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JesusWayKingdomMarch2013 All Saints, Pasadena, 3/17/13 Marcus Borg

Prologue: A Crucial Question. What is the gospel, the good news? What is the heart of the Christian message, the gospel of Jesus? In not more than a sentence? A memory exercise: how would you have answered that at age 12 or so? My answer then: Jesus died to pay for our sins so that we can be forgiven and go to heaven if we believe in him. Note what it emphasizes: *The afterlife (heaven and hell Christianity) *Sin and forgiveness *The role of Jesus: he died in our place to pay for our sins (substitutionary or satisfaction understanding of the atonement; there are other understandings) *Believing (and often believing that Christianity is the only way) The common Xnity of the recent past and still the heart of conservative Christianity

The Gospel of Jesus - What He Was Passionate About: God, the Way and the Kingdom
I. The Historical Context of Jesus and Early Christianity: the Roman Empire as an imperial form of the ancient/pre-modern domination system. (The ancient domination system is the world of the Bible from beginning to end) (1) Ruled by a few, a monarchy and aristocracy. Ordinary people had no voice (2) Economically, the ruling elites structured the system in their own self-interest and typically acquired to 2/3 of the annual production of wealth. *Consequences for the peasant class: half the life expectancy (3) Chronically violent violence and the threat of violence to keep their own population subservient, and wars to acquire more land and wealth (4) Religiously legitimated: the theology of the elites legitimated the way things are. *Responses within First-Century Judaism: *Collaboration: many of the elite class, including temple authorities and Sadducees. And their retainers *Resistance through separation. Essenes withdrew from society. Pharisees practiced separation within society by creating sharp social boundaries between observant and non-observant. Purity as a form of resistance *Resistance through violence, climaxing in the great revolt of 66 CE *Resigned acceptance. *Non-violent resistance (Jesus and some Jewish examples in the time of Jesus) II. The Passion of Jesus: God, the Way and the Kingdom of God 1. God Was the Central Reality of Jesuss Life and Passion *He was a Jewish mystic, one for whom God/the sacred was an experiential reality *The Great Commandment: you shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This is also the core of Judaism, the Shema from Deut 6

2 2. The Way. A path of transformation the way of centering radically in God *Mystics know that God/the sacred is accessible apart from institution and rules *It was open to the marginalized, to those who didnt measure up to convention. *A vivid image of the way. Following Jesus to Jerusalem, the theme of the central section of Mark (8.22 10.52). Jerusalems twofold significance in the story of Jesus: (1) The place of confrontation with the domination system the authorities, the powers, who ruled his world: a combination of temple authorities and imperial authority. The way of the cross is about challenge and resistance to the way things are. (2) The place of death and resurrection, with its twofold meaning: as a metaphor for internal transformation; and as the place of Jesus execution by the powers and his vindication by God. 3. The Kingdom of God. So central to the message of Jesus that it is the center. *Jesus inaugural address in Mark 1.15. *Ask any 100 NT scholars what was most central, and all 100. *The Kingdom of God is about God. It is about centering in God as king/Lord, and not in the kings/lords of this world. *The Kingdom of God is about kingdom. Kingdom was a political term in his world. Jesus could have spoken of the people of God, or the community of God, or the family of God but instead he spoke of the kingdom of God. *Jesus hearers knew about other kingdoms the kingdom of Herod, the kingdom of Rome; the kingdom of God must be something different. *Kingdom of God is thus a religious-political metaphor (a theo-political metaphor). It is about God, and about life in this world. *The Kingdom of God is for the earth. *The Lords Prayer: Your kingdom come on earth *What life would be like on earth if God were king and the rulers of this world were not *It is the dream of God(Verna Dozier and Desmond Tutu), Gods dream, Gods passion for the earth. This is its external/political meaning. It is about justice distributive or economic justice. Everybody should have enough, not as the result of charity but as the product of justice. It is about non-violence and peace. Jesus taught this, and his followers understood him to have taught this, for the first 300 years of Christianity. 4. Gods Character and Passion as We See It in Jesus Gods character (what God is like): compassion (Luke 6.36) Gods passion (what God is passionate about): the Kingdom of God The symmetry of the way and the Kingdom: both are personal and political. Both are about centering in God and changing the world. Both are about participating in Gods passion for transformation of ourselves and of the humanly-constructed world What would be his message to us? Love God and change the world. Desmond Tutu, paraphrasing Augustine: God without us will not; we without God cannot.