Was Jesus a "Progressive"? NO

I have written similar posts in the past (see, for instance, my critique of Pope Francis' exhortation), but an excellent post by Lawrence Reed on Progressive clichés led ,me to reflect from my own perspective.

Introduction

Familiar readers know that I am sharply critical of certain popularizations of Jesus:

• He was hardly docile; He was in the face of his adversaries, calling them vipers, hypocrites, fools, treating them with contempt and sarcasm, returning their criticism of Him or His disciples in kind
• He knew that He had enemies, calling him a glutton and drunkard (Lk 7:34), plus He was constantly being scrutinized and challenged by troublemakers, e.g., healing on the Sabbath and other rule violations, whether to pay taxes, etc.
• His own mother and brothers thought that He was out of His mind (Mk 3:21,31)
• He did not equivocate His hard teachings which led some disciples to abandon Him (Jn 6:60,66)
• He had enemies who sought to kill Him (Mk 3:6); He so incensed those by His teaching in the synagogue that the attendees were motivated to attempt throwing Him off a cliff (Lk 4:29)
• He rejected earthly authority, e.g., they wanted to make him king (Jn 6:15); Jn 18:36; when He was arrested, He points out that although He is not an insurrectionist, but they came for Him with clubs and swords (Mt 26:55)

The "real" Jesus does not fit into the social activist role that "progressive" Christians want. This is the same Jesus Who specifically notes that the greatest commandment is to love God (Mt 22:36-40); loving one's neighbor is secondary. For all of His teaching about the poor, He had wealthy followers and benefactors and associated with the "wrong" types of people, like tax collectors and Samaritans; He even cured gentiles and the servant of a Roman centurion which would have been regarded skeptically by many contemporary Jews. He makes it clear through several parables that He prizes our diligent use of the gifts God gave us productively; His only issue is that we do not pursue our earthly ambitions to the point we neglect our duties to God.

How would He react to the "progressives"? I think that He would find many judgmental and hypocritical as if morally hazardous State policies fulfill God's commandment to love our neighbor. He would disavow envy of the rich as morally corrupt and argue that instead of judging whether the wealthy are giving their "fair share", we need to focus on our own responsiveness to God's grace in our lives (Mt 7:1-5). He was uninterested in the authority to settle family squabbles over inheritance and other matters that might come under the scope of the State. He specifically emphasized free will; the State by micromanaging our choices robs us of moral and spiritual development.

Previous Reflections on the Reed Post

Let summarize some past comments on the Reed post from my Facebook Corner segments:

(FEE). Search your conscience. Consider the evidence. Be mindful of facts. And ask yourself: “When it comes to helping the poor, would Christ prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army or at gunpoint to the welfare department? -- From the latest installment in the weekly "Clichés of Progressivism series at FEE.org:
The piece is spot on. There is no virtue in coveting a neighbor's goods--or rationalizing its theft by others, including the State; envy is a vice, not a virtue. Jesus repeatedly distanced Himself from the authorities, rejecting any claims to an earthly kingdom or being seen as an insurrectionist. Never forget--He considered the greatest commandment was to love God, not your neighbor. His issue with wealth was in the rich man's obsession with it to the point of crowding God out of one's life. But, in fact, He had wealthy followers, and in one telling anecdote, He rebuked His disciples at Bethany for complaining about a woman anointing Him with expensive perfume and not instead selling the perfume and giving the proceeds to the poor; there is also the parable of the proud Pharisee and the tax collector--He was not impressed by people bragging about their charity and righteous deeds while contemptuously judging others.

(Lawrence Reed). Some people claim that because Christ drove the "moneychangers" from the Temple, He was somehow and therefore opposed to wealth or even against banking. Not so. That's like saying that because a funeral is not the appropriate place to break out with "Happy Days are Here Again" on a kazoo, it's therefore never proper to play it anywhere. Whether you're a person of faith or of no faith, historical context and accuracy should be important to you:
 I think once again we have to think of the duality of the earthly kingdom with the heavenly kingdom. Jesus was not condemning commerce per se but the time and the place of these transactions. The Court of the Gentiles, where this marketplace had been set up, had been built as a place of evangelization and prayer. Instead of serving God, the temple had over time become a place of business where Jews complied with external signs of compliance with the Law, e.g., ritual animal sacrifice and paying the Temple tax, but the Jews in attendance demonstrated an empty, insincere kind of faith--;like the proud Pharisee, they complied with the external signs of faith or compliance with the Covenant, but they didn't live their faith and responsibilities in everyday life. The compromising of the Court of the Gentiles symbolized the corrupt faith being practiced by contemporary Jews: God was not fooled by empty compliance with Passover rituals, financially supporting the temple, attending Temple, etc. This extreme behavior on Jesus' part was a teaching moment; the Temple without genuine, heartfelt compliance with the Law was an empty shell no longer pleasing to God.

