Tag Archives: Jesus of Nazareth

Archetype

dictionary with letter A

Archetype (n): a typical example of a person or thing; an original that has been imitated.

Even though I am sure the number changes continually, the numeral I garnered from research was 353.

That is the number of Protestant Christian denominations at work in our world today.

Some people think this is a necessity so that we’re able to express our personality flair with our spiritual experience. But with each and every one of these denominations comes a focus on a specific point of philosophy or doctrine, which makes them imbalanced from the overall impression that was intended by the archetype of the faith, Jesus of Nazareth.

If you want to be mocked and considered naive, just merely suggest that the ideal circumstance for Christians is to attempt to live like Jesus. People will smile at your abstract innocence and say, “Well, many things are open to interpretation.”

(With that I would agree. That’s why we should avoid many things.)

But the gospel records give us a great shadow of the lifestyle of this carpenter-turned-preacher, so we certainly should be able to focus on a few personality traits and incorporate them into our practice.

1. Our archetype, Jesus, didn’t care if people were religious or whores–just as long as they knew that a certain amount of repentance is necessary for us all.

2. Jesus didn’t favor Jews over Gentiles, making the Jews very upset and the Gentiles stomp around, joyously saying, “‘Bout time.”

3. Jesus was not impressed with the traditions of men, which were manipulated so as to generate a climate of intellectualism instead of true spirituality.

4. Jesus didn’t really care much about people who wanted to be mediocre.

5. Jesus didn’t chase people down. He let them find him and bring their faith.

6. Jesus was more concerned about people who were lost than about people who were found–or at least, thought they were.

7. Jesus wasn’t impressed with the Temple.

8. Jesus was not a person who was focused on the family. He said, “Those who love only their family are no better than the heathen.”

9. Jesus bravely died on the cross but made it clear that the person who betrayed him was the Son of Hell. Certainly not a letter of recommendation for Judas.

10. Jesus made his gospel about love and challenged those who trivialized it to seek a deeper understanding of the word and its potential.

There’s only one thing I know for sure–if all these denominations came face-to-face with Jesus, there would be 353 disappointed board meetings.

Jesus didn’t come to make everybody happy. He came to get us to feel and think. That usually, for a brief season … makes everyone a little uncomfortable.

 

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Apostle

dictionary with letter A

Apostle: (n.) 1. each of the twelve chief disciples of Jesus Christ. 2. an enthusiastic supporter of an idea or cause.

Titles are what non-talented people cling to in order to avoid being evaluated on the quality of their work.

You can tell exactly how useless these assigned names are by how popular they are in our present-day society, which seems to be stuck in the muck of ego, unable to maneuver in any direction.

I, too, am often asked to produce my running list of titles. These are supposed to be words that inform the hearer that I am worthy of being listened to and that I have jumped through enough hoops to be part of the circus.

I’ve even had people correct me when I’ve addressed them by their first name, to inform me that their title must be included–otherwise they have a sense of what we might call “nomenclature nakedness.”

So instead of granting people dignity and appreciation for their deeds, we bequeath them with titles.

And this is why the original apostles nearly suffocated the message of Jesus of Nazareth–because they spent most of their time sitting around discussing who was greater and who Jesus liked better. In the process they began to kiss up to the very same individuals who originally had crucified their Master.

Fortunately for us, they stopped being apostles and turned back into rag-tag fanatics.

Because I will tell you of a certainty, King George III was not impressed that Benjamin Franklin came up with the idea of electricity or had constructed a stove. He considered him a rebel and a rapscallion and was prepared to hang him.

And the American history books can be grateful that Mr. Franklin did not take offense, but agreed to don the role of rebel so that we might be free.

Titles frighten me. They assume that their mere inclusion should produce respect.

What should give us our respect is whether we follow through on what we say is truly important.

 

 

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Anti-pope

dictionary with letter A

Antipope: (n) a person established as pope in opposition to the one perceived by others to have been canonically selected.

I am not afraid to listen to ideas or read opinions that are contrary to my personal likes or philosophy.

