Jesus and The Kingdom of God

Last week I was blogging and emailing with David Weinberger about interfaith understanding,  after he had pointed out how some things I had written could be construed as being somewhat condescending toward those of the Jewish faith.  Of course,  he was right that I had not exactly nailed the interfaith thing when I referred to the New Testamant as an more evolved stage than the earlier "conquesting God" portrayed in such places as Joshua in the Old Testament.  I have thought about that some more this week,  and I am remembering how I have thought much in the past about how Jesus must have been thinking more in terms of "getting at the heart of things" within Judaism rather than seeking to "promote a new religion".  Many scholars feel that Christianity was more of a Pauline thing than a Jesus thing,  and that the ties Paul had to Greco-Roman culture were factors in creating the cultural divide that split the followers of Jesus away from Judaism.  We often forget that one of the groups Paul often debated with have come to be known in Christian theology as "Judaizers";  which was the group that held stronger to what were , for them,  the elements of faith that they brought along with them into the fold of those who thought that Jesus was onto something.  Of course,  I certainly think he was,  but I'm just as sure that this did not neccessitate the "split" that occurred than I am of the fact that we could find more in common with the world's great relgions today.

Jesus was for sure,  a "reformer"; God's mission for him was to humanize,  not to destroy or replace ("I have come not to destroy the law and the prophets,  but to fulfill")  In other words,  the revelation around which the community of Judaism grew is one and the same as that which Jesus sought to illuminate and incarnate in his manner of living,  and so he went about preaching and helping and "doing",  all the while shaping stories that illuminated things in much the same notion as Talmudic commentary; a living , walking, Midrash.  I have no doubt that Christianity itself has more than its share of "ivory tower" theologians who fail to live either Old Testamant OR New Testament derived theological truths,   and fall prey to "keeping the faith in their head" and perhaps meet to "discuss it" and exchange interpretations but nevertheless fail to move out into the world with it,  and so would earn the ire of Jesus just as the "Scribes and Pharisees" with whom he constantly "had words";  not because they were "Scribes" or becuase they were "Pharisees",  but becuase of how they failed to make the connection between the theology which they "guarded" and the call it sounded to "live that message"as servants of the people and of the community.  His message was not a rejection of Judaism but a rejection of "un-engaged" Judaism,  just as he would also rail against "un-engaged" Christianity, a nd the SAME DAMN tendency to move into the head and away from the heart,  and become "detached" from LIFE.    I don't say "DAMN" to be profane here.  I say it as a theolgical truth.  It is literally damning to make such a break from the "heart of Judaism" OR from the "heart of Christianity";  both of which are supposedly to participate in,  engage with , and "live in" the Kingdom of God.

© Copyright 2003 Dale Lature. Last update: 9/23/2003; 3:36:24 PM.