Jesus Christ: Flaming Liberal!

Flaming: Passionate - “Tending to have strong feelings, especially of love, desire, or enthusiasm” (Encarta). Enthusiasm: God in us.

liber (Latin root meaning): free.

“And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32 RSV).

Were Jesus present in the flesh today He would be branded “A Flaming Liberal,” no doubt about it and correctly so. The religious right would be screaming “Bloody murder!” with His every action and pronouncement. Why would it be any different today than when he walked the earth last time? It’s just a different cultural context.

 Think about the following assertion in a 21^st Century milieu: “If anyone of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” To whom was Jesus speaking? Religious leaders, of course, those who were strictly following the letter of the law as handed down to them.

In my book, Lean Right, Love Left: Balancing the Body, I frame it this way: Ask Jesus about His encounter with the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1-11). There is no dispute about her guilt. The law professors were “Levi on the spot” and had her dead to rights. Her prosecutors knew the law forward, backward, and sideward -”The punishment of adultery commanded by Moses was death” (Leviticus 20:10). The rigidity of the law left no “wriggle room,” and compassion was not yet part of the equation. The woman’s accusers were as right as right can be. You could say they were damned right! Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Words says this about their attitude toward the law: “In their zeal for the Law they almost deified it and their attitude became merely external, formal, and mechanical. They laid stress, not upon the righteousness of an action, but upon its formal correctness.”

The formal correctness of the law had become their salvation and, consequently, the means to a self-serving end-the entrapment of Jesus. “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” It was the perfect “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario. Would Jesus lean right or left-law or love? If law were the only choice, he would be going against his own teaching. If love were the choice, he would be going against the Law of Moses. The strategy was brilliantly conceived and executed by the prosecution team. They are already patting themselves on the back and exchanging congratulatory handshakes as Jesus pauses for a moment to write something in the sand.

 When his response finally does come, it catches them completely off guard: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” In my imaginative mind’s eye, I see the handshakes and back pats freeze in midair as they absorb the full implications of His challenge. The accusers, who now become the accused, stand stunned and speechless like mannequins in a department-store window. A frozen look of incredulity is plastered on their faces. After what seems an interminable moment, the freeze frame is turned to slow motion. Heads bow, shoulders slump, and faces sag noticeably as they turn and slowly shuffle away like a pack of beaten down bloodhounds turned away from the hunt. This is how I would direct the scene if it were in a film.

Jesus now stands alone with the woman. I like the expository treatment on these verses found in The Wycliffe Bible Commentary: “Only two remained-the sinner and the Friend of sinners. Jesus could have cast the stone, for he was sinless; but he was more concerned with the rehabilitation of the sinner than with seeing that the Law was meticulously satisfied.”

 The Friend of sinners says to the woman, “Has no one condemned you?”  “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

In your imaginative mind’s eye, translate this scenario forward a couple of millenniums. Adultery is no longer the scourge it once was, especially on the right, but substitute some of the modern day blights making headline news today. Cable news anchors, bloggers and twitterers would be “Johnny on the spot,” recording Jesus’ words and actions, spinning and spreading them instantaneously throughout cyberspace.

Bill O’Reilly and his stereotypical blond bombshell legal analysts would be yelling and screaming, “Fair! Balanced! Foul!” all at the same time, thus canceling each other out. Sean Hannity would be uncovering and righteously exposing another poisonous left-wing extremist, playing to the audience, hint of arrogance in that camera practiced smile. Rush Limbaugh would be frothing at the mouth and screaming out over the airways, “Oh, my God! God help us! Where has this country gone wrong?” Laura Ingrahams would be caustically ranting and raving, spewing vitriolic verbal stones forthwith. Glen Beck would be crying crocodile tears, begging for sanity to once again reassert itself in this God forsaken country (All cable show hosts, self-proclaimed spokespersons for the religious right in America, each backed by a team of legal analysts).          

 No question about it, Jesus was/is a flaming liberal, no matter how you slice it, theologically or culturally, then or now: Then neither do I condemn you, compassion for (friend of) the sinner now a part of the equation.

 

AUTHOR NOTE: Caution! Hang tight and hear me out entirely (a continuing series) before deciding whether or not to hurl that stone.

Writer: Commissioner Joe Noland’s ministry can be summed up in three words: chaos, creativity and controversy - three elements implicit in any successful innovative endeavor. Cecil B. DeMille, renowned producer of Biblical epics, once wrote, “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.” Joe’s mantra reads, “Creativity is my drug of choice.”  Access Joe Noland’s complete bio, among other things, by clicking into his website.

2 Comments to Jesus Christ: Flaming Liberal!

1. It is interesting because when you investigate this story historically, it is well recognized that the earliest manuscripts do not have this story in John. Some say that liberal scholars included it as a way to reduce the law further from Jewish life. Just thought that to be interesting.
Derek on January 14th, 2010

2. Thank You for this well thought out treatment of this obvious fact. I ask you sir, what could possibly have the power, in this world, to completely pervert and distort, so absolutely, the message of Jesus Christ?

   You should also point out the rage on the Modern Christian Right against all things foreign, and their bashing of immigrants, directly in the face of scripture:

   “You shall not oppress the stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, having been strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 23:9. There are too many such references to list, as I am sure you know….

   God bless you!
Joseph B. on January 16th, 2010

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