© 2005 The Brotherhood of Man Library
(continued from Innerface Vol. 12, No. 3): Part I
In our previous issue we provided the first part of the condensation of a book entitled “Jesus, a New Vision,” by Professor Marcus J. Borg–a book that expresses extraordinarily similar concepts of Jesus post-baptismal life as are presented in The Urantia Book. And nowhere could we find any major conceptual disparities between the two views of Jesus’ teachings or view points during those terminal years–all of which lead to the question, "Was Borg directly or indirectly influenced by the Urantia revelation?
We noted previously that Borg referenced more than 100 supporting works–virtually all from professional scholars, thus indicating that he is by no means alone in holding the view he does.
In this presentation, we complete the condensed component of Borg’s book, while providing references to similar views expressed in The Urantia Book.
(Condensed from the book by Marcus J. Borg)
The spiritualization which we see in the Jesus movement also appears in the Old Testament–for example in Psalm 5:17, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken and a contrite heart.” The conflict between the Jesus movement and its contemporaries was not really a conflict between two different religions, one ancient and the other an alternative version which was freshly in touch with the Spirit. The politics of compassion addressed the two central issues generated by the crisis in the Jewish social world: the growing internal division within Jewish society, and the deepening of the conflict with Rome.
Jesus’ emphasis upon compassion as the ethos and politics of the people of God contravened the barriers created by Israel’s social world, made up of its blend of conventional wisdom, holiness, exclusivity, and patriarchy.
Historically speaking, Jesus sought to transform his social world by creating an alternative community structured around compassion, with norms that moved in the direction of inclusiveness, acceptance, love, and peace. The alternative consciousness he taught as a sage generated a “contrast society,” an “alternative consciousness” grounded in Spirit.
Thus Jesus saw the life of the Spirit as “incarnational,” informing and transforming the life of culture. His mission, however, did not simply involve the creation of an alternative community. It also involved him in radical criticism of his culture’s present path, warning his people of the catastrophic historical direction in which they were headed. (UB 176:1)
From TUB: “When you finally see Jerusalem being encompassed by the Roman armies after the revolt of the false prophets, then you will know that her desolation is at hand; then you must flee to the mountains.” (UB 176:1.4)
Jesus as prophet: Jesus identified with his prophetic predecessors such as Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Like these prophets, his twofold focus was God and the cultural life of his people in a time of crisis. Like them, the pattern of threat, indictment, and call to change ran throughout his ministry. Indeed his passion for the historical life of his people ultimately cost him his own life.
Crisis: the threat to the social world: The mission of Jesus was dominated by a sense of urgency and crisis. He charged his contemporaries with knowing how to interpret the signs of the weather, but not knowing how to interpret the present time. Images and parables of crisis and judgment abound in the Gospels–servants being suddenly called to account; maidens asleep and without oil for their lamps; people finding themselves shut out of a banquet because they didn’t respond. He warned his generation that they, in particular, faced a crisis: “The blood of the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, will come upon this generation!”
But what was the crisis? According to the biblical scholarship that dominated the 20th century, Jesus thought the end of the world was nigh. But though Jesus did speak of a last judgment, there is no reason to believe he thought it was immanent. Rather, like the prophets before him, the crisis he announced was the threat of historical catastrophe for his society. (UB 176:1)
Jesus’ role as a revitalization movement founder and prophet overlap. As a founder of a renewal movement, he pointed to an alternative path; as prophet he specifically indicted his people’s present path. The issue was not individual sinfulness, but allegiance to a cultural dynamic that was leading to historical catastrophe. Advocating the politics of compassion, Jesus criticized the politics of holiness.
The politics of holiness had made Israel unfruitful and unfaithful. Like the prophets, Jesus used the image of a vineyard to speak of Israel’s relationship to God. Israel was like the tenants who refused to give the vineyard’s produce to its owner, (UB 173:4) or like the unfruitful fig tree given one more year to bear fruit. (UB 166:4.6) He also used the imagery of Israel as the servant of God. Israel was like the cautious servant who buried his talent in the ground in order to preserve it. (UB 171:8) He used other images of things not performing their proper function–salt that had lost its salinity, light that was not giving light but had been hidden. (UB 140:4) The Israel of his generation, living by the ethos of holiness, was no longer what it was meant to be–the vineyard of God yielding fruit, the faithful servant of God giving light to the nations.
Jesus attacked the Pharisees concern about purity and tithing, two of the issues most central to the ethos of holiness. Purity was not a matter of externals, but of the heart, and the emphasis upon separation of pure and impure created division within society. Similarly, in the Pharisees meticulous concern with tithing, the politics of holiness had led to a neglect of what was most central: “Woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.” (UB 175:1)
Indictment of the politics of holiness also underlay one of Jesus most famous parables, the Good Samaritan. The story is very familiar–a man attacked by robbers was left half-dead on the road. A priest and a Levite passed by, and then a Samaritan stopped to help. The parable ended with Jesus asking a question, “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?”
