Jesus Christ, healing, caring, and sexual pleasure

In Tractatus 2.1 Wittgenstein describes an activity of consciousness of women, men and queer as “We make to ourselves pictures of facts.” There may be conscious pictures in our consciousness that we make without words, which we make with colors, sounds, smells, figures or the like. The conscious activity of negating a picture, that is a state of affairs, usually needs a worded thought. Tractatus 3 says, “The logical picture of the facts is the thought”. Tractatus 4 affirms the principle of the so-called linguistic turn, “The thought is the significant proposition”, and Tractatus 4.003 assesses the consequence for philosophizing after the linguistic turn, “All philosophy is ‘Critique of language’.”

In Tractatus 4.021 we read: “The proposition is a picture of reality, for I know the state of affairs presented by it, if I understand the proposition. And I understand the proposition, without its sense having been explained to me” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. Side-by-side-by-side edition, version 0.42 (January 5, 2015), containing the original German, alongside both the Ogden/Ramsey, and Pears/McGuinness. London: Kegan Paul).

Significant propositions or sentences may express self-examinations of consciousness. According to neuroscientists “consciousness is our brain’s way of integrating information, of assembling a coherent model of the world as fed through our senses” (Scharf, Caleb. 2017. The Zoomable Universe. 115. New York: Scientific American/Farrar, Strauss and Giroux). The sentences of empirical science paint pictures of our “small rocky planet that orbits one ordinary star out of a trillion trillion stars in the observable universe” (ibid. 116). Empirical science works with a two-valued logic and the truth values “true” and “false”. Attributing to an empirical hypothesis the truth value “true” is called affirmation of the hypothesis, the truth value “false” falsifies the hypothesis.

Empirical science helps understand better the world, helps understand better life. What is the use of trying to understand life? What is the use of studying life, “the emergent product of the interaction of numbingly large numbers of tiny, repeated, varied and recombined structures” (ibid. 117)? Hope for making money with patents, fame for discoveries and inventions, or helping humanity are strong and legitimate motives, but also curiosity and an inner drive for discovering how something works. Why is it interesting and fascinating to learn that molecular building blocks of life “are the direct result of the physics of protons, neutrons, electrons, and electromagnetic forces”, that “simply follow the fundamental rules of the universe that were locked into place some 13.8 billion years ago. Yet in concert, they can build galaxies, stars, planets, elephants, humans, birds, bugs and who-knows-what-else across the cosmos” (ibid)? In our self-study as humans as a product of the universe, we find again the rest of the universe within ourselves (Hemenway, Priya. 2008. Divine Proportion. Philosophy in Art, Nature and Science. 22. Springwood SA, Lugano, Switzerland: Evergreen GmbH). What is the use of constructing a rational picture of nature? Understanding the universe, understanding ourselves, taking profit of this understanding for improving our lives and ever wondering that the world is - we are that. There are scientists who wonder that the world is, there are scientists who just enjoy the thrills of new discoveries and insights, there are scientists who are highly motivated by the satisfaction they get from constructing hypothesis and following the laborious and never-ending path of empirical experiments.

Looking at the visible universe, I wonder that it is. Looking at the sentences that I produce within fifty bits of consciousness per second, I wonder that I am. Trying to understand the universe that scientists find in the living cells on earth, I wonder that I exist. At the same time, I am aware of the images, associations, memories and emotions, pleasant feelings and unpleasant that flood my mind when I am excited from wondering. Calming down in meditation I experience peace, and I am not frightened of being a tiny bit capable of consciousness in a world lost in space and time. I am thankful that I do not at all feel lost in the vastness of the universe, on the contrary, I feel safe and secure. Thankfully I am nurtured by a confidence, that if I feel abandoned and disconnected, my body will restore my integrity. I try to go on living by taking this peace and calm into the interactions with my Umwelt. Looking back on the interactions of the last day I have to assess that my social relations were not experiences of peace and calm, but often experiences of noise, misunderstandings, of feeling disturbed and of losing my calm balanced equilibrium. I must assess that I am rarely able to realize at least one speech-act according to the validity-condition of my claims to validity that is realizing the dignity of the discourse partners by mutually listening and speaking. (See my Posting “Ethics and discourse theory”).

Fifty bits of consciousness per second is not much knowledge, is not much understanding, and is not much power to change behavior. I do not know how many of the 10 trillion bits per second that my body processes are necessary to produce these most precious 50 bits of consciousness. One might say that all the body’s interactions with the Umwelt and other persons and all the interactions within the body are contributing to this consciousness. There are about 70 trillion cells cooperating to make my body function, to make me exist, to make me capable of speaking about what I am aware of. The brain has about 86 billion neurons at its disposition. An individual neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, signaling to each other via as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections. All this is necessary to produce my consciousness, a most precious possibility condition to give my body feedback and interact with behavior. Imagining the vast observable universe of 13.8 billion light-years, I wonder how empty space is and that protons, neutrons and electrons build atoms and concentrate on building molecules and eventually cells. I wonder that, compared with normal matter in intergalactic space, I would need “to scoop up at least a million times more volume to concentrate matter to the same level” as in my body” (Scharf 2017, 26). Although the atomic nuclei of the earth are the result of interstellar condensation, I wonder about the emptiness of matter: “Make a fist. Now imagine that your fist represents the size of an atomic nucleus. If it did, the entire atom would extend to about five kilometers in all directions” which means that “a typical atomic nucleus holds 99.9% of the mass of the whole atom, but only one-trillionth of its volume” (ibid, 159).

Wondering that the world is at all, that I am, is an overwhelming experience. Experiencing peace and calm, feeling secure and calm about the picture of the end of my life, and not being troubled about myself makes me thankful and makes me express my gratitude. Usually we thank each other, women, men and queer thank each other, women, men and queer are angry at each other, they are peaceful with each other, and they are violent and hurt each other. Women, men and queer also heal each other, love each other and do each other good. Doing myself good, caring and sustaining, and assuring my physical, social, psychic, economic and spiritual integrity is possible because my body has self-healing powers, and my environment procures the necessary resources and possibilities.

The picture that describes all women, men and queer and the whole universe enjoying a permanent state of peace and happiness, secure and without troubles, we like to call a paradisiac state of affairs. We hope for our happiness and peace, we hope for peace and happiness in the world and universe. Experiencing happiness and peace, feeling secure and safe, cared for and nurtured, is a hope, especially when we do not experience peace, justice, happiness and caring love. Since there is my experience of calm and peace and happiness, since I am able to thank for this experience, and since I am losing again this state of secure awareness to the experiences of trouble and sufferings, I am hoping that peace and happiness will reign my life again. The expression “reign of peace and happiness” is a Biblical expression, just as the expressions “reign of heaven”, or “kingdom of heaven”. We could simply use the synonymous expression “paradise” for this state of peace and happiness for all women, men and queer. There are women, men and queer who hope for the reign of peace and happiness, for paradise and for heaven for all women, men and queer. There are women, men and queer who do not hope at all and there are women, men and queer who only experienced hell and continue themselves giving hell to their neighbors; others again reserve the promise of paradise for themselves and their families. A love empowering message concerning the realization of the hope of peace and happiness for all of humanity, is narrated in the Gospels of the New Testament.

It is important to be conscious of the fact that writing about religious beliefs, about a Christian worldview, about convictions, values and hopes does not allow to use the two-valued logic of empirical science and the truth values “true” and “false”. Dealing with the Bible as believing Christian and writing about what I mean when speaking of Go’d and Jesus Christ, short, when theologizing, we must use a three-valued logic to discuss the logical coherence of our sentences. It is fundamental for a theologian to be able to theologize on the basis of a reflected logic for theological knowledge and insight. The impossibility of deciding the truth of sentences speaking of Go’d on the basis of a two-valued logic, that would be able either to prove right or to prove wrong the sentence, asks for a logic that accepts not being able to positively prove a sentence right or wrong. This kind of logic would be capable of proving wrong the refutation of the truth-value true for theological sentences and accepts not being able to prove right the theological sentence in question. The epistemological turn from the two-valued logic of logical truth to the acceptance of a third possibility that includes the truth-values “true” and “false” and the third truth-value “I do not know”. The three-valued logic accepts the third possibility that accepts not being able to positively prove a sentence right or wrong. (See my Posting “Sentences, sense, and logical truth”).

