The Bumper Sticker Jesus

I am basically a  'red letter Christian'. Effectively; I try to understand the message of Jesus, then I filter everything else, including His own words, through the context of that message!

This is simultaneously more difficult and easier than it sounds. It is more difficult because you will find Him saying things like "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." while He's forgiving Peter like a jillion times. He makes comments such as "Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all things are accomplished" while admonishing the Pharisees to "go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'"

It is easier because, once you really start listening to Him, you realize that He really, honestly, did not seem to care if we followed 613 anal retentive laws such as "If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity." (Dt 25:11 NIV)

You can almost feel His frustration when He is talking to people, it's as if He wants to beat his breast and ask "Are you not listening to me? Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" (Yeah, that's a Jackie Chan quote! )

Jesus intentionally spoke in parables. He was possibly the greatest master of the  Socratic Method; "Then he told them many things in parables..." I think He did this specifically so His message would be easier to understand and remember. It is more difficult to remember specific words than it is to remember its intent in story form (see  Aesop's fables ).

Using this method of understanding what He meant for us, I find the twin stories of the two adulteresses in John to be quite telling when juxtaposed against Mark 10. In Mark 10 He is speaking to the Pharisees, telling them that divorce is (effectively) adultery; He is essentially condemning adultery and divorce.

In John 8 a woman caught in adultery is brought to Him by the Pharisees. He is asked what should be done with her. First He disperses the crowd by telling them "Let those among you who are without sin cast the first stone!" Then He asks the woman "Where are those who condemn you?"

He wanted her to accept and understand that no one could accuse her! Only after she accepts this does He continue, stating "Then neither do I condemn you."

Here's the interesting part; He ranted on about the evils of divorce and adultery in Mark (and also of course in Matthew), but when faced with an adulteress He is gentle with her, making sure that she is safe and that she carries no guilt when she leaves. Do you see the difference between His lecture to the Pharisees in Mark and His refusal to even condemn the woman here? Do you hear the words that are coming out of His mouth?

In John 4 He meets a Samaritan woman who has been divorced from five husbands and is living in adultery with a sixth! He states this to her bluntly, as if He is saying "I know who you are!" But then He never mentions it again!

In John 8 He tells the woman who was caught in adultery to "Go and sin no more." In John 4 He doesn't even condemn the woman. He wants her to know that He knows! But He never condemns her! Instead, he 'deputizes' her as His first apostle, His first missionary, and uses her to convert many in her village!

Fundamentalists, literalists, and legalists will say that He condemned divorce and adultery!

Those who are trying to understand His message realize that He was only condemning these in the context of railing against the fundamentalists, literalists, and legalists. He wasn't condemning the sinners who are guilty of these acts, rather He was condemning the Pharisees, fundamentalists, literalists, and legalists who focused on justice over mercy! "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."

Note that He told the woman 'caught' in adultery to go and sin no more. That she was 'caught' in adultery would mean that she was fooling about with someone outside the context of a committed relationship. To the woman at the well, who was in a committed relationship, He never said boo about it.

If you're searching for His message with the hope of understanding His will (which seems appropriate to me), you might come away from this with a few lessons:

- Grace - there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less, and there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more. Even the faith of the man who cried out "Help me with my unbelief" was enough for Him.
- Committed relationships - He didn't seem to have a problem with the woman who was in a committed relationship, even though it was with a sixth man! What seemed to be important, when contrasted with His message to the woman in John 8, was simply that this woman was in a committed relationship!
- What He doesn't like - The only thing He consistently spoke angrily about was those who "do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." Having trouble with your faith but you really, really want to believe? No worries! He's got your back! Know you're a sinner and you just can't stop but you try to carry His message? Not a problem! He can use you!

Don't you think that, if He wanted to, He could have given us lots of pithy little sayings, bumper sticker logic, spin? It worked for Poor Richards Almanac... but that's not what He did.

He told us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds. Minds... get it? He wanted us to think and understand. He rebuked people almost continuously for failing to see His message, and instead focusing on the minutiae. He told people not to tell about His miracles because He didn't want the hyperbole to exceed His message.

I understand where people get the idea that homosexuality is wrong. i understand where people get the idea that eating pork is wrong. I understand lots of the little details, but I don't focus on them, and neither did He.

All He ever asked is for us to try and understand, to do the very best we can, and to love Him and our neighbor. I find no condemnation in His message for my being gay, a transsexual woman, or for my various and sundry other sins which pop up almost as if I have Tourette syndrome!

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
Jeremiah 31

Jesus was a heretic and a blasphemer. The dogma and orthodoxy of the modern 'Christian' church would have (and I believe does) appall(ed) Him. He didn't have a daily planner and follow little rules, guidelines, and 'helpful hints from Heloise'. He loved sinners but condemned only those who condemned them. He loved the poor and the sick but condemned only those who refused to help them.

If you ask Him for understanding, and he gives it to you, but you refuse to believe because of the hate rhetoric from false prophets, why bother? Seriously. Just consider the harbingers of hatred to be your High Priest, your Caiaphas, and don't bother Him anymore; leave Him to dwell in the Holiest of Holy Places.

If you ask Him for understanding and He tells you "Then neither do I condemn you", perhaps you should listen.

Peace,

Elisheba Ruth
"People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There’s no villain, no ‘mean guy’ who wants them to live meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless. 

But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. 

If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding" - Robert M. Pirsig