Further Reflections on Reed's Post

First, let's recall the 10 Commandments. There are some denominational differences in terms of what constitutes the first/second and ninth/tenth commandments; for example, Catholics combine "no other god" and "no graven image"  in the first, but separate "coveting a neighbor's wife" and "coveting a neighbor's possessions" based on the readings from Exodus and Deuteronomy. Some of the commandments tie into each other; for example, consider someone who is in love with another man's wife and kills the husband or sabotages his life to win the woman's hand in marriage. A man's lust for wealth or power, an earthly kingdom, can blind oneself from his higher-standing obligations to God and regard for the welfare of others.

Notice that the commandments do not condemn the neighbor's prosperity or put limits on the nature and extent of property, and the prohibition against theft  is not contingent on a busybody's "social justice" assessment of whether other people are "rich enough" and do not need more property or don't deserve the property they hold. Avarice, the attempt of a wealthy man to add to his wealth by deliberately exploiting his neighbor, is sinful, but envy of one's prosperous neighbor,is also gravely sinful; to quote St. Augustine: "From envy are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by his prosperity." This would include to wish your neighbor ill or to get his comeuppance out of jealousy through adverse actions by the State or others against the neighbor, including taxation/theft and redistribution of his property. It's why I refer to a blog catchphrase "Politics of Envy" as morally corrupt.

Consider some relevant verses on prosperity, savings, hard work, and justice:

• Leviticus 19:15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor."
• Proverbs 21:5 "The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty."
• Proverbs 6:6-8 "Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise! Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labor hard all summer, gathering food for the winter."
• Proverbs 22:26, 27 "Don’t agree to guarantee another person’s debt or put up security for someone else. If you can’t pay it, even your bed will be snatched from under you."
• Jesus' parable about the coins/minas. "Nearly half [of Jesus' parables] speak directly about money - for example, the pearl of great price, the lost coin, the silver talents. Of the other parables, many also touch on material wealth: the Prodigal Son squandering his inheritance (Lk 15:11-32), Lazarus and the rich man (Lk 16:19-31), or the day laborers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-16). The use of money also occasioned many of Jesus' teachings: the widow's two coins (Mk 12:41-44); Caesar's taxes (Mt 22:15-22); the rich young man (Mt 19:16-24); and Zaccheus the tax collector (Lk 191-10)."

Reed reflects on Matthew's version of the parable about the coins/talents. [For an alternative discussion of the two versions, see here.] In this version, the master gives differing numbers of coins; note that the master has not distributed the coins equally but according to his abilities; the first couple of servants in the interim double their holdings of coins, but the third servant does nothing with his coin but hide it. To the first two, who have earned commensurate returns, he gives more responsibility; to the third who earned nothing, he dismisses, noting he could have at least earned interest on the talent, and redistributes the talent to the first, who holds the most talents. You don't see Jesus' talking about the servants' grumbling about the differing number of talents being assigned; you don't hear about the servant with 4 talents complaining about the third servant's talent being given to the servant with 10 talents; you don't hear the first servant being asked to share his 10 talents with the other servants; you don't hear Jesus' arguing that the master has no right to the talents earned not directly but by his servants or hear that the earnings be redistributed to the poor.

In Luke's version, a prince distributes a mina to each of 10 servants, charging them to invest their coin profitably, while he is off to be made king. (A number of rabble-rousers also follow the prince, trying to convince the powers that may be not to make such a hard man king.) When the king returns, the first servant reports that he has earned 10 minas, and the king rewards him with oversight of 10 cities.  The second servant has earned 5 minas and is rewarded with 5 cities. The third has done nothing with his mina has it taken away and given to the first. In this version, the other servants complain that the first has more than enough minas already, but the king has little tolerance for complaints and in fact orders the rabble-rousers executed. I think Luke's version does a better job of making Reed's general point--in part, I think Jesus has little interest in complaints about political complaints over one's lot in the earthly kingdom because for Him, the greatest commandment is to love God with one's whole being. One's lot on the earthly plain may be transitory, and Jesus suffers no fools. It's fairly clear that Jesus was not happy with morally hazardous perspectives, and political discussions didn't interest Him. Men are born with certain gifts, however unequal those might be, but men are expected to use those gifts, glorifying God in the process.

