Garry Wills: What Jesus Meant

Garry Wills: What Jesus Meant (paperback, 2007, Penguin Books)

I have a lot of respect for Wills as a historian, but not for his more recent theological interests. Still, I thought this slim volume would be a cheap way to check on his take on Jesus, and as such gauge where Jesus might fit in the political spectrum. Wills went on to write What Paul Meant and What the Gospels Meant, two similar volumes, which I haven't pursued.

Some interesting quotes:

(p. 46):

Jesus was never afraid to speak truth to power. In fact, as we have seen, he addressed the most revered men of his day, the elders and chief priests of the Temple, this way: "In truth I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering God's reign before you" (Mt 21.31). The complement to that fact is what he told his followers: "In truth I tell you, unless your integrity surpasses that of the Scribes and the Pharisees, you may not enter into the heavens' reign" (Mt 5.20). [ . . . ]

Even when Jesus was not openly denouncing the powers of his day, many of his parables were aimed indirectly at undermining their pretensions -- as they realized: "When the high priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they recognized that he was describing them" (Mt 21.45). They knew what Jesus meant. He meant them.

(pp. 48-50):

The equality of men and women was a thing so shocking in the patriarchal society of Jesus' time that his own male followers could not understand it. "At this point his followers arrived, and were thunderstuck [ethaumazon] that he was speaking to a woman" -- and a Samaritan woman at that (Jn 4.27).

It was a source of scandal for women to travel openly with a rabbi; but "many" women followed Jesus through Galilee (Lk 8.2-3). [ . . . . ]

There was a crowd of women followers at the cross, when all but one of the male company had fled or stood far off (Mk 15.40-41). Three of these women who were at the cross were also the first to discover the empty tomb and to announce their finding to the male followers, becoming the first evangels of the Resurrection (Lk 24.1-11). One of these women was the first person to converse with the risen Jesus (jn 20.15-17).

Women continued to play a prominent role in the early gatherings.

(pp. 53-54):

Tremendous ingenuity has been expended to compromise these uncompromising words. Jesus is too much for us. The churches' later treatment of the gospels is one long effort to rescue Jesus from his "extremism." Jesus consistently opposed violence. He ordered Peter not to use the sword, even to protect his Lord (Mt 26.52) -- yet thousands, in the Crusades, would take up the sword to protect the site of that Lord's death. If one cannot use violence to protect the Lord, what can one justifiably use it for? When Pilate asks if Jesus is a king, he answers:

"My reign is not of this present order [kosmos]. If it were of this present order, my ministers would do battle to prevent my surrender to the Jews. But for now my reign is not of this present order." (Jn 18.36)

Many would like to make the reign of Jesus belong to this political order. If they want the state to be politically Christian, they are not following Jesus, who says that his reign is not of that order. If, on the other hand, they ask the state simply to profess religion f some sort (not specifically Christian), then some other religions may be conscripted for that purpose, but that of Jesus will not be among them. His reign is not of that order. If people want to do battle for God, they cannot claim that Jesus has called them to this task, since he told Pilate that his ministers would not do that.

Jesus, unlike other Jews of his time, renounced theocracy. That involves religion in state violence, and he never accepted violence as justified.

(p. 58):

What exactly does that mean? "Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me." It means that priests who sexually molest boys are molesting Jesus. Televangelists who cheat old women of their savings are cheating Jesus. Those killing members of other religions because of their religion are killing Jesus. Those who despise the poor are despising Jesus. Those neglecting the homeless are neglecting Jesus. Those persecuting gays are persecuting Jesus. And that judgment of his is being delivered now, at the moment when he is scorned, ignored, left hungry. He is outcast, and we welcome him not. He needs us, and we do not take up his cross with him, love with him, die with him. That is the awesome test of love that Jesus brings to bear on our lives. Admittedly, Jesus was an extremist, a radical, but can any but radicals justly claim his name?

(pp. 76-77):

At first one might think that Jesus would not recognize most of what calls itself religion today. But, on second thought, it would probably look all too familiar, perpetuating the very things he criticized in the cleanliness code, the Sabbath rules, the sacrifices, and the Temple. It was natural, therefore, for religion to kill him, since he was its foe.

His followers would be killed for the same reason. Stephen, the first martyr, is stoned for predicting the destruction of the Temple (Ac 6.14). Stephen tells his executioners what Jesus told the Samaritan woman: "The Most High does not live in houses constructed by human hand. Rather, as the prophet says, 'Heaven is my throne, and earth my footstool'" (Ac 7.48-49).

What is the kind of religion Jesus opposed? Any religion that is proud of its virtue, like the boastful Pharisee. Any that is self-righteous, quick to judge and condemn, ready to impose burdens rather than share or lift them. Any that exalts its own officers, proud of its trappings, building expensive monuments to itself. Any that neglects the poor and cultivates the rich, any that scorns outcasts and flatters the rulers of this world. If that sounds like just about every form of religion we know, then we can see how far off from religion Jesus stood.

(pp. 81-82):

Yet Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Church, wrote in 1998 that it is an infallible teaching of the church that Anglican bishops and priests are fake bishops and priests, dispensing fake sacraments, because they are outside the apostolic succession. That is, they have not a lineage guaranteed by papal elections, supposedly guided by the Holy Spirit -- a line in which bribery, intimidation, and imperial interference were often the deciding factors. In this famous succession, the papacy was often bought, and once was sold for money (by Benedict X). Popes were for a long time appointed by various temporal rulers. Popes were heretical (Liberius, Honorius), they waved wars, they ran governments (with their full complement of armies, spies, and torturers), and they granted indulgences for those killing heretics (the Albigensians) or infidels. This succession is what excludes saintly Christians of non-Catholic gatherings as not "valid," not connected with the mythical chair of Peter as bishop of Rome.

Jesus said, "Where two or three are met together in my name, there am I in their midst" (mt 18.20). Why do Anglicans, met together in Jesus' name, need a bishop from Rome when they have Jesus in their midst?

posted 2008-06-21