Yesterday’s Gospel is also Sunday’s Gospel, but before I write about that, I need to explain about Freaked Out Jesus.
When we speak, it is not only our words that convey the meaning of our message. Our tone of voice, facial expressions, general demeanor, all these clarify the real meaning of our words. Start with this statement: “I’m looking for my son.”
It means something completely different, depending on my tone. Frantic? Furious? Bored? Amused? If I’m standing at the sink doing dishes while he’s calling out from the closet for me to come find him, it means I am not looking for my son. As in, maybe he’ll stay in the closet five minutes and I can get these dishes done.
The Gospels almost never give us this extra information to go with the words of Jesus. Which means that for much of the Gospels , we the readers have to fill in the missing information ourselves. There can be no “neutral” reading – put the dialog into a flat, expressionless tone, and you’ve gone and set a very particular (and unlikely) mood.
What readers today seem to do the most, though, is use the words as stage cues. Which doesn’t always work – if Jesus says He’s “tired” of something, is he angry, frustrated, bored, or about to fall asleep? What I see most as a result of this method is what I call Freaked Out Jesus. We put the most forceful literal spin on his words, as if Jesus were marching through Galilee reacting in extremes at every wacky thing the mortals do.
I don’t think this works, and the reason is the people I grew up with. Bearing the brunt of one of our childish antics, my maternal grandmother would say: “I could wring your neck.” My father would say, “God bless it all.”
Now you who have lived in my time and place may know exactly what those two expressions mean and how they were conveyed. But pretend for a moment that you used the Freaked Out method of literal interpretation to add tone and meaning to the words. You’d make my grandmother out to be a homicidal maniac. The children spill a pound of sugar on the floor, and she’s ready to strangle them! You envision wild eyes, grasping hands, children fleeing in terror. And then my father, in contrast, watching the dog eat the meatloaf someone knocked off the table, is smiling beatifically, praising Jesus in mild, thankful tones for the wonderful gift of family life.
No. My grandmother would say, “I could wring your neck”, and she’d be laughing. Children are children. They make good stories. My father would bellow “God bless it all!”, and trust me, it wasn’t a blessing. [For the record, my dad is a great guy. But yeah, when he’s mad, he YELLS. And then he’s over it. He’s a wonderful father in his own special loud way.]
And those two are my argument against the Freaked Out method of reading the Gospels. When Peter starts to slip into the water out on the sea, and Jesus says, “Oh you of little faith,” do you really think He’s belittling the apostle? That’s how it usually gets interpreted. But what if Jesus were patient and kind? What if He were pleased with Peter’s efforts however small (and walking on water is not so small), and as He helped Peter up, He wanted to provide encouragement and guidance? What if Jesus had a sense of humor? Is it possible He was sort of chuckling to Himself and giving Peter a pat on the back as they got into the boat?
The Gospels don’t say. We have to use clues to fill in the missing information as best we can. And that’s where I’m going in the next post on Pagans & Tax Collectors. Because I think that the Gospels do give us clues on how Jesus feels about them, and how He wants us to treat them. And by extension, how he wants us to treat dissenting and openly sinning members of the Church.
