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November 2 - December 8, 2019
holiness was understood to mean “separation from everything unclean.”
purity system “is a cultural map which indicates ‘a place for everything and everything in its place.’”
Slightly more narrowly, and put very simply, a purity system is a social system organized around the contrasts or polarities of pure and impure, clean and unclean.
One’s purity status depended to some extent on birth.
But one’s degree of purity or impurity also depended on behavior.16 Those who were carefully observant of the purity codes were “the pure,” of course.
Though the word sinners had a range of meanings in first-century Palestine, it was not understood to include everybody (as it does in the mainstream Christian theological tradition),18 but rather referred to particular groups of people, the worst of whom were “untouchables.”
So it was in first-century Judaism: sinners often meant “the impure.”
Physical wholeness was associated with purity,
Being Jewish did not guarantee one’s purity, of course. But by definition, all Gentiles were impure and unclean.
That income flowed largely from “tithes”–in effect, taxes on agricultural produce.
Thus the politics of purity was to some extent the ideology of the dominant elites–religious, political, and economic.
that we can see the sociopolitical significance of compassion.
In the message and activity of Jesus, we see an alternative social vision: a community shaped not by the ethos and politics of purity, but by the ethos and politics of compassion.
“Be compassionate as God is compassionate” so closely echoes “Be holy as God is holy,” even as it makes a radical substitution.
Jesus spoke of purity as on the inside and not on the outside: “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
True purity is a matter not of external boundaries and observance but of the heart.
The critique of the purity system is the theme of one of Jesus’ most familiar parables, the story of the Good Samaritan.
It was a critique of a way of life ordered around purity.
Thus this beloved and often domesticated parable was originally a pointed attack on the purity system and an advocacy of another way: compassion.
In the last week of his life, according to the synoptic gospels, he brought his challenge to the center of the purity system–the temple–with his action of driving out the money changers and the sellers of sacrificial animals.
One of his most characteristic activities was an open and inclusive table.
In a general way, sharing a meal represented mutual acceptance.
The meal was a microcosm of the social system, table fellowship an embodiment of social vision.
Moreover, it appears that these were often festive meals, as is indicated by a small detail in the gospel accounts: the participants “reclined” at table. Ordinary meals were eaten sitting; at festive meals, one reclined. Reclining turns a meal into a banquet, a celebration.
The open table fellowship of Jesus was thus perceived as a challenge to the purity system.
The ethos of compassion led to an inclusive table fellowship, just as the ethos of purity led to a closed table fellowship.
goes back to the table fellowship of Jesus.35
But for Jesus, these were real meals with real outcasts. Recognizing this adds a fresh nuance to the eucharist.
The inclusive vision incarnated in Jesus’ table fellowship is reflected in the shape of the Jesus movement itself. It was an inclusive movement, negating the boundaries of the purity system.
an attitude (at least as an ideal) of nondiscrimination to appreciate the radical character of this inclusiveness. It is only what we would expect from a reasonably decent person.
For Jesus, compassion had a radical sociopolitical meaning. In his teaching and table fellowship, and in the shape of his movement, the purity system was subverted and an alternative social vision affirmed. The politics of purity was replaced by a politics of compassion.
Both he and his critics stood in the tradition of Israel and sought to be faithful to it. The elites of his day read Scripture in accordance with the paradigm of holiness as purity. Jesus read it in accordance with the paradigm of compassion.
In parts of the church there are groups that emphasize holiness and purity as the Christian way of life, and they draw their own sharp social boundaries between the righteous and sinners. It is a sad irony that these groups, many of which are seeking very earnestly to be faithful to Scripture, end up emphasizing those parts of Scripture that Jesus himself challenged and opposed.
In the midst of our modern culture, it is important for those of us who would be faithful to Jesus to think and speak of a politics of compassion not only within the church but as a paradigm for shaping the political order.
politics of compassion would generate a more “communitarian” dimension in our political life to balance the excesses generated by the dominant politics of individualism.
“second voice” of the American tradition–namely, its earlier emphasis upon “covenant” and “civic virtue” as images of community.
though Christians might disagree about the best way to implement such a system, a politics of compassion in our time clearly implies universal health care as an immediate goal.
Rather, for Jesus, the relationship with the Spirit led to compassion in the world of the everyday.
An image of the Christian life shaped by this image of Jesus would have the same two focal points: a relationship to the Spirit of God, and the embodiment of compassion in the world of the everyday.
Indeed, growth in compassion is the sign of growth in the life of the Spirit.
wisdom
Central to it is the notion of a way or a path, indeed of two ways or paths: the wise way and the foolish way.
Socrates taught a subversive wisdom that involved the citizens of Athens in a critical examination of the conventions that shaped their lives. For his efforts, he was executed.3
The wisdom of subversive sages is the wisdom of “the road less traveled.”4 And so it was with Jesus: his wisdom spoke of “the narrow way,” which led to life, and subverted the “broad way” followed by the many, which led to destruction.
Strikingly, the most certain thing we know about Jesus is that he was a storyteller and speaker of great one-liners.
No oral teacher–perhaps especially no itinerant teacher–uses a great one-liner only once.
That is, since they were originally oral stories, we should not think of them as the set pieces we have in the gospels, recited virtually word for word.
The appeal is not to the will–not “Do this”–but rather, “Consider seeing it this way.”
as a wisdom teacher Jesus used aphorisms and parables to invite his hearers to see in a radically new way.
How we see determines the path that we walk, the way that we live.
