Bad Theology

Text for today: Mark 9 xxxiii-xxxvii

When the twelve apostles quarrel over who among them is greatest, Jesus tells them that the master of all must be the servant of all. Procuring a child, He places it among them and states that whoever receives one such child in His name receives Him, and that whoever received Him receives the Father.

While engaged on a ministry which gladly proclaims that the great majority of men, women and children should expect nothing from their Father except eternal fire and wailing and gnashing of teeth, Jesus calmly informs His henchmen that the greatest tyrant is also the humblest servant. In the ancient world, it was usual for rulers to be shamelessly boastful about their achievements and power. In speaking for eternity and addressing those beyond His own lifetime, Jesus anticipated a point in history when torture, genocide and others of His Father's favourite pastimes would be carried out by people posturing as dutiful and unassuming public servants.

The use of the child as a parable of God's relationship to humanity raises some intriguing psychological points. If the Father of all humanity is also the child of all humanity, that would of course go far in explaining God's chronic unreason, incompetence, moral imbecility, and addiction to repetitious cruelty. The inbred and incestuous nature of His origins might also account for the Father's obvious disgust and loathing for His creation and His continual simple-minded urge to purify through destruction. Clearly these were insights from which the Saviour, with characteristic moral courage, ultimately shrank; but which, being consubstantial with the Deity, He could hardly hope to avoid.