Monday of Holy Week – “Fight Like Jesus” review part 3
You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
As we move into Monday of Holy Week, Porterfield looks at one of the most controversial aspects of Monday of Holy Week – the whip that Jesus fashioned and used as he cleansed the Temple of the animals and money changers. The simple argument is this – Jesus made a whip and used it, clearly he was fine with using violence as a means to an end. A dive into Scripture helps us to see that this is not the case and that too often we read into Scripture what isn’t there.
Or as Porterfield says, “The result of such a portrayal is that many Christians have found a convenient way to justify their own violent intentions. If Jesus hurt people with a whip, so the argument goes, then under the right conditions his followers may also use force. Of course, those conditions are rarely identified. Instead, Christians have all too often divorced Jesus’ actions from the issues that upset him, thus giving themselves free rein to respond violently in any situation. And by classifying the whip as a weapon, they’ve concluded that any weapon may be used, even ones infinitely more lethal and indiscriminate than a whip.” (Pg. 43).
Porterfield breaks the situation into different phases. The first phase is the preparation – “As Ched Myers notes, ‘Jesus’ initial visit to the temple was for reconnaissance.’ What he saw bothered him. Something was terribly wrong, and he was not going to let it go unchallenged.” (Pg. 45).
The lesson Porterfield attaches to the point is that Christlike peacemakers assess before they act. Always survey the scene to know what you are getting into.
Phase two is action. The crafting of the whip is the focus. “Notice that [the Gospel of John] explicitly states that Jesus made the whip once he was already in the temple.” (Pg. 47). And what is available – “rushes or reeds, akin to ration or wicker material.” (pg. 47) Porterfield took the liberty of crafting a whip from these materials. “…in the end, despite my hours of effort, my wicker-whip creations never could have injured anyone.” (Pg. 47). The point being that this was not something meant to be a weapon to be used against a person.
Secondly, “primitive whips, like the one Jesus made, are known to have been used in antiquity to herd such animals.” (pg. 49). Even the animals were not being hurt, but rather herded.
Third, the temple security show that Jesus didn’t hurt anyone. “If Jesus hurt anyone in the temple, then it is difficult to explain why the security personnel did not intervene.” (Pg. 49). Rome didn’t respond either. And given the concern that Pilate had for an insurrection, the Roman guards would be on constant lookout for signs of an insurrection. Yet, we hear of nothing – no response whatsoever – to Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple.
Fourth, Greek. I won’t go into detail here, but the point is that the Greek points to the animals being driven out – all of them. When your animals leave, your source of income, take a wild guess what you’ll do – go chase after them. And that’s what Porterfield argues.
The point for this is simple and is summed up in the second lesson that Porterfield makes for this chapter – Christlike peacemakers are not passive. “For Jesus, pacifism could never be equated with passives…Love compelled him to act. Love moved him to resist evil with every fiber of his being.
Lastly, we look at the third phase – the explanation. Jesus was nothing if he wasn’t consistent. When he acted, he always explained what he did because he was always teaching. And this act was no different. And with most things Jesus did, he either based his action on Scripture or was fulfilling prophecy of Scripture. In this case, Jesus was living into Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7. The point was that there was corruption in the temple and it was time to clean it out.
“When religion legitimizes injustice, it communicates to the world that God wills such evil. It makes God appear wicked. By marginalizing foreigners, the temple made God look like a tribal deity who was only concerned with the well-being of God’s own people. And by economically exploiting the poor, the temple portrayed God as yet another greedy ruler with an insatiable hunger for his subjects’ hard-earned money.” (Pg. 59-60).
Which leads to the final lesson for this chapter: Instead of injuring and destroying, Christlike peacemakers channel their zeal into acts that heal and restore. “Truly righteous zeal is constructive, not destructive. It lifts others up instead of tearing them down. Instead of injuring, it heals. Instead of destroying, it restores. And above all, truly righteous zeal is motivated by self-giving love, not other-consuming hatred.” (Pg. 61).
Tomorrow, I take a look at Tuesday of Holy Day through Porterfield’s lens.
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I’m gonna have to sit with this one a bit.
Between you and Porterfield, I am challenged to look afresh at these matters, however, I am not inclined to see it the way it’s presented here (exactly). Some differences. But I am challenged to reconsider too.
I think I have a copy of the book on order now. Not sure. (Mrs. Agent X orders things, not me.) But I expect to get a copy soon. Too late for this discussion (except to come back retro later…)
Thanx for this!
