Marcus Borg speaks at All Saints Church Pasadena for their 2013 Lent Event
To begin, Marcus relates a whimsical song titled ‘She Left Me For Jesus’. Moving into the more meaningful part of his talk, Marcus explains that his book The Last Week contains many of the ideas being spoken about here. Marcus then explains that one of the perils of printing something is that then you run into the question of ‘is it okay to go around talking about it?’ Marcus quips that Jesus was fortunate to have been executed before the gospels were written down otherwise he might have arrived in a new town and told a parable and had people say, “well yes we’ve heard that one, do you have anything new?”
Marcus gets more serious with a prayer from the Celtic Christian tradition by Elquin from around the year 800. “Give us o’ lord, we pray, firm faith, unwavering hope, a passion for justice, pour into our hearts the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and spiritual strength, the spirit of knowledge and true compassion, and the spirit of wonder in all your works. Light eternal shine in our hearts, power eternal deliver us from evil, wisdom eternal scatter the darkness of our ignorance, might eternal have mercy on us. Grant that we may ever seek your face with all our heart and soul and strength and in your infinite compassion bring us at last to the fullness of your presence where we shall behold your glory and live your promised joys. In your name o’ Christ our body and our life and our nourishment, Amen.”
Marcus remembers his child hood experience of Holy week in that Palm Sunday was quite celebratory and then it was forgotten about until Thursday when the service was about loving one another and talked about foot washing without actually doing it. Friday was somberly about Jesus dying on the cross to pay for our sins. Easter was the end of Holy week and had to do with life after death and provided relief from the somberness of holy week. Easter is of course the most important festival of Christianity but in Marcus’s youth, Easter probably ranked about third after Christmas and Fourth of July.
The Passion of Jesus
Turning to what holy week has come to mean to Marcus now and what it might mean for us. What Jesus was passionate about was god and how central he was to his life. Jesus was also passionate about god’s passion which is the kingdom of god.
There is also a narrower understanding of the passion of Jesus, namely Jesus’s suffering and death. Marcus argues that it was Jesus’s passion in the more broad sense of the word that led to and allows for the more precise meaning.
Holy Week: as written by Mark
Marcus strives to put the gospel of Mark into the context of the first century.
Palm Sunday
Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. It’s his followers from Galilee who have followed him that cheer his arrival. What is less well known today is that there was another procession entering the city on the same day. For the preceding thirty years there was an annual contingent of roman imperial troops sent as reinforcements to Jerusalem as a peace keeping force during Passover. Because Passover celebrates Jews freeing themselves from Egyptian rule, Passover was the time when there were the most riots protesting roman imperial rule. Jesus would have known about these additional troops because it was the regular practice of the roman government, this makes his entry into the city all the more significant. Mark tells us that Jesus set it up in advance, it was a carefully, pre-planned political demonstration. Think of the contrast between Jesus riding in on a donkey, which was a peasant’s animal from the east versus the pomp and power of an imperial procession from the west. The book of Zachariah speaks of a humble king of peace who will enter the city riding on a donkey. Jesus is not necessarily trying to fulfill prophecy but he is leaning on the power and symbolism of the prophets. The prophecy says that the king of peace will overcome the weapons of war and he will speak peace to the nations. Returning to Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem in a way that proclaims he is a speaker for a kingdom of peace compared to imperial system of domination and violence. Holy week begins with a peace demonstration.
The Anti-Temple Act
This is the story of Jesus overturning the money changers tables at the temple. As a child Marcus remembers thinking of the tables as being set up in the entry of the church and people were conducting business there. Logically it was inappropriate to be mixing business with church. Now Marcus sees this as a very trivial understanding of what was going on. The temple had become the native center of the domination system. Rome ruled through the local aristocracy because they already knew the area and would be loyal if they were kept in power. The local aristocracy consisted of the high priests and their families and they were the temple authority. The temple was also the institution charged with the collection of taxes for the annual tribute paid to Rome. The temple had become the center of an economically exploitative imperial domination system in the Jewish homeland. When Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple, it was a protest against the economic role of the temple in the domination system. Mark quotes a passage from the Old Testament to demonstrate this. Marcus paraphrases ‘God’s house is meant to be for prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. It’s not about the money changers charging too high a rate it’s about the role they are playing in exploiting the peasant class.
