Between the Stone Age and the 21st Century, where do the New Testament characters fit in?
These people seem incomprehensible. How could they not provide a physical description of Jesus?
Even Luke, after going over the whole story, through all the written accounts, didn’t. If only Theophilus would have said, “Be sure to include exactly what Jesus looked like– hair, eye color, nose, chin, all that.”
Instead, we have the bizarre world of renderings of Jesus we could call “Jesus Classic,” “Radical Jesus,” “Ethnic Jesus,” “Hippie Jesus.” There’s probably a Wall Street Jesus bobblehead out there. He could have been bald, and we can’t be sure John didn’t say, “Nobody cares about that stuff.”
I routinely wonder, what did the New Testament folk wear? How did they live? What did they eat?
Paul was a tent maker, he says. So he was like an REI employee? That doesn’t seem right.
James and John, Andrew and Peter: fishermen. How big were their boats? What kind of fish did they catch? Did they have a little shop where they shouted chants and threw fish to each other to the delight of the ladies? Doubt it.
The obvious facts of their lives are mysterious. Even more so, their writing.
Yet, theologians tell us how each of the four Gospels was carefully crafted for particular audiences with particular approaches to Judaism and religion that the writers had to work within so that the Gospel would be favorably received.
We have to figure, these were sophisticated people who could walk into our houses and, tidied up and given the right clothes, they’d have the computer booted up, heat up food in the microwave and be right at home, driving our minivans on the freeway, stereos blaring hip-hop, in no time.
Today’s Sunday readings include an excerpt from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He mentions the peace of God that will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Peace has been on my mind this week, since the feast of St. Francis of Assisi was yesterday. That day always includes meditation on his famous prayer, which includes the petition, “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace,” which sounds nice, but it’s not so easy when one is engaged in hostile circumstances instigated by an antagonist who, naturally, needs to be confronted and opposed, so one stands up to him, words are exchanged, enmity is established, and some sort of truce is established. No instrument of peace was involved. Later, one repents, and wishes he had attempted to interact from the perspective of “Gospel values.” But that requires creativity, which is hard to muster in circumstances that, instinctively, crave boisterous histrionics.
To have peace in our hearts, then, is an ideal we are to pursue. But what did Paul (and Jesus) mean by that?
What they meant exactly, I daresay, is less important than how can we interpret that concept in a way meaningful to our modern take on the elements of a human person.
“Heart” is differentiated from “mind,” “body” and “soul.”
“Soul” is most useful as a literary device. If 35 people are killed in a bus crash, the sensitive journalist will write, “There were 35 souls aboard that bus.”
A body wracked with pain is a body in anguish, not a body at peace, but physical suffering is altogether different than emotional, mental, psychological pain. The mind can be at peace, though the body suffers.
So can the heart be at peace while the mind (and body) suffer.
While the mind is afflicted with doubts, the heart can remain in the right place, the heart that belongs to Jesus. That is the heart that responds to the Gospel, that, though the mind be distracted, and emotions run this way, that way, every which way, and the soul be troubled to the point of failing, the heart can remain the center of gravity, the faithful witness to one’s innermost wishes, desires, and intentions, and that constancy is peace.