In this episode we see Judas in the grip of “not God.” That’s Jesus’s response to Judas’s question. Jesus has said to him, “He has you now.” “Who?” said Judas. “Not God.”
Judas is happy Jesus called him to be a disciple. He wholeheartedly believes Jesus is the Messiah. He’s a true believer. But he doesn’t understand what Jesus means by “Messiah.” He also doesn’t trust Jesus to know what he’s doing. The other disciples are confused. They don’t understand what Jesus is doing. But they still trust Jesus.
In a long conversation with Jesus, Judas expresses his frustration to Jesus. “Why’d you call me, Master, if you won’t listen to my advice.” Judas thinks his calling is to be the wise one to advise the Messiah.
Judas’s deep confusion leads him to hand Jesus over to the authorities. We’ll see in a future episode how the producers of The Chosen have him rationalize his betrayal. Given his status as a “true believer,” it’s likely they’ll have him believing that handing Jesus over will force his hand, compel him to finally “Reclaim his birthright,” and be the Messiah Judas knows he’s supposed to be.
I notice Christians still have a tendency to offer Jesus advice. We still think Jesus doesn’t rightly understand what it means to be Messiah (Or Savior, or Lord, etc.). Jesus chose us, intelligent, wise, and dedicated as we are, to give him advice, to make up for his deficiencies. No more of that “turn the other cheek” or “take up your cross” nonsense. “Jesus, what you need to do is show them who’s boss! Put them in their place!” Maybe we don’t even admit the other side of that, our urging Jesus to put us in our place, a place of ruling and authority, a place of setting things right. We don’t want to say that out loud, unwilling to admit that we don’t think Jesus knows what he’s doing.
Whose speech act is this? Though the words are from the Bible, they are an edited version of what’s found in Exodus 20 with some of the words cut out. Does that make this a speech act of the Texas government (though an appropriation of God’s words)?
The translation provided is from the King James Version (the Authorized Version). This presentation of the text of the commandments (which is taken directly from the legislation) keeps the capitalization of “LORD” at the beginning but drops it elsewhere. Should we take this to mean that they are adhering to the convention of translating “יְהוָה” as “LORD” in the first place, but not in the others? When we see LORD in the Old Testament it is the conventional way of signifying the personal name of the God of Israel, יְהוָה (or YHWH/Yahweh). Should we make something of their use of this convention – should we assume they are aware of and intentionally following this convention? If so, should we then take them to be specifying that this “LORD God” who is represented as giving these commandments is not just a generic god, a mere supreme being, but the God of Israel, the particular God honored and worshipped by Jews and Christians?
Or maybe we should assume the legislature doesn’t understand the convention regarding “LORD,” explaining why they changed it to “Lord” when it appears later in the text.
The text given in the Texas legislation drops the second half of verse 2: “who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” The advantage of this mutilation of the biblical text is that it allows readers to fudge on both the identity of the god who is purported to give these commands and the “you” to whom they are addressed. In Exodus 20 the God who is speaking is “the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” This God is not just a generic supreme being or giver of a universal moral scheme. This is a God who acted in history with a particular people. Having already delivered them from slavery in Egypt, this God is now making covenant with them. When we read the whole of verse two – and indeed read the commandments in their biblical context – we see that these commandments are addressed to those people, to Israel. They are not addressed to the Egyptians, the Edomites, the Greeks, the Chinese – you get the idea. By editing this line out of the text (and by taking the Ten Commandments to be separable from the rest of the biblical context), Texas seems to be reframing the Commandments as admonitions pertaining to a general morality applicable to everyone everywhere – even non Jews and non Christians in Texas.
Since the legislature has taken upon itself to edit the text in such significant ways, perhaps we see here an appropriation of what in the original context God’s words so that now these words are now the legislature’s words. This is certainly not how they are framed – they still claim an association with God. In the original context of Exodus 20, verse 1, another verse expunged by the legislature, says, “And God spoke all these words.” By cutting off verse 1 should we think that we should read instead, “And the Texas Legislature said all these words?”
To whom are the words on this Ten Commandments poster addressed? Since the legislature has mutilated verse 2, it’s no longer natural to read them as addressed to God’s covenant people, Israel (although I suppose some modern day adherents of British Israelism might want to claim that America is now God’s covenant people). Will students in classrooms take these words to be addressed to them? If they do, what reason might they take themselves to pay heed? Will the teacher, the principal, or the Commissioner of Education come down on them for disobedience? Israel took themselves to have reason to obey God’s commands and keep his covenant because they knew God and had experienced his saving work. God communicated love and built trust before giving the commands. Israel knew this. Has the legislature communicated love and built trust with students (and teachers?) before giving these commands? If so, do students take themselves to be aware of these actions?
