OH WHERE, OH WHERE, CAN MY RABBI BE?

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

OH WHERE, OH WHERE, CAN MY RABBI BE?

by Jack D. Sypal

Dateline: Jerusalem, April 27, 20:01:18

Over the years there has been much speculation about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. So, I thought that it would only be right as a reporter to seek out another of the first shapers of the Christian movement, Mary herself, to conclude my series on how The Way began. Earlier conversations have been with Peter, James and John, and Thomas.

With the permission and support of The AngelUS Trumpet editorial staff, I caught a ship to Rome and then another to Marseille. From there I caught a pack-train going to Provence where I finally sat down with Mary Magdalene over a light lunch of some very good bread, a so-so wine, and an excellent salad with some home-grown olives.

Following lunch, Mary had the table cleared and then, with another glass of wine in her hand, she looked at me very directly and started to tell me about her life and her part in the Way.

“It seems like it was a different world back then. In many ways, it was. The heel of Rome was lifted against us in Palestine. Between Rome and the temple, taxes were high and life was difficult. My family had some money, but, even so, the powers of Rome, Herod’s taxes, Pilate’s brutality, they all created some tough times.

“The complicity of Annas and Caiaphas, and the rest of the priesthood, was understandable, I suppose; I mean, the priestly robes and head pieces that were used on high holy days were held and closeted by the governor. The priests were only allowed to wear them during the celebrations, and then they had to be returned to the governor’s care.

“It is hard to be independent when you have to go to your oppressor in order to perform your duties for the people and before the Lord. Eventually that kind of control erodes your faith in God and tempts you to think that the emperor and the power of Rome is equal to, or maybe even greater than the power of God. After that, it’s all about money and power, greed and self-aggrandizement.

“We were living in this world of tremendous wealth and of incredible poverty; and that was not by chance, it was by Roman design. The Emperor and his lackeys wanted to be sure that we felt the full power of Rome and knew that we were a conquered nation. They wanted us to know that our very existence as a nation depended on Rome’s pleasure.

“For instance, to demonstrate their power, soldiers would intentionally carry all their belongings with them wherever they went, but they carried their ruck-sack for only a short distance. Then they would impress one of the people in the street to carry it for them.

“We were required by law to carry the burden for a mile. At the end of a mile, the soldier would point to another person who would then have to carry the ruck-sack the next mile. Usually it was just back to the barracks. The whole time the soldiers would be jeering and taunting the person hoping to get him or her to rebel or respond in anger so that the soldier could slap the person down.

“I remember, there were all kinds of messiahs in those days who spoke out against the power of Rome and encouraged the people to rise against the Roman boot. Mostly, they and their followers were quickly seized and executed.

“Among the messiahs was John; he made a big splash for a while. He was baptizing anybody who would repent of their Roman ways and return to the old ways of the law. an ascetic of sorts I guess. He was making a lot of noise, telling us that we needed to stand up and be counted as the children of God, not slaves to Rome.  

“Eventually John got arrested by Herod for denouncing Herod’s marriage to Herodias. Yeah, his mouth eventually got him killed, but that’s another story. What was different about John was that he kept saying, ‘I am not the one. The one you are seeking is coming after me.’ We thought it was a clever way of deflecting attention from himself, but it turned out to be true.

“You see, this rather quiet rabbi showed up. He too was telling us that we needed to stand up for ourselves, but we were to stand up in love for one another. He advocated praying for our enemies and learning ways to lift up the poor. His teachings were not about defying Rome  with force, but resisting Rome with love. If we were impressed by the soldiers for a mile, we should volunteer to carry the burden another mile. We were to forgive the people who were our oppressors and find ways to be an active part of our world.

“I was just a young woman in those days, and I fell in love with what the rabbi was saying. I hadn’t fallen in love with the rabbi, but I really fell hard for what he was saying; and I thought that I could change the world with my good works. Oh yes, there was some hero worship in there, and it was exciting to be seen with him, but I really wasn’t in love with the rabbi. It was more about the movement than the person.

