Eucharist

In all of the meals, the occasion described is around a major event in Jesus’ life. In the last supper, it is before his death, on the road to Emmaus, it is after he rises from the dead, and at the multiplying of the loaves and fishes it is right before he made a speech to the crowd. Like the Eucharist, all of the meals feature bread being broken and shared at the table. The last supper accounts are obviously very similar to the current Eucharistic practices, in not only the wine and bread being shared, but with the words that are said at the table. That is the purpose of the Eucharist, however, in the current mass. Jesus rising from the dead is the focal point of the catholic faith, and the most important part of the mass. The reason why it is the pinnacle of the mass is highlighted best in the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. While this narrative is the least like the others, it best embodies the message of Jesus becoming a part of the whole population, which is precisely what the Eucharist is.

blog 11, question 3

In the film Of Gods and Men, the monks are faced with a very difficult decision: to stay in their city and keep their faith, or flee to a neighboring area and keep their lives. In class, the martyrdom account that stuck with me the most was that of Polycarp, who smiled at the thought of being burned alive for the sake of his faith. In this movie, however, the monks were very practical and realistic about the situation. This is because the film, in my opinion, tries to show the duality of a person’s rationale and faith. If they flee, they live, but if they stay, they save the faith of their community. Each side of the decision is backed by either the rational or the religious side of each monk’s person. The monks are human, and therefore scared of death. However, they have spent their lives serving God, and choose not to abandon the people of the city when they need faith the most. Also, if they had fled, it would not have made for an interesting movie. Overall, I think that what the monks did was heroic, even if they did not want to be heroes, and they made the right decision. I personally would have run, but I am not a monk who has dedicated my whole life to God. The overall message I took from the movie was that even if a modern and pragmatic view is being taken to look upon martyrdom, God’s grace will never leave humanity.

Polycarp

The account of Polycarp’s martyrdom has many parallels with the death of Jesus. The first obvious similarity is that Polycarp was turned over to the authorities by someone he knew, and then prosecuted by someone named Herod who did not want to really kill him. Another similarity is that Polycarp had his version of the last supper, although it was after he was tried as opposed to before as in Jesus’ case. Polycarp was very accepting of his death, and welcomed it; he wished to stay in the same city where he would be killed, but was persuaded to hide for a little while longer by some friends. Polycarp knew he would die by being burned because he saw it in a dream. This made him calm through the whole process of his death, and the account actually depicts him as proud, calm, content, and happy. After his death, Polycarp’s body remained unscathed. This would have been important to Christians at this time because it would have validated what the martyrs were saying about life after death, if his body could go through a fire and not get burned. The events probably inspired other martyrs to not be afraid of dying, because Polycarp was a role model of bravery in the face of persecution. 

Assignment 8, Question 1

From the Didache, the leadership in the early church seems to be very clear with a few people in charge of the rules, and evaluating those around them on a case-by-case basis. I say this because the Didache seemed to be personal, and as if the author was pointing a few people out specifically for each thing they were doing that was wrong. Most of these problems revolved around people claiming to be prophets or disciples, and taking money from generous and unsuspecting believers. These letters were probably not very effective in stopping impostors, because there was no way for their message to become widespread, and for enough people to hear their warnings. The only solution for this that I see is the formation of actual churches, and the appointment of hierarchical positions in the church. When this happened, it gave people very solid authority figures that could easily regulate messages such as this to large populations of people in an efficient way. 

Assignment 7, question 3

In the gospel of Luke, the risen Jesus encounters two disciples on the road to Emmaus. At this point in time, they do not know who he is. When they first meet Jesus, the disciples tell him about Jesus’ death and then tell him that several women had witnessed the empty tomb that morning, along with Angels proclaiming Jesus’ rebirth. They also talk about how they thought Jesus was supposed to have redeemed Israel before he rose to join God. At this point, Jesus starts reciting scriptures that talk about who he was. At the end of the trip, Jesus broke bread with the disciples and at that point they realized who he was. This shows how some people doubted Jesus at this point in history, but he was still the son of God and would fulfill all of the scriptures. In my opinion, this is reminiscent of an early structure of a mass. First, Jesus talks about early passages from the Bible, then he talks about the prophets, and they the third type of passage mentioned is about himself, “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). After this, Jesus breaks bread with them, and departs. Although it is rough, I think it is a very rough spine for the modern mass.

Jesus’ Last Line

The pinnacle of each gospel in the Bible is the chapters in which Jesus is crucified and dies. The most prolific line from each of these scenes is Jesus’ last line before he dies. In the gospel of Matthew and Mark, that last line is identical: “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This fits the themes from both these gospels in their own way. The gospel of Matthew portrays Jesus as the messiah who fulfills the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures. This is reflected in the gospel’s line in that it has Jesus shouting the line in their tongue. Mark portrayed Jesus as the son of God who came to earth to suffer and die. Mark gets this across by making the last line of Jesus sound pained and like he is in torment, at least in my opinion.

            The gospel of Luke, however, has a slightly different translation: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.” Luke had portrayed Jesus as the prophet of good news for the lowly members of society. I don’t think that this really has any bearing on how Jesus’ last line is delivered in Luke’s gospel. A case could be made for the fact that Jesus is delivering the line in a way that humbles himself before God, and therefore meaning that everyone will be equal before the eyes of God, but I am not thoroughly convinced of it.