It is not excluded that historians and other scientists like archeologists, etc., identify in the Bible empirical facts like the names of historic kings and persons, dates of battles and the architecture of settlements, or social, economic, political and cultural events in the history of the Palestine and the Near East. Speaking about the Bible I want to make clear, that I am treating the sentences of the biblical authors as belief-sentences and not as sentences of empirical science. It is not possible, and it is not the priority of the authors of the Gospel to write a biography of Jesus. We do not know the sentences that the historic Jesus said and which of the sentences of Jesus that are narrated in the Gospel are historic sentences of Jesus. It is important to use the sentences of the Gospel as belief-sentences of the authors of the Bible and to comment on them as believer and not as scientist. Concerning belief-sentences we cannot speak of true or false sentences, instead we must investigate if the believer of the sentences is trustworthy or not. We must keep in mind that the authors of the Gospel talk about their faith, when narrating stories with Jesus Christ. The authors say that and why they believe in Jesus Christ, but they do not write a biography of the historic Jesus.

Matthew says that Jesus departed into Galilee and began to preach at a time when the prophets were killed again, and John the Baptist was cast into prison (Matthew 4, 12). Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand” (Matthew 4, 17b). Matthew narrates that Jesus began his ministry proclaiming that the reign of heavens is near, that is “the just world of Go’d” according to a translation in gender-just language (Schottroff, Luise. 2007. “Matthäusevangelium.” In Bibel in gerechter Sprache, edited by Ulrike Bail, Frank Crüsemann, Marlene Crüsemann, Erhard Domay, Jürgen Ebach, Claudia Janssen, Helga Kuhlmann, Martin Leutzsch and Luise Schottroff, 1835–1889 and 2313–2314). 1840. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus). The expression “the just world of Go’d” is a good interpretation of the terms “reign of Go’d, reign of the heavens, and kingdom of Go’d”. Luise Schottroff, the Protestant Biblical scholar and translator of Matthew argues her choice to translate the term “kingdom of heavens” or “kingdom of Go’d” as “Go’d’s just world” referring to the Jewish tradition of hope in Go’d. Matthew follows this tradition respecting the name of Go’d and not naming Go’d but rather speaking of “the heavens”. The terms “kingdom” or “reign” translate the Greek term basileia that is used by Matthew, Mark and Luke (Schottroff 2007, 2313).

With Jesus preaching that “the just world of Go’d is near”, the just world of Go’d has begun. According to the faith-sentences of Mark, the beginning of the just world of Go’d, the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, was Go’d’s initiative, Go’d had set the time and the hour, the kairos and every woman, man and queer is invited to lend a helping hand realizing the just world of Go’d (Mark 1, 15b). This “just world of Go’d” is the hope of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Go’d’s mercy and a just world coming is the empowering hope of Jews, Christians and Muslims who believe that the world is a creation of Go’d’s justice. Believing in Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected, justifies the Christian believers. The hope in Go’d’s mercy for the world is the hope of many believers in many cultures and religions of the universe. Jesus preaches the hope of the coming of Go’d, he hopes for the just world of Go’d, he starts the realization of Go’d’s just world. In the synagogues of Galilee Jesus is preaching by “curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people” (Matthew 4, 23).

When Jesus speaks of the kingdom of Go’d and of Go’d’s reign he uses pictures that contrast worldly kings and queens. Go’d does not act unjustly, he pays according to the agreed but unexpectedly pays all workers the same, regardless of the hours they have worked (Matthew 20, 1–16 and 21, 28–32). Worldly kings and queens get power by violence, suppression and exploitation (Mark 10, 42–45). Jesus admonishes his disciples to use power differently. The power of the Messiah entering Jerusalem peacefully (Matthew 21, 1–11) is a gift of Go’d realizing the universal reign of Go’d’s justice and not a kingdom of the world (John 18, 36 and 19, 19–22). On the contrary, Paul claims that Jesus Christ will end the power of the kingdoms of the world and submit to the power of Go’d (1 Corinthians 15, 23–28) (Leutzsch, Martin. 2007. “Glossar.” In Bibel in gerechter Sprache, edited by Ulrike Bail, Frank Crüsemann, Marlene Crüsemann, Erhard Domay, Jürgen Ebach, Claudia Janssen, Helga Kuhlmann, Martin Leutzsch and Luise Schottroff, 2336–2337. 2337. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus). The promise of Jesus is the realization of the just world of Go’d by Go’d. The Bible in just language coherently translates the terms “reign of heavens” and “kingdom of Go’d” as “the just world of Go’d” (ibid).

Matthew believes in and confesses Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah, the Son of Go’d. He describes and proclaims the Gospel, the Good News (Greek: euanggélion) of the historic Jesus, the Gospel of the just world of Go’d, as we read in Matthew 9, 35:

“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the just world of Go’d and curing all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness”.

Matthew 9, 35 is the inclusion of what has started in Matthew 4, 23:

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the just world of Go’d and curing all kinds of disease and illness among the people.”

Matthew narrates the teaching and healing of the historic Jesus; yet he is not writing a biography of the life of Jesus (Luz, Ulrich. 2002. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Mt 1–7). 245. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament I/1. Zürich: Benzinger). The Gospel is the proclamation (Greek: kerygma) of the proclaiming (Greek: kaeruessein) of the historic Jesus (ibid). According to Matthew all proclamation of the Church must follow the proclaiming of the historic Jesus. There is no other Gospel but the words and deeds of Jesus (ibid). In Matthew 5–7 we hear and listen to the Messiah of the word, Matthew 8–9 describes the Messiah of the deed (ibid). The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) presents the teaching of Jesus, his way of realizing the just world of Go’d (ibid, Exkurs) as Go’d had promised (Matthew 5, 3–10). The historic Jesus teaches justice for the world. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice” (Matthew 5, 6). This justice is realization of justice in the history of the world, because only in the world women, men and queer are persecuted for realizing and persevering to realize justice, as says Matthew 5, 10:

“Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of justice: the just world of Go’d is theirs”.

In the Sermon on the Mount the historic Jesus teaches us to trust in Go’d’s mercy, to forgive sins “And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us” (Matthew 6, 12) and to pray that the just world of Go’d will come (Matthew 6, 10). In 19, 1 Matthew makes Jesus depart from Galilee, going to the coast of Judea beyond the Jordan. Observing the teachings of the historic Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew’s last commandment of Jesus to his disciples, the last sentence of his Gospel, Matthew 28, 20:

“And teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always yes, to the end of time”.

How did Jesus realize the just world of Go’d? Matthew writes about the historic Jesus in Matthew 4, 24:

“And his fame spread throughout Syria and those who were suffering from diseases and painful complaints of one kind or another, the possessed, epileptics, the paralyzed, were all brought to him, and he cured them”.

Sick and suffering women, men and queer came to Jesus to find healing. They walked to him or were carried by family or friends. Jesus healed the suffering; he healed the diseases and those oppressed by tormenting pain. I imagine that these suffering women, men and queer who went to Jesus for healing had already consulted all kinds of healers and experimented with possible treatments. Nothing had been effective and the only accessible healer who promised help was Jesus. We do not know about the names of the diseases that Jesus healed according to our modern classifications of diseases. We do not even know very much about how Jesus healed. We often hear that Jesus imposed his healing hands on the suffering, that he applied a kind of paste made of dough and his saliva. We do not know the names of the diseases that Jesus healed and modern knowledge about anatomy, chemistry, physiology and the biological functioning of the body differs a lot from the understanding and practice of medicine in Antiquity. Nevertheless, we understand that suffering and pain oppress the health and well-being of a woman, man or queer. We recognize a suffering woman, man or queer and rightfully suppose that we would still recognize today the expressions of pain and suffering of a tormented woman, man and queer of Antiquity. We do not know how Jesus healed and what kind of treatment he applied. We know that he healed and apparently healed effectively, because the sick people did not stop approaching him to be healed.

