The Humor of Jesus
by Marc Batko (Portland OR, marc1seed@yahoo.com, https://www.freetranslations.foundation.]
After being raised as a reformed Jew and studying Buddhism, Catholicism and Protestantism, I was overwhelmed by the incomparable Jesus as the Lord, Messiah, and long-awaited end-time eschatological prophet. In his path-breaking book “Theology of Hope,” the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann explained that hope sets human creatures apart from the rest of creation so we can go beyond everything past and present in the power of the promise and anticipation.
After much meditation and reflection, I firmly believe that Jesus made fun of individualism and profit-oriented economic systems. Winning people to trust the infinite, invisible and transcendent God was surely his goal. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?”, he asked his calculating counterpart. “No sparrow falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. You are worth more than many sparrows!” In 2024, we aren’t catching and selling sparrows but rather closing our eyes to the irrationality of profit-maximization, financialization and financial products. We are indoctrinated in trickle-down economics and taught to demonize anyone who criticizes that fairy-tale!
Jesus seeks to elicit faith and trust from the everyday experiences of his compatriots. Not trusting in the infinite Creator of all things out of nothing seems ridiculous. Could all the magnificence of the universe have arisen through chance or accident? No, that seems preposterous. That birds fly in patterns, that flowers are more glorious than emperors, and that human bodies can heal through self-organization and divine intervention are clear to the unprejudiced eye.
We are also faced with the temptations of materialism, spiritual pride and megalomania. Perhaps it is the barrage of advertising that convinces us of our inadequacy and imperfection. Advertising is the word of the sellers, not the word of the workers from below. That we are divine and earthly as Soren Kierkegaaard taught in the 19th century is drowned out by the unending assault “Buy, buy, buy.”
Life can be lived on many levels or even not lived at all. “Friendship with the world is enmity with God,” we read in James. “Our culture is not a culture of courage but of advertising and publicity,” Kierkegaard wrote in “The Present Age.” “Without humility, there is no sense of wonder,” the Danish existentialist warned. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near,” was Jesus’ first word. Martin Luther made Jesus’ first word the first thesis in his “95 Theses Against the Sale of Indulgences.” The whole Christian life should be a life of repentance.
Back in 2017, http://www.perestroika.de published the “95 Theses Against the Rule of the Financial Markets.” “How can you know the signs of the weather and not the signs of the times?” Jesus asked. A contemporary paraphrase could be “Are Trump lies acceptable because truth only momentarily stands in the way of ideology and propaganda?”
Trusting the everlasting, selfless God should be a no-brainer. By faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Faith that is personal and never private is more interruption than custom. Jesus’ parables seek to awaken faith and trust by contrasting conditions of the new world with everyday realities of competition and privation.
Christian faith that is historical is worlds away from “feel good cultural Christianity.” Don’t let Jesus and revolutionary faith become shopping jingles! Build your house on the rock, not on the sand of speculation! There is one friend closer than any brother whose way is suffering, rejection, death and resurrection! Dual citizenship and internationalization are fruits of empathy, empathy and the new person in Christ!
Eighty years of cruel scapegoating have made the US isolated and feared, a declining empire no longer sought after with its Coca Cola, rock n roll, and incomprehensible financial products! “Be not conformed but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Trust the Everlasting God, not king Midas or king Musk ready to squander trillions on SpaceX instead of building affordable apartments for the poor, suffering millions!