How did Jesus read his Scriptures?

Monday, July 3, 2023

Feast of Saint Thomas, Apostle

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

How did Jesus read his Scriptures?

Richard Rohr has been kind of a flame-thrower all his life, and now he has much to look back on and remind us of. A Catholic priest, he was a Franciscan, and he joins many followers of St. Francis who criticize the church they love. He often springs up with a challenging way to see theology and the bible.

Usually to me, he makes eminent sense. Perhaps he does to you too. What do you think of this?

First Fr. Rohr defines hermeneutic:

A “hermeneutic” is simply the methodology for biblical interpretation. If we do not have a clear hermeneutic or “lens,” we can make any text submit to the whim of the moment. This is one reason that so much of the world does not take Christians seriously. People have seen us use Scripture whatever way we want to make the points that we already have decided to make!      

Quoted in yesterday’s devotion, Ms. Jordan Harrell’s ancestral namesake (who was a southern Methodist bishop in the 1940-50’s) might wonder at Miss Jordan’s words: “Christ transforms, not the Bible. Be wary of those who know one but not the other.” So both segregation and unity are biblical, but only one is Christlike. Rohr continues …

My simple hermeneutic is this: We should make use of Scripture the way that Jesus did. I call it the Jesus hermeneutic. Historically, Christians have said that the whole Bible was to be interpreted “in the light of Jesus,” but we understood that in a self-serving way, falsely believing that Christianity supplanted Judaism and thus made it irrelevant and merely an “old” testament. We went so far as to assume that Moses and Isaiah were warm-up acts for Jesus. That is not honest, not true, and not even fair to Jesus. Jesus built on their wisdom rather than thinking “They are pointing to me!” We also must make that clear mental switch.  

Well? Were Moses and Isaiah “warm-up acts for Jesus?” What does Jesus do and say when he walks through Israel for three years?

1. 1. Honors his own religious tradition wherever possible and does not react against it needlessly.
   2. Ignores (or even opposes) parts of his own Scriptures that were in any way punitive, imperialistic, exclusionary, or presented God as the same.
   3. Successfully connects the dots, and finds where the trajectory is heading and building toward.
   4. Clearly concludes that the text is tending toward inclusivity, mercy, and justice. These Jesus sees as the clear intent and work of his God YHWH.

Elsewhere, Fr. Rohr “goes so far as to say that the point of the Christian life is to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else.” Seriously?

The only thing Jesus excluded was exclusion itself.

Rohr, in keeping with Franciscans of every century, pushes back on the very idea of biblical inerrancy, beginning with Jesus’ example:

Jesus’ own hermeneutic gives us a template for passages that can be ignored (Does he ever quote or refer to Joshua or Judges?); that can be openly disagreed with or improved upon (“Moses only let you do that because of your hardness of heart.” Matthew 19:8); that must be seen as early groundwork for a further message (“The Law says; I say,” repeated six times in Matthew 5:21–48).

This fella Rohr, a farmboy from Kansas, has turned over the religious lives of so many men and women. He turned 80 on March 23. With his gentle smile and quiet voice, he welcomes Jesus into our midst, where we all can listen, speak, understand, and be saved.

(Ephesians 2, Psalm 117, John 20)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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