Though the parable has a timeless relevance with its characterization of what it means to be a neighbor, in its original setting it sharply criticized the dominant social dynamic of the day. The priest and the Levite passed by out of concern for the standards of holiness, for in that situation they both could have been ritually defiled in a number of ways through proximity to death. In passing by and avoiding such contact, they actually followed the demands of holiness. Like the Pharisees they were not “bad” people, but acted in accord with the logic of a social world organized around the politics of holiness. Thus Jesus was not criticizing two particularly insensitive individuals but was indicting the ethos of holiness itself. The Samaritan, on the other hand, was commended specifically for his compassion. (UB 164:1)
Jesus also indicted those who benefited from the politics of holiness. He ridiculed those who derived their self-esteem from the honor achieved in their culture. “Beware of the scribes who like to go around in long robes, to have salutations in the market places, the best seats in the synagogues, and places of honor at banquets.” (UB 175:4.9)
For the self-righteous he had especially harsh words: “Tax collectors and harlots are entering the Kingdom of God before you.” Often times Jesus’ criticism of his social world was seen as an indictment of Judaism itself. But it was not. Jesus was simply the voice of an alternative consciousness within Judaism calling his Jewish hearers to a transformed understanding of their own tradition. It was not Judaism itself which he saw as unfruitful. Rather, it was the current direction of his social world that he saw as blind and misguided.
The conflict between Jesus and his contemporaries was not about the adequacy of Judaism or the Torah, or about the importance of being “good” rather than “bad,” but was about two different visions of what it means to be a people centered in God. Both visions flowed from the Torah–a people living by the politics and ethos of holiness, or a people living by the ethos and politics of compassion.
Threat–a historical catastrophe: Jesus foresaw that the politics of holiness with its division of the world into pure and impure, righteous and outcast, rich and poor, neighbor and enemy, was leading to catastrophe. Like the prophets before him, he warned that Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed by military conquest unless the culture radically changed its direction. To see the full significance of these threats we first need to understand the role that Jerusalem and the Temple played in the Jewish social world.
Jerusalem and the Temple: Jerusalem drew its significance primarily from the fact that the Temple was there and that it was believed that God dwelt in it. Thus the Temple was the place linking the two worlds of the primordial tradition. Because it was God’s dwelling place, many believed that the Temple and Jerusalem were secure, their protection guaranteed by God.
Such a belief reached far back into Israel’s history and still existed at the time of Jesus. Thus the Temple had become the center of an ideology of resistance to Rome, it being firmly believed that God would defend the divine dwelling place against all enemies.
This ideology was reinforced by the evidence of the senses. Jerusalem had massive defensive walls making the city itself a fortress. The temple area at its center was an even more formidable fortress. Rebuilt by Herod the Great in the decades before Jesus’ birth, it stood on a large raised platform, its walls ranging from 98 feet high in the west to over 300 feet at the southeast corner. Both Jerusalem and its Temple certainly looked to be impregnable. But history shows it was not. After 70 A.D. the Temple was no more.
Jesus’ movement and message were to a new way of life marked already by joy even while the shadows were lengthening on the social world of his day. Two paths lay before the people to whom Jesus spoke, the broad way of conventional wisdom and its loyalties, and the narrow way of transformation to an alternative way of being. The broad way would lead to destruction, the narrow way to life. The message of the two ways led Jesus, as prophet, sage, and renewal movement founder, to make his final and climactic journey to Jerusalem, the center of his people’s life.
Jerusalem and death. In the spring of A.D. 30 at the season of the Passover, Jesus deliberately “set his face to go to Jerusalem,” a resolve that led to his death. The miracle-worker who drew crowds, the teacher who challenged the conventional wisdom of his day and taught an alternative path of transformation, the prophet and revitalization movement founder who indicted his people’s corporate path, took his message and his itinerant group of followers to Jerusalem.
Why did he make that final journey? Some have thought that he did so in order to die, that is his own death was intended. Such is implied by the popular image of Jesus–he went to Jerusalem deliberately to offer his life as a sacrifice for sin. However that outcome was not the purpose of the journey.
Jesus went to Jerusalem there to make a final appeal to his people. In doing so he became one more of those prophets “sent” at precisely the time of the year when the city was most comprehensively represented at the center of their social world, and he went there to issue the call to change. (UB 171:4.7)
From The Urantia Book: Then turning to his apostles, Jesus said:” From olden times the prophets have perished in Jerusalem, and it is only befitting that the Son of Man should go up to the city of the Father’s house to be offered up as the price of human bigotry and as the result of religious prejudice and spiritual blindness. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets and stones the teachers of truth! How often would I have gathered your children together even as a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, but you would not let me do it! Behold, your house is about to be left to you desolate! You will many times desire to see me, but you shall not. You will then seek but not find me.“ And when he had spoken, he turned to those around him and said: ”Nevertheless, let us go up to Jerusalem to attend the Passover and do that which becomes us in fulfilling the will of the Father in heaven."
The Message to Jerusalem: The final week of Jesus’ life was filled with a series of dramatic actions, confrontations, and events, all flowing from his involvement in his people’s direction and future.
