You may have seen Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, introduce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday. It wasn't exactly a love-in.
That introduction plus all of the protests got me to thinking about how Jesus might have introduced Ahmadinejad. Would he have listed all of Ahmadinejad's public policy sins? Would he have publicly challenged him on his horrific statements? His horrific policies? Would he, in short, have sounded anything like President Bollinger?
I don't think so.
My guess is that Jesus might have gotten up and said something like, "This is Mahmoud and I love him."
From there Jesus would, I think, have gone on to explain all that he loved about Mahmoud. Perhaps he would have used a childhood nickname or a pet name used by his parents. Maybe he would have talked about a few moments from Mahmoud's childhood or teen years and used them as examples of the goodness in his heart. He would, I think, have broken down his life in front of him in a beautiful way. And I think that had Jesus done that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might have wept and embraced Jesus and given a very different kind of speech.
How odd then to sit here as a man who tries to follow Jesus and realize that I need to think of Mahmoud in similar terms. It is not my right to hate him. Nowhere does Jesus give me that kind of license. I may not call him all the things that I want to call him. I may not yell at him for being a barbarian. No, I need to be ready to get on my knees and offer to wash his feet. That, I sense, is what the radical Jesus would have me do.
It makes no sense. But isn't that exactly the problem people had with Jesus when he first showed up on the scene? Didn't they desperately want him to take down the Roman Empire? Didn't they want their sometimes barbaric rulers to be destroyed? And didn't they see Jesus as the answer to their problem?
Jesus' solution, however, was rather different. He said he came to serve and not be served. He said that Rome should be given what Rome was due. He didn't use his powers to change the Empire. He used to his life to change hearts. He gave his life to give life.
It is the Jesus paradox and it is why, I sense, he might have introduced Mahmoud with a kiss on the cheek.
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"My guess is that Jesus might have gotten up and said something like, 'This is Mahmoud and I love him.'"
From there Jesus would, I think, have gone on to explain all that he loved about Mahmoud."
David, how do you arrive at such an assumption? Does Jesus anywhere in the gospels, say to an unbeliever, "I love you"?
I can think of one possible example, where he encounters the rich young ruler. The text says, "Jesus looked at him and loved him."
Yet what he said to him was not, "I love you," but "Go, sell all you have and give to the poor . . . then follow me."
When we start saying, "I think Jesus would have . . .," do we base our assumptions on what we observe in the gospels or upon our own assumptions not found in Scripture?
I think you and I, David, part theological company on this speculation you have posed. You've posed a smarmy non-judgmental Jesus to introduce this guy. I don't see Jesus that way. One of the elements of His multifaceted Lordship is that He becomes the divine judge. He didn't ooze love on the people He met in every case. Some He surprisingly showed mercy to (the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, and the Roman Centurian.) Others, like Judas and the rulers who heckled Him as He preached, He passed judgment on. Of Judas He said it would have been better for him if he had never been born. Would He say that about Ahmadidinajad? I don't know. More likely, He would have said something like Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus in a blinding light, "Mahmoud, Mahmoud, why are you persecuting Me?"
I'm waiting for someone who shall remain nameless (and whose name rhymes with Yanni) to weigh in with the info that his Jesus, who has a concealed carry permit, would have have produced The Most Powerful Handgun In The World, snarled something like Make my day,punk, and shot Ahmadinejad in the kneecap.
Anyway, it's the kind of question that naturally produces absurd speculations or at least highly imaginative answers...
which I very much enjoy and approve of.
Maybe He would say, "You're sins are forgiven, Mahmoud. Now go, and sin no more."
It seems people always remember the first part, but always forget that last part.
David,
I find your remarks unusual in that you do, in my opinion, articulate the heart of the Jesus I believe urges us always to forgive.
As a young theology student, I was reminded that Namo dat quod non habet, that is, I cannot be to others what I myself do not possess.
The many mythological stories in Sacred Scripture direct us to that place within that merges, links, touches God and illuminates the heart. But we miss the meaning of Gospel stories when we try to use human logic and upstairs rationalism to be certain that we understand with the head and not the heart.
Thanks for the brief but timely reflection and reminder.
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