Great thoughts from Scot McKnight, a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.
Pastors are fascinated by the life of the Good Shepherd. I have been ruminating about Jesus’ life with the marginalized of 1st century Judaism. I am going to ponder in print some of my thoughts. The more we appreciate Jesus’ life and ministry as a 1st century Jewish man, the more relevant Jesus is to us. The more Jesus becomes a timeless theological construct for all people in all times and all places, the more useless he becomes. Let the one who wants to discern, discern.
We often think that Jesus left his suburban bungalow on the green hillside of Galilee and went into the big city and sought out the disadvantaged. How good of Jesus to condescend and go to the marginalized, the outcasts, the rejects, the down-trodden. What a model of servant-leadership. Yet, wait a minute. Jesus, himself, was born into and lived in the shadowy margins of his society. He was the ultimate outcast, the “sinner.” Jesus was the man with disreputable beginnings, unholy (read illegal) practices, and disgusting death.
Good news: Jesus changed the margins. He dared to draw new lines of acceptance with God the Father. Jesus paradoxically made being marginal central…
…Jesus said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners'”…
Daily meals became Jesus’ dangerous method. He welcomed marginalized people to eat with him. They gladly did so at the cafe table set in The Kingdom of God. They laughed and swapped stories and had a rousing good time. Jesus’ disciples had numerous side conversations with the cultural-culinary-religious police about “Why does your master welcome and eat with these kind of people?” Talk about meal-time excitement!
Whoever thought that bread could be a weapon for change? Imagine with me. Jesus with squinting eyes stares down an upstart Pharisee and in a Clint Eastwood-like, raspy voice says, “Listen. This here is a Zebulun 6″ diameter loaf of fresh-baked, crusted-topped, four grain but mostly wheat bread. I don’t know how many bites are left. Are you feeling lucky, Punkisee?”
Whoever thought an ordinary table of people could be the place where heaven and earth meet? Whoever thought that eating together with the most unsavory of friends would challenge and reshape a nation’s vision of holiness? I marvel at the Jesus Way: creating a national storm with bread, fish and wine…