At that time, Jerusalem had a population estimated between forty thousand and seventy thousand. It was also occupied by a garrison of Roman troops which was reinforced at the time of major festivals. Thus, at the season of the Passover, Roman troops arrived at Jerusalem from the west in a procession led by the Roman governor, and accompanied by all the trappings of imperial power.
Jesus and his followers arrived from the east, possibly on the same day. As they entered the city, Jesus performed the first of two prophetic acts. According to the gospels, he deliberately made arrangements to enter the city on a donkey’s colt, cheered by followers and sympathizers. The meaning of the act becomes clear when we realize he was intentionally enacting a passage from the prophet Zechariah which spoke of a king of peace “riding on a colt, the foal of an ass.” His entry was a planned demonstration, an appeal to Jerusalem to follow the path of peace. (UB 172:5.5)
Soon afterward, Jesus entered the temple area where, in one of the outer courts, he performed a second and more dramatic act–he expelled the money changers and sellers of sacrificial birds. It was a provocative action that must have created somewhat of a stir but hardly an uproar. Had it been so, the Romans whose garrison overlooked the temple courts would have quickly intervened. Rather it was a prophetic act, done for the sake of the message it contained. As often with prophetic acts, the action was accompanied by the pronouncement interpreting its meaning: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of thieves.'” (UB 173:1)
Both the action itself and the words of interpretation point to the act as an attack upon the politics of holiness. The moneychangers and sellers of sacrificial birds were there in the service of the ethos of holiness. The annual temple tax had to be paid in “holy” coinage, and not with profane coins bearing images. The sacrificial birds had to be unblemished.
In his words of interpretation, Jesus quoted two passages from the prophets. The first stated the purpose of the Temple: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.” The purpose of the temple, Jesus said, was universal. And having become a den of thieves, the Temple faced the same threat as in Jeremiah’s generation–destruction.
Thus the last week of Jesus’ life began with two dramatic actions. To ride into Jerusalem at the head of a procession could not do otherwise than excite the curiosity of many–and the attention of those charged with keeping order. The act in the Temple was even more provocative and drew the attention of some of the Temple leadership who came to interrogate Jesus. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. Implicitly Jesus answer was, “From the Spirit.” (Mark 11:27-33) According to Mark it was the act in the Temple that led the authorities to take action against Jesus. It took a few days to work out the details. (UB 173:2)
For the early church looking back on the death of Jesus in the light of what happened afterward, it seemed clear that his death was foreordained, part of the plan of God from the beginning. Moreover it appeared the immediate cause was the Jewish leadership’s refusal to recognize Jesus as the Son of God–and so the story of his “trial” before the Jewish high priest is told. Nevertheless, granted the passion narratives as related in the gospels cannot be treated as straightforward historical accounts, it is possible to reconstruct a reasonably probable account.
The most certain fact about the historical Jesus is that he was executed as a political rebel. And though it is possible that Pilate and the Romans alone were involved, it seems unlikely. In all probability there was collaboration on the part of a small circle of Jewish leaders centered round the high priest. Appointed by Rome and accountable to the Roman governor, Caiaphas, the high priest at the time of Jesus, held his position for the unusually long period of 18 years, including the ten years of Pilate’s governorship–suggesting he was very good at working with the Romans.
To assist him in his responsibility, the high priest appointed his own privy council who, like him, came from the aristocracy and high priestly families. Their place in society not only gave them responsibility for maintaining law and order, but also affected how they saw things. (UB 173:2; UB 174:2.1)
From The Urantia Book: “Do not forget that authority was the watchword of all Jewry. The prophets were always stirring up trouble because they so boldly presumed to teach without authority, without having been duly instructed in the rabbinic academies and subsequently regularly ordained by the Sanhedrin. Lack of this authority in pretentious public teaching was looked upon as indicating either ignorant presumption or open rebellion. At this time only the Sanhedrin could ordain an elder or teacher, and such a ceremony had to take place in the presence of at least three persons who had previously been so ordained. Such an ordination conferred the title of ”rabbi“ upon the teacher and also qualified him to act as a judge, ”binding and loosing such matters as might be brought to him for adjudication." (UB 173:2.3)
First, Jesus was a charismatic leader who had attracted a large following. In the tension-ridden first-century Palestinian situation, that was enough to get a person into trouble, as the fate of John the Baptist a few years earlier had demonstrated. Like John, Jesus was seen as a threat to the established order simply because he was a public figure with a following.
Secondly, Jesus had warned of the fall of Jerusalem, an action which could also get one into trouble in first-century Palestine.
From The Urantia Book: “Then Andrew inquired: ”But, Master, if the Holy City and the temple are to be destroyed, and if you are not here to direct us, when should we forsake Jerusalem?“ Said Jesus: ”You may remain in the city after I have gone, even through these times of travail and bitter persecution, but when you finally see Jerusalem being encompassed by the Roman armies after the revolt of the false prophets, then will you know that her desolation is at hand; then must you flee to the mountains." (UB 176:1.4)
Finally, from the point of view of the high priest and his council, Jesus was clearly wrong. Jesus had indicted the present social order and advocated another, but Caiaphas and his group were not interested in the transformation of society, both because of their place in that society, and the ideology which legitimated the present social order.
