{"id":308,"date":"2013-07-31T10:45:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christpathseminar\/?p=308"},"modified":"2013-08-01T11:28:51","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T15:28:51","slug":"dont-spend-years-studying-jesus-put-his-teaching-into-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christpathseminar\/2013\/07\/dont-spend-years-studying-jesus-put-his-teaching-into-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Spend Years Studying Jesus \u2013 Put His Teaching into Action!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
\u201cJesus identified himself with that prophetic promise, that he had come to speak to the poor, heal the blind, and so forth \u2013 as we all are!\u201d<\/em> \u2013 Matthew Fox brings the message of Jesus home in the second Christ Path Seminar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

So in what way was Jesus a prophet? There are so many ways\u2026but let\u2019s look at just a few. We do know how, very early in Luke\u2019s gospel, in the 4th<\/sup> chapter, he went to the synagogue. And it says in the gospel that he picked up the scriptures and started to read.<\/p>\n

But Chilton says that Jesus was not literate, that this is Luke, making Jesus look better to the culture, cleaning it up, making him look good to the middle class: he could read, he could do everything the priests could do. And we shouldn\u2019t fall for that.<\/p>\n

And this is where it helps to have these scholars to get underneath the text. For me it says something about Jesus that he memorized the scriptures, he didn\u2019t read them, saying \u201cThe Lord\u2019s Spirit is upon me.\u201d<\/p>\n

But of course Chilton translates the essence of what transpired that day, and it\u2019s much shorter; he got it from the old Syriac gospels, which were in a language closely related to the Aramaic language Jesus used. Here\u2019s what Jesus spoke:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Spirit of the Lord is upon you, on account of which he has anointed you to message triumph to the poor. He has delegated me to proclaim to the captives release, to the blind sight, and I will free the broken with release to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Now we know that what Jesus said disturbed the people \u2013 they were ready to stone him right there and then! They took him to the edge of the cliff to throw him over, but he snuck away. He was still young and lithe and slippery. He\u2019d learned to be slippery, because his mentor John the Baptist had taught him that among other things.<\/p>\n

But notice \u2013 this is the kickoff in Luke\u2019s gospel: he is identifying himself with that prophetic promise, that he had come to speak to the poor, heal the blind, and so forth \u2013 as we all are!<\/em><\/p>\n

Again, we have to be very careful of projecting our vocations onto Jesus. He\u2019s dead. The Christ Spirit is not dead, but Jesus lived his years, he did his thing.<\/p>\n

The question is \u2013 How are we doing?<\/em><\/p>\n

And don\u2019t tell me that you\u2019re studying Jesus! That\u2019s not the point. Jesus didn\u2019t spend his life studying John the Baptist. When he was with John the Baptist he learned everything he could, he drank it in, and when he had to face the same powers that did John the Baptist in, he had to reinvent his world. He had to get very creative.<\/p>\n

And he broke with John the Baptist over fasting: John the Baptist was a faster, Jesus was a feaster. And he was criticized for this: \u201cYou\u2019re hanging out with the drunks and the prostitutes, and John the Baptist never did that.\u201d That\u2019s right \u2013 John the Baptist chose the ascetic route, perhaps relative to the Essene ascetic movement.<\/p>\n

Jesus chose an aesthetic<\/em> route \u2013 the route of creativity. And that\u2019s the route of the prophets.<\/p>\n

Rabbi Heschel says prophets are not ascetics. They\u2019re about passion, they\u2019re about the aesthetic \u2013 that\u2019s my word, the aesthetic, and it\u2019s about beauty.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s about recognizing that the opposite of beauty is injustice<\/em> \u2013 because there is nothing uglier than telling me that 67,000 black people in Houston have 1\/10 the right to vote than 6700 white people in Houston. That\u2019s intolerable. And it\u2019s going to get worse, much worse, since the Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision on the right to vote. And we should all be protesting in the streets about that, taking our democracy back.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll continue looking at the example of Jesus as prophet shortly, but I want to pause briefly and use my next post to honor those young people around the world \u2013 young people of all colors, classes and creeds \u2013 who are taking Jesus\u2019 example of justice, compassion, and courage to the streets.<\/p>\n

While adults and church leaders are debating how to pass on the nuts and bolts of their religion to the younger generation, these young people are teaching the world how to create a new society in the spirit of the Cosmic Christ \u2013 by whatever name.<\/p>\n

Adam Bucko and I call these young people \u201cThe Occupy Generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

To register for the \u201cCosmic Christ and Youth: The Occupy Generation,\u201d the next Christ Path Seminar weekend taking place 10\/11-13,\u00a0 featuring Adam Bucko as guest speaker, and based on Matthew Fox\u2019s and Adam Bucko\u2019s groundbreaking book, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation<\/a>,\u00a0 see http:\/\/www.christpathseminar.org\/ai1ec_event\/cosmic-christ-and-youth-the-occupy-generation\/?instance_id=99<\/a><\/p>\n

To order the complete 12-DVD set of recordings from the first Christ Path Seminar weekend, \u201cCosmic Christ and the New Humanity\u201d\u2013 including Dr. Fox\u2019s delivery of the Saturday afternoon lecture from which this post is clipped, see http:\/\/www.christpathseminar.org\/participate-by-dvd\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Be sure to sign up on the Christ Path Seminar<\/a> mailing list to receive word when the DVDs from the second weekend, \u201cCosmic Christ and the Historical Jesus,\u201d are released!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So in what way was Jesus a prophet? There are so many ways\u2026but let\u2019s look at just a few. We do know how, very early in Luke\u2019s gospel, in the 4th chapter, he went to the synagogue. And it says in the gospel that he picked up the scriptures and started to read. But Chilton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1539,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,7,5,128,6],"tags":[96,129,130],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical-jesus-2","category-matthew-fox","category-mysticism","category-occupy-generation","category-sacred-activism","tag-bruce-chilton","tag-jesus-as-prophet","tag-john-the-baptist"],"yoast_head":"\nDon\u2019t Spend Years Studying Jesus \u2013 Put His Teaching into Action!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So in what way was Jesus a prophet? 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