Notes on Knowing Things

The most important overlooked--and volatile--aspect of Jesus' ministry is the character of that ministry as an exercise in knowledge, or the lack thereof.  More specifically, it revolves around the implications of humans recognizing what they know--or can ever know--and also what they do not know--and can never expect to know.  Much of the gospels is unintelligible without this insight.

Jesus in John invites the first two disciples to "come and see" where Jesus lives, in response to their question.  Jesus goes bodily into Jerusalem years later to survey the temple.  The business of actually finding things out shows up in the most striking places in the Gospels.

Famously, Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?", and the only thing we know for sure is that the gospels do not show Pilate inclined to stir himself to really probe the matter.  Indeed, it is Pilate's attachment to what he thinks he already knows that sheds light on another curious part of the story: "Art thou the King of the Jews?  And Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest."  This exchange cannot possibly be understood absent its looming original context--the whole question about whether Israel was to ever--or could truly ever--have a "king" in any sense intelligible to Pilate is an unresolved one.  Yet Pilate--as all of us--is immersed in things he thinks he knows even as he professes a lack of understanding of "truth."

A more pertinent example of the learned not really knowing things is to be found in Jesus' exchange with Nicodemus.  As I have written before, Jesus does not use the earthly example of the wind as an illustration of how Nicodemus can extrapolate from what he knows--the experience of the wind--to an understanding of being "born again" or "born from above."  It is precisely the fact that Nicodemus DOES NOT understand the earthly wind that is crucial to Jesus' teaching here.  The whole idea of being "born" in the supernatural sense is experiential rather than doctrinal, and being "born" in the supernatural sense repels organically and persistently from the notion of some doctrinally-defined moment or episode of conversion.

Sadly, this lack of knowledge--and the paradoxical necessity of being mindful ever of the lack of what one knows--is intrinsic to the very process of salvation, of entering the Kingdom of God.  One is reminded of the doctrinally-agonizing exchange in which Jesus tells a man, "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God."  Naturally, the reader wants to know, "What then does the man lack?  We can all agree on the man's statement.  Why will you not explain here in direct terms what would separate this man (and us) from salvation?"

Indeed, the concept of lack of knowledge permeates Jesus' teaching ministry.  Jesus explains his parables to his disciples, and we are left with the uncomfortable reminder that he withholds such explicitness from the masses.  Why are they left in their lack of knowledge?  After all, they have come looking for answers.  It is only upon reflection that we might consider that the masses have not come for answers, but to have the things of God translated for them in concepts to which they have limited themselves, and which they have accorded themselves.

Jesus speaks of how the Good Shepherd will lay down his life for his flock, and we are to understand conventionally that he was speaking the language of the "simple people."  Scarcely is it objected that the "simple people" did not really have cause to identify with the good shepherd who in the starkest terms will "lay down his life" for his flock.  The shepherd as opposed to the hired hand might take better care of the flock, and might even lay down his life for the flock's value to the shepherd's loved ones, and the shepherd might take great risks to protect his flock that result unintentionally result in the shepherd's death, but a shepherd who--in the starkness of Jesus' example--would "lay down his life" for his flock would be reckoned an idiot (or an effectual suicide unwilling to face poverty.)

Jesus' ministry was not directed merely in challenging people to understand the implications of what they thought they knew, but also to direct themselves to probing how much they did not know.  Controversy surrounds Jesus speaking alternately of the blessedness of the "poor," and of the "poor in spirit."  "Poor in spirit" cannot, however, mean people who withhold their wealth from the common good while embracing some sort of "poorness" attitude, and of course "poor in spirit" cannot equate to "spiritual poverty."  "Poor in spirit" can apply only to people who reckon how little they know in such matters.

And if God is truly God, then the things of God extend everywhere and to everything.  It with trepidation that we would ever claim to know anything with authority.  Seen this way, Jesus' admonishment to avoid every careless word takes on a whole new meaning.  Indeed, the entire concept of a Christian (or any other) "world view" ought to be repellent to us.  Yet scarcely do we know what to be repelled by.  Jesus in his agony displayed both unimaginable courage in his magnanimity and also unimaginable courage in admitting that he did not, in his incarnation, understand the ways of God.  And yet human theologians feel empowered to pronounce upon that scene.

Learning about Jesus means learning about what we don't know.  Attempting to build upon what we think we know is the most precarious of paths.