'As a nontheist Wright has, to paraphrase Meister Eckhart, taken leave of God to know God.' Photo: 'Jesus today' book cover
Jesus Today: A Quaker perspective
Author: Michael Wright. Review by Peter Jarman.
Michael Wright served for forty years as an Anglican priest before becoming a Friend. Before training at a theological college, he attended a Quaker Meeting and was attracted by its form and substance, especially Advices & queries. He is clearly stimulated by the life of Jesus and its relationship to a discipleship in the Quaker way. In his book he urges Friends to take heed of Advice 4: ‘The Religious Society of Friends… has always found inspiration in the life and teachings of Jesus… How does Jesus speak to you today?’
The author regards Jesus as a wisdom teacher rather than the Lamb of God sacrificed to atone for our sins. Jesus is not a Messiah and no more a child of God than we are. As a nontheist Wright has, to paraphrase Meister Eckhart, taken leave of God to know God. He believes that God dwells within us as a power of love and truth.
The book refers to sayings attributed to Jesus that plainly speak to us today, like those of the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of the Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son. This is distinct from Bible studies that discern the contexts in which the Bible was written and how it spoke to previous generations of readers. The author provides an introduction to the gospels, and references to recent critical studies of them.
Wright also prompts us to resurrect Jesus from the often-unread Bibles on Meeting house tables. He urges us to read a good modern translation, like the recent Revised New Jerusalem Bible edited by Henry Wansbrough, a Benedictine monk at Ampleforth Abbey. It uses inclusive language as quoted below.
Friends before us knew the Bible by heart and could readily quote from it. So what has Jesus to say to Friends today? Here are a few sayings the author highlights: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God’; ‘All who draw the sword will die by the sword’; ‘Ask, and it will be given to you, search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you’; ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged, because the judgements you give are the judgements that you will get. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the log in your own?’; ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed which, at the time of its sowing, is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet it becomes the biggest shrub of all and puts out big branches so that the birds if the air nest in its shade’; ‘If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you will say to this mountain “move from here to there”, and it will move; nothing will be impossible for you’; ‘The kingdom of God will not come if you watch for it. Nor will anyone be able to say it is here or it is there. For the kingdom of God is within you.’
With these and more this book reminds us that the wisdom of Jesus still has much to offer.
