The emphasis upon the graciousness of God in the message of Jesus often leads to questions about whether there is any element of of judgment at all. A number of clarifying remarks may help. The passages in the synoptics that speak of a last judgment with eternal consequences are largely the products of Matthew's redaction. Moreover, the notion that our life on earth is primarily about meeting God's requirements so that we may have a blessed next life is, it seems to me, foreign to Jesus. Though I think he probably "believed in an afterlife," I don't think his message was about how to get there.
~ Marcus Borg, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", excerpts from Chapter Four
TALK ABOUT IT
- What is the difference between "going to heaven when you die" and "entering the Kingdom of God which is at hand"?
- How do we enter the Kingdom?
This is the strongest consensus among today's Jesus scholars. Whatever else can be said about the pre-Easter Jesus, he was a teacher of wisdom - a sage, as teachers of wisdom are called...
The way of Jesus also challenges many common forms of Christianity... In particular, it invites us to move from "secondhand religion" to firsthand religion. Secondhand religion is a way of being religious based on believing what one has heard from others. It consists of thinking that the Christian life is about believing what the Bible says or what the doctrines of the church say. Firsthand religion, on the other hand, consists of a relationship to that to which the Bible and the teachings of the church point - namely, that reality that we call God or the Spirit of God.
~ Marcus Borg, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", excerpts from Chapter Four
TALK ABOUT IT
- Why is Christianity built more on dogma (subscribing to truth statements) than most religions?
- How do we rise above that level of religion?
- What practices help to build a firsthand relationship with God?
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: WISDOM AND PRACTICE: CHURCH OF RECONCILIATION
"The narrow way, the way less traveled, is the alternative wisdom of Jesus... It is an invitation to a path that leads away from the life of conventional wisdom [the culturally reinforced wisdom of how to live the successful, affluent, or respected life based on standards set by society or religion] to a ... deepening relationship with the Sprit of God, not as a life of requirements and reward.
Jesus used imagery of the heart to speak of the need for an internal transformation... What is needed is a new heart - an internal transformation brought about by a deep centering in God... The narrow way as the path of internal transformation is a ... dying to the world of conventional wisdom as the center of one's security and identity and a dying to the self as the center of one's concern ... the ultimate letting go, and thus the opposite of grasping that marks the life of conventional wisdom."
Marcus Borg, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time", excerpts from Chapter Four
TALK ABOUT IT
Where does the alternative wisdom of Jesus challenge our culture? Our religion?
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: WISDOM AND PRACTICE: CHURCH OF RECONCILIATION
In the midst of our modern culture, it is important for those of us who would be faithful to Jesus to think and speak of a politics of compassion not only within the church but as a paradigm for shaping the political order. A politics of compassion as the paradigm for shaping our national life would produce a social system different in many ways from that generated by our recent history...
Such an emphasis on could involve a recovery of ... "covenant" and "civic virtue" as images of community. The issue of community (rather than the maximizing of individualism) would become the primary paradigm for thinking about the political order. It seems to me that, although Christians might disagree about the best way to implement such a system, a politics of compassion in our day clearly implies universal health care as an immediate goal.
Marcus Borg, "Meeting Jesus Again For the First Time", excerpts from Chapter Three
TALK ABOUT IT:
What other political issue comes to mind that would look different through the lens of compassionate communities rather than through the lens of individual rights? How far would you go with this politics of communitarian compassion?
CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY: WISDOM AND PRACTICE: CHURCH OF RECONCILIATION
