Bible Topics

The Biblical message is clear, concise and needed in all ages. It has to be kept in its pristine simplicity. To Luke everything boiled down to "Salvation" and how this would lend dignity to all members. His story of the two sons is the heart of his picture.

Matthew saw everything in the promotion of Kingship. This Kingship was multi-faceted and took numerous stories to show its meaning and value. For Matthew each individual succeeds or fails according to the way in which they help each other.

John stresses that everything is love and love is service to and sharing with each other.

That's the whole message. Other "dogmas" are baggage tacked on.

I think we will see the real message of Christ restored to its pristine vigor. Christ said in so many words: The whole of religion is the way in which we get along with each other, and make sure that we share with others what we have and are. On this basis, true happiness is found in this life and the next.

I just looked up the "Shepherd" image in the Bible: Psalm 22(23), John 10, Ezechiel 34. Yahweh refers to the people as "his" flock. The leaders are the shepherds of the flock and they are leading the flock astray. Ezechiel was the prophet in the neo-Babylonian captivity in 597 B.C. He was taken with the first wave of captives. He was totally ignored. Jeremiah stayed in Jerusalem and was equally ignored.

Matthew has the most complete line up of the Beatitudes. He presents them as the preamble of the Sermon on the Mount by the new Moses. The first step at understanding the beatitudes is to be aware of the contrast between the Old Moses and the New Moses. All the way through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus is saying "This is what you heard before. Now I am telling you."

If we translate the word "blessed" as "Real happiness is" then we get the true meaning of the message of Christ. His ambition was to offer a pattern whereby people could establish happiness everywhere. The whole picture, Beatitudes in Matthew, deals with the manner in which we relate to each other and all the things around us. It is not a pattern of austerity and denial but the use of all things according to their purpose. This presupposes study, growth and sharing.

Jesus was clearly a gifted child as is pointed out in the Lukan tradition. He had very clear ideas about official teachings and was recognized by many of the teachers in his Bar Mitzvah. He began his public teaching career because he saw a serious need to get down to basics. The Jewish leaders had turned the message of Yahweh into rituals and legalism. Christ boiled his whole message down to the manner in which people worked with each other in daily life. There was no special ritual or liturgy or building. They got together for pot-luck suppers and discussed their needs and topics of interest.

The personality of Christ is intriguing. Like Abe Lincoln, he is the country boy who came out of the hills of Galilee with a vision. His people were being torn apart by the Roman domination, their own lust for idolatry and a sense of needing to be somebody special.

Christ saw the heart of the problem. They did not need structure. They were to be a "kahal" or "ekklesia" or "gathering" in the midst of every nation in which they lived. They were to turn the whole world around by their example of friendship, service and sharing. These ideals would go against the grain of the pagan nations but they had to be followed. They were followed almost 3 centuries and it worked. The emperor became a follower of Christ.

In this whole picture, Christ is a strong convinced leader, always fearful of the demands to be made on him personally and whether he could or would measure up.

The more I think about Christ, the more I admire him.

Christ saw the vocation and role of his people in the plan unfolded with Moses. He knew the efforts of the prophets and the failure of people to listen. Then he saw the so-called leaders of his time and the way they were destroying the message and people. He couldn't help himself. He had to speak out strongly even though it meant suffering and death.

I've been thinking more and more about Christ and the burden he carried with his high idealism, his sensitive nature, his origin in "shantytown," the opposition from the leaders of his people and the despisal of the Roman authorities.

Peter was the source of Mark's picture of Christ and so often Mark is just ignored because everything he has to say is found in one of the other Gospel stories. Peter's most basic idea comes from his own failure. He says, "You must always have a full reason for the ambitions and hopes that are in you."

Peter didn't. He always acted and then asked himself "Why." He was certainly the right man to pick as the Kepha or foundation of the ongoing society. The ambition of the first Christians was so simple. They wanted to have a profound effect on all of society by the way they worked and shared with each other.

Luke gives the details. For him, everything revolved around the "Holy Spirit," the high-minded sharing that was called for. Everyone in the world was called to his ideal, not just the Chosen People. Women had to be given equal status.

Mary is presented as the Queen Mother because her son is King. Yahweh is God and Father. Jesus is the first human being who carried this idea to full flower. The Holy Spirit is the sense of community or sharing that we want to establish. For 2.5 centuries, the followers of Christ were just another group of Jews who lived in the Trastevere section of Rome.

Yesterday, as I mulled over ideas in my mind, I questioned how much of the Gospel story is real and how much is the product of the first Christians' imagination and creativity. We know that the whole Bible is the product of the Semitic mentality. We know that their notion of history is not so much "what" happened as "why" it happened. We made the mistake of reading the OT as western history and ended up with gibberish. We read the Gospels as Western history and ended up with a ridiculous set of contradictions.

We know there were more Gospel stories written but at the 1563 Council of Trent four were chosen as the most representative. The historians at the Council maintained these were the only four that could be authenticated. However, we have a lot of writings from the Apostolic Fathers in the Vatican Museum. These have never been thoroughly read because of the danger of destroying the books. Perhaps a time will come when these ancient documents can be used.

As I sat in that chair in the living room and looked at the picture of Christ, he takes on a whole new meaning for me. I see a man who was sensitive to the needs of the people near him. He realized at his Bar Mitzvah how useless the Jewish religion had become. It was a lot of meaningless quibbling over the correct way to write the Hebrew letters and applications to daily life that were legalistic and empty. So as a teenager, he decided to upset their applecart. Upset it he did.

He worked at home as an apprentice to Joseph, his father. At age 30, he left to see the world and to see what he wanted to do with his life. He quickly saw all the gross injustices imposed by Rome and the Jewish leaders on the hoi polloi. He was angry and decided to protest loudly as John, his cousin, had been doing for about 6 months.

His basic idea was that sincere love had to be revived in the world. But love was not merely an emotion. Love meant sharing with all the neighbors around them. This sharing or Spirit would soon change the world. To remind them, he told them to share the bread and wine in memory of him rather than the Passover Lamb.

If we could just return to the basic truth that Christ was a great man and leader, a person who saw the need to update the following of God's ideas and ideals, then he could have a real start.

Baptism: an act of immersing the child or adult into the community.

Confirmation: recognition of teenager as an adult in the community.

"Orders" / "holy orders" — "laying on" of hands to signify which "elders" represent the community officially.

"Eucharist" — a community meal with the "friendship cup" that was a memorial to Christ rather than the Paschal Lamb.

"Anointing of the sick" — to heal or prepare for death.

"Confession" — public admission of sin and asking God to forgive.

For a long time St. Joseph was seen in the theology of the churchmen as necessary baggage. They were quick to point out he was the foster-father of Jesus and only a companion to Mary. The fact is Mary is called "The queen-mother," not "virgin." She is to conceive in the "Holy Spirit," that is, the spirit which is to pervade the Christian community. I think Joseph is the real father of Jesus and real husband of Mary. When they tell Jesus "his brothers and sisters" are in the wings, they are real family.