I am certainly not impartial as I read, but I try to comprehend what is offered to me in the composition and f out if there’s anything that can stimulate my brain to greater understanding.

Yet I have to tell you this–the article I read yesterday, which postured intellectually on the legitimacy of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, was basically the same old brick-and-mortar construction that has been put forth for years to undermine the notion, or maybe even the need, for a savior.

I guess all of us, when we’re entrenched in our attitudes (which certainly borderline on sin) are greatly displeased by the concept of repentance or anyone who would even embody such a ridiculous requirement.

But it doesn’t change the need of our species to be emotionally enlightened, spiritually cleansed, mentally rejuvenated and physically inputted to our healthier good.

I will go so far as to say that believing that Jesus of Nazareth lived is essential to our well-being as we continue to search for “jesus like” people in our own generation, to confirm the promise that we are neither as self-sufficient as we believe nor as depraved.

It’s why the Catholics have a pope. And he has a hat, which means he has a human head.

And if for some reason that pope decides to be a “company man” instead of a personal adjudicator for the masses, then we create an anti-pope.

We need human beings to confirm that we’re not just a group of apes with a mortgage.

Every time a society declines into the depths, attacking spirituality and ceasing to believe that a savior, a pope, an artist or a philosopher can arise from our midst to challenge us to better ideals, we end up in war, strife and succumbing to our latent bigotries.

So if the pope don’t work, we create an anti-pope. And if he don’t work, we look for another human in our generation who still believes in the ideals of a Nazarene named Jesus. Without this, we don’t become a secular society which is free of the intimidation of religion.

No, we become lonely travelers who believe that survival is more important than compassion.

 

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Antic

dictionary with letter A

 

Antic: (adj) grotesque or bizarre

What happens when you use two words to define one word and the two words you apply–which were meant to be synonyms–have absolutely nothing to do with each other?

Because bluntly, I would have to admit that there were times in my life when people would characterize my actions as bizarre, but I would never believe them to be grotesque.

To me, grotesque means “ugly” and bizarre means “unusual.”

Unless we’re trapped in some 21st Century contention that if you happen to be a bit less than beautiful, you’re unusual enough to be considered grotesque. Is that the message?

And an antic is not an appearance, it’s an action–and I, for one, can think of at least four antics off the top of my head which were considered bizarre, if not grotesque in their time, but have proven historically to be life-saving:

1. John Brown attacking the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in an attempt to free the slaves.

If any of us had met John Brown we would have called him grotesque and certainly bizarre, with his zealous appeal against slavery and his antic of attempting the take-over of a government installation with a bunch of church friends.

It wasn’t exactly well-planned, yet the Union soldiers went into battle singing about his antic to inspire them to destroy an antiquated and evil institution of owning human beings.

2. Jesus of Nazareth calling himself the Son of God–or if you want to be really picky, not raising any objection when others did so.

How much guts would it take to have faith in someone you were sitting next to, who had just farted, as he contended that he was possessed of divine inspiration? I don’t know if I could have pulled that off.

Yes, believing in the resurrected Christ is certainly easier than following the unkempt Galilean.

3. Winston Churchill.

When Adolf Hitler had taken over most of Europe and had set his sights on the British Isles, Churchill and a few of his cronies decided to make a last-ditch stand against the tyranny of Berlin. It wasn’t popular and certainly the bombing of Londontown was grotesque and bizarre.

But the action halted the progress of the Third Reich, allowing time for the United States to rally and help chase the bully back into the bunker.

4. And finally, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,. who by the way was raised in an era when Jim Crow was not only tolerated, but was considered to be evidence for how the Old South was resolving the colored/white issue.

What a bizarre notion, to think that people of all colors should be able to ride on a bus together, when in your entire life you had been taught by your elders that separation was inevitable, if not righteous. And how grotesque it was to see little girls blown up in churches because your antics were being objected to by the white plurality.

I think the definition offered by Mr. Webster portrays that antics are displeasing and therefore perhaps should be shoveled away.

Yet without antics, we don’t have any of the practical nuts and bolts that somehow or another, miraculously hold this contraption together. 

