Jesus' oddities
I need to examine here some rather odd or
disturbing events reported in the Gospels, events that
do not seem to fit with the rest. As these texts could be
used to attack the scheme I am trying to put forward, it
is rather important to examine them carefully.
1. Did Jesus try to obscure His message?
The use of parables
Here is a saying of Jesus that does not seem to
make any sense. It is found in some form in all four Gospels,
but it reaches its most complete and clear form in Matthew.
It is this version that I will examine. I have cut the
text in question in two parts, starting with:
And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest
thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them,
Because it is given
unto you to know the mysteries of the
kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever
hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more
abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be
taken away even that he hath.1
What is a parable? The Greek term «parabolè»
(παραβολη)
means «comparison», «bringing together», «similarity»,
«relation with» and from there «parable», «allegorical
discourse». It is used to take an often hard and dry
concept, remote from people's experience, and put it in
a vivid, familiar context so that it is easier to
understand. It is thus an effective teaching method,
a way to make understanding of things unknown easier
by drawing comparisons with things that are familiar.
From what I have said you can guess that I
find parables to be a way to increase understanding
for all rather than a way to disguise meaning, so that
only the initiated can understand. But this is what it
seems that Jesus is saying in the above text! What
follows can reinforce this interpretation:
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they
seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither
do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the
prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall
hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall
see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart
is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and should understand with their heart, and
should be converted, and I should
heal them.2
This text can be understood as meaning
that Jesus does not want some people to understand,
perceive, turn their lives around and thus be healed
by Him! And this is why He is talking in parables,
a kind of code understood only by the initiated!
I cannot accept that Jesus seriously meant that.
I think He is poking fun at His disciples, who
think of themselves as the select few, the ones who
really belong to Jesus' group! For them, they are
the only real followers; all others are amateurs
who do not really take Jesus' words seriously and
thus are going nowhere.
That the disciples believed that there was such a
distinction between themselves and others is made
clear over and over. They did not want anyone else
to make miracles in Jesus' name, nor to teach in
Jesus' name and again and again make it clear that
they are expecting some special and great reward for
their participation in His group.
My first reason for thinking that Jesus is not serious
about this - nor the writers of the Gospels, I must add -
is the following argument:
1) There are countless
parables in the Gospels while only two are «explained»
by Jesus and none by the writers themselves;
2)
the Gospel writers surely considered that their job
was to provide their readers with the most complete
understanding possible.
3) From this and the fact that nearly all Jesus'
parables are not «explained»
4) it follows that no one among the writers and
Jesus really thought it necessary to «explain» the
others.
The second reason is found in the
reading of part of Mark's account of the same incident -
used to bring in the explanation of a different parable -.
After the «I talk in code so that they do not change their
ways and get forgiven» routine already looked at, we have
Jesus adding something rather significant:
That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing
they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time
they should be converted, and their sins should be
forgiven them. And he said unto them,
Know ye not
this parable? and how then will ye know
all parables?3
Jesus is teasing His select few, the ones who
make up His «inner circle» by telling them:
«Are you telling me that you do not understand a thing
of what I have been teaching you? You, whom I Myself
selected, are you also «out of it»? Do I have to do
all the work, all the thinking, for you too?»
This last point brings me to my third reason. What
Jesus is trying to do is to teach people. A job I can
assure you is not easy to do now and was not then either.
The problem with teaching is the following: the teacher
cannot do all the work; the one who is supposedly
interested in learning has actually to put some effort
into it. Just hearing (assuming that there is not too
much extraneous noise happening while the teaching is
going on) is not sufficient. As Isaiah himself says,
hearing is not enough, it has to be followed by
understanding.
And that requires work on the part of the listener.
That work is in many parts: first she must make sure
to remember all the elements of the message; second,
she must put it in her own words to make sure nothing
is missed, third she has to check for herself its
validity by examining it in various circumstances
and then relating it to her life. By then and only
then, has she understood the message. No wonder so
few are!
Understanding a message is like playing a piano:
one does not learn a piece of music by looking at
someone else playing it wonderfully (hearing someone's
well-thought message) but by actually sitting down
to play it oneself; note by note, working on the technique
required and looking at it as a whole to figure out how
to play it «right». So learning - understanding - requires
work and stamina. And that is possible only if there is
sustained interest and incentive. This is basically the
analysis that Jesus makes in the parable of the Sower as
we have already seen. So it is hardly surprising that
Mark has placed his text on this subject between the
parable just mentioned and Jesus' interpretation.
