And neither could they, which is why only a faint glimmer of the real man peeks out of the literary remains.
The New Testament is a box into which they stuffed the earnest Jewish boy who took himself a little too seriously and got himself killed. A nice neat little box where God can be kept and put safely on a shelf, where he no longer causes any embarrassment, or any trouble.
There are no authentic followers of Jesus today, just as there were none then.
Following, repentance, being a disciple, pick your favorite locution. They are all predicated on the imminent end of the world, without which there is no urgency:
to abandon customary human decency and let the dead bury the dead,
to subsume traditional family relationships under a wider set of mothers, sisters and brothers,
to say goodbye to everything that you own . . . without fanfare,
to risk making the members of your own household your enemies,
to preach so desperately quickly that Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
Even in the Passion Narrative, which retools him from the later perspective of a sacrifice for sins, the inadequacy of his followers "following" is yet remembered: They fall asleep while he is sweating bullets. More remarkably, the memory of the faith of the fanatic remains unshaken: You will see the son of man, he told his judges at his trial, coming on the clouds of glory.
Has anyone seen those clouds? Is life really different now?
Following, repentance, being a disciple, pick your favorite locution. They are all predicated on the imminent end of the world, without which there is no urgency:
to abandon customary human decency and let the dead bury the dead,
to subsume traditional family relationships under a wider set of mothers, sisters and brothers,
to say goodbye to everything that you own . . . without fanfare,
to risk making the members of your own household your enemies,
to preach so desperately quickly that Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
Even in the Passion Narrative, which retools him from the later perspective of a sacrifice for sins, the inadequacy of his followers "following" is yet remembered: They fall asleep while he is sweating bullets. More remarkably, the memory of the faith of the fanatic remains unshaken: You will see the son of man, he told his judges at his trial, coming on the clouds of glory.
Has anyone seen those clouds? Is life really different now?
Jesus died a singularity, he whose mighty criticism of his own religion managed to outlive his failed prediction of the consummation of everything. The moral force of that prophetic career, stretching back to Isaiah and the living God of the patriarchs, lives on still and inspires people everywhere, some of whom however wrongly imagine that it is a virtue to take themselves as seriously as he took himself.
Well, go right ahead. It's a free country . . . for a little while longer.
But while you do, consider that your hero, Paul, thought that one man dying for the sins of the people was quite enough, thank you very much. Instead, Paul would tell all you idealists out there something you don't want to hear. He'd tell you to live quietly, mind your own business, and maybe pick the weeds and mow the grass. Maybe lots of grass, just to keep you out of trouble.
But while you do, consider that your hero, Paul, thought that one man dying for the sins of the people was quite enough, thank you very much. Instead, Paul would tell all you idealists out there something you don't want to hear. He'd tell you to live quietly, mind your own business, and maybe pick the weeds and mow the grass. Maybe lots of grass, just to keep you out of trouble.
You'll understand when you're older, with a little luck, if you should live so long.