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Antakya

dictionary with letter A

Antakya: Turkish name for Antioch.

Antioch.

The Good Book tells us that Antioch was the first city where people were referred to as Christians.

The fledgling movement that continued to adhere to the teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was struggling to find an identity.

Rejected by Judaism, much too simplistic for the Greek philosophers and comically peaceful for the raging Romans, these followers of the Nazarene were literally a people with no country.

So when they were ridiculed in Antioch for having no personal identity or unique awareness of themselves, but instead being “little christs,” rather than taking hubris to the accusation, they decided to adopt it as the namesake of their cause.

It has endured for two thousand years.

And even though nowadays the term “Christian” doesn’t mean much, it still lets us know that Jesus is in there somewhere.

Although I would welcome a new term and have adopted the word “Jesonian” to represent my appreciation for the universal concepts of the Carpenter-turned-community-organizer, I am still in awe of how these simple, gentle folk in Antioch decided to embrace a criticism and make it their own instead of bristling and demanding equal rights and respect.

Yes, the name itself is really the personification of the enduring belief. And that belief is this:

If you love yourself and you love people, eventually, after all the insanity has quieted down, you will have a voice.

 

 

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Anno Domini

dictionary with letter A

Anno Domini: (adv) full form of AD. Latin, literally “in the year of Our Lord.”

I had to chuckle one day when I found my car keys after a few moments of nervous speculation on their location.

I am so damn mortal. I am peppered with inconsistencies, flaws, foibles and even little festering afflictions.

Yet sometimes I feel it is my right or even mission to shake my little fist at the heavens, complaining of some minor infraction. (Even if my objection happens to be about a major issue, my fist still doesn’t grow much in comparison to the magnitude of the Universe.)

We are told that a man was born in Bethlehem nearly 2,000 years ago. Not only did his birth aggravate local magistrates and set in motion an upheaval in the Middle East, which transported his ideas into the whole world, but we have also decided to meter time from before and after his birth.

And even though agnostics and atheists rail against the life, attitudes and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, we have no other experience or teachings that have spanned so much time and left so much influence.

  • We have Buddha and Confucius, who were predecessors, but certainly did not eclipse the influence.
  • The gods of Olympus died out pretty quickly.
  • And Mohammed was born several centuries after Jesus.

There was something proclaimed in the small 100-mile radius of Nazareth, his stomping ground, that stirred the conscience in the body human and still awakens us to the need to love one another.

Although I am not comfortable with many of the tenets of religion and theological practice, it is very difficult to doubt the impact that a carpenter-turned-preacher had on our world.

Was it his life?

Was it his death?

Or was it the fact that he simplified all the over-wrought musings of the generations of time into “loving the Lord your God and loving your neighbor as yourself?”

 

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Animalism

dictionary with letter A

Animalism: (n.) behavior that is characteristic or appropriate to animals, particularly in being physical or instinctive.

I think it is possible to appreciate members of the animal kingdom while still being candid about their limited capabilities, and often vicious tendencies.

People who do not respect the teeth of the lion often get swallowed up in their error.

But what bothers me the most about the animal kingdom is how we, as human beings, who have been granted great heart, spirit, intellect and physical abilities, have deteriorated these gifts to the more base representations.

So our emotions are animalistic.

For instance, our movies and art fail to portray the sensitivity available to us as human beings, but rather, expand on the aggressive, selfish and dark aspects of hapless iniquity.

And I am certainly fed up with a spiritual animalism which turns the life of Jesus of Nazareth into a human sacrifice, complete with the members of the cult cannibalizing over his remains in some symbol of religious consecration.

As it pertains to intellectual animalism, I am bewildered why we think the accumulation of knowledge with no application of wisdom does any good for us in our progress as a species. I, for one, have grown weary of people who are smart but unwise. I am tired of hearing debates, serving up facts without allowing for the smorgasbord of human heart.

