BunGeeZus
Thursday, I am tasked with finishing what I started yesterday. I wrote that a friend promised to send me an image plucked from the seeming bottomless internet meme well of Jesus bungee jumping…
Here it is. This may or may not evoke a bodily sensation. Maybe a wave of horror, a glimpse of the gentle shepherd of humanity, ‘high as a kite’ doing a stage dive into a mosh pit? Or do you feel shock of seeing the son-of-God in disconnect from a cross (essential enforcement tool of empire) sidestepping the agony ritual, to wildly embrace humanity with arms wide open!
As a recovering Christian fundamentalist, this image prompted amused contemplation. I paused and thought how inescapable, how definitely our thought/feeling about the nature of reality (another way of saying “God”) is framed, held fast by events known first hand by our ancestors, happenings which they endured, and in which they participated. The after effects of past events envelop us…
I reflect upon the Platonic idealism that has shaped Christianity. Plato and his teacher Socrates survived the Peloponnesian War which lasted 27 year. Think death by disease within the walls of Athens. Think hunger on account of siege by Sparta’s army… Pericles leader of Athens was taken by plague.
Further downstream in history was the English Protestant reformation in the 16th century. You know the saga of King Henry VIII arm wrestling with the Catholic church over marriage annulment to Catherine of Aragon, and the rise of Thomas Cromwell chief minister to King Henry. Thomas too was relieved of his head (by King Henry). The introduction of Calvinism, that austere riff on human nature – formative of Puritan selfhood, etc., etc. All to say that events have a life of their own, – that the future, our present is formed by a rolling hairball of struggle for power, the essentially irrational. The future really, really is open, undetermined.
To say more plainly, Jesus as Lord, our icon of reality, the revelation of God, can be massaged. Jesus is made-over into anything whatever a people need, or insists that he become. So, go ahead. Be my guest!
Why not a bungee jumping Jesus?
Why not?
2 thoughts on “BunGeeZus”
To me, the image encompasses a humanistic representation of what many people idealize as a god-like figure. As a supposed teacher, if he actually existed, he would have needed at least a modicum of humor to connect with his students/flock. This characteristic is something we humans are in desperate need of during these very dark days. Unfortunately many people would take deep offense at the idea of Jesus bungee jumping. Oh well!
Indeed! What we need is/are a leader(s), a human role model not adverse to risk, embracing the wild, uncertainty of existence. Where is the ironic Jesus?