"Hearing Jesus with First-Century Ears"    San Williams, UPC

Mark 8:27-29

As we were sharing our faith journeys during last Sunday morning at the adult breakfast at UPC, one of our members said, “I want to know Jesus more intimately.”  That desire underlies the theme of our worship this summer.  We’re embarking on a reassessment of Jesus and his message.  In his introduction to The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren asks a series of what-ifs:  “What if Jesus had a message that truly could change the world, but we’re prone to miss the point of it?  What if his message had practical implications for such issues as how you live your daily life, how you earn and spend money, how you treat people of other races and religions, and how nations of the world conduct their foreign policy?  What if the message of Jesus was good news—not just for Christians but also for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, New-Agers, agnostics and atheists?  And what if the future of the planet depends on our hearing and applying the message of Jesus?”  We just heard Jesus ask his disciples:  “Who do you say that I am?”   This summer you are invited to take that question to heart, and to join us as we seek to hear afresh the message of Jesus of Nazareth.

Where to start?  British theologian N.T. Wright noted that, in order to hear Jesus’ words afresh, we need what he called “first-century ears.”  That is, if we want to find the meaning of Jesus’ life and words for our time, we must first recover what Jesus’ words meant in their original context.  McClaren puts it this way: “If we focus on what Jesus said without determining what he meant in his original context, we run the risk of misquoting Jesus even when quoting his words.”

So let’s put on “first-century ears.” How would the message of Jesus have been heard in its original context?  Recall, first of all, that the issue of that day, one that preoccupied every faithful Jew, was Israel’s subjugation under the Roman Empire.  The Jews probably felt toward the Roman occupiers much the way Palestinians today feel about Israel. The Jews of the first century wanted to be free, to rule themselves and to control their own land.  Further, they found it humiliating that a people who worshipped the one true God could be ruled over by pagans who worshipped false gods.  The burning question of the day was "How can we live as faithful Jews under a ruthless empire, and under a Caesar who himself claims to be a god?"

Now, responses to that question ran along various party lines.  The Zealot party attempted to stir up violent rebellion against Rome. They believed that if only the Jews would rise up and fight, God’s strong arm would lead them to victory. It would be a David-versus-Goliath scenario.  The way to deal with Rome, the Zealots proposed, was to wage holy war, a jihad, against these pagan intruders.  

But others, like the Herodians and the Sadducees, rejected such an armed uprising as suicidal. They took an if-you-can’t-beat-them, join-them approach. The only reasonable response to Roman rule, the Herodians and Sadducees believed, was collaboration and cooperation.  

Then there were the Pharisees.  They believed that Israel’s occupation by Rome was God’s punishment for Israel's unfaithfulness.  Their reasoning was similar to that of some preachers today who interpret hurricanes and other natural disasters as God sending a punishment for our sins. The Pharisees  believed that if there were more righteous people like themselves, and fewer sinners –fewer prostitutes, drunks and Roman collaborators—then Roman domination would be brought to an end by God.  Accordingly, the Pharisees preached religious purity and rigorous observance of the law.

Yet another response to the Roman occupation came from separatist groups such as the Essenes. They advocated total withdrawal into the wilderness as a way to avoid the whole simmering mess.

Now into this highly charged political and religious context, we read today about Jesus and his followers coming into the city named Caesarea Philippi.  The first name of the city honored Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor, who was hailed by such titles as Savior, Liberator and Son of God.  The second name of the city, Philippi, was in honor Herod Philip, son of Herod the Great.  So here comes Jesus and his band of closest followers into a city named for the occupying Roman Emperor and Rome’s puppet regional ruler.  In that political setting, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”   After an awkward silence, Peter says, ‘Well, some say John the Baptist, other Elijah or one of the prophets."  But Jesus sharpens the question: “And who do you say that I am?”  Peter must have looked around to be sure there were no Roman authorities within earshot before he dared utter the words, “You are the Messiah.”   The Hebrew term messiah is translated in Greek, Christ, which means liberating king.  To say liberating king anywhere in the Roman Empire was dangerous, even more so in a city bearing Caesar’s name.  Brian McClaren writes that, to first-century ears, calling Jesus the Christ would be heard to mean: “You are King Jesus who will liberate us from King Caesar.  You are the liberator promised by God long ago, the one for whom we have long waited.  You are the one who will turn the bad news of occupation and domination by a foreign empire into good news of liberation.”  

Understandably, some of Jesus’ first listeners may have pegged him as a Zealot.  After all, his message of the coming Kingdom of God sounded like a rallying cry to overthrow the Roman Kingdom.  If Jesus is the Christ, they would reason, then he will overthrow the Roman rule and set up God’s rule.  But at that point Jesus totally confused his followers.  Instead of inflicting suffering and death upon the hated occupiers, he allowed himself to suffer and die at the hands of his enemies.  And many other words of Jesus would also have sounded absurd to Zealot ears:  Love your enemies… Do good to those who hate you… If a Roman soldier slaps you on one cheek to turn the other cheek.  No, Jesus doesn’t sound like a Zealot.

But Jesus wasn’t a collaborator like the Herodians and Sadducees, either. They would never use inflammatory language like “the kingdom of God,” and they wouldn’t talk openly about standing up against injustice, or liberating the captives, freeing the oppressed.

 And neither does Jesus sound like one of the Pharisees.  Like them, he preached a form of righteousness, but instead of condemning sinners, as the Pharisees did, he socialized with them, offering them forgiveness and healing.  If that wasn’t enough, he infuriated the Pharisees by telling them that prostitutes and tax collectors are going into the kingdom of God before the righteousness Pharisees.  

And if Jesus had responded to Rome as the Essenes did, he’d have taken his disciples to form a commune out in the wilderness.

So when we listen with first-century ears, we begin to realize that Jesus’ message offered a revolutionary alternative to Roman rule.  He proclaimed that an alternative empire was at hand, one whose ruler was not Caesar but the Creator of the universe.  And Jesus invited people to enter this alternative kingdom now, and to order their lives in response to it.

For many first-century ears, such a message was dangerous—it would surely bring retaliation from the powers that be.  And to others it was scandalous—how could a suffering, non-violent, crucified messiah liberate us from Roman domination?  But to some, his message sounded like the best, more hopeful, news they had ever heard. 

*The sermons in this summer series are drawn largely from two books by Brian McLaren:  The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change.