Jesus: a new vision

by Marcus J. Borg

  In the setting of this crisis facing his social world, Jesus carried out his ministry and mission. In a time when several renewal movements competed for the loyalty of the Jewish people, he founded a renewal movement whose purpose was to embody what Israel was meant to be. In a time when the politics of holiness was generating a disastrous direction, Jesus as a prophet called his people to change. Foundational for the movement which he created and for the prophetic criticism which he mounted were his perception and teaching as a sage. To that we now turn.

  NOTES

  6. Jesus as Sage: Challenge to Conventional Wisdom

  Jesus was a sage, a teacher of wisdom. Regularly addressed as “teacher” during his lifetime by followers, opponents, and interested inquirers alike, he has been hailed by subsequent generations of Christians as more than a teacher, as indeed he was. Nevertheless, he was not less than a teacher. But what was he a teacher of?

  Some have thought that he was primarily a teacher of beliefs; or, more precisely, of what was to be believed in order to be saved, providing “correct information” in the form of divine revelation about God and Jesus’ own role in salvation. Others have stressed that he was a teacher of a new moral ethic, whether understood as a new moral code consisting of highly specific commands, or as a set of more generalized ideals such as love and justice or the “golden rule” or the “brotherhood of man.”

  But Jesus was not primarily a teacher of either correct beliefs or right morals. Rather, he was a teacher of a way or path, specifically a way of transformation.1 His teaching involved a radical criticism of the conventional wisdom that lay at the core of the first-century Jewish social world. As teacher of a way and critic of conventional wisdom, he was similar to other great sages who proclaimed a way or path sharply in tension with the culture of their time. Their number outside of Israel included Lao Tzu in sixth-century B.C. China and the Buddha in fifth-century B.C. India. Within Israel, Moses was the great sage without equal, calling his followers out of Egypt, the culture in which they lived, to a radically different way.

  THE FORMS OF JESUS’ TEACHING

  Before turning to the content of Jesus’ teaching, it is illuminating to note the typical forms which he used to communicate his alternative vision. Unlike the teachers of conventional wisdom of his day, Jesus was not a “Torah sage.” His teaching ordinarily did not take the form of elaborating or commenting upon the Torah, even though he obviously knew it and sometimes referred to it. Rather than appealing to sacred text or citing opinions of earlier teachers, he most often appealed to the world of human experience or made observations about nature. As he did so, he used the typical forms of the earlier wisdom tradition.

  Proverbs

  Proverbs are short pithy sayings which crystalize or compel insight. The sayings of Jesus include many memorable one- or two-liners: “No one can serve two masters”; “A city set on a hill cannot be hid”; “No one lights a lamp and hides it under a bushel.”2 Some of these may have been freshly coined by Jesus himself; many may already have been traditional proverbs. In either case, to a large extent they expressed truisms; indeed, their power depended upon the immediate way in which they made sense, their evident truthfulness. What gave them their radical bite in the teaching of Jesus was, as we shall see, their application.

  Parables

  Parables are imaginative stories which may serve a number of purposes.3 They may simply illustrate or amplify a point with a memorable story; when this is their function, the point could be made just as well without a parable, though perhaps not as artfully or entertainingly. Sometimes, however, parables have a quite different function: they invite or enable the hearers to see something that they would not have seen, or would have resisted seeing, if the point were made directly.4 In short, parables often presuppose a difference in perception between speaker and hearer, and invite the hearer to a transformed perception.

  Lessons from Nature

  Like the sages of the Old Testament, Jesus often pointed to nature as a source of insight. “Consider the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor spin.” The observation could take the form of a question: “Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” The appeal to the intelligence is clear: “Of course not,” is the obvious answer. The similar saying, “A good tree bears good fruit,” makes an equally common-sense observation.5 As with most of the proverbs of Jesus, it is in the application of these lessons from nature that their particular power lies.

  Common to all of these forms of traditional wisdom as used by Jesus was an invitation to see differently. He appealed to the imagination and intelligence, and not to the authority of a revealed tradition, as did the teachers of conventional wisdom. Indeed, Jesus used the forms of traditional wisdom to challenge conventional wisdom.

  JESUS AS SAGE

  All of Jesus’ teaching was directed to his contemporaries, living in their highly particular social world. He had no other audience in mind. In this sense, there is no such thing as the “timeless’ teaching of Jesus. Yet there is a timeless quality to much of what he said, simply because the alternative way which he taught not only stood in tension with his social world but also in opposition to the conventional wisdom of any time. Though he was not a systematic theologian or philosopher who divided his teaching into various topics, his sagely teaching nevertheless revolved around three great themes: an image of reality that challenged the image created by conventional wisdom; a diagnosis of the human condition; and the proclamation of a way of transformation.

