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The Gospel story from \u201cLuke\u201d concerning entry through the narrow gate offers a great challenge to really strive to understand Jesus.<\/h2>\n
The Gospel for this past Sunday, August 25,<\/a> offers a spiritual challenge to Western 21st century Christians. The narrow-gate is an entry for those whose relationship with Jesus is real and radical. A blockage of traffic at the point of entry is filled with lots of talk but little walk. Do we desire only acquaintance with Jesus or to truly know him?<\/p>\n In Luke 13:18-21<\/a>, Jesus speaks about the forthcoming theocracy (\u201cthe Kingdom of God\u201d). It\u2019s an unusual presentation of a familiar subject matter, turned upside-down for his contemporaries.<\/p>\n Throughout the Mediterranean world of Jesus and \u201cLuke,\u201d only great ones, elites like nobles and warriors, were associated with kings and kingdoms. Such was the acquaintance with theocracy belonging to almost every first century Israelite. But the Lukan Jesus describes the Kingdom of God employing metaphors taken from the ordinary daily life of Galilean peasants. What!?<\/p>\n Luke 13:23<\/span> <\/strong> All ancient documents are \u201chigh context\u201d literature. The Bible is no exception. High context literature means the authors of such documents assume that their readers share with them a vast depth of common information keyed to the same social context. This auxiliary background social knowledge means much is left unsaid. Therefore explanation is not required! A lot gets said in sparse words!<\/p>\n What a contrast that is to our extremely specialized and complex Western cultures! Ours is a low context culture. Therefore, the literature of our acquaintance is low context also. Thus the background of everything is expected to be explained in detail\u2014think credit card agreements, loan applications, and such. So Western authors, considerate of their Western audience, follow this rule with their low context documents. Important background information is given.<\/p>\n This cultural acquaintance for Western low context documents proves to be a perennial disaster for U.S. Bible readers. We tend to read documents like the Bible as if they were written for, by, and about us, or people like us (i.e., low context Westerners)! And because we are so used to reading literature where all information gets provided and spelled out, we assume the same situation is at work in our Mediterranean Bible!<\/p>\n The Context Group of Biblical Scholars have shown convincingly that, typically, our Western, 21st<\/sup> century brains attempt to fill the massive gaps of cultural information we stumble on in almost every Scripture passage. This means we fill the gaps with ethnocentric anachronisms. Our \u201cBible reading\u201d easily becomes a violent distortion and loss of context.<\/p>\n The Gospel we call \u201cLuke\u201d is high context literature. Neither the prepaschal Jesus nor \u201cLuke\u201d were universalists. This text is not about getting saved from hell. It\u2019s not about all humankind getting saved, at least not in its literal sense, which comes first (Universal Catechism<\/em>, n. 126<\/a>). Such notions were alien to the acquaintance of ancient peoples.<\/p>\n When we read in \u201cLuke\u201d that \u201cWill only a few be saved?\u201d we must unpack that high context question. \u201cWill God save only a few members of humankind?\u201d is inappropriate. The correct meaning is: \u201cWill the<\/em> God of Israel<\/em> save only a few in Israel?<\/em>\u201d For \u201cLuke\u201d and most other New Testament documents, \u201csalvation\u201d means participating in the soon-to-be-inaugurated Israelite theocracy.<\/p>\n United States culture is the most individualistic in recorded history. As\u00a0social analyst Geert Hofstede explains, today only 20 percent of people on earth are individualists. To us, \u201cthe self\u201d is a cognitive and emotional universe chemically isolated from all others, unrepeatable, unique, discovered and unlocked via psychology. But even today such individualism is strange to about 80 percent of all cultures.<\/p>\n In the ancient world individualism was almost completely absent. So there is nothing like American life to be found anywhere in the Scriptures. There one\u2019s \u201cself\u201d is always the group-self. Thus, American Catholics reading Jesus asking the questions of\u00a0Mark 8:27-30<\/a> and Matthew 16:15<\/a>\u00a0ought to remember that he wasn\u2019t an American individualist buying Western values.<\/p>\n United States persons are predictably blind to this ancient acquaintance of \u201cself\u201d when they read about Jesus and the Gospels. We are dominated by a fierce predilection for a Jesus who is congenial to our American cultural values. In fact, we could not stomach an un-American Jesus. We will talk more on this, soon.<\/p>\n In Herodian Palestine one\u2019s identity was social and not individual. Again, in this world \u201cself\u201d always means group-self. This is just like how most people (80 percent) perceive, think about, understand, and communicate in our world today. Two fantastic movies playing in theaters right now give Western Christians an opportunity to taste this: The Farewell<\/em><\/a>, directed by Lulu Wang, and Blinded By the Light<\/em><\/a>, directed by Gurinder Chadha. Check them out!