Slip-sliding away: Jesus at Nazareth

 Slip-sliding away: Jesus at Nazareth  

We often go to church early, because it’s good to get one’s religious obligations out of the way – early in the week and early in the day.

     We thought we were going to hear the narrow man. (See here . . . and here.) But it was someone considerably wider (both of body and mind) with an interesting take on Luke 4, at least I thought so. (Meaning: what follows is my take on his, if I understood it correctly.)

You know the story.

     Some time after being tempted in the wilderness, Jesus finds himself back in Galilee, teaching in synagogues – he’s a rabbi now – and it’s going pretty well. Then, he comes to Nazareth, his home town, the synagogue there. He reads from Isaiah, about the year of the Jubilee, which was to come every 49 years but never came at all. And he says, “Today! Today this scripture is being fulfilled.”

     He speaks well, and people are thinking well of him, when someone prods someone else and asks, “Joseph’s son, right?”

     “Yes, but did you hear what he did at Capurnaum?

And as if he’s overheard them, Jesus says, “I know you’ve heard what I did at Capurnaum, but I won’t be doing that here – no prophet could in his own country.” And he cites the cases of Elijah and Elisha, how Elijah took care of a widow from Sidon not any of the widows of Israel and how Elisha didn’t cleanse any local lepers but a Syrian.

     I’ve never been quite sure what Jesus’ point was, but the wider man with a bit of a smile asked it couldn’t describe the way we tend to see God’s grace, which falls on the unjust and the just alike, sometimes here and sometimes there and not necessarily where you want it to – on you! That’s why the people get riled up – the other guy is getting their grace. Of course, this is “just the first time of many,” the wide man chuckled and shook his head. It will turn out that “People will always getting riled up at Jesus, because he’s always saying stuff that riles people up. ‘Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile. Pull out your eye, if you’re looking at the wrong man or woman. Sell all you have.’”

     Actually, if we’re paying attention to what Jesus is saying, we’ll find that the Nazarenes is us, when they rise up to put Jesus out of the city. Thank God that unlike us they didn’t have guns and the right to use them; they could only push him down a hill.

     But they can’t even do that. Somehow he passes “through the midst of them” and goes on his way. Thank God for that, too, the wider man said, smiling again – at the Nazarenes and at us and at good old Jesus - even when we’re ready to push him down the hill, or even take a shot at the crazy bastard*, he’s passing through the midst of us.

That's what the preacher said, or something like that.

At any rate, he’s with us and not seeking to be above us. He isn’t running for governor. Thank God for that, as well. (Saw this on the way home.)

01.31.16

___________

* He didn’t say “bastard”; I did. But I’m not the first by a long shot: see the same story in Mark’s gospel, chapter 6, verse 3.

Meletus of Athens - Take 2

 hē lupē– a recently discovered fragment of Meletus of Athens                      

Meletus of Athens today.

Plato pretends to have been there when Socrates was put on trial. He was not but home in his closet. I was there, as he knows, but I did not respond to Socrates’ questions, as Plato would have it; he responded to mine, which I was given permission to ask, though Socrates continued to beg throughout his apologia not to be interrupted. Socrates is like that; while he loves to interrupt others, he hates to be interrupted himself.

   He was going on again, as he had many times before, about the oracle at Delphi, how the impetuous Chaerephon went there to ask if there were anyone wiser than he, that is Socrates. The oracle, Socrates is always saying Chaerephon told him, said no; there was no man wiser than Socrates. Socrates went on to claim that he could not believe that without proof, though I can tell you he believed it very well. He set out, he said, to find a man wiser than he was, but he could not. Everyone that thought himself wise Socrates discovered was not – and he was quick to point it out.

   Naturally, he made enemies, as he himself admitted: “I was not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, so you will wonder why I continued to provoke it. The word of the god” – meaning Apollo – “laid it upon me.”

   It was at this point that I interrupted, saying to the court: “I know Socrates has asked not to be interrupted, because he hates to be interrupted when he is speaking, as we all do. But as he does not hesitate to interrupt others – and misinterpret their words. Perhaps, then, I might ‘intervene,’ but only briefly; and I will not try to twist what he has to say.”