“I thought that, if I threw some of my family’s money at the poor, that the world would be changed, but it wasn’t money that changed the world. I thought that I could really do something for the lesser people; and then I learned that there aren’t any lesser people, only people we think less of. I learned that people had to do the things that brought recognition and dignity for themselves, that I couldn’t just wish it for them. I thought it was about me, but oh how I was wrong.

“In the course of things, I got to know all of the guys [Peter, James, John, Thomas, etc.] pretty well. I even got into their silly name calling. They called me Maggie Mae. It was so serious and so light-hearted at the same time. And, being a woman often alone with men, I got a reputation, but it was all talk.

“As the rabbi’s teaching gathered popularity, the number of followers increased. In time his following got pretty large, more than a hundred of us that got together regularly. There were enough of us that the rabbi was able to send us out to some of the neighboring towns.

“It was wonderful. To do the work of the rabbi was like life itself. We were young. We were enthused. We were the future. It was amazing! It was an education.

“Oh, I almost forgot to mention the wedding and the wine, Lazy Larry, Isaac Seituwel, and Lazarus; those were the flashy moments, but the best part was learning from the rabbi. Do you know how amazing it was for me, a woman, to be allowed to learn from a rabbi? It was heady stuff and I loved every minute of it.                                                                    

 “I learned to think like him and even observed as he taught the other guys what it meant to be a disciple. The look on Philip’s face the day that the rabbi told him to feed the people who had gathered on the hill to hear what the rabbi had to say, it was precious. Then they found little Sol with the fish and the bread, and the rest is history. I don’t care whether you call it a sign or a miracle. It was amazing to watch those people eat their fill and then have leftovers.  It made you think that world hunger could be conquered with a little generosity and some good will. Anyway, it really felt possible that day.

“At the end, things felt like they were falling apart. You know about the last supper. You know about his arrest and the trial. You know that he was crucified and that they laid him in the new tomb in the garden. You know about the total collapse of the movement.

“You can’t believe how we felt when Rome won again. We were used to being sold out by the priesthood and the temple officials—they were just trying to hold on to what they had. I suppose the charitable thing to say is that they were biding their time for the moment when Rome would go away and leave us alone. Or maybe, that the priests and the scribes and Sadducees were waiting for the day when Rome could be overthrown. I don’t know anymore, but to involve one of our own? It still seems impossible.

“What I know is that we were decimated. We were gutted like the fish in the market. The guys went to the safe house and holed up. I had some rooms nearby that my family held for business in Jerusalem so I stayed there.

“We all spent Sabbath together, and then, early in the morning I went to sit and think about what was next. That’s when it happened. I saw that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was opened. You could smell the myrrh and aloe from the burial clothes, but the tomb looked empty.

“I ran to tell Beloved and Peter that the rabbi’s body was stolen, and they ran to the tomb. If anything, they were even more upset than I was. They went all the way into the tomb, thinking that someone might have come and defiled the body in some way, but there was no body.

“They left in silence. Tears were pouring down their faces as they left, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave right away. So, I went into the tomb to see for myself. That’s when I saw the pile of grave clothes soaked in myrrh, the face cloth rolled up on the side, and the two angels. I thought that it was just a vision, a product of my tortured imagination, but one of the angels spoke to me, ‘Why are you crying?’

“I couldn’t believe it: ‘Why was I crying?’ Because my world was falling apart, that’s why, because one of my best friends ever had died, because everything I thought was worth anything had turned to dust and less than that. They each had this stupid smirk on their faces, and so I turned away. I turned away because I was angry—angry enough to want to die on the spot—and then, when I was trying to leave, I ran right into somebody else.

“Through the tears and my rage, in the midst of my despair and devastation, I searched for anything that might make sense. Supposing him to be the gardener, I lashed out. ‘Where, oh where, can my rabbi be? Where have you laid him?,’ I cried. ‘I know that you have taken him away from me. If you tell me where you have laid him, I will take him away from you, so I can have some peace in this world.’

“I might have even tried to bribe him with some of my family’s money, and then he called me by name. I couldn’t believe it. I knew that voice. I’d heard it thousands of times before. ‘Teacher?’ I asked.