<\/p>\n In Jesus\u2019 world people identify others by their group-self because there the \u201cI\u201d is always embedded in the \u201cWe.\u201d \u201cTo which group do you belong?\u201d means who are you?<\/em><\/p>\n Is this Jesus from Nazareth<\/em>? Embarrassingly, yes, he was. See? The label \u201cNazarene\u201d was encoded with all the information Jesus\u2019 contemporaries would ever need to know about him. He is stereotyped, socially locked forever in place by that honor-rating.<\/p>\n So who are we talking about again? \u201cJesus of Nazareth<\/em>, the\u2026\u201d It\u2019s over. Once they heard \u201cof Nazareth,\u201d deafness followed. Jesus of Nazareth<\/em> is a nothing-person from a nothing-hamlet in a nothing-place, Galilee. Now we can forget all about him or any claim of grandeur he or another might make for him. In this world stereotypes do count and words or labels can do far worse than break your bones. If they know where you come from, everything they need to know about you has been already provided with nothing to add.<\/p>\n We must take the prefix \u201cin\u201d of \u201cinspiration\u201d seriously. Inspiration is messy<\/a>! The Bible is Mediterranean and thus stereotyping fills its pages (see Titus 1:12<\/a>; Mark 7:27<\/a>; 14:70<\/a>; John 1:46<\/a>; 4:9<\/a>). You can almost see why the political-religious title \u201cChrist\u201d soon had to mutate into becoming Jesus\u2019 last name! Due to his embarrassing origins someone early on felt that they had to cut objections off at the chase!<\/p>\n In this past Sunday\u2019s Gospel<\/a>, when the master of the house says, \u201cI do not where you are from\u201d<\/em> (Luke 13:25<\/a>) it is equivalent to saying, \u201cI do not know you.\u201d<\/em> In the Mediterranean world of the Bible\u2014of which the peasant day laborer and village artisan Jesus was very much a part\u2014the stereotypes belonging to one\u2019s village tells everything needed to know about that person.<\/p>\n We Americans and other Western people believe that psychological-knowledge of one\u2019s self is the way people come to know themselves. But biblical people like Jesus were anti-introspective and therefore were oblivious to Western notions of psychological development.<\/p>\n Every time a homilist, preacher, ministry-leader, Christian author or public speaker gives a commentary about Jesus\u2019 or some other Biblical character\u2019s feelings and emotional states (e.g., David<\/a> was feeling guilty when he wrote Psalm 51<\/a>, etc.), know for sure this is ethnocentric and anachronistic distortion of the Scriptures. Biblical authors and characters didn\u2019t give a damn for thinking about their individual selves like we do (psychological guilt). Rather, they were obsessed about how others judged them, how they were perceived publicly (honor-shame).<\/p>\n So in the Bible whenever someone talks about \u201cconscience\u201d (e.g., Paul\u2019s words in 1 Corinthians 4:1-4<\/a>), don\u2019t think Jiminy Cricket! Don\u2019t think Freud\u2019s \u201csuperego\u201d or some \u201cinner voice\u201d of psychological guilt (a Western social control unknown in the Bible). Don\u2019t think anything Jungian! Biblical \u201cconscience\u201d means the publicly-accusing voice of others.<\/p>\n As with \u201cIN+spiration,\u201d Christians must take the prefix \u201cin\u201d of \u201cincarnation\u201d seriously also. Since it was INTO the Mediterranean world of anti-introspective, dyadic MENA personalities that Jesus was born, socialized, and enculturated, we should not expect from him a Western existentialist \u201cWho am I?\u201d Self knowledge originated in significant others from one\u2019s group, never from their individual self! Therefore \u201cWho do people say that I am?\u201d means \u201cWho do YOU ALL [my ingroup] say that I am?\u201d (see Mark 8:27-30<\/a>)<\/p>\n While Luke Skywalker may indeed be a hero with a thousand faces, not a single one of those faces is Middle Eastern. Sorry George, Joe, and Carl.<\/p>\n In this Sunday\u2019s Gospel the Israelites interested in sharing in theocracy were not blood-relatives to Jesus. They were not his dyadic-personality alter-egos from his home town. So they claim the next best unitive glue\u2014acquaintance through table fellowship. How did one know that one belonged to the ingroup in ancient times? You had to share a common substance with them.<\/p>\n As the late John Pilch explained, if you are born into a family or village in the biblical culture where the ideal marriage partner is your patrilateral first cousin, you relate by the substance of blood. Or say you share the substance of milk from a wet nurse\u2014that relates you closer than cousins and you violate incest taboos should you marry your kin-by-milk. \u00a0Different societies recognize the commingling of common bodily substances (whether blood, milk, semen, or spit) as the bond that creates kinship.