God bless…
Challenge is good. It’s how we do self-examination and grow. I have gotten complaints from folks at church that don’t like that I present something challenging. I always ask if Christianity and following Jesus is about just staying who we are without any change, or does it require examination and being uncomfortable. I’m certainly familiar with this – I’ve gone through a ton of self-examination and change over the decades, and continue to do so – only I’ve gotten less uncomfortable about it and more expectant that I need to change. Now I look forward to it.
I think you’ll really like the book overall. I probably don’t agree with everything Porterfield is presenting, but when I read, I read a bit differently. I read to see what I can agree with easily, what is new information for me to consider, and what offers something that looks at something with a new perspective. When I find things I don’t agree with I usually will write questions in the margins for me to consider and try to figure out how the author came to their conclusion – it helps me to expand my thought process and try to gain understanding. Rarely do I read to refute anymore. If I don’t like something, I have to ask myself why I don’t like it, what’s bothering me, and what can I learn from this author.
I know that most of what I just wrote wasn’t the focus of your comment, but I think it relates, and really it’s me sharing how I deal with such things.
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I will try to come back and revisit the thrust of the post more in a day or two, but as for challenging etc…
I recall the first time I read N.T. Wright, who I now consider my favorite Christian writer. I all but hated his book.
I was taking a course in Paul’s letters/life and one of the stack of books was What St. Paul Really Said by Wright. It was a standout book. A category of its own among the dozen or so that were required. And at first the public nature of the gospel Paul presented just stuck in my craw like nothing else. I had always held so deeply to a private, personal piety. I was coming to a physical world redemption belief, but I still saw no use for my faith being a public matter, and Wright just couldn’t get off it!
But I was an A student with a GPA to maintain. So, I read all the books two or three times. Even Wright’s. I didn’t want to come up short (academically speaking) for the test. So, I read it twice for sure, and probably 3 times.
Then after the test, there were things he said that kept eating on me. I was busy with other work and couldn’t just run back and read it all over again, but the thoughts he presented kept making a little more sense of this or that all the time.
Finally summer came and I read the book again expecting to hate it, but wanting to argue with it.
I must say, it took about three other readings that summer before some of it even made sense to me, but the easy parts began cementing hard and fast. I got hooked and ran out to see what else he wrote, and WoW! A LOT! So, I started plowing into it.
But it was a short book by two of his grad student assistants that just gutted me. Colossians Remixed by Walsh and Keesmaat. That was more than a challenge. When I say “gutted” I mean I felt very raw after reading it, like my insides were carved out. And they largely distill Wright into their own work.
Subverting the Empire became to me like Neo in the Matrix, minus the bullets. I would not be some savior, but I began to see Jesus in a waaaaaaay different light.
That book trashed my Christian walk. I have not really been welcome back at church sine reading it. I even emailed Walsh about this a time or two. He said he has had that kind of response from others too.
Aside from THAT, I wish your post(s) here were generating more discussion. I rarely read a book where I agree in lock step with the author on everything. In fact, I quibble with Wright in a few places too, though I wouldn’t direct you to just agree with me instead of him in those places. He is far better studied than me, but he has revolutionized the way Christians see Jesus, and done it being faithful to the Bible. So, a little charity is important. Charity with self and others, but challenge is so important. This old world is hurting badly, and Jesus is the answer. WE are his people, his body, answering those hurts. We simply cannot keep being part of the problem.
I love your story. Thanks for sharing. I can empathize with you more than you know. I’ve had books that have had the sane effect on me. And i’m grateful for that. They opened my eyes and hearts.
I haven’t read colossians remixed, but did read their next book “romans disarmed.” I loved it, but that’s because of the prior opening of my eyes to new ways of looking at Jesus.
Fight like Jesus fits into that category for me. I don’t think i would like the book in my younger years. I would probably hate it. But now things are different.
And yes, i wish there was more discussion. I write to generate conversation, but primarily to sort out ideas floating in my head. In a way, anyone who is reading my blog is getting a front row seat into the debate going on in the silence of my mind and heart.
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Okay… I apologize for taking so long to get to this in a meaningful way, and yet I am so distracted at the moment I fear I will not give this the attention it deserves. BUT you (and the rest of the world) keep posting – moving on – and if I want to address this point, I gotta scramble.
In the general scheme, I am with you and Porterfield. Jesus comes bringing peace. His own disciples are oblivious and in a contrary state of mind.
However, in the details and particulars, I am not seeing it the way it’s presented here. The part from Luke presented previously all made sense to me, but this part from John isn’t.