“And then I knew. He had told us in so many ways that this was going to happen, but we just didn’t get it. I mean, how could we have known? I know there was Lazarus; but that was the rabbi’s work, and Lazarus was sick. We never thought that anyone could come back from a crucifixion. And yet, he was standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom. Could it be?

“He told me everything I needed to know and a whole lot more, and then I went to tell the rest of the disciples. They thought I was hysterical and didn’t pay me any mind until that night when they saw him too. You know about Ditto [Thomas] and how that played out. What you don’t know is that even after they had seen the rabbi, they insisted on staying in that stupid room.

“I think that they would be there today if I hadn’t shamed them into leaving. I reminded them all about the times they had promised to have his back, all the times they promised to follow him, all of their pronouncements about the rabbi being the messiah. They called him the Jam Man after all. Didn’t that mean anything to them?

“Did they think that our time together had just been a little political game? I told them that lives matter and the news of the rabbi’s resurrection had to mean something for all people or else the rabbi’s life meant nothing at all. What were we going to do about it? That’s when Peter decided to go fishing. And that fishing trip eventually made the difference.

“After that, the guys went their separate ways, each telling the story as they remembered it. My place in the story, with the other women, got smaller and smaller until you’d have thought that the guys did everything and we were just the auxiliary—sex toys and eye candy. But that was not the way it was.

“One day I decided to find my own place. I decided Ditto had had the right idea: to get away from the chaos in the middle of the empire and go to places where people were less concerned about Rome and more concerned about living, a place where I could remember those days and tell the story as I had learned and lived them. So, here I am.

“No, I am not in one of the lesser places of the world. I am in a place that people think of less. Personally, that’s fine with me. I don’t need high-profile coverage. As a matter of fact, I thought long and hard about talking with you today. But someone has to tell that he lives. The tomb couldn’t hold him. He has ascended to his father and our Father, to God, whom he always professed. He has sent us the Advocate as he promised and with the Advocate I continue to grow in faith, trusting that his message of love will ultimately overcome the powers of evil, greed, self-aggrandizement, self-interest, and hatred.

“Ditto may have been the first one to say it out loud, but he was not the only one to know that our rabbi, our Jam-Man, Jesus, the messiah, is our Lord and our God. He lived among us. He lives with us and through us. He will come again to gather us to himself in the last day.

“In the meantime, I have this simple life with simple fare, and simple ways that do not include Roman imperialism. I would thank you for not sharing precise directions on how to get here.

“And now, I think it is time for you to go. I can do nothing more for you.”

As I walked down the road to my evening’s lodging, I heard Mary say, “Thanks for caring enough to come. Luv ya, man.” 

RENEGADE RABBI RAMPAGE

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

RENEGADE RABBI RAMPAGE

by Matt Hughes

Dateline: Jerusalem, April 9, 21:01:17

Continuing unrest is reported in Jerusalem. The latest, an impromptu demonstration protesting both Roman rule and Temple practices, erupted Sunday morning. The renegade rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, was seen in the midst of the mob riding a donkey and leading a colt. His personal associates allegedly illegally appropriated said animals earlier in the day. 

The gathering crowd, upon recognizing Jesus, called for the restoration of King David’s throne and threw articles of clothing as well as palm branches before him. Many heralded the renegade rabbi with shouts of “Lord, save us” and “Lord from the highest heaven”.

Jesus, upset by temple business, which fleeces many Passover pilgrims, entered the temple court of the gentiles. The rampaging rabbi drove out buyers and sellers, overturned tables of the temple moneychangers, and released many of the sacred, sacrificial animals. The resulting cloud of pigeons anointed many underneath.

In the midst of the turmoil, this reporter interviewed a demonstrator, one Simon Tanner. When asked if he knew the leader, he replied, “This is the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth from Galilee.” Some beggars from the temple gates also came into the temple grounds claiming that they had been blind and lame but Jesus had healed them. Street urchins ran among the demonstrators adding to the confusion, shouting, “Hosanna to the son of David.”

Having created chaos, Jesus of Nazareth withdrew with his looters to an unknown location in Bethany where he was hidden from authorities.