And let me be the first one to say that I am appalled at the physical animalism which has taken human sexuality into the realm of unashamed pornography. There is nothing more awkward, comical and tender than human beings having sexual relationships with each other. To turn it into a circus act or some sort of abusive domination of power, where one person is subjugated, is a glorification of the mating season, with beleaguered females being raped by their male counterparts simply because nature demands the encounter.

I am willing to be part of an animal kingdom which I respect and caretake. But I am not willing to take the beauty of my heart, soul, mind and strength … and allow them to be defined by the rules of the jungle.

 

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Andrew, St.

dictionary with letter A

Andrew, St.: An apostle, the brother of St. Peter. He is associated with the X-shaped cross because he is said to have been crucified on such a cross, and is the patron saint of Russia and Scotland. Feast Day, November 30.

Long before he was nailed down on a multiplication symbol and they started a special holiday in his honor, Andrew was a fisherman in a little town called Capernaum.

His prospects for being prosperous or well-known and his aptitude for upward mobility were less than promising–actually, comical.

Living in a village of less than five hundred people and a partner in a business in which his brother, with a more boisterous personality, took over the entire room, Andrew had little chance of surfacing socially, or even generating a jot and tittle in a history book.

Yet he possessed one powerful personality trait–he was curious.

While his brother probably took the time to sleep off the latest fishing jaunt, which included heavy wine drinking, Andrew was out and about, looking for possibilities. In the process, he met another unlikely earth-shaker named Jesus of Nazareth.

We don’t know why Andrew was impressed or why he was so moved by the Nazarene’s message. But we do know that he was one of Jesus’ early followers, and ends up bringing his brother to the cause.

As often is the case, there is no Peter without Andrew. There are no five loaves and two fishes for the five thousand fed without Andrew bringing the little boy’s lunch for consideration.

And even though after all the smoke cleared of the posturing and shuffling, he did not end up being one of the inner-three best friends of Jesus (positions held by Peter, James and John), we are never made aware that he is slighted or offended in the least.

He did three things that gave him personal salvation and a place for all time:

  1. He stayed interested.
  2. When he found something important, he got excited.
  3. He stuck with it to the end.

In many ways Andrew is the hero of the gospel story simply because he brought the right people at the right time … to the right person.

 

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Admirable

Words from Dic(tionary)

Admirable (adj.): arousing or deserving respect or approval: e.g. he has one admirable quality.

B.T.P.Y.A.

It’s an acronym I came up with in the 1980s. I put together a little traveling show, along with my oldest son, who was sixteen at the time and flirting with insanity. I thought it would be a great way for us to connect and maybe enrich the lives of some other folks along the way.

It stood for: Be the Person You Admire.

It’s a rather simple principle, asking a very powerful question: what is the purpose of admiring–granting admiration to someone or some cause–if you’re not prepared to mimic the virtue which you acclaim?

For instance, many people have great admiration for Abraham Lincoln but still find themselves enslaving certain portions of humanity in the prison of their own minds.

There are billions of folks who adhere, with great reverence, to the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, who nevertheless do not agree that the most important thing in life is to treat those who are considered “the least” as valuable.

There are so many things we admire, but we do it from afar. Matter of fact, we even have a phrase to handle that: “I admired her from afar.”

Now, I personally have had an unrequited crush on a woman in my life AND I have had a requited sensation which led to romantic bliss. I can truthfully tell you–the second one is better.

I do not think we can continue to express admiration without emulating that which we proclaim to be beautiful, significant or holy.

Case in point: I am not a Christian because I like church. I tolerate church because I’m a Christian. Church, to me, is one of those institutions which has become weak and sometimes pointless and needs my mercy, generosity and support. I do not abandon the church because she sometimes embarrasses me.

But in the style of Jesus, who I admire, I continue to love the unlovely, lift up the downtrodden and energize the grave.

B.T.P.Y.A.–if we would just follow through on the things that generate admiration in our spirits, and give ourselves a chance to “Xerox goodness,” doing our best to replicate some of the value, we would improve our lives by leaps and bounds.

Admiration is often a way to escape the responsibility of doing something ourselves.

OR … it is a roadmap which will take us to a destination where we can create our own admirable deeds.