As children we have learned the use of the expressions “pain” and “suffering”. We understand most of the sentences of Matthew who was speaking about suffering people two thousand years ago. There are some sufferings named by Matthew that we understand less than others. The expression “possessed by demons” sounds strange to modern minds. What kind of suffering does Matthew express by speaking of being possessed with demons? What does it mean to be possessed? What is a demon? Since the people who were possessed with demons according to Matthew were suffering and had pain, “being possessed by demons” apparently describes a state of affairs that damages the biological, psychic, social and spiritual integrity of a woman, man or queer. We do not know what aspect of human health is suffering when we hear the expressions “possessed with demons”. It is important to investigate at this point the use of the expression “demon” in Greek Antiquity.

The expression demon (Greek: daimwn) translates in a first use as “spirit of the separated”. These demons are considered as something like a second class of inferior not so important gods, as beings in between the gods and the human world (Gemoll, Wilhelm. 1908. Griechisch-Deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch. 181. Wien: G. Freytag G.m.b.H.). It was common understanding in Antiquity that these demons give every new-born girl or boy or queer a personal spirit of protection at birth, a so-called genius. The Christians’ belief in guardian angels looks like a direct descendant from Antiquity’s belief in geniuses. A second use of the expression daimwn translates as deity, as god who influences the fate of the humans. This use translates as “with the help of the god” or as “it is up to the gods”, or “according to godly providence” (ibid). A third use of daimwn translates the expression as fate of the humans, as the destiny of the individual woman, man or queer. There is a positive destiny and a negative destiny. The positive use of fate shows for example the expression “the good old days”; the negative sense of destiny expresses ruin, corruption, depravity, perishing and death (ibid).

The New Testament uses the expression daimwn exclusively in the negative, bad and malign sense of a pernicious fate and even as a synonym of the term “devil” (ibid). Concerning the New Testament, we must take notice of the fact that there are two Greek terms expressing devil. One term is diabolos (Hebrew: satan) and the other is satanas. In John 13, 2 we read:

“They were at supper and the devil (Greek: diabolos) had already put into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him”.

In Luke 22, 31 we read:

“Simon, Simon! Look, Satan (Greek: satanas) has got his wish to sift you all like wheat”.

The Gospels use the Greek noun daimónion that translates as divinity or godly being 28 times. A second use translates as godly providence, natural law, fate and destiny, or as the warning or admonishing by the godly voice of conscience. The New Testament uses the noun daimónion in the sense of bad spirit, devil or ghost (ibid).

In Matthew 4, 24 and 8, 16 as in Mark 1, 32 we find the use of the verb daimonizomai that translates as “to be demon possessed”. There is a huge tradition in Western culture that calls Jesus’s practice of liberating demon-possessed women, men and queer practicing “exorcism”. Reading Matthew 4, 24 of the healing the sick and demon possessed, I do not want to speak of an exorcism. It is centuries later that the term exorcism entered the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. The context of Jesus’s healing is the suffering of sick women, men and queer, of paralytic, epileptic and sufferings that are called “possessed by demons”. The Late Greek verb daimonaw translates as “being stricken by calamity or disaster” (ibid). We may understand the verb daimonizomai in this sense. In my modern understanding, the symptoms of this calamity may very well indicate epilepsy but there are many kinds of calamities and disasters capable of violating the integrity of a person.

In any case, healing sickness or healing the distressing calamity of afflictions by demons, Jesus was healing. He was restoring the physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity of the women, men and queer who asked him to heal their sufferings and pain. Meditating on Jesus healing the many sick and suffering comforts me, brings peace to my mind. Jesus interacts with so many people, he cares for so many women, men and queer and cures them. He is a man, a prophet, the Son of Go’d. He has so much energy and healing force, empowering power (Latin: podestas), he is a credible beginning of the just world of Go’d.

At the celebration of the Passover festival, the Rabbis exhort the Jewish women, men and queer persevering in their social choice for freedom and for realizing their freedom by the Exodus to dignity and justice. Jesus exhorts in Matthew 4, 17 his listeners to join him realizing the just world of Go’d. In Mark 1, 15b Jesus invites the women, men and queer who listen to turn on the way of the just world of Go’d that once Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had taken and on that his disciples now will turn following Jesus from Galilee to Capernaum up to Jerusalem.

After the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 8, 1 tells us that not only the Apostles but also a great multitude had assisted at the sermon: “After he had come down from the mountain large crowds followed him”. Jesus taught not only individual man, woman and queer, he taught the multitude, the people, all who listened to his words. When Jesus was healing, he was healing an individual man, woman or queer at a time. The healing took place as a mutual interaction. Rarely Jesus healed two persons at a time; he always healed interacting, speaking with the persons who wanted to get healed. Jesus does not heal against the will of a person. He does not heal without the demand of a person to get healed. Usually, Jesus heals in the presence of many people and sometimes he addresses some words to the people surrounding the sick and himself.

In Matthew 8, 2–4 we read of the cure of a man with skin-disease (Greek: lepros):

“Suddenly a man with a virulent skin-disease came up and bowed low in front of him, saying. ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can cleanse me’. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying. ‘I am willing. Be cleansed.’ And his skin-disease was cleansed at once. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Mind you tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering prescribed by Moses, as evidence to them’.”

The leper – as the man with the skin-disease is used to be called – came to Jesus and fell before him (Greek: proskunein). This prostration or worship shows that Jesus has the power to heal his disease if he wants to. Jesus assesses his social choice for realizing the healing of the leper. He touched him and healed his disease. Jesus asked the healed man to go to the temple for the testimony of the healing. Next Matthew tells of a Roman centurion coming to Jesus (Matthew 8, 5–13). The centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant suffering from sickness. The centurion reveals his trust in Jesus, his confidence and belief in the healing powers of Jesus. Jesus assesses that this kind of strong faith and commitment to the reliability in his healing powers he had not encountered in Israel. The faithfulness of the centurion, his trust, Jesus’s credibility, the commitment of the centurion to save his slave, for all these predicates Matthew uses the same Greek verb pistis to express faith, trust and credibility. Jesus heals the servant, as the centurion had trusted he would do. Jesus praises the women, men and queer of the whole world who came to join the way realizing the just world of Go’d like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had done. Those women, men and queer who did not realize their part for a just world and come up to the just world of heaven will be thrown out into darkness (Matthew 8, 11–12). Matthew uses the verb ekballein to speak of this separation of the women, men and queer who realized the just world of Go’d and those who did not but just wanted to enter it.

In Matthew 8, 16 we find again the use of the same verb ekballein. This time the verb describes Jesus’s activity of sending out the spirits that trouble the man that were possessed with demons, and he healed all the sick who were brought to him. Literally Matthew writes that Jesus threw the spirits (Greek: pneuma) out of the possessed women, men and queer by speaking to them, that is by his word. Matthew uses the Greek term pneuma to describe what possessed the women, men and queer. Pneuma actually means breath, waft, whiff, or breath, soul and spirit. The expression pneuma in Greek is used to speak of ecstasy and ecstatic experiences, to go into ecstasies. In the positive sense this ecstasy means courage, fire or angel. Where the New Testament speaks of the Holy Ghost, the term pneuma is used in the most positive sense. The New Testament and classical Greek also know the negative sense of pneuma. This sense means being obsessed with negative influences on one’s integrity (Gemoll 1908, 612).