Jesus of Nazareth is a recalcitrant rabbi who has appeared on the scene from time to time. If you see this renegade rabbi, do not listen to him or come into close contact with him. It is unlikely that this troubled teacher would inflict injury, but he has been known to change people’s lives without considering future consequences. Jack D. Sypal continues to follow several lawsuits people have brought as a result of these actions.

Like today, this man disappears before authorities can apprehend him. Since he is likely to return to the Temple area and grounds in the future, Rome and Temple authorities are asking for your help. They urge you to immediately notify the Temple guard or any Roman soldier. Claims that he is the new King of the Jews continue to perplex politicos and ruffle Roman feathers. Whispers of treason abound.

All Is Well?

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET           

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

 

All Is Well?

Dateline: Sychar, Samaria, March 19, 04:05:42

by Jack D. Sypal

An itinerant rabbi and his rag-tag followers stopped at Jacob’s Well midday Friday. While the rabbi’s followers went into the city ostensibly to find food, the rabbi accosted one of Sychar’s female citizens.

This woman, who asked to not be identified, said she was wise to the rabbi’s gambit from the very beginning. “I have read those stories of women going to the well and men begging for water. That is how Rebecca got hornswoggled and Rachel got married eventually. It is how Moses entrapped Zipporah. I was on to him from the get-go. So, when he told me to give him water, I challenged him to show his true colors. I wasn’t going to get involved with any deadbeat and his homies.”

As it turned out, the tables got turned on this unsuspecting woman. It appears that the rabbi was something of a clairvoyant, telling her of her past. After disclosing to her her background, she contacted townspeople to check him out.

The rabbi was detained on a 48-hour security hold. Officer Gaelor said, “We invited him to stay with us for a couple of days, and he didn’t resist at-all, at-all.”

Today, all seems well. The rabbi and his posse were allowed to go on their way without any charges.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Matthew 5:21-37

The old commercial used to say, “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.” Today I say, “Sometimes you have to take the Bible literally, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you have to take the Bible metaphorically, sometimes you don’t. And sometimes, you have to take the Bible metaphorically and literally at the same time. Welcome to the Sermon on the Mount.”


For the past couple of weeks, we have been talking about this new community that Jesus is creating and forming. It is a new world vision that includes all of God’s people. So once again, let’s review the people who are gathered on the mountainside. They are the people who have come from all of Syria, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, and the land beyond the Jordan. These people are the diseased and infirm, those who have mental illness, the epileptics, and the paralytics. These people have come with their care takers and followed Jesus up the mountain.


Here, on this mount, as we witness a new community being formed, we are reminded of Moses in the wilderness—how Moses went up the mountain and came back down with the Ten Commandments. When the people, like Moses, come down from this mountain, they too, will have a new understanding of what it means to be God’s people in the world and to be a follower of Jesus. These words will give identity to the people and shape the attitudes and conversations engaging the world. These words will also shape the mission and ministry of the nascent church while developing an ethic and vocabulary for considering our place in the world.


Jesus is speaking to the people gathered before him on the mountain, and, at the same time, he is speaking to us in his distant future. He is using extreme language, setting the bar low enough so that we will attempt to live by them, but high enough so we know that it is only by God’s grace that we will be able to claim these words as our own.


Sue got her degree in economics, and though the subject of economics continues to confuse me in all kinds of ways, she helped me understand at least part of the economic conversation by telling me that there are two major conversations of economics that are always going on; sometimes they even talk with one another. There is the conversation of macroeconomics which is about the financial concerns of the nation and the world economy and there is microeconomics which deals with household spending.


I use this image of macro and micro as a way of suggesting how Jesus is speaking to us, giving these commands as both a macro- and as a micro- ethic. It is not just for the people who are there, but for those that we will come to know as the followers of Jesus. We will call them Christians. Just as Moses gave the Ten Commandments as guides and mandates for the greater community of faith, not for individual piety and self-righteousness, but for the entire nation of Israel, we will claim these words of Jesus as guiding words for ourselves today.


The Ten Commandments were given as an identifying signature symbol to the world stating why these particular Hebrew people were different. They were for all of God’s people who had come out of Egypt and also for the generations of people who would follow them. These commandments were given to help the people live together in peace with a common set of rules among the families and tribes, and guidelines for being in relationship with the nations/peoples around them. These commandments were at the same time, macro- and micro-.


