Most of my life I have wondered about who I was seeing in Jesus of Nazareth and what he was doing when he lived in ancient Israel. I've had a lot of well-meaning and earnest evangelicals badger me across the years about who I was seeing and that I should get to know him personally as lord and savior. I took them at their word and, lo and behold, as I got to know him personally during these many years, I found one who was rugged, courageous, friend of the outcast and down-trodden and the center of controversy. He ate at table with many social rejects of his day. So he wasn't welcome in very many places in Nazareth or Jerusalem. I doubt that he would be all that welcome in the churches of those evangelicals who were determined to convert me to their brand of religion. I am certain he wouldn't be welcome in the homes of many religious folk today because he is so careless with his invitations about who can journey with him in life. He invites everyone. Their social status or sexual orientation or race or financial standing or gender or ethnicity or social standing doesn't disqualify anyone who wishes to determine just who he is. In fact, he even gives a special invitation to those in the "highways and byways!" As I suggested when we were in the other "Jesus Room," I found that he bears little resemblance to the portrayal by the evangelicals of one who is for what we are for, against what we are against, goes where we go and stays away from people and places we stay away from, goes to a "seeker friendly" church when and where we go, blesses our business and makes us prosperous, flies our flag, waves our banners, fights our wars and cites our orthodox dogma. Despite the fact that he did none of these things while he was here, some believe that he would do all of these things now.

    What I found was a distant relative, at best, of the Jesus of my earlier years. With mind and heart open to new light and insight, I found that he is "a subversive poet" with an "alternative social vision!" Or, if you prefer, I glimpsed "a subversive story-teller" with a unique gift for framing a counter-world with aphorisms, pithy sayings and parables, a counter-world he called the Empire of God and scholars call his "alternative social vision." In effect, according to Marcus J. Borg in The Heart of Christianity, Jesus says, "Faith is not about me" and then points beyond himself to God -- to God and that counter-world of unfailing justice, full inclusion, authentic freedom, incredible love, astounding forgiveness, sheer grace and unending peace. I now understand this human Jesus as companion for my journey, model for my life, symbol of God and the way to the eternal embrace of God's love. I am willing to bet that this wasn't what they had in mind for me! But I see what I see!

   A major reason I "see what I see" comes from my careful reading of books by William R. Herzog II. He introduced me to the meaning of what Jesus was asking us to glimpse in his stories or parables. The book is Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed and it has contributed to a revolution in my thinking. He wrote Prophet and Teacher: An Introduction to the Historical Jesus and that work continues what he began in the earlier book. He demonstrates that the focus of the parables of Jesus was not "on a vision of the glory of the reign of God but on the gory details of how oppression kept the ruling powers in control. His work, someone said, is to show parables as "not just earthly stories with heavenly meanings but earthy stories with heavy meanings." So I began to see Jesus differently. Although the emphasis of Amy-Jill Levine isn't on his humanity, it is helpful to see Jesus in his Jewish context; her study is entitled The Misunderstood Jew. My profile of Jesus has been shaped, in part, by perspectives like hers.

    In Context  Martin E.Marty describes what he calls "a poetic spirituality; he is reporting what he learned by reading a review of Jane Kenyon: A Literary Life. There are striking parallels between reviewer John A. Timmerman's description of a poet's faith journey and what Bernard Brandon Scott sees in Jesus. In a book entitled Profiles of Jesus Scott's essay called The Reappearance of Parables contends that Jesus is an "oral storyteller" who used parables as the window through which to gaze on an "alternative social reality" or Empire of God. He re-imagines a counter-world and, thus, he could be identified as a poet! Timmerman writes, "Often this quality -- this powerful immersion -- gives rise to poems of such luminous beauty that they haunt the inner eye and change the way we look at the world...." Jesus used parables, according to Professsor Scott, to point to "an alternative social vision" or counter-world or Empire of God. And when you see what Jesus had always been pointing out, that's "the blazing light!" This Jesus is the one I follow as I embrace his "alternative social vision" called Empire of God!