Today’s Gospel - June 26:

Today’s Gospel June 26

From the Revised Common Lectionary Matthew 10:40-42:

 ῾Ο δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς ἐμὲ δέχεται, καὶ ὁ ἐμὲ δεχόμενος δέχεται τὸν ἀποστείλαντά με.  ὁ δεχόμενος προφήτην εἰς ὄνομα προφήτου μισθὸν προφήτου λήψεται, καὶ ὁ δεχόμενος δίκαιον εἰς ὄνομα δικαίου μισθὸν δικαίου λήψεται.  καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ποτίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον εἰς ὄνομα μαθητοῦ, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀπολέσῃ τὸν μισθὸν αὐτοῦ.

It is an interesting claim by Jesus that He is representative of even the lowliest.  Or maybe He is found amongst the lowliest, even the despised.  Perhaps the claim is a follow up to the name ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου.  It is not a claim by Jesus that He is the son of God, but that he is Humanity itself.  The accusation at the trial of Jesus is almost ridiculous by this, because the claim is not to divinity but to humanity.  To put it bluntly the Christ is claiming a larger humanism (Higher Humanism) for himself.  My friend’s insight that we are all human applies here, and makes one think that not only are we human, but Christ-like, since the claim is that Christ is Humanity itself.  So much so is this true, that the lowliest of persons (human beings) is also Christ-like by being an instantiation of Christ, who is the paradigm of humanity.

Although this pericope has a Semitic origin, it is not clear that such is of import to the notion of humanity itself, beyond being the source of such an idea.  Perhaps we go too far in claiming Jesus as son of God crucified/resurrected, when we ought to concentrate on the teaching that all humans are under Him as the universal and we are as such instantiations of Him in our humanness.  Curious isn’t it that the teaching of Jesus would be so much in line with Kant’s moral law (see earlier post on the subject). 

By the way, for those Feminists sensitive to the word ‘man’ it should be noted that ἄνθρωπος means “mankind” and not “male”, which is ἀνὴρ.  One ought to realize that for the Greek, ἄνθρωπος is a generic word meaning something more like human than man in the sense of a male person.  Even though ἄνθρωπος has a linguistic gender (all nouns do), it does not have an intensional gender.  Gender here is syntactic not semantic.

Some  logical consequences of this Higher Humanism Jesus affirms is not only that if one welcomes - δέχεται (with hospitality) - the lowliest human being, we welcome the Christ, but if we are truly human beings, we are also Children of God (πάντες γὰρ υἱοὶ Θεοῦ ἐστε διὰ τῆς πίστεως ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ· Galatians 3:26), by our very being human, by our very belief in the Christ.  If we learn from the lowliest, we learn from Christ, if we admire the human body, we admire Christ’s body, not to offend. If we are humans, instantiations of the Christ, as Jesus is the Son of God, so are we, so in an important sense we all are Gods. Perhaps we are images of God Himself - the “I Am” of Exodus. Perhaps Menander was right when he said: Ὁ νοῦς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἐστιν ἐν ἑκάστῳ θεός.