<\/p>\n Sharing meals also does this in the world of the Bible. One way such people know they belong to the common ingroup was by sharing meals. Only social equals can share in this. In this Sunday\u2019s Gospel, although the householder in Jesus\u2019 example does not recognize them, Israelites knocking at the door<\/a> claim social solidarity with him by their having broken bread and shared a cup together in his presence<\/a>. They feel they deserve access to Theocracy.<\/p>\n \u201cBreaking bread,\u201d \u201csharing cup,\u201d \u201chis presence\u201d\u2026 hmmm.\u00a0 Sound familiar, Catholics?<\/p>\n The question whether only some or all Israelites would share in olam<\/em>\u00a0ha-ba<\/em>\u00a0(the world to come) vexed many Israelites. Our Jewish sisters and brothers can point to the Mishnah (ca. 200 CE) to answer that all those belonging to Israel will. But the Gospel passage for this Sunday alludes to the fact that different Israelite opinions on the question had been vogue at different times. The apocryphal 4 Ezra 8:1 reads\u2014<\/p>\n \u201cThe Most High made this world for the sake of many [Israelites], but the world to come for the sake of few\u201d [Israelites].<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Jesus was all about theocracy, the kingdom of God. It was the center and focus for all his healing actions, everything he proclaimed. In this Sunday\u2019s passage from \u201cLuke,\u201d his contemporaries press him: how many of us Israelites will share in it?<\/em><\/p>\n Who will make it? Who can say other than God? This is God\u2019s affair. The Lukan Jesus does not disrespect the patron God of Israel. So he refrains from answering the question directly.<\/p>\n Instead, and consistent with the prophetic tradition in Israel, Jesus warns that many worthless Israelites will attempt to enter Theocracy.\u00a0 But Jesus insists that superficially relating to him won\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n The Lukan Jesus offers a reflection. In it, the householder represents Jesus. He refuses to acknowledge many of his fellow Israelites. He refuses to admit them to the Feast (i.e., the Kingdom), even those who have listened to him, ate and drank with him, and knew him. Jesus the Householder locks them out!<\/p>\n To better see why this is shocking let\u2019s take a brief glimpse at Galatians 1-2.<\/a>\u00a0The situation there helps illuminate this Sunday\u2019s Gospel. Paul (a very difficult person to get along with) was enraged at Peter (undoubtedly another very difficult person). Peter was a barbarian Israelite (wrongly translated \u201cJew\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n According to Paul<\/a>, Peter used to eat with civilized Israelite \u00e9migr\u00e9 believers living among non-Israelite Mediterraneans (wrongly translated \u201cGentiles\u201d or \u201cGreeks\u201d).<\/p>\n Since only social equals share table fellowship in this world, Peter was proclaiming by symbolic action that both Barbarian Israelites (wrongly conceived of as \u201cJews\u201d<\/a>) and Civilized Israelites (wrongly conceived of as ethnic Greeks) loyal to Jesus messiah were kin! Distinctions did not apply.<\/p>\n In the Mediterranean world of the Bible, the act of eating together seals friends into a common ingroup, a Mediterranean family, a group-self. In the Common Meal a metamorphosis happens to strangers. The Common Meal transforms them, integrates them into the fictive (not fictional!) kin group and they really do become kin.<\/p>\n But as reported by \u201cGalatians<\/a>,\u201d Barbarian Israelite \u201cpillar\u201d Peter stopped eating with the Civilized Israelite believers. This was because he had scandalized some of his fellow Barbarian Israelite believers. These Judean believers were scandalized because they felt that in order to belong to the in-group of Jesus messiah, you have to first practice their Barbarian Israelite customs (e.g., male genital mutilation, dietary regulations, etc).<\/p>\n To understand Peter\u2019s change recall that \u201cconscience\u201d in this world is nothing introspective but the publicly-accusing voice of significant others from the In-Group-Self.<\/p>\n This is why Paul was incensed. By ceasing sharing the Common Meal with Civilized Israelite believers, Peter was publicly saying that they were not true kin with Jesus. He was proclaiming them as not really being members of Jesus\u2019 ingroup.<\/p>\nHigh Context and Low Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n\u201cSomeone asked him, \u2018Lord, will only a few people be saved?\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nHigh Context \u201cLuke\u201d <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Luke 13:24-30 <\/a><\/h2>\n
Jesus the Collectivist<\/h2>\n
Know Thyself? Ha!<\/h2>\n
Biblical Conscience vs Western Conscience<\/h2>\n
Ways of Sharing Kinship <\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cWill only a few be saved?\u201d<\/h2>\n
\u201cI do not know where you are from.\u201d<\/h2>\n
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Sharing the Common Meal Seals Kinship<\/h2>\n
\u201cGalatians\u201d to \u201cLuke\u201d<\/h2>\n