Like complex chemical compounds, our lives are a collective of a myriad of multiplicities. We are influenced by so many people—known and not—and are connected in ways we can’t even fathom.
I couldn’t begin to list those who’ve had the most dramatic impact on me, but if I tried, the names would include, family and friends, thinkers and writers, artists and philosophers, theologians, and psychologists, but no single figure has been more influential than Jesus—not the Christ of Christianity nearly so much as the radical, marginal rabbi executed by Rome as a political prisoner. And though Christmas has far too little to do with this man, I’m using the mass’s belief that it does to share with you some great books about history’s most magnificent, magical, and misunderstood man.
Most people seem to associate Jesus with Christmas and Easter—and why wouldn’t they? These holidays are those the religion that rose around him emphasize most—a baby and a deity. But these are ways, tragically, of silencing or at least minimizing this beautiful poet of the poor, this embodiment of God’s love, this subtle subversive storyteller who challenges everyone and scares the hell out of the powerful—the moneyed, comfortable establishment of religion, politics, and culture.
What’s lost in the cuddley little baby Jesus in the manger and the resurrected all-powerful God-Jesus that insecure and power-hungry people build kingdoms and go to war for is the poor, peasant who taught that the we are most like God when we are compassionate, that the poor are our responsibility, that compassion in public is justice, that sexism and racism and religious intolerance is truly evil, that no one should ever, ever judge.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. . . . Do not judge and you will not be judged. . . . The least among you is the greatest. . . . To find your life, you must lose it. . . . To live you must die. . . . Pray in secret. . . . Give to the poor without anyone ever knowing. . . . Do not store up for yourselves treasures. . . . If you see someone in need, give them what you have.”
The religion of Jesus’ day often repeated the saying, “Be holy as God is holy.” Jesus taught and lived and said, “Be compassionate as God is compassionate.”
Jesus’ gospel or “good news” is that we are loved so thoroughly and completely we can rest into it and be free and loving, our security, our trust in it putting an end to our fear, anxiety, despair, and pettiness.
Through masterful, insightful, profoundly true stories, Jesus railed against the oppression of the poor by the rich and powerful, the racism, fear, selfishness, and lack of love that divides us from one another and keeps us from being the people God created us to be. The messages and meanings of his stories have been largely lost through domestication and the religious agendas of those who teach them, but they are radical and powerful and persuasive.
Jesus taught that God is like a loving mother and father—who loves us no matter what (the parable of the prodigal son). God’s love is perfect and unconditional. God couldn’t love us any more than she does already, and there’s nothing we can do to make him love us any less. God so unconditionally loves and accepts us we should love one another the same way. Love trumps all. The hero of the parable of the Good Samaritan doesn’t believe the “right” things, doesn’t worship the “right” way, is racially mixed and religiously and morally compromised, yet acts compassionately and, is therefore, far more like God than those who believe the “right” things and appear to be pious.
It was through Jesus that I first gained enlightenment as a teenage boy, and it is through him I continue to see the way. Many people worship Jesus, but I attempt to follow him. He is not so much the light I gaze upon adoringly, but the light by which I see and perceive the world, the way to live—justly, creatively, compassionately.
There are so many truly brilliant books about Jesus, but I only have room here to tell you about one, published recently, and list a few others. I’ve chosen these because they are easy to read, accessible, and not overly academic.
“Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus” is by Robin R. Meyers, pastor of Mayflower Congregational, a professor, a columnist, and a commentator. Here’s a bit about his book from the dust jacket:
Countless thoughtful people are now so disgusted with the marriage of bad theology and hypocritical behavior by the church that a new Reformation is required in which the purpose of religion itself is reimagined.
Meyers takes the best of biblical scholarship and recasts these core Christian concepts to exhort the church to pursue an alternative vision of the Christian life:
• Jesus as Teacher, not Savior
• Christianity as Compassion, not Condemnation
• Prosperity as Dangerous, not Divine
• Discipleship as Obedience, not Control
• Religion as Relationship, not Righteousness
This is not a call to the church to move to the far left or to try something brand new. Rather, it is the recovery of something very old. “Saving Jesus from the Church” shows us what it means to be a Christian and how to follow Jesus’ teachings today.
If you respond to Meyers book, here are a few others you should read: “Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time” by Marcus J. Borg, “The Essential Jesus” by John Dominic Crossan, “The Gospel of Jesus” by James M. Robinson, “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Phillip Yancey, “Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography” by John Dominic Crossan.
These books are based on sound scholarship, are thoughtful, and well written. If you come to them with an open heart and mind you will find much to inform and inspire.
This Christmas, give yourself and those on your list some great books about Jesus. I can think of no better gift than the gift of knowledge, enlightenment, light, and love.
Merry Christmas everyone and to all a good night of reading!
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