Healing women, men and queer who suffer the violation of their physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity with words, does not constitute anything miraculous or mythological. Healing without speaking is an impossibility for many therapies and medical systems of all times. Matthew says that Jesus healed the possessed by speaking to them with his word. There is nothing miraculous or irrational about Jesus’s healing with words and restoring the integrity of possessed women, men and queer. The problems of mythology, myths and miracles, of the irrational and therefore incredible come with the translation of the expression ekballein as the realization of an exorcism. The use of the term exorcism by exegetes and Biblical scholars, by theologians, psychiatrists and church authorities usually associates some sort of psychopathology that is a conviction that is irrational, unreal and uncorrectable. This kind of psychopathology usually classifies as insanity, madness or mania. I do not associate the expression ekballein with the term exorcism at all.

Believing in Jesus Christ does not mean believing in an illusion and is no sign of madness; it is a belief. I do not believe in Jesus Christ the exorcist, who threw out, banished and exiled some perverted godly spirit or demon that possessed poor women, men and queer. I do not believe that Jesus commanded bad spirits to leave a person and to go into exile. When Matthew speaks of women, men and queer who are possessed with demons, I am thinking of women, men and queer whose integrity is somehow broken, dysfunctional and suffering. Matthew describes the activity of restoring the integrity, the complete physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity of the suffering persons as the throwing out of spirits. This description of healing that is two-thousand years old should not serve contemporary readers of the Bible as justification for criminal exorcist rituals that torture suffering women, men and queer.

In Matthew 8, 23–27 we read the narrative of the calming of the storm. In Matthew 8, 23 Jesus and his disciples entered a ship. A great shaking of a storm rose the sea, the ship got water ingress, Jesus was asleep and the disciples, fearing for their lives, awoke him saying, “Save us Lord, we are lost” (Matthew 8, 25b). Jesus criticizes their fear, describes them as having little faith, trust and confidence, and commands the storm to calm down. Because of this power to command the forces of nature, the old church spoke of Jesus as Go’d, Jesus is the protector Go’d of the Christian community (Luz, Ulrich. 2007. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (Mt 8–17). Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament I/2. 27. Zürich: Benzinger) and the boat is a symbol of the church (ibid, 29). What is the literary form of this narrative Matthew 8, 23–27? Is this narrative not a myth in the sense of Greek mythology that is a story about a personified godly force that intervenes in the state of affairs of the world? It is impossible to conceive of Matthew as speaking of Jesus calming the storm the same as mythological language in Antiquity that narrates of gods appearing on earth as human beings around the Mediterranean and in the Orient. Matthew does not conceive of Jesus as a godly being which disguises as a human and appears as a human figure, as a son of the highest, bringing revelation and salvation. Yes, Antiquity and the Orient tell of gods and godly beings that appear in the form of humans. The central part of the gnostic myth of salvation is played by a godlike being, the son of the highest, who is disguised in human form, clothed in human flesh and blood, in order to bring revelation and salvation (Bultmann 1952, 38–39). Contrary to Bultmann, I do not see that John speaks in the language of mythology saying that Jesus was the logos and then became flesh (ibid, 38). Bultmann never mentions the demiurge, the godly being of the gnostic myth, in the context of the logos. Nevertheless, he conceives the Christian speaking of revelation as something coming from Go’d with the help of mythology (ibid, 39). 

Even if an author of the Gospel, be it John, Mark, Matthew or Luke, employed mythological language, the author would have to deconstruct the myth and construct the message of the Gospel. He has to speak of Jesus by assessing the unity of his life and his teaching. In John 1, 18 we read:

“No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”.

Blutmann says that only here John uses the expression relate, explain, interpret, tell or describe (Greek: exaegeomai) (ibid, 56). Jesus reveals Go’d, he interprets Go’d’s will; using the verb exaegeomai John establishes Jesus as the revealer, as the one who told of Go’d that is Jesus is the revealer by his word, by telling, by speaking, by announcing and proclaiming (ibid, 57). Jesus the human man, the historic Jesus, is also the word, the logos that preexisted. Speaking human language, speaking the word unites incarnation and preexistence. From this point John does not describe Jesus from the point of view of a hierophant who explains esoteric mysteries or as a mystagogue who initiates into mysteries, who has no existence apart from his word. Jesus speaks the word and at the same time exists as word, the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus are a unit (ibid).

Matthew finds the story of Jesus calming the storm at sea in Mark 4, 35–41 (Gnilka, Joachim. 2008. Das Evangelium nach Markus (Mk 8, 27 – 16, 20). 197. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament I/1. Zürich: Neukirchener Verlag. Patmos Verlag). Gnilka proposes that Mark changed this narrative of Jesus calming the storm from a miracle-story to a story that concerns the disciples. The miracle-story in Mark 4, 35-41 opens a whole cycle of miracle stories in the Gospel of Mark (ibid). Mark directs his Gospel to and concentrates his Gospel on the passion narrative (ibid, 25). If the passion is the center of Mark’s Gospel, the miracles are subordinated to the passion. Mark historicizes narratives of miracle-stories. Jesus commands the demons of nature, the storm, that threatens the lives of the disciples on the ship. Since the miracle-story of the calming of the sea looks like an exorcism to Gnilka, he asks about Jesus’s therapeutic and exorcist activity (ibid, 194). According to Gnilka Jesus’s critique of the fearfulness of his disciples in the ship and his assessment that they have no faith, presupposes that he had gotten to know them well. In Mark 4, Jesus is still at the lake and had not spent a considerable amount of time together with the appointed Twelve (Mark 3, 13–19) on the way of realizing the just world of Go’d (ibid). He does not yet know them very well. From this follows that this miracle-story and Jesus’s critique is not part of the words of the historic Jesus. Mark rather wants to encourage a Christian community experiencing a difficult situation, a life-threatening storm, and assesses the reliability of the helping presence of the resurrected Jesus (ibid).

Luz proposes that the miracle-story of Jesus’s calming the storm had been formed after the experience of Easter modelling a little bit the story of the prophet Jonah who got saved by Go’d who wants to save women, men and queer and not have them perished (Luz 2007, 27). Twelftree considers the possibility that the Gospel tries to present Jesus as a prophet in the Old Testament tradition. The authors of the Gospel would then present the people attributing to Jesus prophet-like qualities, such as stilling the storm in the like of the prophet Jonah or feeding a crowd with a few loaves like the prophet Elisha, or raising people from the dead, like Elisha and the prophet Elijah (Twelftree, Graham H. 2014. “The Miraculous in the New Testament. Current Research and Issues.” Currents in Biblical Research 12 (3): 321–351.331).

The second parallel to Mark 4, 35–41 is Luke 8, 22–25. Bovon calls this story a rescue-miracle (Bovon, Francois. 1991. L`Évanglile selon Saint Luc (1,1 – 9, 50). 412. IIIa. Genève: Labor et Fides). The literary form is that of the miraculous victory of the hero over the elements of nature (ibid). Bovon identifies the Hellenistic motive of the saving or protecting passenger. It cannot be that Luke or Mark want to describe Jesus as a savior from the dangers of the sea following the models of the Greek gods Asclepios, Sarapes or the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux. The myths of these gods or half-gods start describing a sleeping passenger who seems powerless like a child or a prisoner. This beginning looks like Paul in Acts 27, 14–44. In the course of the story the powerless become very powerful. He is revealed to be mighty. I do not think like Bovon that Luke raises Jesus into the godly sphere by making him rebuke the wind and thereby saves his disciples without praying to Go’d for help (ibid, 415). For Luke it is faith in Jesus Christ as the crucified and resurrected Messiah that is important (Luke 1, 1–4). If there is any intention in the story of the calming of the storm, I see this intention in the challenge for the disciples and the readers of the Gospel to assess the identity of Jesus. Ultimately, I want to assess for all four Evangelists a similar use of miracles as in John, that is as clear “signs pointing to Go’d at work in Jesus” (Twelftree 2014, 339). The miracles of Jesus are no magic. If there is only the will of the miracle worker, then magic is in the game (ibid, 338). From the stories Acts 8, 9–24, Acts 13, 4–12, Acts 16, 16–24 and Acts 19, 3–17, we are very clearly instructed about Luke’s definition of magic and that he very carefully marked off Jesus and his followers from the miracle workers (ibid). In Acts 8, 9–24 Luke presents Simon the magician as practicing magic arts in his own name. Meeting the Apostle Philipp makes Simon turn on the way of the Christians. He even receives baptism but starts looking enviously at Peter and John who prayed that the people receive the Holy Spirit and offers Peter money to be able to make the people receive the Holy Spirit. Peter protests and we hear not much more about the future ways of Simon. In Acts 13, 4–12, we are confronted with the magician Elymas, “a Jewish magician and false prophet called Bar-Jesus”, who opposes Paul and Barnabas and meets the fierce resistance of Paul who preaches the Lord. In Acts 16, 16–24, Paul and Silas free a slave-girl from a spirit. Since the slave-girl then was not making money any more as a soothsayer, her masters have Paul and Silas whipped and thrown into prison. In Acts 19, 13–17, we hear of Jewish exorcists, among them “the seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest”. They tried an exorcism in the name of Jesus and “his spokesman Paul” but they failed miserably. The disciples were jealous about other persons performing exorcisms successfully, but Jesus corrected them, as the story of the unknown exorcist shows (Mark 9, 38–39 and the parallel story in Luke 9, 49–50).