The Isaiah passage already quoted definitely can be
understood to support this interpretation. It can mean:
«if people took the time to understand what I am saying
instead of just listening inattentively, they could
absorb the message, make it theirs, and so have to change,
a change that would bring them healing. But that is
a lot of hard work, and they do not have the time nor
the interest to change.»
This is as valid an
interpretation of the Isaiah quote as the previous one.
But is it what Jesus said just before? No. But was it
said in jest, as I suggest for the reasons I have
previously given? This is what has to be answered.
We know that again and again Jesus said «For the
Son of man is come to save that which
was lost.»4.
This statement is totally inconsistent with the other;
so one of them has to be taken in jest.
As using
a parable is obviously to make things easier to understand,
the whole of Jesus' statement is good humoured nonsense,
just making fun of His apostles for being so hard of
understanding. After all, they are saying to Him:
«Why do you use parables? We don't understand them!»
It is like saying «Why do you give examples? We don't
get them!» The teaching aids even are too much for
them! So He uses irony rather than scorn and contempt
like some teachers would under the same circumstances
(Where are the dunce caps?).
2. Jesus' treatment of the Canaan woman
The cases that will be examined now can
all be construed as violence, verbal or physical.
In the following Jesus seems to be guilty of nothing
less than racism!
There are three instances where
Jesus is faced with goyim. In each case, it is obvious
that such contacts were not the done thing. In one case
(though in Luke's version only), we have some Jews
begging Jesus to help a Roman Centurion because
he has been their benefactor;5
in another case, a Samaritan woman is very surprised
when Jesus talks to her.6
Then we have the only text which definitely can seem
to be racist:
And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same
coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me,
O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously
vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word.
And his disciples came and besought him, saying,
Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he
answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and
worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he
answered and said, It is not meet to take the
children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she
said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs
which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus
answered and said unto her, O woman, great is
thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And
her daughter was made whole from that
very hour.7
Here we find a Canaanite woman begging for Jesus to cure her
daughter and He refuses even to acknowledge her
existence! After being bugged by His disciples,
Jesus tells them that He will not take any notice
of this woman's plea because she is a Canaanite!
He states that He is not sent to anyone but «the
lost sheep of the house of Israel». This smacks
of racism, pure and simple: Jews only may apply.
The woman is not the kind to give up; she knows He
can cure her daughter and she intends to see that He
does. She begs for help, kneeling in front of Him.
He answers by another racist remark: He cannot give
to dogs what belongs to the children of Israel!
She still does not give up: she answers Him back
that although this is true, dogs do get to «eat
of the crumbs which fall from their master's table».
This repartee has the better of Jesus: acknowledging
how great is her faith in Him, He grants her the
cure of her daughter. He then remarks that foreigners
have greater faith in Him than His own people, as
He did in the case of the
Roman centurion.8
The problem is we just do not know if any of this
was said in jest; we have no record of Jesus' body
language at the time of the event. But we do know
that He did put another woman on the spot. An
haemorrhaging woman believed that she would be
cured if she could only touch His garment. She
did so while He was being pressed from all sides
in a crowd and was cured instantly just as she
believed.9
But Jesus turned around «and said, Who touched my
clothes?»10
putting the woman in a pickle. Perhaps He sounded
somewhat angry for the reaction of the woman was
«But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what
was done in her, came and fell down before him, and
told him all the truth.»11
We know that He «said unto her, Daughter, thy faith
hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of
thy plague.»12
Obviously the way this incident goes,
it does seem that Jesus teased this poor woman by
putting her on the spot. The good nature of His
last words shows that He was not really angry and
offended by what she did. If anything, He just
enjoyed making public her faith and its effect.
To go back to the case of the Canaanite woman, we
know that Jesus did acknowledge the existence of a
Samaritan woman by starting a conversation with her.
He then spent a for a couple of days in the Samaritan
town of Sychar.13
So He could not have been such a racist as He seems
to be in the case of the Canaanite woman.
I believe that He could see from the beginning that
this Canaanite woman was going to be a tough cookie,
someone who was determined to get what she came for.
After all, it was not done for members of these two
ethnic groups to mingle nor for women to start a
conversation with strangers. She did so because
she really believed that He could cure her daughter
if He wanted to. And He was going to want to, she
would make sure of that! So Jesus knew He could
tease her and at the same time teach His apostles
the lesson that salvation was also for the goyim
even if they were just to get the «crumbs» of His
time as He was there first and foremost for His people.
