Certainly one of the most popular Christmas carols is “Joy to the World,” underlining how much we hunger and thirst for joy, and we hear that joy will come to us as earth receives her king, as psychoanalyst Eric Fromm describes in his 1939 book, “Escape from Freedom”, the majority of citizens sought to escape from their suffering to find joy by welcoming a king-dictator.
And thus out of the unconscious depths of our desperate desires of relieving our suffering anxiety we sing our want of someone who will take charge and make things all better, to our liking and erase our angst, to bring us joy, in hymns such as “Joy to the World,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “The First Noel.”
However, maybe, just maybe, Jesus would have us hear something a little different, as in Matt. 12 where he is described as visiting in a crowded house and his mother and brothers come for him. When word gets to him that they are there for him, Jesus asks, “Who is my mother, brothers?”
And from his function-oriented Hebrew mind he looks around and says, “These are my mothers, my brothers,” meaning functionally by mothering me and brothering- sistering me, you do the will of my father in heaven, later expanding in Matt. 25, “In as much as you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me.”
As his life/mission comes to a close, in the Passover meal, he takes the loaf of bread, says, “This is my body broken for you,” and for the Hebrews bread is associated with nurture, not death, and body is inclusive not only of flesh and blood, but also includes one’s social relations and structure, including his need to be mothered/ fathered, brothered/sistered, extrapolated to all of us.
Furthermore, taking the cup he says, “This is my blood” (the vehicle of life, what makes me alive, how I function}, I pour it into your lives, take and drink.”
In John 20, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene, and she wants to cling to her kinglord, and he replies, “Do not cling to me, but go to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and to your God.” In his Hebrew function-oriented mind, he tells Mary Magdalene what he is recorded as having said in Matt. 18, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I.”
These clues lead me to ask, “Could Jesus be dethroning himself in the minds of his followers to lead them out of autocracy into democracy, where we accept our role and responsibility of caring for each other by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, mothering, fathering, brothering, sistering each other?”
(Editor’s note: Dr. DeWester is a retired Presbyterian minister, holding a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, a Master of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, VA.)
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