  JESUS’ IMAGE OF REALITY

  Ideas matter. Though we often think of ideas as rather flimsy constructions compared to the “real” world, our ideas profoundly shape our lives. Of the ideas that affect us, perhaps most fundamental is our idea or image of what reality itself is like. Deep within all of us is an image or picture of reality, whether consciously articulated or not, which more than anything else shapes how we live. We may “image” reality as indifferent, or as the destroyer, or as the “judge” who must be appeased, or as “friend.” How we see it fundamentally affects our response to life.6

  Of these possibilities, we who are the products of modern Western culture with its essentially “one-dimensional” understanding of reality tend to “image” reality as ultimately indifferent to us. We learn that reality is a continuum of matter and energy, of whirling atoms and their interactions, or, to use a now well-known colloquial expression, a vast “cosmic soup.”7 I do not mean that all of us without exception see it this way, or to deny that public opinion polls show that most people still affirm the existence of God. But, unless transformed by convincing experience, even religious belief in our time is most frequently simply “added on” to this more basic picture of a vast ultimately inanimate and impersonal universe which is indifferent to us, in contrast to the religious worldview which preceded modern culture.

  The pervasive sense of meaninglessness in the twentieth century is to a large extent the result of this change in how we see reality.8 The image of reality as indifferent easily shades into the images of reality as destroyer. If reality is indifferent, then it is also threatening and it is up to us to protect ourselves against that which threatens to destroy us.

  Jesus saw reality very differently from both us and most of his contemporaries. In common with them and with most people in the premodern world, he saw reality as ultimately Spirit (and not ultimately material), that is, that the “final word” about reality was God. What distinguished him from most of his contemporaries as well as from us, from their conventional wisdom as well as from ours, was his vivid sense that reality was ultimately gracious and compassionate.

  GOD AS GRACIOUS AND COMPASSIONATE

  “Grace” is one of the central words of the Christian tradition, and not by accident. Though Jesus did not use the word “grace” itself, the picture of ultimate reality, of God’s ultimate character, as gracious emerges everywhere in his teaching.

  Poetic imagery drawn from nature made the point.
“Look at the birds of the air,” Jesus said. “They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” And again, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”9 On another occasion, Jesus said, “God makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and unjust.”10 With words such as these, Jesus invited his hearers to see in nature—looked at attentively from a certain perspective—a glimpse of the divine nature. Like earlier figures in the charismatic tradition, he saw the earth “filled with the glory of God,” permeated by the divine radiance.11 Nature itself points to reality as marked by a cosmic generosity, lavish in its care.

  The image of God as gracious also emerges in some of Jesus’ best-known parables. The prodigal son went to a far country and squandered his father’s resources in loose living; having become an “outcast,” he returned in desperation and unexpectedly found an overjoyed father greeting him with a celebration.12 Clearly, the father is an image for God: loving the prodigal from afar, welcoming him, not judging him upon his return but rejoicing with him—in short, gracious. The same picture is found in the vineyard owner who paid all of his workers a full day’s wage even though many had worked only a small part of the day; when those who had worked the longest complained, the owner asked, “Do you begrudge my generosity?”13 As an image of God, the meaning is clear—God is like that.

  This image of God is implicit in one of the most striking features of Jesus’ ministry, namely the meals which he shared with “sinners,”—that is, outcasts.14 Given that sharing a meal in first-century Palestine signified acceptance of one’s table companions, Jesus’ behavior signified his acceptance of them. It must have been an extraordinary experience for an outcast to be invited to share a meal with a man who was rumored to be a prophet. He “spoke from the mouth of the Spirit”15 and therefore his acceptance of them would have been perceived as a claim that they were accepted by God. Implicit in the action is an understanding of God as gracious and compassionate, embracing even the outcasts, those whose mode of life placed them outside the boundaries of respectability and acceptance established by conventional wisdom. Jesus’ table fellowship with outcasts was an enacted parable of the grace of God, both expressing and mediating the divine grace.16

  The word Jesus used most often to identify this quality of God was “compassionate.”17 It has particularly rich resonances in Hebrew and Aramaic, where it is the plural of the noun “womb.”18 Thus “compassionate” bore the connotations of “wombishness”: nourishing, giving life, embracing; perhaps it also suggested feelings of tenderness.19 God is nourishing, life-giving, “wombish.”

  The claim that God is gracious lies at the heart of the Old Testament. It flowed out of the charismatic stream of Jesus’ own tradition: “God is in love with his people.”20 It is the heart of the exodus and exile stories. Yet the needs of conventional wisdom transformed that understanding into one in which the notion of rewards and punishments, righteous and unrighteous, deserving and undeserving, became prominent. Indeed, the voice of that conventional wisdom is heard in the protests of the workers in the vineyard and the prodigal son’s older brother. They expressed the dominant consciousness of the time, as well as of all times. No wonder we can easily understand their sense of unfairness.