3. Jesus' violence against the Temple merchants
and a fig tree
I have said that Jesus lived His life
according to the principle of non-violence. Some
could say that He used verbal violence in some
of the cases we have already seen. But there is
also two cases of physical violence, one reported
by three of the Gospels, the other, by two.
In every account the two incidents took place shortly
after Jesus' arrival to celebrate the Passover in
Jerusalem. Matthew says it happened on the day
of His arrival while Mark puts it on the next day.
John does not specify on what day of His stay.
In each case, it is clearly stated that Jesus used
violence against people minding their own business
in the Temple precinct in Jerusalem. Matthew's
version of the event is the following:
And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out
all them that sold and bought in the temple, and
overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the
seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them,
It is written, My
house shall be called the house
of prayer; but ye have made it a den
of thieves.14
while Mark's is:
And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into
the temple, and began to cast out them that sold
and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables
of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that
sold doves; And would not suffer that any man should
carry any vessel through the temple. And he taught,
saying unto them, Is it not written, My house
shall be called of all nations the house of prayer?
but ye have made it a den of
thieves.15
and finally John's is:
And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went
up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that
sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of
money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of
small cords, he drove them all out of the temple,
and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the
changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said
unto them that sold doves,
Take these things hence;
make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
And his disciples remembered that it was written,
The zeal of thine house hath eaten
me up.16
So we have Jesus taking the law into
His own hand. According to John, He even used a
whip that He made out of ropes to drive businessmen
out of the Temple precinct! According to all three
sources, He expelled all those that sold and bought
in the Temple precinct. He overthrew the tables used
by the moneychangers with their contents.
This is breaking the peace; if He did so today,
He would be arrested and charged with a criminal
offence. It is difficult to know if anyone was
injured, but this is not reported. I would think
not as the Temple police did not pursue the matter
further: He was sent off with a reprimand.
Let this be very clear: the merchants there were
basically providing the pilgrims with the various
animals required as Temple sacrifice to God
according to the Torah. The moneychangers
were changing the pilgrims' foreign currency into
local one so they could buy those animals required
as sacrifice by the Torah. These services were
there because they were needed to fulfil the
Torah! Was not Jesus just in a foul mood
that day? What was all the fuss about?
This event happened, if one goes according to John,
on Jesus' first trip with His disciples to Jerusalem
for the Passover. It does not seem to have been repeated.
In fact, the Temple authorities could not have put
up with this kind of behaviour day after day. So it
seems that this was just a one time event. Jesus
wanted to make a point, and it only needed one
outburst on His part to make it.
The point He wanted to make is in fact three-fold:
«make not my Father's house an house of merchandise».
From that we can see that
1) He disapproves
of the commercialization of the Temple
2) which
for Him should just be a place reserved for prayer;
3) He has a say in all this because this Temple
is His Father's.
Of course the Temple authorities challenged Him.
And, from what we know, He did not push people
around again.
So we could say in His defence
that He just wanted to make a point in a way that
people would notice; and causing a commotion
definitely is such a way. We could also add that
nobody was reported injured in the process;
nobody really lost anything by it. Perhaps, but
this is still breaking the peace. So this is very
much at the limit of what is acceptable for someone
who preaches non-violence.
The second event, found in Mark's and Matthew's,
happens basically within 24 hours of the other.
So it occurs in the Spring, just before Passover.
In Mark's account, we have:
[12] And on the morrow, when they were come from
Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar
off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find
any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found
nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat
fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard
it... [19] And when even was come, he went out
of the city. And in the morning, as they passed by,
they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And
Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master,
behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered
away.17
while in Matthew we have:
Now in the morning as he returned into the city,
he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way,
he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves
only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee
henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree
withered away. And when the disciples saw it, they
marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig
tree withered away!18
Jesus is here responsible for the death of a
fig tree. This is an act of violence against His creation.
And this is an act of violence against a tree that was
following the laws of nature, the laws that govern the
growth of plants according to the seasons, laws that He,
as creator, was responsible for! Mark makes it crystal
clear: Jesus is looking for fruit in the Spring from
a tree that does not produce figs fit for picking until
later! Jesus is being totally unreasonable. Although
the two Gospel accounts are slightly different as to
when exactly the tree withered away, they both agree
that it was
1) after Jesus told it that it would
never again produce fruit and
2) that Jesus said
that because He had found it without figs in the
Spring!