Jesus’ way of peace may have been acceptable to at least some, but Jesus also spoke of a way of life in which righteousness, purity, honor, and position did not matter–which meant blessing to the poor and woe to the rich, which loosened the ties of loyalty to cultural ways, in which outcasts were accepted–all of this challenging the conventional wisdom of the time. That conventional wisdom, from their point of view, was grounded in holy Scripture and hallowed by tradition. Thus, from their vantage point, Jesus was not only a threat to public order, but profoundly wrong.
To a large extent it was the conventional wisdom of the time–the “dominant consciousness” of the day–that was responsible for the death of Jesus. The high priest and his circle were both the servants and guardians of the dominant consciousness. Shaped by it and, in a sense, subservient to it, they were also concerned to preserve it. With its “laws” of moderation and self-preservation, and its attempt to make reality “safe” by domesticating it in a net of beliefs and rules, the dominant consciousness of conventional wisdom was threatened by the voice of an alternative consciousness. And it was in Jesus that the voice of the Spirit challenged the dominant consciousness. (UB 175:1)
The politics of holiness also played a role. It accounted for much of the resistance to Jesus’ message and movement. The Pharisees, the embodiment of the politics of holiness in an intensified form, were the most vocal verbal critics during Jesus’ ministry. But the politics of holiness were in the culture as a whole, not just in the Pharisees. In this less intensive form, it shaped the lives of ordinary people, even the outcasts, as well as the lives of the accommodationist ruling class.
With its emphasis on survival through greater differentiation between Jew and gentile, righteous and outcast, the politics of holiness found the politics of compassion both unorthodox and threatening.
Finally we must speak not only of the forces operative in Jesus’ opponents but also of Jesus own intention. He was not simply a victim, but one who provocatively challenged the ethos of his day. He was killed because he sought, in the name of the power of the Spirit, the transformation of his own culture. He issued a call for a relationship with God that would lead to a new ethos and a new politics. For that goal, he gave his life, even though his death was not his primary intention. (UB 175:1)
From The Urantia Book: “In every manner consistent with doing my Father’s will, I and my apostles have done our utmost to live in peace with our brethren, to conform with the reasonable requirements of the laws of Moses and the traditions of Israel. We have persistently sought peace, but the leaders of Israel will not have it. By rejecting the truth of God and the light of heaven, they are aligning themselves on the side of error and darkness. There cannot be peace between light and darkness, between life and death, between truth and error.” (UB 175:1.2)
The conflict between Jesus and his opponents was between two ways of being. One way organized life around the security of self and its world. The essential ingredients of conventional wisdom and a politics of holiness, even if in a transformed and secular form, are still very much with us. That which killed Jesus is thus still very much alive in human history. The other way of being organizes life around God. Ultimately it was the conflict between life grounded in Spirit and one grounded in culture, and Jesus’ own concern to transform his culture in the name of the Spirit, that caused his death. (UB 175:3)
From The Urantia Book: “At eight o’clock on this Tuesday evening the fateful meeting of the Sanhedrin was called to order. On many previous occasions had this supreme court of the Jewish nation informally decreed the death of Jesus. Many times had this august ruling body determined to put a stop to his work, but never before had they resolved to place him under arrest and to bring about his death at any and all costs.” (UB 175:3.1)
What Jesus was like is as much of a challenge to both church and culture in the 21st century as it was in his own time. This “new vision” of Jesus–an image of what can be known about him–radically calls into question our most common way of “being” and invites us to see differently.
Mistake not! there is in the teachings of Jesus an eternal nature which will not permit them forever to remain unfruitful in the hearts of thinking men. The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master’s teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus’ concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development. (UB 170:5.21)
For both Christians and non-Christians, what can be known about the real, historical Jesus is a vivid witness to the reality of the Spirit and a Spirit world. Most generations have not needed to hear this, simply because most generations took the reality of the Spirit world for granted.
Today, for many, faith becomes the struggle to believe the church’s teaching despite the fact that it does not make very good sense. As a set of beliefs to be believed, Christianity (and all other religions which affirm “another world”) is radically challenged by the modern one dimensional image of reality that has shaped our 20th century minds.
