What if jesus was a jerk

I mean, whether "puppy" or "dog," it's still a pretty obnoxious thing to call a desperate mom who's come seeking your help.

And let's be frank, you don't think often hear a man call a woman "a female dog" in a kind way. As for the possibility that this nasty exchange is really a test, if it is it would be the singular example of this kind of faith-quiz in Mark.

And besides, why should this desperate woman, who's already demonstrated her great faith by coming to Jesus alone, bowing at his feat and beseeching him for healing demonstrating her belief that Jesus can, in fact, heal her daughter , be tested at all, let alone in such a demeaning way?

As much as I don't buy the traditional interpretation, however, I do understand why it's appealing: it preserves the picture of Jesus many believers hold in their hearts -- perfect in compassion, foreknowledge, courage and love. And if this were John's Gospel, where Jesus comes off something like the newest member of the Avengers , I'd be inclined to buy it. But this is Mark, the one who shows us Jesus so vulnerable in Gethsemane and so desperate on the cross.

So maybe, just maybe, Jesus responds as he does not because he's tired, or conducting an exercise in growing your faith, or because he had a really bad day. Maybe he just hasn't realized yet how expansive is God's kingdom and how all-inclusive is God's grace.

Maybe it's only now -- confronted by the boldness of this foreign woman -- that it's dawning on Jesus that there is no wrong time to ask God's help and no group of persons excluded from beseeching God's mercy.

If so, then I think we should give thanks for this desperate mother and her fierce parental love, as she simultaneously stretches Jesus' conception of what his mission is about as well as offers us a dramatic picture of God's tenacious commitment to love all of God's children, no matter how unseemly such love may seem.

So is Jesus being a jerk here? I don't think so. Rather, I think that he's being human, like us, and in and through his encounter with this woman he grows into a deeper, richer vision of the measure of God's kingdom and love, a vision he is ultimately willing to die for. If so, then perhaps we -- the pious, impious and indifferent alike -- can learn from Jesus both to be prepared to be surprised by God's unrelenting grace and to learn from those who at first glance seem so different yet have the capacity to introduce us to a larger vision of both heaven and earth.

News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. But this interpretation is entirely based on the presumption Jesus had a bad attitude: People pissed him off, so he was clapping back at them. Why do they presume Jesus had a bad attitude? Get to know him. To most, Jesus is cursing the Pharisees, calling down woes upon them in condemnation of their hypocritical behavior. Christian jerks are exactly the same. As is obvious from how he ends his rant:. Anybody who thinks otherwise is projecting. Moving along, we got Jesus flipping tables in temple.

They wanna know who gave him authority to act, Jn 2. Mk Hemant Mehta, the author of the blog, writes:. Jesus killed a tree because He was hangry. So… either we have to acknowledge Jesus could be a jerk at times despite whatever other redeeming qualities we want to assign Him.

Or, like the conservative Christians are doing, we can pretend Jesus was perfect because our faith requires it… even when the Bible itself has plenty of evidence to the contrary. So according to Mehta, Jesus was a jerk. But is he really being fair to the texts? Was Jesus just throwing an unjustified temper tantrum when he cleansed the Temple? To answer that, we need to give a little background.

The temple market was established after the Babylonian captivity. Josephus estimated there would be up to 3 million Jews traveling to Jerusalem for the Passover. Seeing their devotion, the money-changers saw an opportunity to get rich. See Mt Everyone was expected to pay it, rich or poor, in the month of Adar. So it became necessary to change a shekel into two halves, or exchange foreign money for the Jewish half-shekel.

Jesus quotes Isaiah that the temple was to be a place of prayer for all nations. This would be like trying to have worship in the middle of Walmart on a normal Black Friday. The Gentiles were pushed out of participation with the Passover. Jesus was purifying the temple from defilement. Nearly years before, Judas Maccabeus cleansed the Temple after it was defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes. By cleaning out the Temple, Jesus is saying that the present Jewish leadership had defiled the Temple in the same way the Greeks did when the sacrificed a pig inside of it.

Talk about an act of defiant protest! Mark 13, Matthew So to sum up, you have noisy people who care nothing for God there to make an easy buck in the place where Gentiles were to worship, exploiting the poor in the process. Jesus said that this was to be a place of prayer, not a den of robbers.

Jeremiah He was rightfully ticked off. He flipped some tables. He fashioned a whip and gave it a good crack or two, but this would sort of like firing a gun in the air in a crowd. It would clear the people and the animals out in a hurry.