Even though Jesus the Anointed said, “Let the little children approach me, for of such is the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:14), it does not mean he suffers fools lightly. He tells his followers not to fear for their lives because the quality of the teachings cannot be killed. The teachings of Jesus is the compass by which they live. Yeshua instructs, perhaps even berates them,
“Therefore you should not fear them, for nothing is covered which will not be uncovered; and hidden, which will not be made known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light. And what you hear in the ear [understand], proclaim on the housetops [or via the internet, as the case may be]. ” Matthew 10: 26, 27.
The British have a saying: the truth will out. The truth comes out sooner or later.
“And you should not fear the ones killing the body and not able to kill the soul.” There is no waffling here. One cannot be lukewarm. It goes back to the previous posting discussion about Peter. He fearfully and sincerely wanted Jesus to avoid the dangers waiting for him lurking in Jerusalem. However, hiding from truth, and from declaring truth, to save one’s essential being is self-defeating. Such topics must have been common-place among the Jewish peoples in an occupied setting by the Roman Empire. As we are under siege by the Covid-19 virus, we get a mere glimmer of what “occupation” feels like.
Jesus ups the anti even more, possibly churning Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s ire from the previous post, “Do not [even begin to] think that I came in order to create peace on earth. I did not bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set differences between a man from his father, and a daughter with her mother, and a bride with her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be those of his own house.” (vs 34-36).
How often do we go through our family rituals and fail to “get real?” We fail to learn how to discuss and enhance one another’s understanding of life as we share our lived experience. My birth father was a suicide veteran from the second world war. His best friend married my mother years later. We didn’t have the skill-sets for open and frank discussions. Part of the meal-time ritual was the eldest child repeating the same stories over and over again to fill the silence in the air. The topics? Hockey and politics. He was an avid newspaper reader.
Rabbi Yeshua was comfortable with people from all walks of life. He had a breadth of understanding that made heeding him worthwhile. He was quite disaffected by hierarchies in general.
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