It is little known that the prophets of the Old Testament performed public acts of protest. For example Isaiah walked naked in the streets of Jerusalem which was a big no, no at the time in order to draw attention to himself and his ideas. Ezekiel build a replica of Jerusalem in a public square in Jerusalem and then laid siege to it with a toy army. The point being to get people to ask ‘what are you doing?’ so that he could respond ‘the days are coming when the injustice of this kingdom shall be surrounded by an enemy army and destroyed. These are public, prophetic acts of criticism designed to be provocative and attention getting, that is what Monday is about. We are told that the authorities decide because of this demonstration they must take action and kill Jesus but they also decide that they must not arrest him in public because much of the crowd is with him. Estimates of Jerusalem’s population at the time are about 40,000 but during Passover when the pilgrims flocked there about 200,000. It is estimated that the temple and it’s 24 acre grounds could hold about 100,000 so the authorities had a justified fear when they worried about starting a riot.
Tuesday
Tuesday is filled with debates between Jesus and the authorities in the temple court area. In the stories you see the utter skill with which Jesus debates. The debates start with the authorities asking ‘with what authority are you doing these things?’ Jesus responds ‘I will answer one of your questions if you will answer one of mine, the baptism of John, by whose authority was he doing that? Did the baptism come from god or was it a human invention.’ John is popular so they don’t want to discredit him but they also can’t say it was from god because they had failed to listen to him. Therefore the authorities responded ‘we don’t know.’ This gives Jesus his opening, ‘you haven’t answered my question so I won’t answer yours.’
In another example the authorities are trying to trap Jesus with their questions. They ask ‘is it lawful to pay taxes to Cesar or not?’ In many ways this is a good question, if he says yes, he discredits himself with many of the anti-roman leaning people in the crowd if he answers no then they would have immediate grounds to arrest him for treason. Jesus responds ‘do you have a coin, will you let me see it?’ They show him a coin and he goes on ‘whose image and inscription is this?’ Of course, Cesar is on the coin with the inscription saying ‘Cesar Son of God’. The authorities have already discredited themselves with this because, observant Jews used coins without graven images so to have a coin with an image on it was to say they were not observant Jews. Jesus says ‘It’s Cesar’s coin, give it back to him, give to Cesar what is Cesar’s and give to god what is god’s.’ Marcus finds it a travesty that this has been taken to mean separation between religion and politics. This passage was used to justify Christian obedience to Hitler in Nazi Germany. If you really understand that passage you understand it to mean everything belongs to god, and nothing belongs to Cesar.
Wednesday
An unnamed woman anoints Jesus for burial, she does this because she’s quite sure there isn’t going to be much of a corpse left to anoint afterwards. This is also the day Judas goes to the authorities and tells them where they can find Jesus when he is away from the crowds.
Thursday
Jesus’s final meal and his arrest. Marcus resents how the church makes the Thursday evening services about foot washing an loving one another. This interpretation misses the point of a final meal with his friends and anticipating what is going to happen. Talking about bread as body and wine as blood. You only get the separation of body and blood in the case of a violent death. Marcus sees turning this moment into being about loving one another as bland.
