This Week

This week at praxis...John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, 
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. "
- Jesus, in John 3:16

As a consistent critic of even sober historical reconstructions of Jesus, 
I was not predisposed to appreciate the CBS miniseries Jesus. 
Cinematic renderings of a "truly human Jesus" usually combine the 
lamebrained and the lubricous.  They confirm the rule that as 
Hollywood raises its intentions it lowers its artistry...
I prepared to view the film with a comfortable attitude of condescension.  
But the longer I watched, the more I felt myself move from a posture 
of amused contempt to one of interest and finally genuine engagement....
At first, I was put off by the blond handsomeness of Jeremy Sisto, 
and was irritated by what struck me as a sort of Hamlet-like indecisiveness 
and passivity.  He apparently has no plans.  He knows how he wants 
people to be but has no program to make them that way.

Slowly I began to grasp what Sisto was after, 
namely a sense of inwardness and detachment.  
Jesus is with everyone, yet he is also strangely distracted.  
It is as though, in the midst of every activity, 
Jesus is listening for a music that is pitched beyond other ears, 
and his rhythms are determined more by what snatches of tune 
he can catch than by the din of noise around him.
- Luke Timothy Johnson "A Jesus to Ponder", 
The Christian Century, May 24-31, 2000

Jeremy Sisto:  For me it was like any role, 
except that he goes through some extraordinary things.  
And he has to do all those Jesus things.  
We had a priest around the whole time, 
and he was a sweet man, but it was sort of like 
playing this guy's best friend who had died.  
He had such a specific notion of who Jesus was. 
I realized early on I was never going to satisfy everyone.

I think I was picked to play Jesus because I'm handsome.......
I don't think it's an act of hubris to play Jesus, 
because we're just trying to make the story more accessible to people, 
to take away his inherent divinity and make him a real guy who 
has doubts about his mission, his journey and even his belief.  
He knew he had this mission to fulfill, but it was scary.

Glenn Carter:  I think that's true. But I'm just kind of waiting 
for some guy with a machete to come out and start hacking me to 
death because I'm not doing a portrayal of Jesus as he sees it.  
There are strange people in New York.
- from an interview, "The New York Times Magazine", 4.23.2000.  
(Carter plays Jesus in "Jesus Christ Superstar" on Broadway.)
 In one way, the variety of templates put on Promise Keepers, 
represents the variety of templates contemporary American 
culture brings to religion as a general social phenomenon.  
PK becomes a type of Rorschach test, allowing observers to 
read onto it what they expect to find in modern society and its religion.  
And, reactions to PK also reflect the ambivalences, 
tensions, and even contradictions that Americans bring to 
the intersection of religion and politics.
-Rhys H. Williams, "Introduction: Promise Keepers:  A Comment on Religion and Social Movements", 
Sociology of Religion 2000, 61:1

I asked Mister Rogers if he thought the Neighborhood could be a metaphor for heaven.  
"We deal with a lot of gritty stuff on the Neighborhood - 
death, divorce, the need for childcare, separation," he says. 
"The Neighborhood is not a Pollyannish state.  When I think about heaven, 
it is a state in which we are so greatly loved that there is no fear 
and doubt and disillusionment and anxiety. It is where people really 
do look at you with those eyes of Jesus."  

But that is what his legions of preschoolers through these decades 
-many of them now parents themselves- have seen and still see when 
they turn on his program.  When they see Mister Rogers walk through 
the front door of his studio home, smiling, waving, and singing, 
they know they are in a safe place and that Mister Rogers will take 
away their fear and doubt and disillusionment and anxiety. 
When they hear him say "I like you just the way you are," it is 
like a still small voice telling them that if Mister Rogers likes 
them then God must like them, too.  They are on holy ground.
-Wendy Murray Zoba,"Won't you be my Neighbor" Christianity Today 3.6.2000


Questions:


	What do you think when you see "John 3:16" on a sign at football games? 
	What about when football players visibly pray after a touchdown?  
	Is this a strange combination of culture and Christianity, or not?
	In what ways do you experience the vision of Jesus, 
	or the Christian message, colliding with culture?  
	Is this good?  What happens?
	Both actors playing Jesus comment on dealing with other 
	people's deep perceptions of Jesus.  How does Luke 
	Timothy Johnson discuss or portray this tension?   
	What do you think about it?
	Do the ambivalences, tensions, and contradictions we bring to religion and 
	politics (Williams) also occur in the intersection between religion and culture? 
	How?
	Is Mister Roger's Neighborhood a metaphor for heaven?
	What other cultural clashes between Jesus and culture do you know?  
	(South Park's 'Jesus and Pals' show...)
	How has your vision of Jesus, God or Christianity been shaped by culture?