@Dave L - I was thinking yesterday of all these aspects of Jesus that are different than us; that are rather fascinating. And how these things related to the psyche of Jesus's personality.
Heathen dogs?
The end of Matthew 12, we have: "Your mother and brothers are outside and want to speak to you...." (Obviously talking about biological relatives.) Jesus's response is that the people who do the will of the Father are His mother and brothers. Which is contextually interesting to the event; and you'll see that in a minute.
This situation of them coming to get Jesus, is on the end of an interchange between Jesus and pharisees where He calls them a bunch of vipers. And just prior to this Jesus was in hiding, yet healing gentiles because the pharisees were plotting to kill Him.
There is another record of the same type of thing happening in Mark 3. Same scenario; yet are they the same events in the same time frame? I'm not sure; could be? That's another thing I've found about looking at events in the New Testament. A lot of events themselves are repeated. (More than one woman with an issue of blood came to Jesus. More than one centurion came to Jesus - etc.) The account in Mark says His family (friends / fellow kinsmen = maybe people from Nazareth) come because they'd stated: He's "lost his mind".
Now I looked this up in the Greek and I don't believe they thought Jesus was literally "mentally ill". Calling out the establishment the way He did was "an insane thing to do"; and that's why they were looking to "take (Him) by force".
Ironically though; in the "political sense" Jesus was probably "safer" among the people who were hiding Him (who were gentiles) than He would have been among other Jews. Matter of fact; in order to protect Him from the "political power" those of the "religious establishment" possessed, those hiding Jesus would have to have involved Roman military people, because they were the only ones in the jurisdiction that "ranked above" the pharisees.
So in this instance; Jesus was in Rome's version of "witness protection". LOL
And here's where it "gets better". He's healing all these gentiles, who are actually protecting Him from His own people. And He says to He Jewish countrymen / family that those who do the will of the Father are His real mother and brothers. (Which in direct reference to this event has to do with these gentiles.) And them coming from this Jewish ethnocentric mindset (they all hated the Greeks and the Romans); Yeah, Jesus is .... nuckin' futz (to use a vernacular euphemism).
Yet, note the consistency of Jesus's "attitude". This is the one thing I find so fascinating about His interactions with people. He's like "Messiah with Aspergers = no filters" What He's thinking comes right out of His mouth! Which if you read through the gospels; it's obvious that Jesus's style of interacting, socially didn't sit well with "polite society".
Jesus You "anti-Semite" YOU!
And here's the "juxtapose" "culturally" to the gentiles in these passages; Luke 7! (Now I figured this out by looking really carefully at the Greek.) Here is "Simon the pharisee". He invites Jesus to eat and in comes this "sinful woman" who cries all over Jesus's feet, dries them with her hair and anoints them with oil. Simon makes this assertion in his own mind that if Jesus really were a prophet; He'd "know who and what manner of woman this is that touches (Greek word actually means "fondle" - with intent to sexually seduce) him; for she is a sinner."
Now here's where this gets really creepy! Who is this woman and why does Simon know these things? Scripture later identifies her as Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus.
Now the Greek in Luke 7; denotes that she anoints Jesus's feet with this jar of perfume that has been "received back to her" (by implication) in return for her doing this. Now the implication is that this jar of perfume once belonged to her and now it's "received back to her" from Simon the pharisee. Another interesting detail about this event. I believe this is couched within the context of the Greek of the last verse of this chapter. Everyone who is present in Simon's house here, are his family members!
So.... who is this "sinful woman" who has "received back to her" this jar of perfume from Simon the pharisee? She is probably his niece and these things he's taken from her, would have been part of her dowery. Martha is the oldest; who was likely married prior; now living in Bethany. Mary is probably the next born and Lazarus is probably the youngest. So what probably happened is that after Martha was married; their father died and then "creepy uncle Simon the pharisee" becomes the "guardian" of the two younger children. Note Simon and the "sinful woman" live in the same city.
So now the situation appears that Mary and Lazarus's dad (who would have been a widower) dies and these two children are left in the custody of Simon. Simon has likely "defiled" his own niece and "pimps" her out in the community and here is how she's gotten this "sinful woman" reputation. She's basically a human trafficking victim. These people are sick!
