Consider the case of Jesus.\u00a0 He is not pestering the Pharisees to practice what he practices; rather, he is trying to stop them from imposing their thinking on everyone else.\u00a0 This is what fundamentalist love to do.\u00a0 They persuade themselves that they have \u201cGod\u2019s absolute point of view\u201d and that their mission is to bring everyone else into line with \u201ctheir God.\u201d\u00a0 In so doing, they become the Catholic Taliban and justify their \u201cmoral terrorism\u201d as somehow required by God himself.\u00a0 This is why Pope Francis calls them \u201cgodless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do the Pharisees stop pestering Jesus and concede that the disciples do have sufficient cause to override the Sabbath?\u00a0 We don\u2019t know, but probably not.\u00a0 In any case, the Evangelists do not tell us.\u00a0 But the Evangelists do go on to tell us that Jesus put forward a general norm: \u201cThe Sabbath was made for [the benefit of] humankind, not humankind [made] for the Sabbath\u201d (Mark 2:27 and par.).\u00a0 Thus, Jesus takes the stand that \u201cthe day of rest\u201d was designed by God as a blessing to relieve exhaustion from the six days of work.\u00a0 In Gen. 1, even God shows himself as resting follow the exertions of the six days of creation.\u00a0 Thus, according to this, God learned from his own experience how a day of rest could be beneficial.\u00a0 Hence, according to Jesus, every Jew was invited to free themselves of a wooden conformity with Sabbath regulations, especially when the welfare of suffering individuals was at stake.<\/p>\n
This has a bearing on our topic of homosexuality.\u00a0 How is it that Evangelical Fundamentalists are so quick to gather up texts condemning homosexual sex when they so easily dispense themselves from the Law of Moses that condemns anyone failing to keep the Sabbath rest with death by stoning (Exod. 31:14, 35:3; Deut. 5:13; Neh. 13:15-21)?\u00a0 Or, to take up again the argument of Matthew Vines: How can Evangelical Fundamentalists turn to those on their right hand and preach the good news of the Gospel to heterosexuals saying, \u201cGod solemnly promises you companionship and sexual intimacy when he says, \u2018It is not good<\/em> that the man<\/em> should be alone<\/em>; I will make him a helper fit for him\u2019\u201d(Gen. 2:18) and, then, to turn to their left and say to homosexuals, \u201cNone of this applies to you.\u00a0 God blocks his ears to your cries of loneliness, and he makes no provision for any sexual intimacy to gladden your hearts.\u00a0 You will go into your twilight years utterly alone and no one will care for you as you take you final breath\u201d?\u00a0 And if Jesus acted outside of the letter of the Mosaic Law when he was moved by compassion for the man with the withered arm and moved by compassion for his disciples stricken by hunger, would not this same Jesus rush to act outside of the Christian Code of Ethics in order to bring a speedy relief to those gays and lesbians pleading to have Christians recognize the legitimacy of their love and their desire for marriage?\u00a0 And should not the churches be the first (rather than the last) to recognize that God created the blessings of marriage for both the heterosexual and the homosexual alike?<\/p>\n Then another case of Sabbath fundamentalism is introduced:<\/p>\n In the earlier case, Mark makes it clear that Jesus was not accused for violating the Sabbath.\u00a0 Only his disciples were accused.\u00a0<\/strong> In this second case, Jesus stands alone as the healer and he alone is accused.\u00a0 This narrative presupposes that Jesus has already gained the reputation as a healer (Mark 1:39-2:12) and that his enemies acknowledged his power to heal but attributed it to Beelzebub (Mark 3:22).\u00a0 At one point, Jesus uses the metaphor of \u201cthe physician\u201d to describe his work (Mark 2:17).\u00a0 It cannot be that \u201cmagic words\u201d are used, since Jews distrusted magic and a magical healing would not constitute \u201cwork.\u201d\u00a0 The presumption of Jesus\u2019 accusers here must be that healing involved some manipulation of the arm or hand as a physician would do.\u00a0 Likewise, the term \u201cwithered\u201d does not have to imply a congenital deformity because the term \u201crestored\u201d implies that the hand was useless and Jesus restored its use.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Jerome, for instance, thought that the man was a mason who suffered an injury that put him out of work.\u00a0 Jesus restored his hand and restored his livelihood as well.\u00a0 It must also be noticed that if the restoration were very dramatic (bone and flesh are suddenly or gradually entirely transformed), the sheer power of the transformation would have caused awe and fear in Jesus\u2019 enemies because they would know that he could afflict a man just as well as heal a man.\u00a0 So the fact that they do not back away or shudder with amazement also indicates that Mark does not think of this event as frightening.\u00a0 The issue, after all, is whether Jesus would heal on the Sabbath.<\/p>\n Jesus turns on his critics by questioning them sternly: \u201cIs it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?\u201d (Mark 3:4 and par.) and again \u201cHave you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry?\u201d (Mark 2:25 and par.).\u00a0 In the end, he entirely dismisses the notion of \u201ctrue religion\u201d embraced by his critics. He ends up saying to them, \u201cThe Sabbath was made for [the benefit of] humankind, not humankind [made] for the Sabbath\u201d (Mark 2:27 and par.).\u00a0 Thus, Jesus takes the stand that \u201cthe day of rest\u201d was designed by God as a blessing to relieve exhaustion from the six days of work.\u00a0 In Gen. 1, God shows himself as resting following the exertions of the six days of creation.\u00a0 Thus, according to this, God learned from his own experience how a day of rest could be beneficial.\u00a0 Hence, according to Jesus, every Jew was invited to rid themselves of a wooden conformity with Sabbath regulations especially when the welfare of suffering individuals was at stake.<\/p>\n This has a bearing on our topic of homosexuality.\u00a0 How is it that Evangelical Fundamentalists are so quick to gather up texts condemning homosexual sex when they so easily dispense themselves from the Law of Moses that condemns anyone failing to keep the Sabbath rest with death by stoning (Exod. 31:14, 35:3; Deut. 5:13; Neh. 13:15-21)?