In this sermon, Jesus does not mention all of the commandments, nor does he address the commandments in the order that we received them from Moses. Jesus also references some of the great number of the laws given in Torah as he talks about these new ways of understanding them.


Jesus begins “Don’t murder.” On a micro-, personal level, this commandment seems pretty straight forward. On a macro-, national level, this command becomes much more difficult. Yet Jesus does not stop with that complication, he makes it even more difficult. If you are going to be my follower, if you are going to be the people who will exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, then I say, “More than do not murder, don’t be angry with one another. Don’t get trapped in the pettiness of insulting one another. Don’t declare that others are fools.”


I need just a moment to talk about why, when Jesus says, “but I say,” it was so controversial for the people hearing this in Jesus’ time. A rabbi didn’t speak by his own authority but by the authority of other rabbis, past and present, who had influenced his thought, and with the authority of Torah itself. Many of the sayings and thoughts cited were from Moses. A rabbi borrowed the authority of Moses by reiterating Moses’ words, saying, “With Moses, I say …” or, “I will teach you as it is written in Torah (the first five books of the First Testament, sometimes referred to as the law)”. The rabbi also included the opinions of other rabbis who were in agreement with the history of the faith and in agreement with him. Thus, rabbis spoke with the authority of those who had gone before them.


A rabbi traveled around the country seeking out the brightest and the best of the young boys who might be worthy of becoming his disciple. While rabbis were teaching their own students, they offered up their own ideas derived from the arguments and teaching of others. When their students brought those teachings forward, they did so with the authority of their teacher. These students then taught saying, “As Rabbi so-and-so used to say, ‘this is what we should be thinking and doing.’” A rabbi, unlike Jesus’ statements, never really spoke with his own authority, but with that of a consortium of others.


It was understood that the only one who could speak with his own authority and without the voices of other people was Godself. Therefore, now understanding a bit about rabbinical authority, we can understand what authority Jesus claimed when he said, “You have heard it said in ancient times, don’t murder, but I say to you….”. Jesus’ words are so powerful because he is claiming the authority only allowed to the Son of God.


The people, both then and now, having heard these words, must determine whether Jesus was some sort of flim-flammer con artist, or whether he has the authority of God, indeed is God. If Jesus was a flim-flammer, then they, and we, don’t have to pay any attention to him. Today, we could just go home, go eat breakfast or brunch, prepare to take a nap. We could do any number of things that might fill our time in oh so many ways. We might even go to the mall to pick up a few things that we think we can’t live without.


But, today we are gathered proclaiming that the one speaking, one Jesus of Nazareth, is the Son of God, the Word of God incarnate. We are now accountable to living our lives differently: when issues arise that might divide us, we will try to remain friends instead of becoming adversaries. We will seek ways to be reconciled to one another, that is, we will make concessions for the sake of the other.


Just in case you think that this process of being reconciled to your neighbor is only for personal relationships, the micro-ethic, Jesus intends this is how national and local communities should interact with neighbors as well, the macro-ethic. In all relationships, Jesus urges do not be angry or vengeful, do not insult a neighbor, not even pointing out foolish behavior. Rather, Jesus demands reconciliation so that the value of the neighbor is not diminished, weakening the whole body of Christ.


This reconciliation is not “You need to change”. It is “We are willing to change in order for you to be part of us” reconciliation. This language suggests that “being reconciled to” means that we will make accommodations for the needs of our neighbors in order to walk together in Christ.


We know the early Christian worshipping community was divided over different ways of becoming Christian. In First Corinthians, we hear that some claim Apollos, others claim Paul. We know that some thought that it was necessary for a person to convert to Judaism first, and then, after they had become Jewish, they could begin Catechism to become Christian. We also know that the Gospel of Matthew was probably written in Antioch, Syria, and that the Christian community had gathered there to escape the Roman army in Jerusalem. So, as Matthew is recounting Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he is reporting it to a highly polarized, divided faith community. They are people who want to distance themselves from one another in self-righteous fervor trying to say that one faction is better than the other. They are more concerned about their faith positions than they are about what Christ has done for all of them. So, Matthew includes this divided community with all the other outcasts of the world when he speaks about Jesus’ concerns about divorce and adultery.