Some will explain Jesus' unreasonableness by the
verses that follow, which are, in Matthew's account:
Jesus answered and said unto them,
Verily I say unto
you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not
only do this which is done to the fig tree, but
also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall
be done. And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask
in prayer, believing, ye shall
receive.19
The argument would go thus: Jesus
gave to His disciples an example of the power
of faith. Someone who has enough faith can even
move a mountain and cast it into the sea! Now I
find all this bizarre. Neither Jesus nor anyone
else started redrawing the geography of Palestine!
So this example seems a little odd. Furthermore,
many have tossed themselves out of a window in the
firm belief that they would fly only to fall to their
death; so I am not very convinced by such a statement.
Of course, someone could argue that if the would-be
flier really had faith, he would have flown and so,
the fact that he fell shows that he did not. The
problem with this is that it makes the statement
irrefutable, and so I cannot accept it as useful.
A statement, to be of value, must be of the kind
that one can check to see if it is true or false.
It seems to me that a better example
of the power of faith would have been for Jesus to
make the fig tree laden with ready to pick figs
instead of cursing it! After all, He changed water
into wine; He fed the multitude; He could have
just as easily hastened the process by which the
fig tree produces its fruit so that it would have
been ready to harvest in the Spring. And this
feat would have been in favour of life and not death.
There is something else which is puzzling in this
whole incident. This is the only recorded case of
Jesus trying to get something for Himself
(figs to appease His hunger) and when He does not
succeed, He says : «If I can't get some now, no
one else will, not even in season!» Is this not perplexing?
One of the temptations Jesus went through at the
beginning of His ministry was to change stones
into bread to feed Himself.20
He had then refused to do so; He was to live of
God's message, which consists in putting others
before self. Jesus helps others, not Himself.
What point was Jesus really trying to convey to
His disciples in doing what He did? What does His
unreasonableness mean? In Matthew, this event
takes place the day after the incident in the
Temple; in Mark, the cursing takes place on the
way to the Temple and thus just before it and the
result is noticed only on the way back, just after
it. Are both events meant to be understood together?
Is there something basically unreasonable
in Jesus' demands? In one case, He is upset by and
causes a commotion about the normal cultic way of
life found in the Temple precincts (that is, outside
the Temple proper where only priests can go); in
the other, He is upset by and causes the death of
a fruit tree because it does not produce fruits
out of season. In both cases, He is demanding a
revolution of the way life is.
In the set-up of the Temple with its animal
sacrifices, what else could pilgrims do but
to buy local animals to offer God? They could
not bring a goat from Alexandria or Athens! How
could they offer such a sacrifice - as they were
called to do by the Law - if they could not
change their money into local currency? In the
case of the fig tree, what could it do but
follow the laws of nature? Jesus seems to be
saying that all this is not good enough; the
Temple should be for prayer, not animal sacrifices;
the effect of the prayers at the Temple should be
such as to change its environment, make the
surrounding creation constantly fruitful.
Perhaps what Jesus was trying to convey was that
what God wants is actions out of character, out of
this world order symbolized by the religious rituals
of the Temple and the unfolding of the seasons. A
new way of life has to come to be, one that would
superseed the present world order, that would wither
and die like that fig tree. Fruit trees in this
new way of life would be always fruitful and so
would humans. Always giving to others, always children
of God Father.21
Whether this is absolutely convincing or not,
there are very few cases where Jesus can be said
to be violent. Killing a tree is the worst case
mentioned. The business people at the Temple did
not really get hurt and His protest did not reoccur.
It does seem to me that it is fair to say that
Jesus lived and preached non violence. I also think
that my explanation of the Canaanite woman's case
is acceptable. All this would mean that what I
called Jesus' «oddities» would not contradict
my assertions about Jesus' love for all and sundry.
1 Matthew 13:10-12
2 Matthew 13:13-15
3 Mark 4:12-13
4 Matthew 18:11
5 Luke 7:1-10
6 John 4:9
7 Matthew 15:22-28
8 Matthew 8:5-10
9 Mark 5:25-29
10 Mark 5:30
11 Mark 5:33
12Mark 5:34
13 John 4:4-42
14 Matthew 21:12-13
15 Mark 11:15-17
16 John 2:13-17
17 Mark 11:11-14;19-21
18 Matthew 21:18-20
19 Matthew 21:12-22
20 «Then was Jesus led up
of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days
and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If
thou be the Son of God, command that these stones
be made bread. But he answered and said, It is
written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God.» (Matthew 4:1-4)
21 I am indebted to Alain (Émile Chartier)
for this interpretation, found in his essay
«La Parabole du Figuier» published in «Essais»,
the first book of his collection of essays found
in the «Bibliothèque de la Pléiade», Gallimard, Paris.
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Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, June 6th, 2004
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