            The gospel of John Depicts Jesus as the incarnate word of God, and a glorious savior of the world. This again is not very prominent in Jesus’ last line: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” The only bearing this line has to Jesus being the incarnate word is how John refers to his soul as the spirit, possibly signifying how his soul was the Holy Spirit itself, and therefore divine in nature. 

Assignment #5

In Matthew 5-7, Jesus talks about what he expects from his followers. In Matthew 5, he goes through the beatitudes and then adds to the 10 commandments. After naming each of the commandments, Jesus adds an extension saying how his followers should not even think of doing the actions outlines in the original law. An example of this is when Jesus says “Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). This outlines the idea that Jesus respects the old Jewish law, but expects his followers to go the extra nine yards for their faith. On the surface, that seems to be the extent of Jesus’ commentary on the faith of the Jews in that time. In the next chapter, however, tells his followers what to do in terms of worship. He uses examples of people called “the hypocrites” and talks about how they brag about worshiping and whatnot. Jesus never says who they are, but hints at them being the upright Jews in the society. Overall, the gospel of Matthew in chapters 5-7 in particular never really depicts Jesus as criticizing the Jewish law. It does, however, drop subtle hints at how Jesus might frown on the ways the Jews then practiced their faith, and it told of how Jesus asked his followers to be better and to do more than the others. 

Gospel of Mark

2. The Gospel of Mark focuses heavily on the acts of Jesus; it has no birth narrative, it does not seem to tell a story of Jesus’ life. Instead, the Gospel of Mark is primarily an account of the works of Jesus. It catalogues the miracles that Jesus performed, relates the parables he told, and tells of his death and resurrection. However, the Gospel of Mark states several times how Jesus would tell people to not talk about him after he performed a miracle. From the start, Mark 1, Jesus is portrayed as doing this twice, after driving out demons and then after healing a leper.  It happens again twice in Mark 5 after Jesus performs another exorcism and raises a little girl from the dead. There are several more examples, and they all have one thing in common: they all happen after a miracle. Jesus never tells anyone to not talk about him after a parable, but only after a miracle. The question then arises as to why he would do that. It seems logical that the more people who knew of his miracles, the larger his follower population would become, so why repress that? One explanation is that Jesus does not want the stories of his miracles to be exaggerated, which oral stories have the tendency to do. It is also possible that Jesus did not want too much attention. If there are more stories circulating about Jesus, the more political figures and such notice him, and that is eventually what led to his death. My personal opinion, however, is that Jesus wanted people to come to belief on their own terms. it is one thing to believe in Jesus after seeing or hearing about a miracle, but it is much more pronounced when a person comes to believe in Jesus before seeing a miracle. By allowing more of the parables to spread rather that the miracles, I think that Jesus was filtering out the true believers. 

2. In the book of Amos, Amos’ message to the Israelites is very clear: stop disobeying God. The entire book is just a collection of ways God has and will punish his people for the ways they have strayed from his commandments. The main way he conveys this message is through portraying God as several different images. Amos portrays God as a lion roaring down at Israel, as a sifter of grain, and several other images, all related to judgment or ruling. When talking about the grain, Amos said that God would not necessarily pay special attention to the Israelites if they did not listen to his commandments, and he would sift through them like he would do with the other kingdoms. In general, in the book of Amos, God was portrayed as paying special attention to the Israelites in the sense that they were his chosen people, but he also was more strict with them than he was with the other people of the world. This did not mean, however, that the other nations were ignored or off the hook when judgment day came; they would still be sifted through, even if God wasn’t paying as close attention to them in the mean time. In the Heschel article, Heschel points out how God acted through the Babylonians or the Assyrians when reprimanding the Israelites for their actions, but otherwise, the book of Amos does not talk very much about God interacting with other peoples of the world.

3. In Exodus 15, Moses’ song puts God in a different light than he had previously been praised in. In this selection, God is referred to first as “my God and I shall praise him, my father’s God and I shall extol him” (Exodus 15:2). I think that this is a between-the-lines way of saying that some of the Israelites are believers only because their father was. Then the song goes on to say “Yahweh is a warrior; Yahweh is his name” (Exodus 15:3). God has been shown to be a warrior God, but never proclaimed as such. The rest of the song goes on to give accounts for the war like deeds the Israelites have witnessed God perform and praise him for them. They also say how their enemies are terrified of God and therefore the Israelites. If this verse were to be put into modern times, it would be the equivalent of a jeer after a football game, and the Israelites are sore winners. In the Bible before this chapter, God is a benevolent being who would not appreciate the kind of praise the Israelites are giving him here.

Also, the accounts that are related in the passage are only of physical signs of God’s power people have seen. In no verse is faith without sight mentioned, which is not what is taught later in the Bible. The phrase that sums up the issue the best is “Sing to Yahweh, for he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:21). This passage shows how the song put God into a light that made his character seem exalted and glorified too much in ways that God probably wouldn’t want to be.  

In all fairness, however, this passage was right after a large victory the Israelites had over the Egyptians and that probably had a large impact on the tone of the song. Had those events not preceded it, I am sure it would have had a very different tone and message.