  Jesus’ image of God challenges the image of reality contained in conventional wisdom cross-culturally, including the conventional wisdom of the church and modern culture. Though speaking of the “grace of God” has virtually become a Christian cliché, Christianity as understood by many both within and outside of the church is a form of conventional wisdom in which God is imaged as the judge whose standards (whether of belief or behavior) must be met. Whenever one says that God’s love depends upon having met requirements of any kind, one has abandoned grace as the dominant image of reality, no matter how much the language of grace may remain. Though without making reference to God, modern culture’s ideology of the good life as flowing from measuring up to societal standards conveys the same notion of reality as compensator and judge, the reinforcer of conventional wisdom’s values.

  If we see reality as hostile, indifferent, or “judge,” then self-preservation becomes the first law of our being. We must protect ourselves against reality and make ourselves secure in the face of its threats, whether we choose secular or religious means of doing so. But if we see reality as supportive and nourishing, then another response to life becomes possible: trust. To say that God is gracious means that the relationship with God is not dependent upon performance as measured by the standards of conventional wisdom. The relationship is prior to that. In traditional religious language, God loves and is gracious to people prior to any achievement on their part; in more religiously neutral language, reality is marked by a cosmic generosity. But we do not commonly see it that way. We typically live our lives as if reality were not gracious.

  THE TWO WAYS: THE BROAD WAY AND THE NARROW WAY

  The great sages typically speak of two ways or paths. There is the foolish way and the wise way, the way of death and the way of life, the broad way and the narrow way, the way of bondage and the way of liberation, the way of blindness and the way of sight, the way that most people live and the “way of the saints.”21 To use a medical metaphor, the two ways spoken of by the great sages involve a diagnosis and a cure, a description of the malady and a prescription for transformation.

  Jesus spoke of two ways. There was the broad way and the narrow way, the way of destruction and the way of life: “The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many, but the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.” There was the wise way and the narrow way: “The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the foolish man built his house upon the sand.” He spoke of the two ways of “serving God” or “serving mammon” (riches), of “treasures on earth” and “treasures in heaven.”22

  THE BROAD WAY

  Strikingly, the broad way was the ethos of conventional wisdom itself. It was not what people usually think of as “sinful,” the way of the “hot sins.”23 Jesus did not indict his contemporaries for failing to live up to the moral or religious standards of the conventional wisdom of his time. Rather, he saw conventional wisdom, with its focus on the securities and identities offered by culture, even though sanctioned by Scripture and hallowed by practice, as the chief rival to centering in God.

  The four central concerns of conventional wisdom in Jesus’ time were family, wealth, honor, and religion. Of these, religion was most central; not only was it the legitimator of that social world, but family, wealth, and honor were all understood as blessings or rewards that flowed from being religious. Yet many of Jesus’ most radical words were directed against each of these.

  The family had a significance in Judaism (and most premodern cultures) which is difficult for us in the modern world to imagine. In a largely agricultural society, it was the primary economic unit. Moreover, one was identified primarily in terms of one’s family; not only were genealogies kept, but one was known as “son of so-and-so.” The family was thus the primary social unit, the basis of both identity and financial security.24 Yet many of Jesus’ most radical sayings call for a break with the family or familial obligations. He denied the significance of his own family.25 He spoke of discipleship as involving “hating” one’s father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters,26 and of his ministry as bringing division within families.27 To a prospective follower who said, “Master, let me first go and bury my father,” Jesus responded, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” It is one of the most radical sayings in the teaching of Jesus, for the obligation properly to bury one’s dead was among the most sacred of familial obligations within Judaism.28

  Wealth and possessions, then as now, were a major source of security and identity. Though Ju
daism could speak of the “unrighteous wealthy,” wealth was typically seen as a blessing from God that flowed from following the path of wisdom. Obviously, it was good to be wealthy, for wealth provided both comfort and a sign that one had lived right. Yet Jesus regularly criticized wealth. He told unfavorable stories about its pursuit, pronounced woes upon the rich and blessings upon the poor, called upon some to renounce all, and said, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God!”29 He himself was apparently without possessions, and he commanded his disciples to be likewise.30 Yet though they may have practiced a form of “holy poverty,”31 it is not clear that Jesus opposed wealth in principle; he apparently had some wealthy followers, including some wealthy women who supported him and his disciples.32 Nevertheless, he clearly saw wealth as one of the primary distractions and preoccupations in life, greed as one of the consuming and blinding human passions, and all of this sanctioned by conventional wisdom.

  Honor was a pivotal value. To some extent the product of birth, family, and wealth, it was sustained by social recognition.33 It was not just social status, but also the regard one felt entitled to in virtue of that status. Much behavior was therefore dictated by the desire to acquire, preserve, or display honor. But Jesus ridiculed its pursuit, mocking those who sought the places of honor at a banquet, the best seats in the synagogue, or salutations in the marketplace.34 He chastised religious practices which were motivated by the desire for social recognition: “Do not sound trumpets when you give alms.”35 Honor—the community’s recognition of achievement by the standards of conventional wisdom—was seen as a snare.