What is a Rogue: a person whose behavior one disapproves of but who is nonetheless likable or attractive (often used as a playful term of reproof).

" you old rogue!"

synonyms:   rascal, imp, devil, monkey;

a person or thing that behaves in an aberrant, faulty, or unpredictable way.

"he hacked into data and ran rogue programs"

 

Jesus as a Rogue: goes his own way.

Caution about the usual preaching tactic to view the Jewish contemporary culture as the foil to everything Jesus is about. What the theme of my continuing education this past week.

Rogue One: Plot.

Much of the movie takes place on a Planet with a city called “Jedha.”

Religious connotations: Jedha-Jedi plus Judah.

Holy site of pilgrimage.

Under the boot and exploitation of the Empire,

One of the things Jesus was criticized about in the gospels, one of the ways the gospel writers tell of him breaking taboos and “going rogue” about was his actions and speech regarding the Temple.

As you hear, he does not rely on any teacher’s credentials when he makes his bold statements about the temple. This was the tradition of the Pharisees, which were highly communal and respectful of the rabbinical philosophies of varied practitioners. You had a “yoke” that you carried when you were a rabbi-that was in part the instruction you had received from your teacher.

And, well, Jesus didn’t play by those rules. This is why Dr. AJ Levine said she thought Jesus probably WOULDN’T have been known as a Pharisee in his context—because that organization of citing your teacher and the tradition you were coming from was so central to the Phariseeaic tradition. Jesus was a “rogue rabbi.”

Though the tradition of Temple critique was strong in the prophets, he was relying on no one to vouch for his understanding of Divine activity in the world. He was decidedly “FUTURE ORIENTED” instead of showing any concern at all for the origins of his teaching. As you hear in the text, When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

IN my Jewish annotated New Testament, the notes point out that this refers to the fact that here Jesus is claiming no tradition to verify his prophecy. Instead, he is pointing toward the future, and re-framing the whole notion of the Temple—a place where God meets humankind, from some newly polished structure built by a corrupt king—a stooge of Rome, and instead pointing to that Divine presence in his own being—a host for God that Paul interprets to have the same effect on his followers. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” he asks the Corinthians.

The physical temple built by Herod the Great in 20BC and completed by Herod Agrippa in 64 AD would be demolished by the romans 6 years later—meant as a sign to the Judean people that Roman Dominance was not to be questioned during a time of rebellion and uprising. It is this consequential event that much of the Gospels are grappling with if you “read between the lines of the text” of those four stories of Jesus’ ministry, since they were all written between 70 and 95 AD.

I see some correlation between the movies and our story of the ministry of Jesus as well. What is it that is conferred on the people in the Temple? What is the result of going to the Temple and buying an unblemished animal and making a sacrifice? What was the spiritual effect of such a thing? Was it simply fulfilling an obligation? I don’t think so, what it conferred on the people was Hope. Hope that God would be merciful and gracious and work in accordance with your pursuits. Hope for a good year of crops, Hope for health and good fortune in the lives of children for whom sacrifices were made, As this was Passover, those sacrifices were made in the hope grounded in God’s activity in the past—from 2000 years previous, when God aided the liberation of the people from slavery in Egypt.

The annotation of the JANT says, “Passover is closely associated with liberation from oppression and divine salvation, past and future. “ And John’s Gospel uniquely locates this act at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry—an announcement of his role as Messiah—the one who is anointed to bring that liberation from oppression and slavery. As he sees it, though, it is an oppression inside the individual heart to which he is called to set people free. To a “slavery to sin and death,” and so he takes on the role as Temple—his own body, which would later be scourged and whipped (interesting, he wields a corded whip in this action, a device which has its only other mention in the gospels at the end of John’s gospel, as it is being used on his own body.)

“While he entrusts himself to no one” in this occasion, we later see him (as we read last week) entrusting his very resurrected spirit into his disciples. That hope is entrusted to them, and like him, it endures regardless of persecution and pain—as Paul says to the Romans:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access[b] to this grace in which we stand; and we[c] boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we[d] also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

The “kyber crystals” which are the treasure of the Holy City Jedha are exploited by the Empire in the construction of the Death Star—they are the source of power which the Death Star generates to fire its enormous planet destroying Ray of fire. And, as we see, the Empire chooses as its first target that very Holy City.

The time-honored and sacred use of the kyber crystal is by Jedi knights to craft their own light saber. Rogue One is the story of the diverse band of misfits, led by a woman, to steal the plans of the death star that are later used by the rebellion, and Luke Skywalker, to destroy the death star in the 1977 original. It has been noted that there isn’t a single light-saber in the film except for Darth Vader’s, But—if you also read between the lines, the leader of the “Rogue One” team, Jyn Erso, also wears a kyber crystal around her neck. And the individualized adoption of the treasure of Jedha is what leads to the steady hope that ultimately brings down the Empire.

As Jyn tells the counsel making a battle plan to go and steal the plans, “Rebellions are built on Hope,” and it is in the use of a light saber that Luke Skywalker, trained by his father Darth Vader’s teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, that he gains the focus and clarity to achieve that ultimate goal. “This weapon is your life."

    ―Obi-Wan Kenobi

This was the formal weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. More skill than simple sight was required for its use. An elegant weapon. It was a symbol as well. Anyone can use a blaster or a fusioncutter—but to use a lightsaber well was a mark of someone a cut above the ordinary."

    ―Obi-Wan Kenobi

As he pilots his XWing into the canals of the Death Star waiting on his electronic targeting system to give him the signal to fire his torpedos into the small flaw built into the Death Star that will destroy the whole thing, he hears the voice of his teacher—“Use the force, Luke,” and recalls his training with the light saber, training himself, blind, to spar with a training robot (which, interestingly, looks like a miniture Death Star).  So it is the hope within him that does not disappoint. And as he puts up his targeting system, he relies on the Spirit’s presence in his own person—“feel the force flowing through you.”

We have the same mandate—as Jesus breathed into his disciples the Holy Spirit—it is after his own body has been destroyed and then raised back up in three days. This Holy Spirit gives hope, and the Kingdom of God is the “rebellion built on hope.” It is a rebellion against an empire that seeks to exploit and destroy. And it is that Empire we stand against as living sacrifices.