THE JESUS MYTH

One of my favorite authors over the years was the late Andrew Greeley. I first started reading him while in seminary over fifty years ago. He was a young priest who wrote theological books that I could understand in contrast to some of the tomes I had to read written by German (read: dense) theologians. Greeley made theology interesting and fun even as he was excoriated by his peers because he was not a theologian but a sociologist, which he was indeed. Yet sociology is about the study of people and Greeley took dense tomes and dense theological concepts and made it understandable to ordinary people and ordinary seminarians.

One of his classics, to me at least, written over forty years ago, is The Jesus Myth. That title alone, for a young priest as I was back then, was startling. Jesus was no myth! Jesus was real. How could Greeley ever defend such a proposition that Jesus was a myth? Of course I had it all wrong. When I first saw an advertisement for the book, I misunderstood Greely’s understanding of “myth”, as most people would do in his context.

Most of us, if I may be so bold to do such categorizing, when we hear or see the word “myth”, we think about the second definition of that word: “ a widely held but false notion” or the third definition: “fictitious person, thing, or idea”. The first definition is this: “a traditional story embodying popular ideas on natural or supernatural and social phenomena, etc.” As such, the story of Jesus is a myth. But it is more and Greeley intended it to be more when he used the word in writing about Jesus.

If I am correct, the notion Greeley had in mind is what theologian Karen Armstrong, writing years later says about myth: “A myth was never intended as an accurate account of a historical event; it was something that in some sense happened once but that also happens all the time.” The story of Jesus, even as we have it in the Gospels, was never intended to be an accurate account of his life and words. But Jesus did live and what he said and did as recounted in scripture, even though not historically accurate, is still historically true.

But there is more and is the essence of myth. It lives on and even happens, as Armstrong asserts, all the time. That was Greeley’s point about Jesus. Jesus lived once. He said and did much, some of which is recounted in scripture, much of which is not. But what he said and what he did still lives on today. Jesus lives on in the lives of those who believe in Jesus and who try to live the life he would have us live, say the words that he would say, do what he would do given who we are with all our failing and shortcomings but also with the gifts we do possess.

Jesus is alive as much today as he was when he lived. The Jesus Event, in Armstrong’s words, the Jesus Myth, in Greeley’s, happens all the time. Jesus died but he still lives. He lives in us, you and me. He spoke his words once but he still speaks them today, in and through us and in and through all those who believe in him. Sometimes, thankfully, our words and actions are adequate; and sometimes, sadly, they are inadequate and even contrary to what Jesus would say and do. That happens when it is sinners who are to make Jesus alive in their own lives.

The Jesus Myth: to those who believe, it all makes sense. To those who do not believe it makes no sense at all.