Reed rightly points to Jesus' dismissal of a brother's complaint about the distribution of the siblings' inheritance; Jesus, just as during the Passion, notes that His kingdom is not of this world and suggests that the brother is guilty of the sin of jealousy/greed (i.e., the tenth commandment) and should be more worried about his spiritual goods. In fact, this is a theme that plays out again, e.g., in the infamous parable of the prodigal son (i.e., the older son resents his father's joyous reception for the younger son who has squandered his inheritance while he has been the faithful son; the father points out the celebration of the younger brother's return has taken nothing from him). What Reed doesn't expound on is that Jesus' use of the complaint to give the parable of the rich fool. In essence a farmer was so focused on building out his property, to increase his crops and barns to store them that he loses touch with his spiritual obligations, and all his efforts on the earthly plain are for nothing, because that night he would die, without increasing his spiritual harvest.

Let's point out that Jesus had well-to-do followers: "Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus (John 19:38-42) were secret followers; he stayed at the homes of Zacchaus (Luke 19); Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (Luke 10:38-42)". Matthew owned a home big enough to host banquets. (Luke 5:29). He was anointed with expensive perfume at Bethany; He had arrangements for the Last Supper during Passover time in Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples had enough resources to fund the ministry (Judas was their treasurer (Jn 13). Keep in mind being wealthy was not vilified in the Old Testament; it was often seen as a blessing for those who feared God; wealth was primarily judged by how it was acquired and whether the wealthy voluntarily shared some of what they made.

Does this mean that the well-to-do don't have a responsibility to others? No. The Bible is replete with sayings that generosity towards others will be blessed, and it warns those who gain wealth through deceptive means. But Jesus always respected the voluntary nature of charity, man's free will to respond to grace. There is no virtue to giving if and when one's property is stolen by the State; it is not a perfecting prayer of action to God motivated to responding to His Image in other people. Furthermore, most of us are mindful of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, i.e., we don't seek self-promoting recognition of our virtuous acts. And we don't necessarily know what charitable acts are performed by others: that's between God and them, and only God is in a position to judge their actions and motives. This is one of the takeaways from the incident of the woman anointing Jesus with perfume at Bethany; the disciples rebuked the woman for an extravagance that would have been better spent on the poor, and Jesus in turn corrected their judgmental attitude.

Jesus very clearly distinguished the separate kingdoms of earth and heaven and linked His authority to the latter. John relates after the miracle of the fish and loaves, that the people sought to capture Him to make Him king; John also points out that Jesus refused to modify His teachings to accommodate skeptical disciples, and they had free will to respond to God's grace. This duality of kingdoms is referenced in other places, including as Reed points out the infamous trap of whether to pay taxes and, of course, during the Passion. Going back to the trap, Jesus knows full well that if He agrees there is a duty to pay hated Roman taxes, He will be seen as a contemptible collaborator; if He rejects paying taxes, He will be seen as an insurrectionist, subject to Roman arrest, imprisonment and/or execution. He is implicitly acknowledging de facto Roman occupation and authority; He is not making a value judgment on whether the tax is just or worthily spent; what He points out is that there is a second, higher authority, and He does not want His mission conflated with that of the State. (The higher authority is clearly implied by the greatest commandment: to love God.) This is also true of the existing religious authorities; Jesus seeks to validate His Mission through testimony to them, e.g., Jesus' instructions to the leper He cured.  Elsewhere we see a similar question being raised as to the Temple tax; Jesus basically tells Peter that because of His Mission He should be exempt from the tax, but He doesn't want to make an issue of it, so He tells Peter to catch a fish which has swallowed a coin large enough to pay for the Temple tax for both of them.

In fact, Jesus makes it clear that whatever authority the Romans and/or the Jewish authorities had, it certainly didn't address the problems of the poor, and His followers still had a moral obligation to serve the poor. He did not argue that the moral obligation could be resolved by agitating for social change by taxing the wealthy Jewish elite and/or by filing a petition with the local Roman authority. This was not the Ten Commandments or the Jesus' summary two commandments, applicable only to the elite; we all have our own obligations. While Jesus certainly used the rabbinical device of hyperbole and challenged the prospective young rich disciple to sell all he had and give it to the poor, He did have wealthy followers and benefactors (recall His accommodations within Jerusalem at Passover, His burial place);