Jesus in the Apse

I once preached a sermon in which I said that certain parts of the Bible were so worn by use, they no longer had any sharp edges to grab us and make us see the truth they are relaying. In other words, familiarity breeds not so much contempt, as it does blindness. And then there is the whole phenomenon of people who say they know and love Jesus, but never actually spend much time listening to him, or trying to gain even the slightest inkling about the world in which he lived. And so Jesus is lifted high up into the apse of our spiritual consciousness, where he is proclaimed King, Savior, and Substitute, and where he is as silent as a gilded mosaic.

N.T. Wright, whose commentaries I have used and appreciated over the years, and who has contributed to the New Perspectives on Paul debate, offers this comment: "My own understanding of Jesus, and hence of Christianity, has been deeply and profoundly affected by my historical study. Whatever else is the case about my beliefs and my scholarship, it is certainly not true that I have 'found' a 'Jesus' who has merely reinforced the belief-system I had before the process began. The closer I get to Jesus within his historical context, the more I find my previous ideas, and indeed my previous self, radically subverted" (emphasis mine), Who Was Jesus (SPCK, 2005).

What does it mean to be "radically subverted"? For some this might mean deliverance from bondage to a particular besetting sin, while for others it might mean an opening up to new forms of discipleship which go beyond Sunday pew-sitting. Of course such language can be co-opted politically and socially as well. But here's the rub: I don't think most people in the church even know Jesus. For to know him would require they intimately know the New Testament, and that they manifestly do not. Biblical literacy is atrocious in the church, never mind secular society (see this survey). Absurd answers abound to even the simplest questions: Moses is often named as an apostle; 12% of adults polled believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife; 82% believe that the phrase,"God helps those who help themselves," is in the Bible; a significant portion of high school students believe Sodom and Gommorah were husband and wife.

Do we know the Jesus of the New Testament, or do we prefer Jesus in the apse? The gospel depictions are replete with uncomfortable moments (e.g., the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mt 15), the fig tree (Mt 21), and statements like, "For truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes" (Mt 10:23)). But beyond such glaringly problematic verses, is the encounter with this Palestinian Rabbi who teaches an ethic of living in God's kingdom which seems impossible to live by. So I ask again, do we know Jesus?

I think we prefer not to know Jesus, and instead prefer to focus on Christ, who is more Savior than rabbi, more occidental than oriental, and who is for the most part, mute. I don't think Jesus is even in the apse; I think Christ is in the apse. What I mean by that statement will have to wait until my next post.