Paul never claimed to directly perform miracles or exorcisms (ibid, 334). Paul appealed more to weakness than to miracles, when pressed for signs of his apostolic authority; apparently Luke attributed miracles and exorcisms to Paul (ibid, 333). If we consider Paul to be the earliest known interpreter of Jesus, it is interesting to observe that he “says neither anything about Jesus conducting miracles, nor appears to mention performing miracles in his own ministry” (ibid, 332).

The story of the demoniacs of Gadara (Matthew 8, 28 – 9, 1) is also taken from Mark. Matthew considerably shortens the story of Mark 5, 1–17. In Mark there is one man who comes out the tombs with an unclean spirit (Greek: pneuma) and worships (Greek: proskunein) Jesus (Mark 5, 6). We find with Mark the same expression that Matthew had used before in Matthew 8, 2 for worshipping or bowing down before a person in submission, respect and prostrating oneself in reverence to somebody. The unclean spirit implores Jesus not to torment him. Jesus speaks to the unclean spirit and tells him to leave the man. Then Jesus asks the unclean spirit for his name. The unclean spirit answers Jesus that his name is “Legion, for there are many of us” (Mark 5, 9). The unclean spirit urged Jesus to “send us to the pigs, let us go into them” (Mark 5, 12). Jesus permitted the unclean spirits to do so and they left the man and entered into the pigs. The herd of two-thousand swine ran down into the sea and drowned (Mark 5, 13). The herdsmen of the swine announced (Greek: apaggelleien) what had happened to the people. The people came and saw the man sitting in clothes with a healthy mind. The people were frightened and asked Jesus to leave. The healed man asked Jesus to be allowed to follow him as a disciple. Jesus told him to go home to his family and to announce (Greek: apaggelein) “to them all that the Lord in his mercy has done for you” (Mark 5, 19). The healed man did so and preached (Greek: kaerussein) in the Decapolis “what great things Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed” (Mark 5, 20).

In Matthew 8, 28, there are two men possessed with demons. In Matthew 8, 29, the two men shouted at Jesus, not the demons. The demons (Greek: daimones) urged Jesus to cast them out (Greek: ekballein) sending them into the herd of swine (Matthew 28, 31). Jesus allowed them to do so. The demons came out and went into the herd and the swine rushed into the sea and perished (Matthew 8, 32). The herdsmen fled and the people of the town asked Jesus to leave their territory (Matthew 8, 33–34). In Luke 8, 26–39 there is again only one man like in Mark, but the man simply has demons like in Matthew and not an unclean spirit like in Mark. For the rest of the story Luke follows Mark (Luke 8, 27). In Luke 8, 30, we hear that many demons went into the man. The demons get permission by Jesus to leave the man (Luke 8, 32) and they came out of the man and went into the swine (Luke 8, 33). Luz calls the story an exorcism and not a healing because Jesus deals with the demons; a healing would deal with the effects of the demons that is disease (Luz 2007, 33). If I consider that a demon might correspond in our modern understanding of a trauma to a damaged or broken biological, psychic, social and spiritual integrity, I can speak in this case of Luke 8, 26–39 of a disease too. Twelftree proposes the same analysis, Luke attempts to balance Jesus’s miraculous activity and his teaching and with Luke healing appears as exorcism and exorcism can become healing (Twelftree 2014, 336).

Luke’s epiphany reveals the saving power of the Son of Go’d and also the fall of the evil forces (Bovon 1991, 429). I prefer to speak of the revelation of the saving power of the Son of Go’d who restores and constructs the just world of Go’d that is who also constructs the health and integrity of suffering women, men and queer.

Without the integrity of women, men and queer in the world there is no just world of Go’d. Whatever terrifying event happened to the distorted man or whatever torments the two naked men encountering Jesus, they break their chains and cry loud, and Jesus faces their cries. They were living in tombs that were prepared for the dead. Roman legions occupied their territory, mistreating and oppressing the population, sacrificing women, men and queer like swine for the good of the emperor god. Only Jesus faces their cries, frightened or not, he allows the terrifying to be accepted in the light of speaking consciousness. A conscious Jesus confronts the tormented, distorted integrity of the men, the injustice and violence of the legions of soldiers. Men, women, and queer are suffering from men, women and queer and Jesus will suffer too, naked and crying at the cross he will face his ending life.

Mark, Matthew, Luke and John prepare their readers to face a naked man dying at the cross not as a condemned criminal but as an innocent man. He was made to leave the city; he was tortured and bore the unbearable by his social choice. The Gospel, the story of the social realization of the just world of Go’d is about the realization of the biological, psychic, social and spiritual integrity of the women, men and queer of the world, including the man Jesus of Nazareth.

In Matthew 9, 2–8, we read about another healing by Jesus. People bring a paralyzed man and Jesus seeing their faith (Greek: pistis) said to him: “Take comfort my child, your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9, 2b). Some scribes accused Jesus of blasphemy. To prove to them that the Son of man has power to forgive sins, Jesus said to the paralytic “Get up, pick up your bed and go off home” (Matthew 9, 6b). The people saw that the paralytic was healed “got up and went home” (Matthew 9, 7). They “praised Go’d for having given such authority over human beings” (Matthew 9, 8). Since Jesus speaks of himself as of the Son of man and Matthew 9, 8 speaks of human beings that is women, men and queer, Luz interprets that the story is about the Christian community’s power and authority to forgive sins (Luz 2007, 38). Matthew is clear and the people get it right by assessing that the power to forgive sins and to heal comes from Go’d and is a gift.

In Matthew 9, 13, Jesus teaches the Pharisees who protested that sinners like corrupt tax-gatherers make up the company of Jesus, what the prophet Hosea said of Go’d: “Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice (Hosea 6,6). And indeed, I came to call not the upright, but sinners” (Matthew 9, 13b). In Matthew 9, 18 “one of the officials came up”, prostrated before Jesus and asked him to bring his daughter back to life again. On the way to the dead daughter, Jesus heals the woman who had suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years and tells her “Courage my daughter, your faith has saved you” (Matthew 9, 22b). In the official’s house, Jesus took the dead girl by the hand “and she stood up” (Matthew 9, 25b). Then Jesus departed and he healed two blind men who had faith in him (Matthew 9, 29–30). Jesus healed a dumb man who was possessed by a demon and the people who saw the healings were full of praise and wonder. Only the Pharisees accused Jesus “It is through the prince of devils that he drives out devils” (Matthew 9, 34).

Matthew 9, 35 repeats Matthew 4, 23, and Matthew 9, 36 testifies of Jesus feeling deep compassion with his people “because they were harassed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd”. In Matthew 9, 37, Jesus admonishes his disciples asking “the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to his harvest”.

