The Confrontational Wit of Jesus

Jesus did not die to save us from God. He died because the Romans did not tolerate charismatic teachers who attracted a lively following. Jesus attracted that following through his personal compassion, his confrontational inclusivity, and his skill in using laughter as a nonviolent weapon of mass disruption. The Gospel authors picked up Jesus∠ witty techniques. They adeptly parodied the literary conventions of heroic biography, laying out «the kingdom of God» in a point-for-point contrast with the empire of Caesar Augustus. Most of this contrast was Jewish Prophetic Rant, Standard Edition: the God of the Jews had always demanded justice for workers, food for the hungry, care for those unable to earn a living, and an end to monopolizing natural resources for private and imperial profit. Jesus added a fourth and telling point: God is nonviolent. God smites no one. God∠s loving-kindness and compassionate presence embraces all of humanity equally. We are all the children of God. Then and now, that∠s a revolutionary claim. It portrays our obligation to the common good as a sacred obligation. It∠s owed to God. In cultural terms, that∠s the most potent variety of obligation. This is the cultural heritage at risk from fundamentalism, which portrays God as both crazy-violent and vindictive.