Should non Jews & non Christians take these commands as coercive action against them? Must atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc., give up their own belief systems, practices, and allegiances and acquiesce to these commands? Or are the commands not intended to function as commands but as pointers to something like a “history of morality?” Is the legislature merely saying, “Many of the people who formed our country valued these commands. The idea of valuing commands like this is still important to us. You don’t have to believe, obey, or practice these commands, but you should know they are there.”
If the government of the State of Texas values these commands enough to require their posting in all public schools, should we assume that they themselves seek to adhere to them? What does it mean to “value” commandments while not adhering to them? If the state wants students to value them and adhere to them, to what degree should those who enacted this law (who promulgated this edition of the Ten Commandments) be held accountable to them?
As Christians who not only value the Bible but seek to live by it, should we cheer that an edited version of part of it is required to be posted in all classrooms? Should we read the action as a religious performance, perhaps of the type addressed by Jesus in Matthew 23? If we believe our society (and world!) would be improved by universal adherence to God’s commandments, what strategies do we see in scripture that might move us in that direction? Are we ourselves leading the way, not merely by putting pieces of scripture in public view, not merely by talking about how we need “God back in schools,” but by living in the way of Jesus ourselves and demonstrating through the way we live that obeying God is not only good for us but a way to true joy and peace?
We continued our discussion of Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community.” We picked up discovering his preference for brick buildings over glass buildings. Sure, he’s from a family of brick layers and he’s using the analogy of bricklaying to talk about discipleship, but here he’s critiquing modern liberalism – at least one form of modern liberalism that was in view when he wrote in 1991.
The glass building works as part of his argument against liberalism in two ways. First, he claims that building such buildings takes less skill than building brick buildings. I don’t know enough about construction trades to judge this claim. Second, a primary purpose in building a building conceived as “multipurpose” (need this be the same thing as a glass building?) shows lack of commitment to the authority present in tradition constituted crafts like bricklaying. I wasn’t willing to go that far with him. We did note that in our experience temporary buildings are common. When a church building gets to 40-50 years old we begin to think it obsolete. It might be obsolete in terms of construction: air conditioning, access, and energy usage that might have been deemed adequate when built, might not be cost effective to renovate now. The church building might also be obsolete in terms of location.
More important in our discussion was the role of mastery in a discipline/craft. When I become an apprentice I attach myself to someone who know and understands more than I do, but also one who has the know how to do the work. The authority of the master is not primarily a matter of power or tenure. It is not a solo act. The authority of the master comes from the master’s long submission to the discipline and the community that embodies it.
Stanley Hauerwas came from a family of bricklayers. It’s natural then, that as he looks for a craft to analogize to discipleship, he settles on bricklaying
OUR DISCUSSION of this section of his essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community,” finally arrived at the “craft” bit. We saw that there is such a thing as “mastery” involved in a craft. We talked about the modern concept of being a church member (different from the biblical concept of membership) and being a disciple.
Though you’ve likely never heard of Mani, Manichaeism or a Manichaean view of the world is still very popular.
When Manichaeism looks at the world they see an absolute distinction between good and evil. There is no middle ground, nothing in between, just good and evil.
Have you noticed that such a view is still popular? We easily divide people into the “good” and the “evil.” Thinking this way, we commonly think of ourselves as some of the “good,” and all those who differ from us as the “evil.”
Have you seen this way of thinking, this way of assessing people? Maybe you’ve not only seen it but tried it out for yourself. If you haven’t done it yourself, maybe you’ve been the target of Manichaean thinking: Some person or group who thinking of themselves as wholly “good” has cast you, since you differ in some way, as “evil.”
Do you think this is a good way to operate? If you think this way about people, what have been the benefits to you and the people around you? If you’ve been the object of Manichaean assessment by others, has that been beneficial?
We’re still in Holy Week, racing toward the cross. Jesus knows it. Sanhedrin leaders are plotting for it. The Romans are uneasy. The disciples are confused. Yet in the midst of everything happening this episode had many laugh out loud moments.