The false science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real. (UB 2:7.4)
In precisely this situation, the historical Jesus as a Spirit-filled figure can address us. Jesus’ experience of a world of Spirit challenges the modern worldview in that what he was like reminds us that there have been figures in every culture who experienced the “other world,” and that it is only we in the modern period who have grown to doubt its reality. The intense experiential relationship with the Spirit reported of Jesus invites us to consider that reality might be other that we in the modern world image it to be. His life powerfully suggested that the Spirit is “real.” (Note: the reality of another dimension distinct from our space-time, having properties akin to consciousness, has recently been uncovered by empirical findings in quantum physics. See Innerface Vol. 11, No.5)
Even as the historical Jesus is a testimony to the reality of the Spirit, he also provides a vivid picture of what life in the Spirit is like. It is an impressive picture. There are, of course, the spectacular powers of the Spirit flowing through him in his mighty deeds. But we should not think only of the spectacular. The historical records about him suggest other exceptional qualities. He was a remarkably free person. (UB 100:7)
From The Urantia Book: “The unfailing kindness of Jesus touched the hearts of men, but his stalwart strength of character amazed his followers. He was truly sincere; there was nothing of the hypocrite in him. He was free from affectation; he was always so refreshingly genuine. He never stooped to pretense, and he never resorted to shamming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the truth. He was constrained to proclaim saving truth to his generation, even though such sincerity sometimes caused pain. He was unquestioningly loyal to all truth.” ( UB 100:7.2)
Free from fear and anxious preoccupation, he was free to see clearly and to love. His freedom was grounded in the Spirit, from which flowed the other central qualities of his life–incredible courage, insight, joy, and above all, compassion. All are products of the Spirit–“fruits of the Spirit,” as St. Paul called them. Thus, what we can know about Jesus invites us to see “life in the Spirit” as a striking alternative to the way we typically live our lives. (UB 161:2)
For Christians in particular, what Jesus was like as a historical figure is significant because of the special status he has in the tradition of the church. Within that tradition, two things have consistently been said about him–he was “true God” and “true man,” the incarnation of the truly divine and the truly human. As God, a “disclosure” or “revelation” of God; as “true man,” he is a model for human life, specifically for the life of discipleship. This twofold status of Jesus within the tradition of orthodox Christian theology enables us to see his significance for those who would, today, be his followers and disciples.
As an epiphany of God, Jesus was a disclosure or revelation of God. He did not reveal God only in his teaching but in his very way of being. What he was like discloses what God was like.
God is spirit–spirit personality; man is also a spirit–potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of the Universal Father can be grasped only in actual religious experience, in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human experience. (UB 1:6.8)
In traditional language, Jesus was a revelation of the love of God. For Christians, as the “Word made flesh” he was the love of God incarnate. His life thus provides particular content to what the love of God is like giving concreteness to what otherwise can only be an abstraction.
The particular quality of that love is seen, above all, in the compassion which we see in the historical Jesus. It is the compassion which moved him to touch lepers, to heal on the Sabbath, to see in the ostracized members of the human community, “children of God,” and to risk his life for the sake of saving his people from a future which he could see and they could not.
From The Urantia Book: “As [Jesus] passed his door, the leper knelt before him, saying: ”Lord, if only you would, you could make me clean. I have heard the message of your teachers, and I would enter the kingdom if I could be made clean.“ And the leper spoke in this way because among the Jews lepers were forbidden even to attend the synagogue or otherwise engage in public worship. This man really believed that he could not be received into the coming kingdom unless he could find a cure for his leprosy. And when Jesus saw him in his affliction and heard his words of clinging faith, his human heart was touched, and the divine mind was moved with compassion. As Jesus looked upon him, the man fell upon his face and worshiped. Then the Master stretched forth his hand and, touching him, said: ”I will–be clean.“ And immediately he was healed; the leprosy no longer afflicted him.” (UB 146:4.3)
There is a social dimension as well as an individual dimension to the compassion of God as we see it in Jesus. For him, as for the prophets before him, the divine compassion included grief about the blindness, injustice, and idolatry that caused human suffering. As an image of God, Jesus mirrors the care of God for what happens in the world of history itself. The life of culture matters to God.
As an epiphany of God, Jesus discloses that at the center of everything is a reality that is in love with us and wills our well-being, both as individuals and individuals within society. As an image of God, Jesus challenges the most widespread image of reality in both the ancient and modern world, countering conventional wisdom’s understanding of God as one with demands that must be met. In its place is an image of God as the compassionate one who invites people into a relationship which is the source of transformation of human life in both its individual and social aspects. (UB 169:4.3,4,11-13)
To be a disciple of Jesus meant something more than being a student of a teacher. To be Jesus’ disciple meant “to follow after.” “Whosoever would be my disciple,” Jesus said, “Let him follow me.” What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? It means to take seriously what he took seriously, to be like him. It is what St. Paul meant when he said, “Be imitators of Christ.”
That vision is a life lived on the boundary of Spirit and culture, participating in both worlds. It has three core elements. First, its source is a “birth” in the Spirit. That birth involves a “dying to the self” of which Jesus spoke and which he himself experienced: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Such death leads to a new life, a rebirth out of the world of conventional wisdom and preoccupation with the self and its securities, to a new way of being. Being “born of the Spirit” creates a radically new identity, one no longer conferred by culture. It is an awakening to that “place” where one may address God as Abba, the intimate one.
The second core element of life in the Spirit is its dominant quality, compassion. Compassion is both a feeling and a way of being. One feels compassion and is compassionate. Not simply a feeling of benevolent goodwill, it is a tenderness and “embracing-ness” which makes empathy possible.
Compassion is a grace, not an achievement. It is the child of the radical centering in God that we see in Jesus; empty of self, one can be filled with the Spirit of God, the compassionate one. If we take Jesus seriously as the disclosure of life in the Spirit, then growth in the Christian life is essentially growth in compassion.
The third core element of life in the Spirit is its relationship to culture. It is a movement away from the many securities offered by culture, whether goods, status, identity, nation, success, or righteousness. The vision of life lived and taught by Jesus means leaving the “home” of conventional wisdom, whether religious or secular.