Jesus was a credible teacher and healer for the people because he healed all disease and suffering and called for mercy (Greek: eleos) like the prophet Hosea (Luz 2007, 45). The people are committed to Jesus because in the presence of the historic Jesus they experience help, rescue, healing and forgiveness of sins, they experience again their physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity within a world that violates and distorts the integrity of women, men and queer.

I think that the authors of the Gospels and those inspired authors who wrote the small texts that serve the four Evangelists, were deeply moved, touched and affected by the Jesus, the historic Jesus, who day and night cares for the poor, small and miserable, teaches them salvation and heals their diseases and sufferings. This man was not one of the common heroes, gods, demiurges or mighty who live in the stories about the miracles, wonders, exorcisms and risings of the death. Emperors, kings and despots may like or even organize a cult about their personality. This personality cult helps to keep their power over ordinary people. Many people apparently need stars and the cult about their stars. In contemporary politics, music, show business and sports alike, we observe that masses of women, men and queer admire individual persons for qualities that are real in their imagination but not in the venerated and followed persons. The public and social media are full of stories about women, men and queer who enjoy cult status, or have become legends and myths. The veneration of Jesus in the Gospels comes from his realization of the just world of Go’d by teaching and by effective and accessible healing the sick and suffering. Nevertheless, entering a process of healing supposes a social choice for getting healed. I understand that the rites and myths that venerate power thirsty gods, heroes and almighty demiurges are easier to perform than the hard work that is necessary to realize one’s integrity. Immediate satisfaction of an urgent need by a miraculous help or an imperial grace usually wins over the social choice for effective help that needs the engagement of the own person, perseverance, acceptance of bitter resistance to salvation and again perseverance and hope.

We cannot judge from our modern or post-modern experience and our more or less evidence based scientific worldview what the people of other times, lives, social strata and places were experiencing and thinking. We can read texts and interpret what they say and show to us. The “stories and references to healings, exorcisms, resuscitations and so-called natural miracles attributed to Jesus and his followers” that we read about in the New Testament, the Biblical scholar Twelftree calls “miracle” and “miraculous” (Twelftree 2014, 322). Modern exegesis generally agrees that Jesus was considered a healer and exorcist (ibid, 329). The authors of the New Testament show a range of views that involved the miraculous (ibid, 323). In Mark 1, 21–28, Jesus teaches in the synagogue of Capernaum and cures a man with an unclean spirit and the people were astonished (Mark 1, 27). In Luke 4, 36 the same miracle is described as an astounding event (ibid).

The miracles of the large catch of fish (Luke 5,1–11 and John 21,1–11), the miracle of the storm stilled according to Mark 4, 35–41 – other than the parallels in Matthew 8, 23-27 and Luke 8, 22–25 that are rescue-stories of the Christian community -, and the miracle of an earthquake and the opening of prison doors (Acts 16, 25–34) are presented as something like a coincidence (ibid). Concerning Luke 5, 26 and Mark 2, 12 - the cure of a paralytic -, Twelftree speaks of an unexplained event contrary to expectation. The reaction of the people to the cure of a paralytic reads in Luke 5, 26, “They were all astounded and praised God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today’” and in the parallel reaction in Mark 2, 12b “they were all astonished and praised God saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this’”. Twelftree dares to claim that Luke understands the healing and forgiveness of the paralyzed man in a way similar to Western notions of the miraculous. 

Myths rarely perform what they show; people also perform rites and rituals because the experience that all participate in the performances ensures a kind of feeling of security and strengthens the cohesion of the social group. It is also clear that the legion of unclean spirits did not perish with the drowning herd of two thousand swine. The Legion of unclean spirits came back and with them there is a return of the suffering, a re-legion. For a moment I stop writing religion, I write re-legion. There is the Greco-Roman Catholic re-legion, which makes women, men and queer suffer again from oppression and discrimination. The last breath of Jesus at the cross was accompanied by the first cry of a woman, man or queer who was suffering from the hands of another woman, man or queer of the world.

There is no manageable performativity of the Gospel. Commissars and officials of re-legion developed an arsenal of techniques (Greek: tekhnae), for linking the calling out in prayer of women, men and queer with the prescriptions of their truths that they propagate in the name of a god. Jaques Derrida recalls Aristotle insisting that the calling out in prayer is neither true nor false (Cixous 2011, 135). The performativity of the Gospel is experienced by women, men and queer, but not more. The Gospel “appeals to the faith of the other and deploys itself in a pledge of faith” (ibid). My faith shows in the sentence, “I believe”. There is no performativity of religion; there are women, men and queer speaking their faith, their hope, their beliefs, their individual experiences. “For even when a religion thinks it is all about peace and love one another, be it Christian, Tibetan or Gandhian, it does not escape the fatality of violence” (ibid). Re-legion “proclaims, privileges, prefers”, “announces itself as elect, election gets translated into war” (ibid, 136).

The unclean spirits, the experience that torments the two men (Matthew 8, 28), makes them cry out their suffering, their possession by violence and dysfunctional integrity. Jesus listens to their experience of suffering. The Gospels show Jesus’s empathy and solidarity with the suffering. Twelftree interprets that for Mark the expulsion of Legion (Mark 5, 1–20) possibly is an exorcism as triumph over Rome (Twelftree 2014, 336). Yes, Jesus acting with power challenges social, political and religious structures, and concerning miracles and exorcisms, Mark narrates them rather in response to faith than to produce faith (ibid). The analysis of Mark’s stories of miracles and exorcisms assesses that the miraculous and the crucified, self-emptying Jesus are related to each other (ibid).

Re-legion returns with the legitimation of the Church’s power to reign in the name of Jesus. The Christian communities are supposed to follow the example of the powerful miracle-stories about Jesus. The Christian communities, the Church and the Churches are social structures, institutions of social power that reign over believers. There is nothing wrong with doing politics. “Religion, as a plurality of dogmas and beliefs, built as it is on fratricide, cannot be separated from politics” (Cixous 2011, 136). Jesus does not cast out (Greek: ekballein) what the scholars and scribes had put together (Greek: symballein). The symbolon is a treaty, an agreement between states, a sign that is produced by women, men and queer at the use of those who agreed.

There is no need to say, “I twist in pain at the thought of not knowing” (ibid, 151). Women, men and queer can speak to each other and in speaking realize their social choices for dignity, freedom and equal rights. What about the feeling that I am abandoned, that there is no symbolon of hope given to me because my friends will leave me and already have left? Hélène Cixous and her friend Jaques Derrida take relief from their speech-act “In the end I say: I am glad to see you. Me too, he says” (ibid).

Derrida, who speaks and is terrified without consolation, returns to his friend Cixous. Cixous’s desperation in the eternal return of feeling abandoned is stopped by the returning of her friend. He keeps reminding her “we die in the end, too fast” (ibid, 142). Cixous on her side “did not believe that ‘we die in the end, too fast’” (ibid, 144). Jaques Derrida on his side “would say to whomever would listen, I’m forever having to begin all over again” (ibid, 145). “You can’t keep from dying” and actually there is no chance “that someone I-don’t-know-who or who-knows-what may come back” (ibid, 158). There are many ways to go and I do not know when, how and where I will die. Whenever experiencing the angst for the loss of my physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity, I usually take the social choice to begin all over again. I tell my body to please restore my integrity and I feel ok soon thereafter. Nevertheless, there had been angst, and angst may still be with me, but there is no fear or fright or suffering because I will die in the end, too fast.

Jesus was healing and teaching his disciples and women, men and queer. In the end, there are the disciples with him, women, and men and queer. The people, the masses that had followed him and liked him, have left. In Jerusalem, Jesus approaches his departure, his death. What about his disciples? Are they ready and able to cope with Jesus’s departure? John takes five chapters (13–17), that is about one fourth of his Gospel to communicate his faith-sentences and beliefs concerning the departure of Jesus from his disciples.

John 13, 1:

“Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end”.

John insists that Jesus realized social choices of love until the end. How is it possible for John to claim this love, when Jesus actually had taken the social choice to confront the authorities and die that is also to leave his disciples behind and alone? Abandoning his disciples to desolating loneliness is not an act of love.

