Matthew Henry John Bartlett

In response to Jonathan M’s comment that I haven’t considered how much middleclassness is influenced by the Bible I say

I think you’re right. Living frugally, working hard and being honest in your work, sticking with your family and giving your children a head start in life (cash, property, education) is an ethic that can be derived from the Bible, and is likely to ease families up the social scale. Although that ethic can be derived from the Bible, I don’t think it takes into account the movement/directionality in the Bible. It doesn’t see the the whole in terms of the climactic sequence of Jesus’ life and death.

I’ve begun to sketch out that sequence, following the Gospel of Luke. The question I have in mind is What does this have to do with middle-class values? Anything at all? Here goes:

• John the Baptist requires those who he baptises to share their clothes and food with those who have none.
• Jesus is baptised, announces jubilee; good news for poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, is kicked out of the synagogue when he extends the good news to non-Jews.
• Jesus heals possessed, feverish, sick, leperous, paralysed people; forgives sins.
• Jesus calls fishermen and a tax collector (who throws a party with the other riffraff in his honour) to follow him.
• Jesus challenges Sabbath regulations, angers the establishment, gathers twelve special followers.
• Jesus describes the poor, hungry, tearful, hated, insulted, rejected as blessed; and the rich, comfortable, well-fed, happy, well-spoken-of as cursed. He instructs everyone who’ll listen: “love your enemies, give to the undeserving, lend to the noncreditworthy, just like God does. Your behaviour shows your heart. Calling me Lord without action is worse than worthless.”
• Women pay for Jesus’ travels.
• Jesus gives his followers priority over his biological family.
• Jesus commands the wind & waves, heals and exorcises some more demons.
• Jesus sends the twelve out to ‘proclaim the kingdom of God’, with power to heal and exorcise, forbidding them to take provisions for their journey.
• Jesus feeds five thousand men with a tiny amount of food, with lots of leftovers.
• Peter, one of the twelve, annouces that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus tells them to be quiet, and that he has to suffer and be killed and raised, and that if any would become his followers they’d have ‘take up their cross daily’, deny themselves, hold their lives loosely.
• Three of Jesus’ followers join him on a mountain and see his appearance change while he discusses his Jerusalem exodus with Moses and Elijah.
• Jesus other followers are unable to cast out a demon, so Jesus had to do it. He announced that he would be betrayed.
• Jesus responds to an argument about who is the greatest by taking a child on his lap.
• James and John want to destroy a village in Samaria for rejecting Jesus, but he rebukes them.
• Jesus puts following him above family duties – “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
• Jesus choses 70 of his followers to go on ahead of him, to give peace and cure the sick, to warn unwelcoming towns that judgment is coming. Jesus again forbids them from carrying provisions for the journey. The 70 complete the mission.
• To answer the question “who is the neighbour who I must love as myself?” Jesus tells a story about a robbed man who is left to die by a passing priest and a Levite, and helped by a Samaritan.
• Jesus commends Mary who listened to him teach over Martha who stuck to her housework.
• Jesus teaches the disciples to pray for the coming of his father’s kingdom, for food, for forgiveness (which they can count on insofar as they forgive debts), and for escape in the time of trial.
• Jesus casts out more demons. Some of the crowd accuse him of being in league with the king of demons. Resistance to his activities increases. He accuses his audience of being an evil generation, fit for judgment.
• Jesus goes to dinner with a Pharisee and ignores the usual ceremonial washing. When the Pharisee is suprised, he accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy, accuses them of ignoring justice and the love God, for the sake of punctiliousness in some small particulars. He identifies the Pharisees with all in Israel’s history who opposed God’s prophets. They started to hate him and plot against him. Jesus warned his followers against them, but told them not to fear them as they can only kill, they can’t send to hell. Better to fear the one who keeps an eye on sparrows.
• Someone asked Jesus to make his brother share their inheritance. Jesus warned him against greed, “for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
• Jesus told his followers not to worry about food or clothing, pointing them to the birds and flowers. The nations of the world worry about those things but his followers are to strive for his kingdom, and the other things will take care of themselves. He tells them to sell their posessions, because “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He tells them to be alert and always ready for the return of the master.

… and now (near the end of chapter 12) the story gets quite intense and difficult to summarise, and it’s bedtime. What sort of people is this story intended to generate? Will this stuff become the ground of our life, or will we just borrow the bits that reinforce what we already believe?