perfessor multigeek's Journal: A Few Thoughts on Mel's "The Passion"

A few weeks ago a minister who travels in circles that overlap mine wrote a very crisply coherent piece on Mel Gibson's "passion". He agreed to let me reproduce it here for our comments.
You folks know that organized religion is not, by and large, my favorite thing to support but I figure that he deserves to have his letter posted unedited.

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March 12, 2004

Dear friends,

Mel Gibson has written his own gospel. So should you.

"Gospel" is the Old English word used for "proclaim good news" in the Jewish and Christian versions of the Bible. A gospel depicted what was good and new and inspiring.

Gibson's good news is a gore-soaked Jesus who absorbs more punishment than humanly possible. He stares down a thuggish Roman in a mano y mano scene straight out of Hemingway, motivating the soldier to upgrade from cane to flesh-eating cat o' nine tails. A crowd of Jews appears to welcome the bloodshed, though it would have made them ritually unclean during Passover, and a conflicted Roman Governor, Pilate, tells the Jewish leaders (impossibly) to take care of the crucifixion themselves.

Gibson's Jesus is not easily found in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, the gospels considered primary source material. Their Jesus is deliberate but wily in his resistance to the Romans. He holds his own people to the high ethical standards of Judaism. And he provokes the extreme response of the Jerusalem authorities, Jewish and Roman, by his radical teachings and actions.

The four gospels have the weight of tradition, but 33 were written about Jesus. Each has its own perspective. The Gospel of Thomas contains 114 sayings, perhaps the earliest material attributable to Jesus. The Gospel of Mary from the 2nd Century legitimated women in leadership. The Infancy Gospel describes the so-called "lost years" before Jesus' public ministry.

Whether yours is the 34th or 94th gospel, what matters is how your life conforms to the proclamation. Is it good news?

So turned on were Jesus' early followers that they started a social revolution. They upset the hierarchical structure of the ancient world by fellowshipping with all kinds of people, regardless of gender or class, slave or free. Wealth and possessions were redistributed to care for the poor. They acted as though the enduring limits to human enterprise, disease and death, had been transcended.

The Gibson gospel does not tell this story. That's why it's important your gospel does. What limit is your life transcending? How are you redrawing boundaries to expand community? What actions toward justice and peace do you take?

I invite you to refine your gospel and its spiritual wellspring at Tribeca Spiritual Center Sunday, March 21st, 11-12:30 pm at The Hallmark, 455 North End Avenue @ Chambers Street, 1 block west of West Street (any train to Chambers, walk west).

With love,

William Grant, pastor
Tribeca Spiritual Center
For all faiths, backgrounds and ages
Every Life Needs a Center
www.tribecaspiritualcenter.org
[e-mail]
917/887-4816

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Kinda puts it in perspective. I've always wanted to see a good movie made about the life of Jesus but this certainly isn't it.

I've already given my quickie impressions of the Passion hoopla in the comments here.

At some point I'm hoping to arrange a trifecta with some friends. We're going to see if we can sit through Last Temptation, then Passion (illegally purchased street copy, of course), and then Life of Brian. Since several people I know speak varying degrees of Greek, Latin, and even a few words of Aramaic, it should be quite a show. If, that is, I can get them all to sit down in one room together.
If my friends were all as obsessive as I am and were willing to make it a two day affair, I'ld prefer to start with Gladiator, then Spartacus, then Masada, then Temptation and put The Mission in as a last day finisher.

Someday, someday . . .

-Rustin

Did you see South Park last night?

[cyranoVR]

It was awesome.

I suppose

[gmhowell]

I suppose the fact that you can throw a mini-festival means you aren't living in a cardboard box? Hope that means things worked out for you last week.

Re:I suppose

[perfessor multigeek]

Yep. I managed. Thanks for asking. I wrote an addendum to the previous JE with the details. The short form? my landlord looks to have FOOBARed their own paperwork (not for the first time), the $1K check cleared, I had intentionally overpaid the last payment I *had* made, and I borrowed some cash. End result, their lawyer kinda said "fuckit", blew off the late fees, and I'm fine.
It was not so much fear of ending up on the street (at least not rational fear of it) that was enraging me so much as the stress o

Re:I suppose

[richie2000]

I wrote an addendum to the previous JE with the details.

FYI: Your Friends don't get a notice when you do that, just when new JEs are created.

I was wondering if you got the mail or if it was spam-filtered to the great bitbucket in the sky. You'd be thrilled to know I chose that particular item to test if Ripley's believe it or not [comics.com] is for real or totally fake. ;-)

BTW, why didya disable comments on that JE? Just curious.

Re:disabled comments

[perfessor multigeek]

I disabled comments on the JE because even at the time I knew that I was ranting. I was, well, not any too balanced and I didn't want "practical" suggestions or "I'm sure it'll be just fine" comments. Neither address the core points since I've long since done all the various moneysaving things that most people suggest and no, it may not work out "just fine".
You got the point, that this was about structural issues in society, about "is there a point in bothering". I (probably unfairly) didn't have enough f

Re:disabled comments

[richie2000]

Point.

so that I can limit posting to those I know have gotten their morning servings of clue.

I like to think I fell in the vat when I was a kid. 'course, that may be part of the problem... ;-)

Don't look at me...

[kimdog]

I ain't sitting through that little film fest. Even without "The Passion of the Aussie", it's just way too much Jebus for me in a 24 hour period. You know Drive by Truckers wrote a song about me... "Too Much Sex, Too Little Jesus". I am sticking by it.