Jesus enjoyed participating at feasts. The Passover celebrates a hope and the responsibility of the women, men and queer of Israel for realizing the social choice to live and to live this hope. The hope concerns one’s dignity, freedom and rights, the hope concerns the realization of freedom and the gift that eventually everything will be all right. Celebrating the Passover means celebrating the hope that at the end Go’d will intervene. In John 13, 1–30, John narrates the last supper of Jesus with his disciples (Bultmann, Rudolf. 1952. Das Evangelium des Johannes. 354. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht). This was not the Passover feast, it was “before the festival of the Passover” (John 13, 1). Since the Passover was eaten in the afternoon of the fourteenth of Nissan, this last supper of Jesus with his disciples took place in the evening of the thirteenth of Nissan and was the usual main meal of the day, the supper (ibid).

John testifies that Jesus had loved his own, the women, men and queer who followed him the way from Galilee to this celebration of the last supper and John testifies of Jesus’s determination and social choice to love his own till the end at the cross, and John assesses the realization of this love.

John writes that Jesus knew about the plot to kill him and that he was to be killed, and his life ended in Jerusalem (John 13, 1). Becoming aware that one’s death is about to come by treason of one of one’s disciples, understandably leads to a troubled integrity, a threatened integrity. John 13, 21 reads:

“Having said this, Jesus was deeply disturbed (Greek: tapassein. See also in John 14, 1) and declared, “In all truth I tell you, one of you is going to betray me”.

The traitor was eating with Jesus and the other disciples and the disciples wanted to know who the traitor was. Jesus identified him by giving Judas son of Simon Iscariot a piece of bread (John 13, 26). John 13, 27 reads:

“At that instant, after Judas had taken the bread, Satan (Greek: satanas) entered him. Jesus then said, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly’”.

Bultmann argues that the narrative of the possession of Judas by Satan deprives Judas of any social choice for what he is going to do, it is not Judas who betrays Jesus, it is no human, Satan is at work, the adversary of Go’d and the revealer Jesus Christ (Bultmann 1952, 368). Bultmann acknowledges as a possibility condition for the figure of Satan as the adversary of Go’d in the picture of John 13, 27, the widespread imagination that persons can be possessed by devilish spirits or devilish demons. This kind of idea was common for Jews as for all cultures in Antiquity (ibid). From the idea that Satan possesses a person follows that Satan has taken over control of this person. It is logically coherent to claim that there is no responsibility where there is no possibility to control or influence anything. After the Holocaust, after the Gulags and after the millions of Chinese women, men and queer who died innocently from hunger and persecution, I do not need a personification for the evil in the world like Satan. I consider the evil in the world as a product of social choices of women, men and queer. Bultmann is right in the sense that we cannot assess anything about the historic Judas including his guilt or innocence or anything else. We cannot assess whether Judas had a choice or that he had no choice; we know nothing about the state and shape of his physical, psychic, social and spiritual integrity in the last months, weeks, days and hours before his treason. In John 17, 12, we read that Jesus assesses in his prayer that he had protected and guarded his disciples, he watched over them in the world that none of his disciples would get lost. Yet, there is this one disciple, Judas who got lost, who got destroyed. Jesus’s assessment that Judas, “the son of perdition” got lost “to fulfill the scriptures”, I do not interpret as the eternal destruction of Judas. Scripture is not about destroying humankind, it is about the hope that there is a time when all women, men and queer are saved, when all creation is saved by the Go’d. Jesus must assess in his prayer that he was not able to protect and guard all his disciples.

Bultmann clearly says that the theme of John 13–17 is the farewell of Jesus to his disciples (ibid, 348). In the reigning silence of the night, Jesus speaks to his disciples and to his community of the first Christians (ibid). In John 13, 1–20, the words of Jesus symbolically constitute the Christian community, John 13, 12–20 indicates the law for the life of the community and John 13, 34–35 and John 15, 1–17 develops this law for the life of the community (ibid, 349). I completely agree with Bultmann, the law for the life of the community is love, the love of Jesus for his disciples and the love of the disciples for each other.

Blutmann argues that in John 14, 25–31 we find the conclusion of the farewell discourses of Jesus; and he finds the adequate continuation of the Gospel in John 18, 1 (ibid). Bultmann’s argument sounds valid to me, since in John 14, 31, Jesus asks the disciples to move “Come now, let us go” and in John 18, 1 the movement is realized “Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron valley”. The New Jerusalem Bible’s comment corresponds with Bultmann in the sense that the comment considers John 16 and John 17 as possible repetitions of John 14 (The New Jerusalem Bible 1999, 1227). Bultmann suggests that John 15 – 17 are at the wrong place in the text and despite all uncertainties tries to restore the correct order (ibid, 350). Since John 15, 1–17 looks like a commentary on the commandment of love in John 13, 34–35, Bultmann proposes to place John 15 right after John 13, 34–35. Since the farewell discourses are to be considered comments on the prayer of Jesus and the prayer stands in the context of the last supper John 13, 1–30, Bultmann puts the farewell prayer of Jesus in John 17, 1–26 right after John 13, 1–30 (ibid, 351).

Bultmann’s new organization of the whole structure starts with John 13, 1–30 and continues with the farewell prayer of Jesus in John 17, 1–26. The farewell discourses and talks follow in John 13, 31–35, John 15 – John 16, 33 and John 13, 36 – John 14, 41 (ibid).

To be precise, Bultmann starts the farewell prayer of Jesus with John 13, 1 (ibid, 371):

“Before the festival of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who were his in the world, loved them to the end”.

Where would Jesus get the strength, the force, the capacity, the empowerment to realize his social choice for love until the end that is till his last breath at the cross? I am thankful to Bultmann and his new organization of the whole structure of John 13 – 17, because the farewell prayer of Jesus in John 17, 1–26 makes clear that Jesus receives his empowerment in prayer, he prays Go’d to sustain him. Only after this prayer and the experience of this prayer and meditation is Jesus capable of the farewell discourse and the talking in John 13, 31–35, John 15 – John 16, 33 and John 13, 36 – John 14, 41.

John does not narrate the Eucharist as the other three Evangelists. This farewell prayer of Jesus with David Thytraeus (1531–1600) is also called the high priestly prayer of Jesus (Latin: praecatio summi sacerdotis) (ibid, 373). John does not know the Lord’s Supper as do the synoptic Gospels (ibid, 371). As John 13, 1 indicates, the farewell prayer of Jesus is a prayer of the realization of love, because it prays for the realization of the glory (Greek: doxa) of the revealer (John 17, 1–5) and prays for the community (John 17, 6–26).

How do I describe the expression doxa? The term doxa describes the eschatological revelation of the Messiah Jesus Christ. We find this term in Mark 8, 38 and in Mark 13, 26, where the doxa is associated with power (Greek: dynamis). Matthew 19, 28, and Matthew 25, 31 write of the doxa and Romans 8, 18 (where “the doxa will be revealed in us”) and 1 Thessalonians 2, 12 (where the Christians are called by Go’d into the just world of Go’d and into His doxa) (Bultmann 1952, 474).

The term doxa relates to Go’d, to Go’d’s being and power. Since we are not able to say anything about Go’d, we cannot say anything about the doxa. Speaking of the doxa shows that we mean by doxa that Go’d is life and that we recognize Go’d as life for us and that we honor and thank Go’d for this life. The experience that Go’d has saved my life and that I feel secure and in peace in my prayers and meditations becomes real. Speaking of doxa means a state of affairs where this kind of experience of security and safety does not get lost any more. Christians speak in the same sense of the experience of eternal life (ibid, 375). Speaking of the doxa of Jesus Christ means that during history the faith experience that my life is safe and secure and that I am at peace with myself, and the world did not get lost but was given to women, men and queer. We have to bear in mind that this farewell prayer of Jesus asks, begs, and prays for this doxa, that is not yet realized, that Go’d will realize this doxa is the hope of this prayer.

