Jesus the Teacher Within. Laurence Freeman

Чтение книги онлайн.

      What are we trying to find out about Jesus by listening to his question?

      Luke tells us that the people considered Jesus to be a kind of reincarnation of John the Baptist, a second coming of Elijah or one of the other prophets.

      . . . he asked them, ‘Who do the people say I am?’ They answered, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, others that one of the old prophets has come back to life.’¹

      This was what the people were saying about him². Neither Jesus nor the gospel writers discuss these as literal answers, although Jesus once indicated that John the Baptist was the Elijah who was expected to be the forerunner of the messiah.

      The New Testament uses about one hundred and thirty titles to describe Jesus: Christ, Lord, King, Lamb of God, rabbi, Son of Man, Son of David, Son of God, being the most frequent. ‘Teacher’ is used about 50 times in the gospels (‘Rabbi’ is found only in John’s gospel, and there nine times.) ‘Son of David’ is found about seventeen times and so less often than ‘King’ or ‘Lamb of God’. The characteristic title ‘Son of Man’ is found eighty-five times and has a rich fabric of meanings which Jesus found useful. The prophet Ezekiel uses the title often to mean a weak or mortal human being (the prophet himself). The book of Daniel (Chapter seven) uses the phrase in a heavenly sense and it is found in some psalms where it means, simply, a human being. Jesus thus knew the title from scripture and used it of himself. The uses of ambiguity in the phrase are revelatory. It does not only mean ‘an ordinary human being’ because it is the Son of Man who will come to judge the world, a work associated with God. And the Son of Man, like God, forgives sins. Sometimes, indeed, Son of Man is a circumlocution for Jesus the speaker as, for example, when he says the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. The interpenetration of divine and human connotations of identity in this simple phrase is highly subtle.³

      In addition to ‘Son of Man’ the New Testament uses ‘Christ’ over 500 times, ‘Lord’ 485 times, ‘Son of God’ seventy-five times, ‘Son of David’ seventeen times. These titles were attributed to a man who, to all appearances a politician and religious failure, had died the most shameful death possible under the Roman Empire as a common criminal.

      In the encounter with his disciples which is our starting-point here, Jesus neither approves nor rejects what people were saying about him. Instead he speaks about the suffering that lies ahead both for himself and his disciples. Soon after his public ministry began, Jesus probably guessed that he would become a victim of a power-play by the authorities. He was too popular to be ignored and he had no power base of his own to protect him. His family and friends were deeply frightened for his safety⁴. The gospels agree that he was well aware of the ordeals lying ahead. His socially radical, religiously revolutionary teaching and his preference for silence over self-definition all point to a deep sense of his destiny.

      He exposes the high cost by which self-knowledge is achieved. As a teacher more than as a political radical he describes the path by which his disciples will come to know him and themselves. He does not trivialise the cost of discipleship. To know oneself requires unknowing one’s self. Finding involves loss. Seeds grow only through death. To find the light of the true Self there is no way except through the dark tunnel of the way of the cross. Finding demands losing. Life is gained only through death: sometimes even physical death but every day demands the death of the ego’s old illusions, habits, values and beliefs.

      And to all he said, ‘If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross and come with me. Whoever cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake, that man is safe. What will a man gain, by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self?’⁵

      To listen is not mere passivity. To listen is to turn towards another, to leave self behind; and that is to love. St. Augustine said that whoever loves Jesus believes in Jesus. The question Jesus asks, and which is so central to Christian faith and identity, does not throw up denominational barriers between Christians and non-Christians as answers can do. Indeed by leading to the universal question, who am I?, his question positions him as one of the universal teachers of humanity and therefore as one in whom human beings can best find their unity with each other.