THREE CHARACTERS FOR A PANDEMIC TIME: Revolutionaries, Messiahs, And Pool Boys [T, 9-1-20]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

First, revolutionaries:

IU history prof Rebecca Spang points out that a revolution occurs when inherited institutions have broken down and no longer work the way they were/are intended, and people no longer have faith in them… like Congress, the judicial system, including the Supreme Court, the White House, the police, the media, the USPS, public education… and what happens in a revolution is that new institutions take their place… either new representative institutions, or new anti-democratic institutions, like a secret police force, a political conformity task force, propaganda TV networks, etc.

Second, messiahs:

Our pastors pointed out that the reason for “the messianic secret,” why Jesus kept telling his disciples to keep their mouths shut about him being the messiah, was because the people then wanted the messiah to be a super hero, someone “faster than a speeding bullet,” who could make everything right with one swell foop. [1]

We think it would be so nice to have a super-hero messiah, that we create them, like Donald Trump, or at least what Trump and his followers think he is or pretends to be, who can “make America great again” just by saying MAGA, a magical incantation, like abba dabba doody.

That’s why Jesus said, “Don’t tell anybody I’m the messiah.” Jesus knew that is not the way of the world, that the only way a messiah would work was by being willing to give, not grab. Even to die, for the world.

Third, pool-boys:

Jerry Falwell, Jr. excuses himself for his hypocrisy and sexual perversions and greed and generally anti-Jesus behavior, including paying a pool-boy to have sex with his wife while he watched, because, “I am not a minister.” But you are/were the president of a university that enforces puritanical [Christian?] sexual mores on your students. If the president of Stanford or Harvard were guilty of being against scholarly research, would he expect to get by on “I’m not a professor?”

Anyway, it makes me glad I’m not a minister anymore. I can get away with all sorts of stuff now… oh, wait, I can’t leave the house… and the condo association pool doesn’t have a pool-boy…

John Robert McFarland

1] One of my favorite spoonerisms. They are named for The Rev. Wm. Archibald Spooner, 1844-1930, of Oxford, whose brain made him switch the first letters of words, so that he said things like “Pass the pigs fleas,” or “a blushing crow” when he meant “a crushing blow.” When I was a student at Garrett Theological Seminary, PhD student Earl Fike, Jr was preaching in chapel one day and announced that “they shall mount up with ings, as weagles.”