As with the previous episodes of the season, this one is also framed by the opening conversation from Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse. This time most of what he says is taken from John 14. Curiously one of the things onscreen Jesus says is exactly opposite what John 14:17 Jesus says. In the Bible we read Jesus saying of the Holy Spirit, “He lives with you and will be in you.” In this episode Jesus says, “He dwells in you and will be with you.” The key difference is in the tense of the verbs. “Lives” and “dwells” are both acceptable translations of the Greek verb we see in the text. Reading the rest of Jesus’ teaching here in John, seeing the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost in Acts, and reading teaching elsewhere in the New Testament, the future tense of the second clause makes more sense. The Holy Spirit is currently with them. In the future, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit will be in them. So it looks like the movie got this exactly wrong by having Jesus say the Holy Spirit was currently in them. But then I pulled out my Greek New Testament and saw that there was a textual variant there. What they had Jesus say fits with one of the variants (a variant I haven’t seen used in the main English translations I’ve looked at). Here’s the textual note from the NET Bible:
tc Some early and significant witnesses (P B D* W 1 565 it) have ἐστιν (estin, “he is”) instead of ἔσται (estai, “he will be”) here, while other weighty witnesses (P א A D L Θ Ψ ƒ 33 M as well as several versions and fathers), read the future tense. When one considers transcriptional evidence, ἐστιν is the more difficult reading and better explains the rise of the future tense reading, but it must be noted that both P and D were corrected from the present tense to the future. If ἐστιν were the original reading, one would expect a few manuscripts to be corrected to read the present when they originally read the future, but that is not the case. When one considers what the author would have written, the future is on much stronger ground. The immediate context (both in 14:16 and in the chapter as a whole) points to the future, and the theology of the book regards the advent of the Spirit as a decidedly future event (see, e.g., 7:39 and 16:7). The present tense could have arisen from an error of sight on the part of some scribes or more likely from an error of thought as scribes reflected upon the present role of the Spirit. Although a decision is difficult, the future tense is most likely authentic. For further discussion on this textual problem, see James M. Hamilton, Jr., “He Is with You and He Will Be in You” (Ph.D. diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003), 213-20.
In a previous episode when Jesus has done something astonishing, something that challenges the status quo, he was asked, “By whose authority do you do these things?” His answer then was, “My own.” The same question and the same answer happen in this episode, this time with reference to his cleansing of the temple. Having not seen that in any scriptural texts, I’ll again say that if I were making the movie I wouldn’t have put those words in his mouth.
Shmuel, confronted with the possibility that when Jesus says, “Tear down this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” he is not threatening the temple but prophesying its destruction, turns to Jeremiah. “Jeremiah,” he says, “was the last person who prophesied the destruction of the temple. See what that led to – they threw him in a pit!” (Paraphrased) I couldn’t what Shmuel thought about Jeremiah’s action – whether he should or shouldn’t have spoken the word of the LORD against the temple. I was also left wondering why such a thought didn’t at least raise the possibility Jesus could be following in the steps of Jeremiah – as a true prophet.
I notice that Jesus doesn’t give the disciples much in the way of a heads up as to what to expect. Sure, he’s already told them several times that he’s going up to Jerusalem, that the leaders of the people will reject him, beat him, kill him, and that he’ll rise on the third day. For all the good it did them at the time, he might as well have been speaking in Chinese. We do see Judas, however. As Bible readers we know where he’s going. Reflecting on Jesus’ confrontation with the leaders of the people, Judas says mournfully, “This week there is a chance for the Messiah to unite all the people.” So far in his eyes, Jesus is blowing that opportunity. It looks like he’s being set up to try to force Jesus’ hand.
At the end of the episode Jesus is on the Mount of Olives. For a brief time a few of his disciples join him and we hear the content of the Olivet Discourse. Then after they’ve left him alone (at his request) he weeps over Jerusalem. He knows what they’re going to do. He knows what they’re missing out on. He knows what’s going to be coming their way. His heart of love is broken for them.
I see Jesus acting that way toward Jerusalem and I wonder if his followers in this age will be willing to have a broken heart for those we reckon as opponents today. It sure looks like we’re much happier with angry, “flip the tables,” proclaim judgment Jesus, than the weeping Jesus.
I just finished a sermon series on Jesus vs the gods. The “gods” I referred to in the messages were names from the ancient world: Greco-Roman names plus one, Mammon, from the Semitic world. Those their names aren’t as much in use today (though given some of the recent re-paganization, we’ll see what happens), the ideas and values they embodied are still quite popular.
Season 5 depicts the beginning of Passion Week. It’s framed by teaching of Jesus from the Upper Room Discourse in the Gospel of John with bits from Luke 22.
The sharpest bit from Luke 22 is v.36. In the NIV Jesus says, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Generations since have not known quite what to do with what Jesus says about swords. On the one hand, we have the vast majority of Jesus’s words – and all his actions – that point in the direction of pacifism, of not using swords. Reading the Book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament the first generation certainly doesn’t look like “sword people.” The Chosen adds the line, “Ultimately your protection comes from above” to point back in this direction. On the other hand, we have the human tendency toward violence. We want to use swords (or better yet, in our day, guns) to defend ourselves. When we hear Jesus saying, “Sell your cloak so you can afford a weapon for self-defense,” we feel justified in our inclination.