Good Friday-the Death of Jesus
The negative prologue; the death of Jesus is not about substitutionary sacrifice or atonement even though common Christianity has often thought so. Many of us grew up with the message that Jesus paid for our sins by dying in our place so that we can be forgiven. Marcus calls this the payment understanding of Jesus’s death. This notion is not found in the first thousand years of Christianity. This idea is first found in 1098 in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury. What this text says about the death of Jesus is that it had to happen, it was part of god’s plan. The logic is; all of us have sinned and therefore owe a debt to god, that debt must be paid in order for god to forgive. If that debt went unpaid paid, it would imply that ultimately sin doesn’t matter that much to god. By Anselm’s logic, with concern to the payment, the most any of us could do would be to pay for our own sins by dying so in order for someone to pay for the sins of the world they would have to be perfectly free of sin. Marcus asks us to step back and look at the logic of this scenario. It’s strange that it would be part of god’s plan that an immeasurably good, passionate, courageous being who’s passion is the kingdom of god should be killed. This way of thinking lets the authorities completely off the hook, yes they killed Jesus but it was part of god’s plan. This way of thinking betrays the passion that animated Jesus’s life. This is also a rather sinister portrayal of god as one who demands a price be paid or else. Marcus points out that this is far more vengeful than any human parent. No human parent demands a blood sacrifice when their children have been disobedient. Marcus sees this as both terrible history and theology in which a monster god is created additionally, there is no foundation for the payment method of sacrifice in the bible. In the Old Testament where the context and verbiage of sacrifice is found it is never associated with payment for sin. Most generally an animal sacrifice was about offering a gift to god, indeed this is the etymology of the word sacrifice meaning to make holy by offering as a gift to god. This also very often involved a meal as well, some of the animal was burned to go up to god as smoke and the remainder of the animal was cooked and eaten, in effect, sharing a meal with god. Sacrifices had a number of purposes but none of those purposes were about payment. One example being purification after a woman’s childbirth. Traditionally a woman was impure for forty days after childbirth and on the fortieth day she was to be purified by the sacrifice of an animal whether a lamb for the wealthy classes or a pigeon or dove by the lower classes. This kind of sacrifice is not about sin but about purification, there’s nothing sinful about giving birth. Another example was for reconciliation and atonement. Atonement in the sense of the meaning of the word, at one ment, when a group felt that they had in some way wronged god they would reconcile this by making a gift to god and sharing a meal with god. Marcus points out how this is omnipresent in human interaction. If you forget a spouse or partner’s birthday the next day when you realize your error, you respond with flowers and taking them out for dinner. It’s about gift and meal as a way of reconciling a breach. Sacrifice is a rich and biblical word but don’t get it in your mind that it is associated with payment for sin.
Good Friday
We know that the authorities killed Jesus and we know that because it was on a cross that the authority condemning Jesus was roman. Crucifixion was very closely associated with the Roman’s in the first century. When Paul talks about preaching Jesus he specifies the mode of execution not Jesus who died for your sins. By specifying crucifixion Paul is signaling that his gospel is anti-imperial.
We should also take note that Christianity is the only major world religion whose central figure was killed by the established authorities. Why did they execute him? Because he had become a radical critic of the domination system in the name of the kingdom of god and he was beginning to attract a following. No one worries about a critical individual but a movement with a leader is very different. Rome could have killed him in many ways. They could have done it quietly in a dungeon or sent out a hit squad, instead they chose crucifixion which was a very public, painful and prolonged form of execution with the clear message of this is what happens to those who challenge our authority. Crucifixion was reserved for those who systematically defied the roman empire, it was if you will state sponsored terrorism.
Jesus gave his life in a sacrifice in the sense that he gave his life through is love for others but not as substitution or payment. Remember the meaning of sacrifice meaning to make something sacred to offering it up to god. Did Jesus offer his live up to god? Yes, but not as payment or something required by god. Marcus uses the example of a firefighter who runs into a burning building drops a baby out to a safety net and then perishes themselves. This firefighter sacrificed themselves for the baby but it’s not about payment and it’s not about substitution. Marcus references the three most famous 20th century Christian martyrs, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who died by the third Reich April 8th 1945, Martin Luther King killed by an assassin April 4th 1968, Oscar Romero in a hospital chapel on March 24th 1980, these all occurred in the season of Lent. You can think of these martyrs for giving their lives for loving others. Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave his life to the victims of his own people and to some extent for his love of his own people as well. Martin Luther King sacrificed his life because of his passion for his own people and you could even say his passion for America. Archbishop Oscar Romero the chief roman catholic figure in El Salvador became the voice of the ninety percent of the population who were radically impoverished, indicting the ruling class for their exploitation and violence he gave a gift of his life to god because of his love for others. In this sense Jesus sacrificed his life, not because god required it as payment but because of his love for the victims of that system.
