Jesus at the Margins: Part 5- .45 Caliber Bread
Mar 15th, 2010 by John
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.” ‘
Jesus is here contrasting his kingdom of God method to his cousin’s John the Baptist’s way.
“The Son of Man came exegeting Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and correcting the doctrinal errors of the Pharisees, and all the other factions in Israel.”
Oh, I’m sorry. That’s the USAmerican evangelical approach to social change. “Preach the Word!” It’s too bad our Supreme Example didn’t use that approach.
Daily meals became Jesus’ “dangerous” method. He welcomed marginalized people to eat with him. They gladly did so at the cafe table called 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? Can’t you just imagine Jesus with squinted eyes staring down an upstart Pharisee and in a Clint Eastwood-like, raspy voice saying, “This here is a Zebulun 6″ diameter loaf of fresh-baked, butter-topped, .45 caliber wheat grain bread…and I don’t know how many bites are left. Feeling lucky, punk?”
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 reshape a nation’s vision of holiness?
I marvel at the Jesus Way: creating a national storm with bread, fish and wine, not with swords, F-16’s and bunker-busters.
“As oft’ as you quote this verse and preach this Bible text and argue stringently for justification by faith alone, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” How does that verse go again?
We have changed from the Jesus Way.
People at the margins might not be able to follow our fine, finessed, exegetically precise, “inner logic” trails to getting right with God, but they sure do know how to eat. And they’ll eat with Jesus when he invites them. It was the spiffy, religious know-it-alls who were “too good” to mix with the dusty riff-raff. “Why do you eat food with unclean hands? Why do you eat food with homosexuals, terrorists, racy women and social rejects? God just wouldn’t eat with people like that.”
Jesus of Nazareth, gritty as he was, was and is and will forever be God.
Here’s the clincher. Some of you will have to bite your tongue. There’s no record that they had “to repent” to eat at Jesus’ table. The fact that they came–tax-collectors, prostitutes, lame, blind, diseased–and ate and enjoyed Jesus’ welcome was repentance enough.
Now, I didn’t say that they didn’t ever change, did I? I said there’s no evidence that they had to change before they came to the table. There’s a word that is really loved and lived by those in the margins. It’s the word grace. Grace. Embracing Grace.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Great point, John, and way of getting it across. We need it!
Timely article for me. I just had a facebook chat with my niece who told me, despite being an atheist in the past, she is re-thinking her beliefs. I told her that everyone is either moving toward or away from God. Faith isn’t an elitist club that you are either “in” or “out.” Instead of seeing faith as either having the right or wrong understandings, it is really about a relationship.
She thanked me and said she found it helpful to conceptualize her journey that way.
Thanks for another reminder, John.
Kerry
Loved this post and the Jesus is the way post. Like your other readers I was just reading something that reminded me of your post too–apologetics!! The apology was for the existence of God, but he never mentioned Christ at all. Jesus Chris is God revealed to us but when Christians go in for apologetics he gets shunted to the side. We love to quote Paul but ignore the Gospels, we rationally deduce God, but ignore Christ. Thanks for provocative and grace filled post.
This is a post I very much enjoyed … great insights and great lessons for MY life to be found.
there is no doubt: yeshua choosing to eat and drink with ‘these’ people resulted in the subversive agenda to turn the temple cult upside down and inside out, no matter how intentional or unintentional that was (for the son of man came to seek and save…).
great series of posts, here.
on a sidebar: question: why do you think, perhaps largely speculative, that yeshua chose only the sons of zebedee (for example) and not the father? i mean, would he just not have followed? or is there more to that? and i realize this is not an all-important question, haha, but what do you think, john?