John 2 is also featured in this episode. First, the climax is Jesus “cleansing the temple.” Though it likely happened once, and that once in the week leading up to his crucifixion, John puts it at the beginning, in Jesus first trip (first during his ministry) to Jerusalem. There is also a return to the story of Thomas. We have flashbacks to Thomas and his girlfriend packing up their wares to serve wine at the wedding in Cana, the first story in John 2. Those flashbacks set us up for Thomas’s confrontations with that girlfriend’s parents.
One of the strengths of the visual format is showing how big the temple business was. It took huge amounts of work to keep the sacrificial machinery going. Any disruption in the money changing and animal buying would put a kink in the flow of activity.
Caiaphas, the high priest, is a major focus of the episode. In his conversation with Herod we see that he has received a revelation from God and is staking his action on that revelation. We see that revelation in John 11. He’s been told that it’s “Necessary for one man to die for the nation.” Caiaphas is absolutely sure that he understands this revelation. Here’s Jesus, a false Messiah, causing a big ruckus in Jerusalem. Pilate has threatened Caiaphas – it’s his job to keep the peace, to prevent riots. If the Romans have to send in the troops to put down a riot, the people will certainly suffer. Caiaphas is sure that wants him to lead the saving of his nation by doing away with Jesus the messianic pretender.
A simple reading of history shows that Caiaphas’s being absolutely sure of himself yet absolutely wrong is not a rare thing. We seem to take such stances frequently.
By the end of the episode everyone seems convinced Jesus has gone mad. Caiaphas is hardened in his interpretation of the revelation. The crowds are stunned. Judas thinks Jesus has blown his opportunity to play the crowds into crowning him king.
Last week we looked at this paragraph in Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community.”
For example, one of the great problems facing liberal and conservative churches alike is that their membership has been schooled on the distinction between public and private morality. Liberal and conservative alike assume that they have a right generally to do pretty much what they want, as long as what they do does not entail undue harm to others. The fact that such a distinction is incoherent even in the wider political society does little to help us challenge an even more problematic character in relationship to the church. Yet if salvation is genuinely social, then there can be no place for a distinction that invites us to assume, for example, that we have ownership over our bodies and possessions in a way that is not under the discipline of the whole church.[emphasis added]
Our culture is highly individualistic. Christians, live others in this culture, are formed by this individualism. Individualism is the air we breath. It just seems natural. Because we’re individualists, we easily assume that salvation is an individual thing: I “get saved.” I “go to heaven when I die.” I get to live in “MY mansion” in heaven. What we looked at in this most recent class was support for the belief, put forward without argument by Hauerwas, that “salvation is genuinely social.” By looking at passages like Genesis 12, Exodus 19, 1 Peter 2, and especially Ephesians 2, we see that from the very beginning God’s objective is to have a people who are his very own. Being part of this people is part of what salvation is about.
The essay we’ve been looking at, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community,” was written with a particular audience in mind. He writes,
In this respect it is interesting to note how we—that is, those of us in mainstream traditions–tend to think about the loss of membership by mainstream churches and the growth of so-called conservative churches. Churches characterized by compassion and care no longer are able to retain membership, particularly that of their own children, whereas conservative churches that make moral conformity and/or discipline their primary focus continue to grow. Those of us in liberal churches tend to explain this development by noting that people cannot stand freedom, and therefore, in a confusing world devoid of community, seek authority. Conservative churches are growing, but their growth is only a sign of pathology.
The group I’m leading through this essay are members of my church, a Global Methodist congregation. We think of ourselves as a “conservative” church, an “other” to the audience Hauerwas is addressing. We feel like his “we” doesn’t include us. The readers of The Christian Century in 1991 make up an audience different from our church – and likely also different from readers of that magazine today. But there are other complications as well.
Even those of us who reckon ourselves to be “conservative” in American churches think and act like “liberals,” valuing authentic freely made decisions by individuals above all else. None of us like being told what to do. We easily come back with the juvenile, “You’re not the boss of me.” His observation here is that churches that maintain a form of authority (better, discipline) are the churches that are growing. This has been true for most of the past forty years, but it’s unclear if this is still the case. My own guess is that the form of church life he advocates in this essay is good and necessary, but not sufficient. We still need a move of God lest we entrust ourselves to method.
Hauerwas speaks of conservative churches as focusing on “moral conformity.” While there is often a message of moral conformity in such churches, it is an illusion to think that messages of moral conformity do not play a role in nonconservative churches. Instead, there is a difference of moral vision, a different conception of the goods to be pursued.
At the end of the discussion we begin a discussion of Hauerwas’s later line, “Yet if salvation is genuinely social…” on the assumption that given the individualism of our culture and of American Christianity, the idea of salvation being social will not be obvious to all.
Bandits No More 