Death, resurrection and sacrifice are central New Testament metaphors of transformation. Paul’s language about being crucified with Christ, dying and rising with Christ these are metaphors for the radical internal transformation at the center of the Christian life and this is one of the meanings of Lent and Holy Week. We are called to make that journey that leads through death and resurrection to participate in that journey because it is the journey that leads to life. In talking about the language of sacrifice Marcus turns to Paul, Romans 1 and 2 . The passage opens with ‘therefore’ which means he is drawing a conclusion of an argument that may have started eight or so verses or even chapters earlier. “Therefore, present yourselves as living sacrifices.” Marcus interprets this as make of your life a sacrifice to god. “Do not be conformed to this world.” The world here doesn’t mean the world of nature, it means the humanly created world of dominant culture. Basically do not be conformed to the domination systems of this world. “But be transformed through the renewal of your psyches” through the renewal of yourselves at their deepest level.
Easter the Resurrection of Jesus
The common understanding of the resurrection is that something miraculous happened to the physical body of Jesus. Marcus tells a story about Tom Wright one of the most well known New Testament scholars in an interview explaining that if he somehow became convinced that Jesus’s tomb was not empty that he would change his career path and do something else. Marcus uses this to illustrate that this is not only a common understanding but also accepted by some of the most brilliant and respected scholars. Marcus’s own conviction is that to emphasize that something physical happened to the corpse of Jesus is a huge distraction. Marcus’s opinion is to let people believe whatever they want about the corpse of Jesus but encourages people not to be distracted by that belief as if Easter was false if the tomb wasn’t empty. Easter is not about god’s ability to transform corpses, instead, what did Easter mean for the followers of Jesus? We can leave uncertain the actual events but we can be very certain about what the events meant for them. First, Jesus continued to be experienced after his death. Marcus finds the evidence overwhelming that people had experiences of Jesus after his death, Paul certainly did and his experience was visionary additionally in first Corinthians he lists off the people who had experienced visions of Jesus. There were also people who had experienced Jesus in other ways even tactile experiences. Marcus points out that some people comment by saying ‘you mean these were only visions?’ and his response is that no one who has ever had a vision would ever say that anything was ‘just’ a vision. The followers of Jesus didn’t simply experience Jesus as a figure of the present or a ghostly figure of the past but also as divine, as lord, as one with god. There are people who have visions of Elvis but no one says Elvis is now at the right hand of god. There is something about the experience of the risen Christ that led people to think of him as lord. Combine that Jesus is both a figure of the present and lord lead us to understand that god has vindicated Jesus. This is god saying yes to Jesus and no to the powers that killed him. If we don’t understand Easter within the framework of god saying yes to Jesus and no the the powers that killed him we in many ways miss the whole point of holy week. The powers killed him but they couldn’t stop him.
Hearing the Easter Stories as Parables of the Resurrection
The model for this is the parables of Jesus. Marcus does not know of any Christians that insist there had to be a good Samaritan who behaved that way or a prodigal son who’s father received him back that way otherwise these stories aren’t true. Parables are about meaning and therefore are truth filled independently of whether they happened that way. Marcus believes this is the most optimal way to think of these stories.
Take for example the story of the empty tomb. Three of the women followers of Jesus go to his tomb on what we now call Easter morning expecting to anoint his body and they get there an the stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty, then an angel appears to them. As an aside, whenever an angel shows up in a biblical story listen up, it’s the job of the angel to tell you what’s going on. The word angel in Greek means messenger. The angel in the story says ‘you are looking for Jesus who was crucified, why do you seek the living amongst the dead, he’s not here.’ Marcus suggests thinking of this as parable. When read in this way we see the underlying meaning is; you’re not going to find Jesus among the dead, imperial execution and a rich man’s tomb couldn’t hold him or stop him, he is out there loose, recruiting for the kingdom of god. Compare that meaning to some kind of vague notion that because god raised Jesus from the dead we might be raised some day too and get an afterlife. The difference between believing in his resurrection versus participating in his passion is a difference great enough that it almost produces two different religions both using the same language. We are called to participate in what we see in Jesus, to participate in his passion for the kingdom of god, to participate in his death and resurrection, this is what following Jesus and the season of Lent with its climax in holy week with Good Friday and Easter are all about.