Life in the Spirit does not simply draw one away from culture. It creates a new community, an alternative community and alternative culture. So it was for Jesus and his followers, both during his lifetime and afterwards. The new life produced a new social reality, initially the “movement” and then the “church.” In the Jewish world in which it was born and in the Roman world in which it soon lived, it stood out sharply as an alternative community with an alternative vision and values. (UB 141:6.4; UB 162:6.3; UB 191:5.3)
From The Urantia Book: “Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men–the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith reveal your light to the world; let the revelation of truth open the eyes blinded by tradition; let your loving service effectually destroy the prejudice engendered by ignorance. By so drawing close to your fellow men in understanding sympathy and with unselfish devotion, you will lead them into a saving knowledge of the Father’s love. The Jews have extolled goodness; the Greeks have exalted beauty; the Hindus preach devotion; the far-away ascetics teach reverence; the Romans demand loyalty; but I require of my disciples life, even a life of loving service for your brothers in the flesh.” (UB 191:5.3)
There is a radical-ism to the alternative community of Jesus–but only if it lives that radicalism can it be “the city set on a hill whose light cannot be hidden.” And it can only do this by being a community grounded in the Spirit.
Taking the vision of Jesus seriously calls the church to be an alternative culture in our time. Though there may have been periods in the history of the church which roughly coincided with the central values of the early Jesus movement that time is no more. The dominant values of contemporary western life–affluence, achievement, appearance, power, competition, consumption, individualism–are vastly different from anything recognizably Christian. As individuals and as a culture, with our securities and values centered in “this world,” in “the finite,” our existence has become massively idolatrous.
We live in a modern Babylon, one largely unrecognized as such and all the more seductive because of its mostly benign and benevolent face. Indeed, Babylon also lives within the church, so thoroughly has it been infected with the “spirit of this age.” Modern culture functions as a rival lord in our lives, conferring values and identity and demanding obedience, all in conformity to its vision of reality. If the church were to take seriously entry into an alternative culture, it would increasingly see itself as a community which knows that its Lord is different from the lord of modern culture. It would live the life referred to in John’s description of Jesus’ followers as in the world, but not of the world, grounded not in the world but in God.
How then can our modern culture be “transformed by the power of the Spirit?” The politics of compassion did not lead Jesus to withdraw from culture, but to a passionate mission to transform the culture of his day. Because he saw God as caring about what happened to human beings in history, he saw culture as something to be transformed–and not simply rejected or legitimated.
Taking the vision of Jesus seriously thus entails seeking to structure the life of society in accord with the politics of compassion. A society organized around the politics of compassion would look very different from our culture, which to a large extent is organized around the politics of economic individualism. In many ways, we live within a secularized form of the Torah-derived “politics of holiness,” with only the standards of righteousness changed. Achievement and reward are its driving energies.
The politics of compassion is organized around the nourishment of human life, not around the rewards for culturally prized achievement. It does not emphasize differences–deserving and undeserving, friend and enemy, pure and impure. Rather, it stresses our commonality. It is inclusive rather than exclusive. Such an ideology would look sharply different from the way we presently order our national and international life.
The politics of compassion as a way of organizing human social life is an ideal. Yet it is relevant to human history. Like freedom it is an ideal to be approximated, even though it cannot be perfectly realized. Moreover, the degree to which it can be realized does not depend on what a “politics of realism” might imagine, but upon an openness to the power of the Spirit to transform life and culture. Life in the Spirit not only mandates a concern for culture, but also becomes a channel for the power of the Spirit. The Spirit is the basis for courage, confidence, and hope.
Life in the Spirit and the Kingdom of God: One of the characteristic ways Jesus spoke about the power of the Spirit and the life engendered by it was with the richly symbolic phrase “the Kingdom of God.”
For Jesus, the language of the kingdom was a way of speaking of the Spirit and the new life which it created. The coming of the kingdom is the coming of the Spirit, both into individual lives and into history itself. Entering the Kingdom is entering the life of the Spirit, being drawn into the “way” which Jesus taught. That Kingdom has an existence within history as the alternative community of Jesus, that community which lives the life of the Spirit.
That Kingdom is also something to be hoped for, to be brought about by the power of the Spirit of God. Life in the Spirit is thus life lived in relationship to the kingly power of God. Indeed, life in the Spirit is life in the Kingdom of God.
The vision of Jesus thus provides the content for three central images of the Christian life–life in the Spirit, the life of discipleship, and life in the Kingdom of God. Each image points to a life centered in God rather than in the lords and kingdoms of this world, in Spirit and not in culture, and yet seeking to transform those kingdoms through the power of the Spirit.
The image of Jesus sketched herein confronts us at many points. As a charismatic, he is a vivid challenge to our notion of reality, as a sage he challenges us to leave our lives of conventional wisdom whether secular or religious. As a renewal movement founder and prophet, he points us to an alternative culture which seeks to make the world more compassionate.
Jesus invites us to take seriously the two central presuppositions of the early Judo-Christian tradition.
