Thanks for a good article one thing I did ponder on was Paul talks about in the epistles that are warfare is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and power , your article gave me fresh thinking and that’s after 3 volumes of Walter Wink in my journey thanks for the stimulus looking forward to your next offerings
Thanks so much Christopher. Just so I dont miss your thought, are you pondering how the anti-caesar principle meets the idea of not battling against flesh and blood?
Yes a anti-Caesar has structure rules and regulations pertaining to the kingdom they rule when Jesus spoke about going the second mile the Roman rule book stipulated one mile so the soldiers that were governed by that code would would be in a quandary I Remember Brendan Manning giving a talk on Jesus the Subversive who also healed on the Sabbath the Jesus who I follow certainly brings challenge to my life especially when it comes to the Beatitudes life is never normal again
Hey David, fantastic post. Ignore this if you’ve already discussed it elsewhere, but what do you make of the whole idea of “Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father”? I appreciate the idea that Jesus embraces deviance and refusal to take traditional forms of power and he is our leader and example in doing so, but Christian doctrine also banks on Jesus being crowned king and Jesus being part of the triune God. Was the messianic idea meant to be more abstract, saying simply that things that are meek and humble and selfless are the things we should hold up as our examples to live by and that’s what “Jesus is Lord” really means?
Hi Susan. This is a fascinating question. I was just tap tapping a rather over-long thread of thoughts in response when my battery died, so you are spared all of that! Bear with me, I'll come back to these thoughts shortly.
Forgive the long response. Your question has send my mind in various directions at once. Please do say I've wandered off from what you're getting at.
So these two images—the messianic deviant at the margins and the messianic secret at the heart of everything... I don't think play off against each other. It think they transfigure and shape each other. I want to pay attention to how the interplay between them feels
When Jesus says "you will see the son of man sat at the right hand of the father", in one of those rare glimpses of the messianic secret, the words are coloured by the scene: he's stood, cuffed, with a black eye, before some well dressed authorities, on trial for his deviance.
Obviously the Christian tradition is a diverse ecology, but the loudest voices in Western traditions have tended to appropriate the image of Christ the king while leaving the peasant Messiah aside. Caesar likes a Christ that reminds him of himself.
For myself, I don't take the Messiah as metaphor or moral idea or what have you. Leaning into the deviant messianic images hasn't led me to that, for whatever reason. I suppose, in the tale of the sheep and the goats—where the Messiah is hidden amidst the suffering margins—it makes no difference whether or not one recognises the messiah as such. All that matters is whether one loves and cares for the suffering person in whose guise the Messiah is hidden. But even so, this doesn't turn the Messiah into an idea or a metaphor, not for me at least.
Lastly (sorry, this is so long). Your thoughts reminded me of a story, which I believe was told by Kierkegaard. I heard it from my friend Stephen Backhouse some time ago, so I hope I'll be forgiven if I mis-remember it. There is a king who wishes to marry. But he's worried that any person might feel coerced by his royalty or dazzled by his wealth, so how would he know that she really loved him? So he decides live a for a while in the guise of an ordinary person to see if he might find mutual love this way. But then he worries that once he meets someone and then sheds his disguise, that the authenticity of the whole thing would be ruined. So in the end he decides to remain an ordinary person thereafter and to love and marry as such. And every now and then, he would simply say to his wife with a twinkle in his eye, "I'm really a king, you know!"
Great stuff
Thanks for a good article one thing I did ponder on was Paul talks about in the epistles that are warfare is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and power , your article gave me fresh thinking and that’s after 3 volumes of Walter Wink in my journey thanks for the stimulus looking forward to your next offerings
Thanks so much Christopher. Just so I dont miss your thought, are you pondering how the anti-caesar principle meets the idea of not battling against flesh and blood?
Yes a anti-Caesar has structure rules and regulations pertaining to the kingdom they rule when Jesus spoke about going the second mile the Roman rule book stipulated one mile so the soldiers that were governed by that code would would be in a quandary I Remember Brendan Manning giving a talk on Jesus the Subversive who also healed on the Sabbath the Jesus who I follow certainly brings challenge to my life especially when it comes to the Beatitudes life is never normal again
Hey David, fantastic post. Ignore this if you’ve already discussed it elsewhere, but what do you make of the whole idea of “Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father”? I appreciate the idea that Jesus embraces deviance and refusal to take traditional forms of power and he is our leader and example in doing so, but Christian doctrine also banks on Jesus being crowned king and Jesus being part of the triune God. Was the messianic idea meant to be more abstract, saying simply that things that are meek and humble and selfless are the things we should hold up as our examples to live by and that’s what “Jesus is Lord” really means?
Hi Susan. This is a fascinating question. I was just tap tapping a rather over-long thread of thoughts in response when my battery died, so you are spared all of that! Bear with me, I'll come back to these thoughts shortly.
Forgive the long response. Your question has send my mind in various directions at once. Please do say I've wandered off from what you're getting at.
So these two images—the messianic deviant at the margins and the messianic secret at the heart of everything... I don't think play off against each other. It think they transfigure and shape each other. I want to pay attention to how the interplay between them feels
When Jesus says "you will see the son of man sat at the right hand of the father", in one of those rare glimpses of the messianic secret, the words are coloured by the scene: he's stood, cuffed, with a black eye, before some well dressed authorities, on trial for his deviance.
Obviously the Christian tradition is a diverse ecology, but the loudest voices in Western traditions have tended to appropriate the image of Christ the king while leaving the peasant Messiah aside. Caesar likes a Christ that reminds him of himself.
For myself, I don't take the Messiah as metaphor or moral idea or what have you. Leaning into the deviant messianic images hasn't led me to that, for whatever reason. I suppose, in the tale of the sheep and the goats—where the Messiah is hidden amidst the suffering margins—it makes no difference whether or not one recognises the messiah as such. All that matters is whether one loves and cares for the suffering person in whose guise the Messiah is hidden. But even so, this doesn't turn the Messiah into an idea or a metaphor, not for me at least.
Lastly (sorry, this is so long). Your thoughts reminded me of a story, which I believe was told by Kierkegaard. I heard it from my friend Stephen Backhouse some time ago, so I hope I'll be forgiven if I mis-remember it. There is a king who wishes to marry. But he's worried that any person might feel coerced by his royalty or dazzled by his wealth, so how would he know that she really loved him? So he decides live a for a while in the guise of an ordinary person to see if he might find mutual love this way. But then he worries that once he meets someone and then sheds his disguise, that the authenticity of the whole thing would be ruined. So in the end he decides to remain an ordinary person thereafter and to love and marry as such. And every now and then, he would simply say to his wife with a twinkle in his eye, "I'm really a king, you know!"
That's an incredibly sweet story. Thank you. I don't mind the long response. Thanks for the reminder of the importance of context.