Wisdom Wednesday: Our Counterfeit Jesus
Several years ago I read a book by William Spohn, Go and Do Likewise. I was and still am challenged by this observation in the book:
Christians have often substituted a false norm for the story of Jesus by projecting their own values and biases onto it. These counterfeits are exposed by a deeper reading of the Gospels, which are the enduring standard against which all portraits of Jesus must be measured.
He goes on to talk about the ways Jesus in the Gospels challenges our beliefs about violence, poverty, and oppression by how he lived, what he taught, and who he shared a table with. I think Spohn is right, though of course other projections of our values and biases can be found as well. The list will differ depending on how we approach Jesus and the Scriptures, and the ways our souls have been formed (or malformed).
But at its best, the Christian knowledge tradition is much more than a projection of our own biases. Rather—and we see this occurring again and again in the Gospels—the teachings and life of Christ should undermine and challenge many of the biases, false beliefs, and preconceptions we have about ethics, God, and the good life for human beings. I'm sure I project many of my own values onto the person and life of Christ. I don’t want to, and when I see this happening, I try to reverse course. At least I hope so.
What is important is an openness to God changing the values we hold that need to be changed. We need an openness to not only our morality being challenged by the Christ, but to our very being being transformed by his being.
The life and teachings of Jesus center on loving God and our neighbors as ourselves. When we trade in our own personal counterfeit Jesus for more of the real thing, we experience a deeper union with Christ and see his kingdom come more fully in and through our lives. That is the life that is truly life.