First there is a dimension of reality beyond the visible world of our ordinary experience, a dimension charged with power, the ultimate quality for which is compassion.
Second the fruits of a life lived in accord with the Spirit are to be embodied not only in individuals, but also in the life of the community.
From The Urantia Book: “And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.” (UB 193:2.2)
As Christians, we are called to become the new church in a culture whose current values are largely alien to the Christian message, and to be, once again, the church of the early Jesus-movement.
Today’s churches mostly have no clear vision of what it means to take Jesus seriously. The vision of Jesus as a person of Spirit, deeply involved in the historical crisis of his own time, can re-shape the individual’s discipleship today. For us, as for the world in which Jesus lived, Jesus can once again be the light in our darkness.
Jesus’ life was a revelation of the nature of God. To be like Jesus means to be like God.
A life of discipleship means to take seriously those things Jesus took seriously. Jesus was serious about creating an alternative but inclusive community based on compassion.
Living in the kingdom means living a life in relation to the kingly power of God, a life centered in God rather than in the material attractions of this world.
Combine these three–and you have your place in God’s kingdom.
In considering whether Borg was influenced by The Urantia Book in preparing his “Jesus. A New Vision” there is at least one piece of knowledge that is common to both works and which also appears to be unique to both–the actual year in which Jesus was crucified. This is given as taking place during Passover of the year A.D. 30.
Accepting the well known “Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible” as our authority we find there is general agreement that Jesus was born prior to B.C. 4, the date for the death of Herod the Great. But for the date of Jesus’ crucifixion, we find only chaos.
“Expert” views for the length of Jesus’ public ministry are given as for a single year only to the Bishop Irenaeus’ view that it ranged from between ten to twenty years. Yet another “expert” view pins the crucifixion down to A.D. 29 while yet another argues for A.D. 35.
The date A.D. 30 first appears in Borg’s book on page 172 and for a second time on his page 184–and appears to be the only actual date provided in the whole of the text of his book. So was it a fortuitous guess or did it owe its origin to The Urantia Book, first published in 1955?
The fact that that there is little, perhaps nothing, in Borg’s writing that clashes with what we find in the text of The Urantia Book, plus the uniqueness of dating for Jesus’ crucifixion, is certainly indicative that either Borg or one or more of in excess of one hundred authors that Borg references may have had a very considerable knowledge of the content of The Urantia Book. And the fact that most of the references are to Bible scholars could mean that the content of The Urantia Book is making at least a secretive impact.
Why was Jesus crucified? On p. 6 herein the “dominant consciousness” of the day gets the blame. So what was the “dominant consciousness?”
Borg described it as “holiness,” which, to the ruling group in Jesus’ day, meant rigid adherence to their interpretation of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) and the 613 rules derived therefrom. Provided one was born a member of the group calling themselves “God’s chosen people,” and providing one lived by these Torah rules, “holiness” then meant to live according to the demands of Yahweh. And not to do so was to become an outcast, one rejected by Yahweh.
However if we read The Urantia Book’s account of the last week of Jesus’ life, it is quite easy to miss the grounds for Borg’s claim that Jesus was crucified simply because he was at loggerheads with the “dominant consciousness” of the day.
Go back just a little earlier in time and the seriousness of the differences between the “practicing” Jews and Jesus becomes evident.
From The Urantia Book:
"Jesus was at Ragaba, where there lived a wealthy Pharisee named Nathaniel; and since quite a number of his fellow Pharisees were following Jesus and the twelve around the country, he made a breakfast on this Sabbath morning for all of them, about twenty in number, and invited Jesus as the guest of honor. (UB 166:1.1)
By the time Jesus arrived at this breakfast, most of the Pharisees, with two or three lawyers, were already there and seated at the table. The Master immediately took his seat at the left of Nathaniel without going to the water basins to wash his hands. Many of the Pharisees, especially those favorable to Jesus’ teachings, knew that he washed his hands only for purposes of cleanliness, that he abhorred these purely ceremonial performances; so they were not surprised at his coming directly to the table without having twice washed his hands. But Nathaniel was shocked by this failure of the Master to comply with the strict requirements of Pharisaic practice. Neither did Jesus wash his hands, as did the Pharisees, after each course of food nor at the end of the meal. (UB 166:1.2)
After considerable whispering between Nathaniel and an unfriendly Pharisee on his right and after much lifting of eyebrows and sneering curling of lips by those who sat opposite the Master, Jesus finally said: “I had thought that you invited me to this house to break bread with you and perchance to inquire of me concerning the proclamation of the new gospel of the kingdom of God; but I perceive that you have brought me here to witness an exhibition of ceremonial devotion to your own self-righteousness. That service you have now done me; what next will you honor me with as your guest on this occasion?” (UB 166:1.3)
When the Master had thus spoken, they cast their eyes upon the table and remained silent. And since no one spoke, Jesus continued: “Many of you Pharisees are here with me as friends, some are even my disciples, but the majority of the Pharisees are persistent in their refusal to see the light and acknowledge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought before them in great power. How carefully you cleanse the outside of the cups and the platters while the spiritual-food vessels are filthy and polluted! You make sure to present a pious and holy appearance to the people, but your inner souls are filled with self-righteousness, covetousness, extortion, and all manner of spiritual wickedness. Your leaders even dare to plot and plan the murder of the Son of Man. Do not you foolish men understand that the God of heaven looks at the inner motives of the soul as well as on your outer pretenses and your pious professions? Think not that the giving of alms and the paying of tithes will cleanse you from unrighteousness and enable you to stand clean in the presence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Pharisees who have persisted in rejecting the light of life! You are meticulous in tithing and ostentatious in almsgiving, but you knowingly spurn the visitation of God and reject the revelation of his love. Though it is all right for you to give attention to these minor duties, you should not have left these weightier requirements undone. Woe upon all who shun justice, spurn mercy, and reject truth! Woe upon all those who despise the revelation of the Father while they seek the chief seats in the synagogue and crave flattering salutations in the market places!” (UB 166:1.4)
Jesus was well aware that his intended Passover visit to Jerusalem was fraught with danger–and highly likely to climax with his death. Yet he fearlessly continued with his attacks upon the “dominant consciousness” while at the same time giving prominence to his alternative teaching, one dominated by compassion.
