Good News!

I left a question at Stan's blog which I'm addressing here. I'm addressing my question AND addressing Stan's response.

Stan answered a question (well, no, he didn't) I left at his blog by saying this:

without posting your question (MY QUESTION: where is the rubric by which you can know WHICH lines are metaphorical and which aren't?) 
I will point out that I answered it in the post. 

No, Stan didn't. Not at all. It's interesting that he thinks he did and it makes me wonder what he thinks my question was.

He "preached the gospel to the poor" and we still have the poor. 
He proclaimed "the release of the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, the freedom for the oppressed. 
He declared, 'Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing' (Luke 4:21). 
But ... Jesus lived and died and, with some exception, the poor were still there (Matt 26:11), 
the captives were still captive, 
the blind were still blind, 
and the oppressed remained oppressed." 

If you say He meant it literally (as you do), He lied. It still is not fulfilled in that sense. 
Or ... He meant it spiritually. 

You complain that the gospel that Paul gives (which he calls "the gospel of Christ") isn't "good news" for everybody, 

No, I don't. I complain that modern conservative religionists' IDEAS of what Paul preached isn't good news. And it's clearly not. It's not even bad news. It's a trainwreck of a atrocious horror story where most of humanity will be tortured for an eternity for the "crime" of being imperfect humans. Only a few (those "god" "selects") will be saved.

But for me, I do not set up Paul against Jesus. I interpret Paul's words, THROUGH Jesus' words and teachings. Now, an argument CAN be made that Paul taught a "different" Gospel than Jesus (I think STAN has even suggested this! That Jesus never got around to preaching the actual "good news" of most of humanity being eternally tortured!), but I don't think so.

Good news for the minority who were spared the everlasting torture given to their loved ones is STILL not good news, even for the few who were "spared."

but your version of a "social gospel" isn't either 
since all those categories of people are still suffering and it's not good news to anyone who isn't suffering. 
Or ... the gospel isn't merely the physical reality of suffering, but an actual remedy for spiritual suffering available to all.

This is the problem with a limited imagination and binary/ONLY TWO POSSIBLE WAYS approach to studying texts and philosophy. WHO SAYS, we're only limited to those two options? Jesus never said, "I came to preach good news to the poor and marginalized AND THE ONLY WAY I CAN DO SO IS BY "FIXING" ALL THE POOR AND MARGINALIZED. GIVING MONEY TO THE POOR, HEALING ALL THE SICK, ETC!!!" That isn't what Jesus said, but Stan is trying to make that case. It's not what Jesus said and it's not what I'm saying.

Jesus said he'd come to preach good news to the poor and marginalized.
THEN, Jesus began going out visiting with, welcoming, including, helping, associating with, healing the poor and marginalized.
THEN, John the Baptist asked Jesus, How do I know you're the One? And Jesus responded by saying, "Look, I'm going around, hanging out with the poor and marginalized, preaching good news TO THEM and healing them."
THEN, Jesus taught his disciples to do the same thing. Hang out with the poor and marginalized, heal them, teach them the good news that was FOR them.
etc.

Now, it can be very difficult for the privileged and wealthy to understand how "hanging out with, welcoming, accepting, being friends with those dirty outsiders and their sick illnesses and gross selves" is good news to the poor and marginalized. BUT, it is, even if they don't understand it. For the poor and marginalized, being welcomed, accepted, loved and included as part of a greater beloved community, that IS INCREDIBLE good news. Literal good news.

And for most of humanity, we recognize that magical, unlikely healings of normal serious illnesses and oppressions and poverty just don't generally happen. And it's not even the most important thing. Consider: I work daily with people with disabilities (and less regularly, with the impoverished and immigrants) and for them, their most serious disability (at least, many would say this) is NOT that they can't use their legs or eyes. It's being excluded, marginalized, impoverished, kept OUT.

That is an imposed disability that causes real harm and damage in ways that their physical disabilities just don't cause.