   Having been given permission, I asked Socrates: “You say that the oracle said, ‘There is no man wiser than Socrates,’ and you have taken that to mean you (not another Socrates). Let us grant that. Why would the oracle speak falsely? It would not, would it?”

   “No.”

   “Now if the oracle spoke truly, would the truth or falsehood of what it said have to be proved? It would not, would it?”

   “No.”

   “Now, Chaerephon did not ask, did he, ‘Is there any man more irritating than Socrates?’ And the oracle did not answer, ‘Yes, there is’”?’”

   “No.”

At this point, I saw Lycon raise his hand, meaning that a messenger had come to say that Phyllis was on her way, so I told the court that was all: “I asked to interrupt ‘briefly’; I do not wish to make a long summation, as Socrates likes to do,” I said, “putting together many fancy words and calling them plain. The truth here is plain. Socrates does not truly believe the words of the gods are true; or he believes in the gods only as long as he can twist their words to justify his behavior, which has not to do with truth but being what he wants to be, ‘a gadfly,’ irritating, as he has said many times.” And I left for lunch and did not come back.

   So, this is both true and irritating to Plato, Socrates never did question me.

01.28.16

 

Much to the relief of all, I stop screwing with the future.

 Much to the relief of all, I stop screwing with the future. 

As the great American philosopher once wrote and his echo sang, “Time keeps slipping into the future.” Or, as I wrote more recently, “Life goes on. It’s one of its enduring characteristics.”  “Enduring,” I wrote, not “endearing,” because in truth we hate that, that life keeps going wherever it’s slipping off to. We want to freeze the future. Then,

It can go on as we are going on right now, and our understandings of the past don’t need to change and we don’t either. OR,

It can become what we want it to become. The past will cease, and sheep will forever be sheep and goats will be burned to a crisp. Our friends will get what they deserve (up to a point, so long as they don’t get any more than we deserve); and our enemies will be drowned in a vat of flaming, boiling shit. No one less than God* will see to this.

The world will get cooler instead of warmer.

This is the last I have to say on this matter,** as it is increasingly clear, I am told, that I don’t know what I am talking about (though it doesn't necessarily follow that what I have been saying isn’t true).

01.25.16

 **   at present

Batman and Robin walk into an intimaterie . . .

          I am the editor, I know that; but about my relationship with Hamlin Moody,
     see here, here, and here. "I have been reading the blog," he said, when I saw him 
     on Sunday. I was leaving church; he was driving by and stopped. "I've been read-
     ing the blog, and it needs livening up. Preferably with something someone that didn't 
     go to whatever fancy college you went to can understand and appreciate. I'd like to 
     write something."
          I knew better, but unaccountably, I said, "Okay," and when this came in, I knew 
     better, but I couldn't retract that. "I can make a picture, too," he said, and he did.
     I am directly responsible only for the picture caption and the headline. ("Your
     cravenness?" my better angel leans over my shoulder and whispers at my ear.)
          Hamlin claims he overheard this story he just dropped off on a flash-drive at the
     grocery store, standing in the checkout line with a bag of dog food. There's a big 
     snow coming tomorrow.
          Today though it's supposed to get up near forty. Maybe we could play a few 
     holes of golf late. He could get off at four. If it was above thirty-five . . . ? I couldn't 
     say "no" to that either. Penance for this - think of it that way.

  Batman and Robin walk into an intimaterie . . .   

 

A.M. Intimaterie Archives
(Ektachrome slide by Peri)

“Holy Fexpletive Deleted, Batman!” Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne found themselves – unaccountably! – in a cat house with the various women that had played Catwoman – Julie Newmar, Hallie Berry, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ashley Madison (actually look-alikes), all naked and waiting. Dick and Bruce were naked, too. One of the rules of the house was that “johns” undressed at the door. Of course, they were allowed to retain any masks. But “Julie” recognized Bruce by an appendix scar. (They went to high school together, and . . . .)

     Thus the secret identities of the dynamic duo were unwittingly - and unknowingly to them – revealed. Fortunately a cat house is like a confessional. Prostitutes are like priests. Sort of.

- Hamlin Moody

  01.21.16