Why did he do so? Primarily because his life had one over-riding and unbreakable principal–he was totally dedicated to the doing of the Father’s will and though at Gethsemane he prayed for release: “Father, I know it is possible to avoid this cup–all things are possible with you–but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bitter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” But release did not come and Jesus surrendered his life with these words: “O Father, if this cup may not pass, then would I drink it. Not my will, but yours, be done.” (UB 182:3)
What an incredible example Jesus set for those who would dare to be his followers! But what alternatives were available on that night at Gethsemane? Jesus and the apostles could have fled to the north and only mounted cavalry could have caught up with them. To do so, Jesus would have to abandon his mission of transforming the “dominant culture” based upon the Torah and its 613 laws. And the probability was that such a decision would have been irreversible.
Jesus knew, and apparently God also knew, that the path he took was the only one that could ever succeed. And succeed it will. Our revelation tells us so:
“The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions!” (UB 196:1.2) and:
“Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus, shall not fail.” (UB 196:3.33)
Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated soul.
Goodness always compels respect, but when it is devoid of grace, it often repels affection. Goodness is universally attractive only when it is gracious. Goodness is effective only when it is attractive.
Jesus really understood men; therefore could he manifest genuine sympathy and show sincere compassion. But he seldom indulged in pity. While his compassion was boundless, his sympathy was practical, personal, and constructive. Never did his familiarity with suffering breed indifference, and he was able to minister to distressed souls without increasing their self-pity.
Jesus could help men so much because he loved them so sincerely. He truly loved each man, each woman, and each child. He could be such a true friend because of his remarkable insight–he knew so fully what was in the heart and in the mind of man. He was an interested and keen observer. He was an expert in the comprehension of human need, clever in detecting human longings.
Jesus was never in a hurry. He had time to comfort his fellow men “as he passed by.” And he always made his friends feel at ease. He was a charming listener. He never engaged in the meddlesome probing of the souls of his associates. As he comforted hungry minds and ministered to thirsty souls, the recipients of his mercy did not so much feel that they were confessing to him as that they were conferring with him. They had unbounded confidence in him because they saw he had so much faith in them.
He never seemed to be curious about people, and he never manifested a desire to direct, manage, or follow them up. He inspired profound self-confidence and robust courage in all who enjoyed his association. When he smiled on a man, that mortal experienced increased capacity for solving his manifold problems.
Jesus loved men so much and so wisely that he never hesitated to be severe with them when the occasion demanded such discipline. He frequently set out to help a person by asking for help. In this way he elicited interest, appealed to the better things in human nature.
The Master could discern saving faith in the gross superstition of the woman who sought healing by touching the hem of his garment. He was always ready and willing to stop a sermon or detain a multitude while he ministered to the needs of a single person, even to a little child. Great things happened not only because people had faith in Jesus, but also because Jesus had so much faith in them.
Most of the really important things which Jesus said or did seemed to happen casually, “as he passed by.” There was so little of the professional, the well-planned, or the premeditated in the Master’s earthly ministry. He dispensed health and scattered happiness naturally and gracefully as he journeyed through life. It was literally true, “He went about doing good.”
And it behooves the Master’s followers in all ages to learn to minister as “they pass by”–to do unselfish good as they go about their daily duties." (UB 171:7)
In the previous issue of Innerface we noted that Borg rejected the popular image that labelled Jesus as being a divine figure whose main purpose on earth was to die a sacrificial death in atonement for the sins of mankind.
Instead, Borg provided an alternative image of Jesus as one whose dedication to doing the will of God brought him into direct conflict with both the Roman occupying force and the leaders of the Jewish nation such that his death became an inevitability.
The similarity of Borg’s account of Jesus’ life and death with that provided by the Urantia revelation could be indicative of the possibility, indeed probability, that the words of the revelation have found a home in the minds of Christian scholars. Only time will tell us what the consequences will be. Here we recall the words from the Book: “Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus, shall not fail.” (UB 196:3.33)