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Listen, Jesus
Nov. 12th, 2018 12:40 pm
There is, mercifully, much less burning in a fire in Mark and Luke than there is in Matthew. Right now I'm coming back around to the crucifixion in Luke, which means the prodigal son has recently gone by. The prodigal son only appears in Luke, and that story is emblematic of what currently strikes me as the theme distinctively emphasized in Luke: the person most loved and most rewarded by God is a bad person who feels bad. Probably the person second-most loved and rewarded by God is a good person who feels bad. God doesn't like anybody who feels good, but he especially doesn't like a good person who feels good--because, as Jesus says in Luke and elsewhere, no one is good but God. (He says this as a rebuke to someone who calls him "Good Teacher", which has got to be one of the prime bits of evidence for anyone who wants to argue against the identity of Jesus and God.) So if you think you're good and feel pretty good about it, God is definitely gonna want to knock you down a peg, if not burn you in a fire.
Something that struck me right from the beginning of the gospels and still seems like a thing to me is how much like an Old Testament prophet Jesus is. He is a prophet of doom, preaching about the end times. But he also does preach that social gospel of neighbour-love, which first strikingly appears in the Old Testament with Isaiah. A recurring theme in the Old Testament prophets is that, contrary to what you might have gathered from the earlier books, God wants you to be nice to each other, and especially to vulnerable people such as widows, and not just follow the Mosaic laws. Jesus amplifies that. (And, unfortunately, he amplifies the idea of resurrection that seems to first really appear in Ezekiel. (I'd like to know what the heck happened between the last writing of the Old Testament and the appearance of Jesus that it can be said of the Sadducees in the gospels that they don't believe in the resurrection, as if it has become a remarkable and maybe obviously outrageous thing for Jews not to believe in the resurrection.)) But he consistently does it in the manner of confusingly hypocritical parents who extol the virtues of niceness to their children while being sour with anyone who doesn't (in Jesus's case literally) worship them.
This reminds me of something from Coach's Corner the other night--Cherry said something about the kids getting more into Remembrance Day in recent years. Which is a funny thing to say for a couple of reasons. (1) Canadians generally have gotten vastly more into Remembrance Day as Canada has transformed into a warring nation and developed a miniature replica of the American military cult, deliberately fostered by the Harper Conservatives, after September 11th. (There is still no foreseeable way that it will get to be really like the American one, though. Listening to baseball on the late-night AM radio from the States I'm struck by how many ads mention military discounts.) It was 2010 when I recounted the pitiful Remembrance Day ceremony I went to at York (which was the last one I went to and probably ever will go to anywhere), and I said then that there were ten times as many people at that one as the last one I'd been to some years before; I'd bet ten times as many people again would've been at it this year if it hadn't fallen on a Sunday. (2) Kids obviously have not just taken it upon themselves to get more into Remembrance Day. It is funny what adults will and will not hold kids responsible for, both to praise and to blame them for. (I guess, conversely, it's funny what kids will and will not absolve themselves of responsibility for by blaming it on their parents. I guess it's especially funny that you start to learn to do this as it starts to become less legitimate--and of course you learn more and more ways to do this, well into adulthood.) But one thing kids are good at is the zealous self-righteousness of the ideological puritan. You pick up ideas of right and wrong, praiseworthiness and shamefulness, from your parents, other adults, the rest of the culture around you, and then you gradually notice that all the adults are hypocritical about these ideas. But not you!
Currently at the back of my shed: 4.9. Took apart the cottage plumbing in a minor snowstorm last Friday--second year in a row I've shut er down on November 9. That was also the first day there was a flock of goldeneyes on the lake and not just the odd one. The buffleheads have been skittering around the back of the bay for a while. Saw my first bald eagle of this cold season the previous Sunday--saw it in the distance over the lake and realized what it likely was just in time to snap off a couple of pictures and confirm it before it disappeared. Still a solid inch or two of snow on the ground around here. One of the many things my grandfather used to tell me about closing up the cottage was to do it before it gets too cold. But like I like to say, the thing about cold water is, even ice-water is no colder than 0 degrees ... and you get used to it. To a point.
Something that struck me right from the beginning of the gospels and still seems like a thing to me is how much like an Old Testament prophet Jesus is. He is a prophet of doom, preaching about the end times. But he also does preach that social gospel of neighbour-love, which first strikingly appears in the Old Testament with Isaiah. A recurring theme in the Old Testament prophets is that, contrary to what you might have gathered from the earlier books, God wants you to be nice to each other, and especially to vulnerable people such as widows, and not just follow the Mosaic laws. Jesus amplifies that. (And, unfortunately, he amplifies the idea of resurrection that seems to first really appear in Ezekiel. (I'd like to know what the heck happened between the last writing of the Old Testament and the appearance of Jesus that it can be said of the Sadducees in the gospels that they don't believe in the resurrection, as if it has become a remarkable and maybe obviously outrageous thing for Jews not to believe in the resurrection.)) But he consistently does it in the manner of confusingly hypocritical parents who extol the virtues of niceness to their children while being sour with anyone who doesn't (in Jesus's case literally) worship them.
This reminds me of something from Coach's Corner the other night--Cherry said something about the kids getting more into Remembrance Day in recent years. Which is a funny thing to say for a couple of reasons. (1) Canadians generally have gotten vastly more into Remembrance Day as Canada has transformed into a warring nation and developed a miniature replica of the American military cult, deliberately fostered by the Harper Conservatives, after September 11th. (There is still no foreseeable way that it will get to be really like the American one, though. Listening to baseball on the late-night AM radio from the States I'm struck by how many ads mention military discounts.) It was 2010 when I recounted the pitiful Remembrance Day ceremony I went to at York (which was the last one I went to and probably ever will go to anywhere), and I said then that there were ten times as many people at that one as the last one I'd been to some years before; I'd bet ten times as many people again would've been at it this year if it hadn't fallen on a Sunday. (2) Kids obviously have not just taken it upon themselves to get more into Remembrance Day. It is funny what adults will and will not hold kids responsible for, both to praise and to blame them for. (I guess, conversely, it's funny what kids will and will not absolve themselves of responsibility for by blaming it on their parents. I guess it's especially funny that you start to learn to do this as it starts to become less legitimate--and of course you learn more and more ways to do this, well into adulthood.) But one thing kids are good at is the zealous self-righteousness of the ideological puritan. You pick up ideas of right and wrong, praiseworthiness and shamefulness, from your parents, other adults, the rest of the culture around you, and then you gradually notice that all the adults are hypocritical about these ideas. But not you!
Currently at the back of my shed: 4.9. Took apart the cottage plumbing in a minor snowstorm last Friday--second year in a row I've shut er down on November 9. That was also the first day there was a flock of goldeneyes on the lake and not just the odd one. The buffleheads have been skittering around the back of the bay for a while. Saw my first bald eagle of this cold season the previous Sunday--saw it in the distance over the lake and realized what it likely was just in time to snap off a couple of pictures and confirm it before it disappeared. Still a solid inch or two of snow on the ground around here. One of the many things my grandfather used to tell me about closing up the cottage was to do it before it gets too cold. But like I like to say, the thing about cold water is, even ice-water is no colder than 0 degrees ... and you get used to it. To a point.
