside down. That is why these people were so implacably opposed to Jesus. He called their teaching, their position, their standing and authority into question.
As you probably know none of the books of the New Testament were written by a person who actually met and knew Jesus of Nazareth. All the authors (despite the names ascribed to the authors ) were working with second or third hand information and give us their own interpretation and understanding of what the Jesus of Nazareth event meant.
The only Scripture that these people knew - the only Scripture existing at that time - was the Old Testament. They were generally steeped in the Old Testament from their earliest years. Thus the idea that God was not as depicted in the Old Testament was impossible for them to accept. For them God was kind and generous towards his obedient servants but utterly ruthless towards the disobedient.
So when recounting the stories and parables of Jesus of Nazareth which were handed down to them by oral tradition they usually added their own editorial inserts about God punishing sinners and the disobedient. They did not realize that they were distorting the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.
One of the few places where we get a portrayal of God as Jesus of Nazareth presented Him is the parable of the prodigal son (Lk.15:11-32) where the father never tries to interfere with what his son wants to do, never blames or reprimands him and welcomes him back home without pre-conditions. He does not even look for repentance on the son’s part.
How many of us here are free to believe in this kind of God?
How many of us, because of our upbringing and mode of religious instruction, are, like the writers and editors of the New Testament; unable to discard the habit of belief in a punishing and vengeful God?
How patient our God is to put up with such ugly misrepresentation.