The miracle of Jesus' good news is not magical healings for everyone - that just doesn't happen in an imperfect world and no one - not even conservative religionists - is making that claim. And, after all, we're ALL at best only temporarily or partially healthy, with a perfect body, not needing glasses or canes or hearing aids or a therapist. Physical disabilities can be a pain, but we all got our things, sooner or later. NO, the greatest disabling condition is not being included, not being welcomed, or, at best, being included grudgingly, "because Mom told us to invite you to our birthday party..."

The good news that Jesus brought to the poor and marginalized was the good news of love, of welcome and inclusion and acceptance. THIS, we can see clearly in who Jesus spent his time with, loving, laughing with, partying with, embracing.

THAT is deeply good news. Here, now. There, then.

Jesus didn't promise magical healings and banks full of money. Jesus promised love, acceptance, welcome... a beloved community.

Good news indeed. AND, it's good news because it's actionable. It CAN and DOES happen. We see it all the time, we who are of the Beloved Community. God's realm come, God's will be done, HERE, on earth, as it is in heaven.

THERE is the good news! And what amazing, empowering, life-altering good news. It doesn't require that we repent in just the right way or understand some human religious traditions and theories just the right way. It doesn't require a human or animal sacrifice (which was always just a metaphor, right?) It just requires an embrace of grace and love and welcome. And not even a perfectly lived out embrace of grace. But an acceptance of that Way.

Further, this good news was not a one off. It was designed to be systemic. It was a new and better Way. And that was the Way of those who followed Jesus, of the church. We see this right away in the book of Acts and the "birth" of the church - followers of this Way of Good news of love and inclusion for the poor and marginalized. The more fully we follow in Jesus' steps - as a group, deliberately, lovingly, joyfully, systematically, the MORE that it truly will be good news for ALL the poor and marginalized... or at least, it's good news for the poor and marginalized to the degree it's embraced. One person - even one son of God in human form - can only befriend, welcome and love so many people. BUT, a whole new way? A systemic embrace of love and grace? That's where we can do, as Jesus said, " Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these!"

To be clear, the passage there in John does not spell that out in so many words, but it's just an obvious truth. Many can do more than one. Many doing good and kind things can do more than one doing good and kind things.

As to Stan's complaint that "and it's not good news to anyone who isn't suffering." again, Stan is missing my point and, I think, the point of Jesus. Jesus quite literally WELCOMED the rich man to join them. "Sell your stuff, give it to the poor and follow me..." Jesus was not - I am not - excluding anyone. But the starting point is that it's good news for the poor and marginalized. THEY are the ones this realm is specifically for, as Jesus literally said. Others are invited to join in, but it's a joining with, allying with, being friends with the poor that they're joining. And in some senses, one needs to leave that wealth behind, at the very least, leave behind the love of money, which is the root of all kinds of evil.

And why is that? Well, we can see in the real world that the wealthy have things go their way, all the time. It's one of the trappings of wealth... you become privileged and it's hard not to live into that privilege. I think all of us who are at least middle class in this hyper-wealthy nation can recognize that to some degree. And so, without it being a Beloved Community specifically for the poor and marginalized, the wealthy and powerful inevitably have things bend their way. But we are arguing for a better moral arc of the universe, one that bends towards justice.

And the question I asked that led me down that road? What is your Rubric, Stan, where you can perfectly understand which lines are metaphorical and which are literal? There was no answer to that question. And even if he thinks, "it's in the text... we can understand which lines are literal and which figurative by reading the texts..." Well, Stan and I (et al) ARE reading the texts and we're reaching opposite conclusions, sometimes. So, where is the rubric to decide that for us?

If one lives in a gospel of bad news for vastly most people, where understanding and accepting the RIGHT way and repenting the RIGHT way which requires a pretty perfect understanding of the texts in question, well, they simply have no rubric to ever fully decide the right orthodoxy.

The rest of us live in a welcoming beloved community of grace, where a rubric is not necessary.