Symbols and stories

I recently read N.T. Wright’s book The Challenge of Jesus. One really interesting aspect of Jesus’ ministry that he highlights in the book is how he used some very powerful symbols to communicate what he was on about. So I thought I’d share a couple of reflections on that… as I start to grapple with some implications for us!

Wright paints a portrait of Jesus as the last and greatest in a long line of prophets, as the one who came at last to announce (and bring) the kingdom of God. But he didn’t just announce it with words. Part of the way he announced the kingdom was through symbolic actions, which he would often then cryptically interpret through parables or other sayings for those with ears to hear.

For example, one significant symbol in Jesus’ ministry was his overturning of tables in the Temple and driving out the money changers (Matt 21:12-13). While the Temple was supposed to be where God himself dwelt with his people, a lot had changed by the first century. As Wright explains;

“There is good evidence that many of the disadvantaged within Judaism saw the Temple as standing for everything that was oppressing them: the rich, corrupt aristocracy and their systematic injustices.” Jesus deepest belief regarding the Temple was that, “the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. It had come to symbolise the injustice that characterised the society on the inside and outside, the rejection of the vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world.”

So according to Wright, Jesus’ actions in the Temple can be understood as symbolic of God’s judgement on the corrupt Temple institution… and suggestive of something that had come in its place (Him and the new community he was forming, founded on love, grace, justice and righteousness).

And then there were some beautiful positive symbols too. In for example Jesus’ healings and his eating with tax collectors and sinners we see “signs of a radical and healing inclusivism… dealing with the problems at the root so as to bring to birth a truly renewed, restored community whose new life would symbolise and embody the kingdom of which Jesus was speaking.” And there were lots of other symbolic actions too.

So, does this mean anything for me to try to live as a follower of Jesus in a South-Asian slum? I’m pretty sure it does. Having risen from the dead Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Jesus draws lines from the way the Father sent him to be in the world, to the way he now sends us. I think there are several aspects to this “as Jesus was sent…so we too are sent” theme (e.g. “incarnation” being a big one, and one very important to us). But maybe another aspect we could call, “prophetic symbol”. That is, being, living and acting in ways that communicate about God’s kingdom through symbols.

For example, in our context, giving up a career and middle class western lifestyle to live in solidarity with the poor could be seen as a symbol of the nature of God and his kingdom. An example we stumbled into as we moved into our slum community is that, unbeknown to us we landed in the midst of neighbourhood conflict. People were labelled either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and we were directed not to associate with the so called ‘bad people’. However by refusing to be drawn into those kinds of labels, instead seeking friendship with all, we found that in time some people stopped and noticed. And we were able to explain that we are devotees of Jesus, who loved and welcomed all people, even the so called ‘bad people’ of his day.

I’m sure that for all of us there are many things we could do and ways we could be in our neighbourhoods… perhaps some seemingly strange, puzzling, costly but lovely things that we could do for our neighbours… things that would be like tastes, echoes and symbols of the nature of Jesus and his kingdom.

As Wright puts it, let’s “learn to be symbol-makers and story-tellers for the kingdom of God.”