For one thing, I WONDER – not sure how to handle this – is it fair to look at John’s temple cleansing as part of PASSION WEEK? Honestly, for me John puts knots in the narratival thread with his placement of the event that I have not been able to reconcile at some levels. But that part is between John and me.
John puts a whip in Jesus’s hands as he drives out money changers. For the Synoptics, this whole event very obviously is the catalyst for arrest and crucifixion. The Synoptics though do not mention a whip at all.
Whatever the case, the confrontation is gritty. Jesus is offensive and right up in Israel’s grill. He is all up in their hostile, inbred face! That much is clear across all four gospels. Jesus isn’t merely dodging offense or only directing his “violence” at the animals. He is lodging an offense that draws the ire of temple authorities.
Why is it that the Roman guards watching from their tower above the wall do not intervene?
That is a delicate aspect of this. Anyone believing the Bible has to hold some things in tension here, but this doesn’t make it unbelievable. Perhaps the Romans are happy to let this thing go as long as it remains at the level of insult. Pilate favoring a chaos that seethes beneath the surface makes sense to me. He is not in favor of Shalom, but Pax. All the rage a Pax can contain, he would relish, I think. His top lieutenants I think would concur with that.
That Jesus’s whip is a make-shift thingy seems accurate. He obvious constructed it on site with what he could find. The idea that it is not a particularly dangerous weapon seems accurate to me. However, it is enough to cause alarm, to offend, and in the tinderbox of Herod’s Temple, it’s like smoking a cigarette while pumping gas or shopping for fireworks. We should not minimize the danger here even if walking a razor’s edge with peace.
Recall that Jesus tells his disciples to buy swords (Luke 22). He very much wants them to present weapons, not major weapons, but enough to incur blame. One or two swords a revolution does not make, but in court will secure conviction.
Here, I think, is the element of Jesus’s saving peace which we Christians so easily overlook. He is not getting us to all talk nice to each other and “get along” in some Rodney King sense of the phrase. He draws the evil onto himself. He is the decoy in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, only he lets himself get caught. He pays the price on our behalf.
There is violence in that. Violence he elicits from fallen humans to direct against him. He instigates it. But he is the one to endure it too rather than inflict it on others.
That is a twist I don’t see us dealing with so far.
Thanks for engaging in this. Part of the issue may very well be that I’m only presenting highlights of Porterfield’s book and having read the entire book, some of what I’m quoting I may be filling in what what I know about the book and what Porterfield if arguing.
Having said that, I think you raise some really good question. Porterfield doesn’t address the last thing you talk about – the idea that Jesus is allowing violence to be brought on him, even encouraging it. That’s an interesting thought and one that I think can easily be supported by Scripture. And at the same time, isn’t Jesus just fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy?
My way of dealing with this is that the difference between what Jesus is doing and what Rome/the Temple authorities/the Zealots are doing with violence is that violence is used as a means to an end for them. Jesus is showing that this means to an ends shows that end is false. He’s exposing it for what it is – a lie. And it is revealed while he is on the cross. The thief acknowledges it as such. As does the Centurion. Two men that used violence for their ends now have their eyes opened to see that the means of violence doesn’t produce peace. It only leaves everyone a victim of violence.
That’s my spin on it anyway.
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Oh yeah, I think it’s mysterious.
I hate to say anything just because I fear anything I say will be reductionist about it, but consider this thought:
I am a double minded disciple. Maybe not even a disciple, though them too at least. And I come to Jesus (God) and war with him. I inflict my violence on him and he accepts it until I have exhausted all I have to hit him with.
On the one hand, LOVE rises in the morning. Easter. And all the mystery of that.
On the other hand, I am now exhausted. I have done my worst and got IT ALL out. I put it all on him. I am empty of it now, and weary from it. And for a brief moment, the evil from me is all on him now as I have a new vantage point (even if briefly). I am a new creature, no longer filled with fury; it’s been exhausted.
Now couple these things. I just emptied my worst on LOVE and LOVE is only just getting started.
I am already saying too much…
I like this, and I think there is more. We’ve done our worst, and are empty. But it’s not because I’ve done all of that, that I have a new vantage point. It’s because of God, who has been steadfast all along. God reaches out and say, “Are you done yet? because it’s my turn now.” And that turn isn’t God inflicting violence on us, but rather loving us. And we are shocked because we put ourselves onto God thinking that God would act the way we act towards God, but that’s not what happens.
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LIKE