Only A Wimpy Philosopher--Come On, Man! Series

Monday of the 3rd Week in Lent 2021

One of the great heresies of Christendom that comes back again and again says that Jesus Christ was a great moral philosopher in the line of the Buddha, Confucius, and Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps the most notorious of the authors holding this position was the U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote a compilation of the four gospels titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. In it, the deist Jefferson claimed that Jesus gave us "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man." In the process, Jefferson essentially threw out anything that he thought later embellishments or unreasonable, which means all of his miracles and claims to divinity. That would, of course, be a lot like having a beautiful vehicle with no engine and, therefore, no value. Jesus as a kind of philosophizing wimp, so to speak.

This one-dimensional view of Jesus not only tries to take out the driving force behind the most powerful spiritual and religious drive in human history. It softens the image of Jesus left in the Gospels, and ignores the terrible conflict with the Pharisees and Sadducees and Roman authorities that left Jesus dead and His followers scattered. Such a picture of Christ makes the Resurrection void of reality and makes us wonder why millions of Christians over the ages would willingly give up their own lives rather than deny that He lives as King of the Universe.

Today’s Gospel shows us Jesus in conflict with the Jewish community in His hometown of Nazareth. He has just read the scriptures from Isaiah about the Spirit of the Lord acting in a human to proclaim good news to the poor. He then followed up telling them that the scripture is fulfilled in their hearing that. Although they spoke well of Him they expressed some doubt by asking “Isn’t this just the son of Joseph the carpenter?” And Jesus answered, not only with the proverb “no prophet is accepted in his hometown” but He claimed, in so many words, that their lack of faith meant that He could do no wondrous deeds there. And He compared their situation to that of Elijah and Elisha, who performed miracles for pagans rather than Hebrews for the same reason.

Well, His hometown folks were furious, weren’t they? Nazareth is pretty hilly. You can see pictures of the brow of the hill where they tried to kill Jesus on the Internet, and a famous painting by James Tissot of the scene where Jesus walks calmly through the mob. I think that was the miracle that the people got instead of healing their spiritual and physical sicknesses.

Jesus cites the example of Elisha and Naaman, the leper, in his Nazareth homily. We get only a small bit of the story of this Syrian general from the second book of Kings, so I encourage you to pick up your Bible and read the whole tale. In short, Naaman shows up at the prophet Elisha’s hut with his leprosy, and asks to be cured. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

Now the Jordan River at that point below the Sea of Galilee is not very clean, even today, so the general was incensed and stormed off. He hadn’t even laid eyes on the prophet, let alone been subject to prayers and incantations, and instead was ordered to dip seven times in a filthy ditch. But his servants, who had some humility, asked him if he would have complied if told to do something strange and exotic. Instead, he was asked to be cleansed by the simple act of washing with water. Humbled, Naaman did wash, and was healed.

The Fathers of the Church saw in this scene a powerful symbol of Baptism, in which our faith tells us we are as it were “marinated” with Christ and made to participate in His death and resurrection. So it is read every year as part of the RCIA program in which we instruct those wishing for the sacrament of Baptism. Every time, then, that we use water to bless ourselves or members of our family, we are thanking God for His plan of salvation, just as the leper-general did three thousand years ago.