When Jesus talks about divorce, his words seem to be talking about the breakdown of a personal relationship (like with the person we are married to), but adultery and divorce, in the scriptures we call the Old Testament, have more to do with our communal relationship with God than they do with marital conditions. They are more macro= than micro-. In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God says that, although we have not been faithful to God, God will not divorce us. We may divorce ourselves from God, but God will not divorce us. Instead, God will write God’s laws on our hearts, and God will remember our sins no more. So, when Jesus speaks about adultery and divorce, Jesus cautions us against turning away from God and chasing after other gods for false gratification and salvation and moving outside that relationship that God desires to have with us.


These words are for Christ’s body, that is, the people gathered in worship, and address the divisions that come within that community of faith, with the many gifts of Christ’s body, his hands and his feet, his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, who are gathered together for the sake of the world, seeking wholeness. So, Matthew reports that Jesus has said that when the eye or the right hand has caused the body to sin, remove it. This is not for the personal body, although there are times when surgery demonstrates the value of removing diseased appendixes, cancerous or severely infected organs like gall bladders and more, these words are written for the good order and the overall health of the body of Christ and caution us concerning outside philosophies and faiths.


It is better amid irreconcilable differences that one part of the faithful separate from the other until future discernment can find wholeness again. In this light, the Reformation, started by Luther’s actions 500 years ago, was a better way to go than to continue to fight within the Roman Catholic Church. Although we have not found wholeness together yet, we are now able to understand each other better than we have for many years.


So, at Jesus’ feet on the side of the mountain, seated with the first people gathered there, and with the divided community of Antioch, and within the midst of our own polarized and divided world, let us hear these words again that encourage us to be the new community of faith with new understandings of who this Jesus is. This understanding affects the way we live individually, but, more than that, it calls us as one of many communities of faith to honor those around us in ways that we have not in the past.


This is not a time for warfare and separation. It is not a time of hurling insults at the people who disagree with our communal beliefs. It is certainly not a time to call those who differ from us fools thereby increasing the chasm of distrust that separates us. It is not a time of chasing after easy solutions that dishonor the value of our neighbors. These words of Jesus pledge us to the commitment of seriously engaging the problems of the community we live in, embracing those problems in a way that says, “These are the concessions that we are willing and able to make to accommodate the needs of our neighbors. These are our theological non-negotiables concerning who Jesus is and whose we are, and, if we can’t agree on these things, it might be better for us to go our separate ways for the sake of the health and welfare of the body of Christ.”


Continuing in this community God has given us, as we sit and hear these words with those who heard it first, let us come down from the mountain, to live in the ways Jesus has proposed, not only with the words of “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not swear falsely using God’s name wrongly,” but with those added admonitions that help us live in healthy ways and loving relationships with one another.


In the relationships of faith which we have with one another, let us not swear in ways that dishonor God and God’s children: not by heaven, for that is God’s; not by the earth, for that is God’s; not by the city of Jerusalem, for that belongs to the government; not even by your head because you did not create it. Instead, when we engage with one another in honest debate concerning honest differences, let us openly say, “Yes, we can do this,” or, “No, we can’t.” In this way, we will be able to walk together in new ways. We will walk together in the way of forgiveness that is needed for our own spiritual health and ability to embrace life, not to change the behavior of the other person or group. We will walk together in the new way of making concessions to accommodate our neighbor, not because it will make our neighbor more acceptable to us, but because it will strengthen our community of faith and the body of Christ. We will walk together in these new ways, being honest in our relationship with God and one another, celebrating the gifts we have been given; not divorcing ourselves from God or one another; and not chasing after the new latest thing or idea that draws us away from those relationships.


In a divided world, in this time when the world continues to want to swear by flags and constitutions, by guns and walls that will only divide us, and by the wealth and lifestyle we have, let us remember and recognize God’s authority to create and forgive, and let us remember our calling to be the new welcoming community of God’s people and our willingness to serve in Christ, simply saying yes and no in faith.