\u00a0 Or, to take up again the argument of Matthew Vines: How can Evangelical Fundamentalists be so certain that God wants to extend to heterosexuals companionship and sexual intimacy when he said, \u201cIt is not good<\/em> that the man<\/em> should be alone<\/em>; I will make him a helper fit for him\u201d (Gen. 2:18) but, then, he turns around and says to the homosexual, “None of this applies to you.\u00a0 God blocks his ears to your cries of loneliness and he makes no provision for any sexual intimacy to gladden your lives\u201d?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n And if Jesus acted outside of the letter of the Mosaic Law when he was moved by compassion for the man with the withered arm and compassion for his disciples stricken by hunger, would not this same Jesus rush to act outside of the Christian Code of Ethics today in order to bring a speedy relief to those gays and lesbians pleading to have some small recognition of the legitimacy of their love and their desire for marriage<\/span>?\u00a0 And should not the churches be the first (rather than the last) to recognize that God created the blessings of marriage for both the heterosexual and the homosexual alike?<\/p>\n Last of all, we need to note that confronting fundamentalists is a dangerous affair.\u00a0 The Jewish fundamentalists take their complaints to the court of Herod, King of Galilee.\u00a0 According to the Synoptic Gospels, Herod had John the Baptist arrested on trumped-up charges.\u00a0 Because of his indiscretion on his birthday, Harod gets trapped into killing him even though \u201cHerod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him\u201d (Mark 6:20 and par.).\u00a0 Jesus could well be next on the list. . .<\/p>\n Many other texts in the Gospels demonstrate how Jesus even challenged certain bad habits on the part of his own disciples.\u00a0 Consider this:<\/p>\n An argument arose among them [the 12 disciples] as to which one of them was the greatest.\u00a0 But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n One can think here of how the churches argue among themselves as to which denomination is the greatest or which is the closest to God\u2019s heart.\u00a0 One can think here also of how Catholic fundamentalists dispute with each other as to what sexual ethics is most pleasing to God.\u00a0 And how about those Catholics who secretly pray in their hearts: \u201cThank you God for not creating me or any of my children as homosexuals\u201d?\u00a0 How does God respond to this prayer?<\/p>\n I and others will “thank you” for your contribution.\u00a0 If you are tempted to say more, I urge you to hold back.\u00a0 Your sense of safety and the safety of others is best protected by not getting overly wordy in the beginning.\u00a0<\/a> This will come after a few days or weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Endnotes and Leave a Reply~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [i]<\/a> Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on his Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 153.<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a> Used twice: http:\/\/prolife365.com\/those-awaiting-the-synod-to-redefine-the-churchs-dogmatic-teachings-on-marriage-will-be-greatly-disappointed\/<\/a> and\u00a0 http:\/\/prolife365.com\/problems-with-gay-marriage\/<\/a><\/p>\n3:1 Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. 3:2 they watched him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3:3 And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.\u201d\u00a0 3:4 Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 3:5 He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 3:6 The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. 3:7 Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him. (Mark 3:1-7)<\/h6>\n
Notice also that the healing in this narrative is not endangering the life of the man.\u00a0 Everyone would recognize the legitimacy for life-saving remedies on the Sabbath.\u00a0 In this case, therefore, Jesus uses this as a teaching lesson for the Pharisees.\u00a0 The issue is not that of doing a \u201cmiracle,\u201d since even a miracle would be presumed to be done with God\u2019s power and God is surely the Lord of the Sabbath.\u00a0 The words of Jesus as well make this clear: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?”\u00a0 Jesus is on target, here, when he gives them a black and white question.\u00a0 Do good or do evil?\u00a0 Save a life or destroy a life?\u00a0 If they say, the former, then Jesus has their approval and can go ahead without any fear that he and his adversaries are on the same page.\u00a0 If they choose the latter terms, then Jesus has them over the barrel because they will be unable to justify their choice from the Scriptures and will look silly in the minds of the people.\u00a0 So they are sullenly silent.<\/p>\n
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He looked around at them with anger<\/strong> (Mark 3:5).\u00a0 Most Christians only think of Jesus as flaring up in anger only when he drives the money-changers from the temple.\u00a0 But here he is livid with anger.\u00a0 This is how I feel when writing about Archbishop Schnurr, Father Kneib, and Father Coelho\u2014\u201cDon\u2019t you dare treat my Brothers and Sisters in this way!\u201d\u00a0 I want to scream at them.\u00a0 \u201cYou’re destroying people’s lives with your fundamentalist bullshit.\u00a0 Stop it!\u201d[ii]<\/a>\u00a0 Pure and unadulterated anger[iii]\u00a0<\/a>is sometime the only authentic response to the evil that fundamentalist do. . . .
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>How the Jewish Taliban was paralyzed by Jesus<\/h4>\n
How Jesus impacts events today<\/h4>\n
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Those who want to interact with this blog are invited to “Leave a Reply” below.\u00a0 A solid way to begin doing this is to offer “readback lines.”<\/span>\u00a0 To do this, quickly glace back over the entire blog and pick out the one or two lines that have made a deep impression upon you.\u00a0 Copy them [CTRL-C] and then paste them\u00a0[CTRL-V] into an empty comment box below.\u00a0 If you wish, signal the emotion that you feel when reading your readback lines.\u00a0 The primary emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise.\u00a0\u00a0 No need to further explain yourself.\u00a0 It is enough to identify the text important to you and to name the emotion(s) that it evokes.\u00a0 All of this normally takes less than a few minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n