So in enters into the public life of this community this preacher named Jesus. What does Mary know of Him? Has she listened to Him preach, seen Him heal people, witnessed Him interact with gentiles? Who knows? We know she knows who Jesus is.
So, Simon sets her up to do this. She's suppose to seduce Jesus. She gets there and comes unglued and the "best" she can do is cry all over His feet. So in response (interestingly) not to her first (who's doing this stuff to Jesus) but to Simon; Jesus poses this parable about the debtors.
Here's another interesting nuance; the language of the parable. Jesus makes a comparison between those who love little, those who love much and of he who loves little, lesser is forgiven. Then He turns to Mary and pointedly makes the statement "
Your sins are forgiven." Which is response to Simon, implying that his are not. Yet now who is the "loves less, lesser is forgiven"? If these are only family members of Simon's present; is Lazarus there? (Thus is the most likely scenario because we know Lazarus was forgiven; and we also know God does not forgive the unrepentant!)
Mary and Jesus's feet?
So later on, just before Passover, Mary does this again. (John 12) and this is where the Scripture identifies her as the woman who'd done this before. So... what's up with her and His feet?
And the answer to that; I think is a cultural thing going back to Ruth and Boaz. So what did Ruth do? She lays down at Boaz's feet and uncovers them as a "self offering" of "take me".
Now if you go back to Exodus 22:16 the stipulation for non-espoused people having sex was that they were to get married. (If they refused marriage then they were to be stoned as "fornicators".) Paul references this in 1 Corinthians 7, speaking of the "virgin passed the flower of her age" and now "necessity requires" "let them marry". That's hearkening back to this law in Exodus. There is a similar passage in Deuteronomy 22 that people often accuse as talking about a rape victim marrying a rapist but that's not what that passage is talking about. It is talking about "unmarried" or "premarital" sex though. (Joseph was culturally "accused" of "premarital" sex (as Mary was pregnant) even though they were engaged.)
So my assertion of Mary's motive is: I want to be married and I want you (Jesus) to take care of me. (Get me out of this situation.) Now if she'd actually gotten Jesus to do what all those involved intended; He would have been obligated by Mosaic law to marry her. (The town prostitute! - This idea would have also fallen in line with Hosea (who was a prophet) and Gomer his prostitute wife.) So the idea was not "outside Scriptural context / law".
Now the thing that's most fascinating about this is Jesus's reactions to her. (Everyone else gets all over her case. The disciples yelled at her later on.) He doesn't tell her not to do any of these things and does not condemn her for her obvious affection. What kind of impact did this have on Him? We don't know. We do see that He's kind to her and is not repulsed by her interest in Him as displayed by her actions which likely had obvious cultural implication as understood by everyone around them.
Now in another place in the gospels (Matthew 19:12) Jesus actually explains why He never got married. And the almost comical thing about this passage is after He says this, all these parents start brining Him children. (You want babies, here we bring you babies.) Jesus is hugging on all these kids. The disciples start yelling at the parents and Jesus gets @$%& off. Don't be chasing the children away!
Fascinating insight into Jesus's personal internal emotional workings about kids and families as it related contextually to His own circumstances. And compare this juxtaposed to the church over the centuries has miserably failed to effectively actually address the issue of human sexuality. The first command "Be fruitful and multiply" was a very present "inherent in the fabric of how creation was woven together" reality in what it means to be created life.
This impacted Jesus also and likely in ways that are far more profound than we understand. We have the Creator of life incarnated as a created entity whom by nature of what His Divine personhood was; (coupled with how He Himself designed life to multiply) obviously would have maintained the desire to create more life. Yet if one puts the concepts of Jesus and "multiply" in the same sentence; "religious folk" tend to "flip out" about it.
Yet they accused Jesus of being a drunk and a glutton!
Gives a very interesting perspective on how far from God our perceptions of "holiness" are.
So, for what ever this thread has inspired my musings to be any value; LOL
There you go!