In John 17, 6–26, Jesus prays for the constitution of the community (John 17, 6–8), for the protection, keeping and sanctification of the community (John 17, 9–19) and for the unity within the community (John 17, 20–23). John 17, 24–26 prays for the fulfilment of the faithful (ibid, 397).

Before writing on a text of the Bible, it is important to meditate and pray with the text. Self-observation and self-experience cannot be lived at the same time. Writing about a text of the Bible means writing about one’s self-experience in meditation and prayer. It is also true that I am observing and writing only about my experience with the text. I have to accept that my range of experience is very limited, limited to my individual experience. Self-experience is a validity-condition for writing and self-experience is the range of validity of my claims to validity. Since I am writing here on the farewell prayer of Jesus Christ in John 17, 6–27, I want to communicate some sentences I have written on Holy Friday, that is the day Christians celebrate the memory of Christ’s crucifixion and death. On Friday, March 29, 2013, I wrote about my meditation experience of that day:

“Resurrection” is an expression I use in my meditation when experiencing shelter from feeling annihilated, when feeling safe and secure. Concentrating on my integrity, I tell my body to relax. I feel fine and tell my mind not to think, but to live in the mode of receiving. I receive from peace and myself calm, and the experience allows describing the expression resurrection meditating: Jesus has gone through this life on earth, sticking to his message and ready to get killed, giving expression to his desperation and hope, testifying his presence in me with securing affirmation that feels good.

I believe and do experience peace for moments and for hours. I am all right in these moments, just as promised to the believers. Strengthened by the shelter of feeling good and all right, I enter the world. The social part of life, the interactions with people and persons immediately leave fragmentary pieces of peace. What is right with communication when it contributes to empowering the integrity of the involved speakers? What is wrong with communication that shakes and destroys the integrity of the participants? Empowering integrity is all right, weakening and destroying the individual’s integrity is wrong. There are many ways to empower the integrity of individuals in discourse. There are many ways of violating and destroying the integrity of the individuals that participate in the discourse. There is a sense of sentences that follows the usual a priori of the sense of the sentences, that is the sentence can be perfectly understood but the sense destructively violates the integrity of the woman, man or queer who is addressed by the speaker of the sentence. A wide range of these sentences neglecting the dignity, liberty and equality of the interlocutors are realized within unjust, hierarchical and oppressive structures of society. An example of this sort of sentences that hurt the addressed individual is the sentence: “I order you to obey to do what I am telling you without questioning and regardless of whether you consent or dissent.” The use of this sentence follows the rules of the grammar of language but violates the dignity, liberty and equality of the interlocutor. A rule that claims the dignity, liberty and equality of the participants of discourse, that is of all men and women and human beings on this earth is proclaimed in the first paragraph of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and feelings and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood.”[i] A discourse that observes the rule of Human Rights law respects, nurtures and claims the dignity, liberty and equality of all participants in the discourse.

Often sentences that are perfectly understandable but offend and violate the integrity of the listener, come from interlocutors who are not capable and empowered to do better. Therefore, it is important and necessary that the interlocutors know what kind of communication they are performing and practicing. The self-assessment of one’s communication reveals different qualities of forms of speech. There are fatalistic forms of speaking, deterministic forms but also interactionist forms. Only an interactionist form of conscience that understands one’s behavior in a situation as a mutually influenced and constantly negotiated series of interactions constitutes a valid basis for a discourse that follows the validity-condition of Human Rights fulfillment for the claims of the discourse partners. End of my notes on Holy Friday 2013.

The feeling and the experience that another person accepts me, is a validity-condition for empowering my integrity. An important possibility of this feeling and experience of personal acceptance is sexuality. Just as the nurturing of one’s spirituality by meditation realizes taking care of one-self, sexuality is an experience of taking care of one-self and the other, taking care of each other. Just as writing on a text of the Bible follows the meditation and prayer of that text, the speaking of sexuality follows the sexual experience of taking care of each other.

A few weeks later, I read an interview with the psychotherapist Joseph Ahlers, for whom sex is the most intimate form of communication we human beings have at our disposition (Faller, Heike. 2013. “Vom Himmel auf Erden. Wissen wir wirklich alles über Sex? Ein Gespräch mit dem Sexualpsychologen Christoph Joseph Ahlers.” Zeit Online, Zeitmagazin, 18. April. https://www.zeit.de/2013/18/sexualitaet-therapie-christoph-joseph-ahlers). Sex as the possibility of a bodily experience of love starts with touching each other in a way that matters to us and that means something for us. With the help of sex, we are able to satisfy some psychosocial basic needs that women, men and queer aspire, that is being accepted and belonging to. The sense of belonging to another human being affiliates a human being to human beings and makes the person a member of humanity (ibid). All my daily life activities as a human being, such as getting a job, making a living, or getting an apartment, contribute to making me feel that I am ok. Yet, the most intensive form of feeling that I am ok is sexual communication (ibid).

Ahlers claims that human beings are programmed for binding relationships; the close ties of sex overcome isolation. Communicated sexual lust liberates and saves us by giving us the feeling of being accepted and being ok. This feeling of being ok is the only feeling we cannot produce individually for ourselves. Therefor we seek pairing and sleeping together all through the decades of our partnership. Sexual communication was there before the acquisition of language (ibid). Bodily contact was our most prominent form of communication for thousands of years. Apes who care for each other relate with the body, who communicate that they are ok and do not simply delouse each other, demonstrate that fact. Humans as apes can be calmed by touching and bodily contact. If mothers comfort their babies on their abdomen and breasts right after birth and the babies get love and the physical sense of being safe, they learn to dampen the noise of angst, to calm frustration caused by stress and to lower the state of alert from the moment (ibid).

Body contact and sex remain the most important form of communicating that we are ok. At the same time, this kind of caring sexual communication is almost completely out of our conscience, out of sight of our conscious control (ibid). We rarely assess the importance of the experiences of acceptance that we receive from our sexual life. Women, men and queer therefore should tell their partners that their sexual contact makes them experience acceptance. Women will feel accepted if they experience that they are perceived, valued, esteemed and well-liked, and men would understand their needs not simply as sexual satisfaction but as self-assuring communication. It is important to communicate the wish and desire to be bodily accepted, because bodily acceptance makes one feel ok. The expression and communication of the desire for bodily acceptance, the sentence “I want to sleep with you, and you mean all to me” are adequate, because only through the partner can one calm stress and angst and experience peaceful satisfaction. Emotional fulfillment and satisfaction are the fruits of making each other feel ok and accepted. It is also true that desire and the communication of desire does not guarantee the fulfillment of desire. For Ahlers, sex is the part of life with the greatest variety of feelings from deep suffering to heavenly happiness.

Ahlers claims that self-consciousness is possible only on the basis of the experience of acceptance. The possibility condition of acceptance and the experience that I am ok is the feeling of one’s own worth and self-esteem, the experience of one’s self-value (ibid). Our desire to merge into the other, to go up in the body of the other, to be taken up by the body of the other is immense. This kind of social resonance is necessary to make us sure of our self (ibid). Self-observation and self-experience cannot be lived at the same time. This is true for all communication and especially for sex.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the white, male theologian Mark Jordan, who takes up the theme of sexuality and Jesus, needs Nietzsche and the god Dionysus taking lovers to assess that for the canonical gospels “an erotic life for Jesus is inconceivable” (Jordan, Mark D. 2011. “The Return of Religion during the Reign of Sexuality.” In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, edited by Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo, 39–54. 43. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). I do not think, “The old God must be dead because He wouldn’t have sex with us”, nor do I think “we live in a sexual world that has excluded the erotic and especially the erotic encounter with God” (ibid, 46). “The old God” in the view of Jordan was apparently male. When I am imagining Go’d, I am not imagining a male or female and even becoming atheist would not solve the problems of sexism. I do not experience that the contemporary world does not appreciate the erotic, but I am not looking for an erotic encounter with God because my experience of peace and feeling secure in meditation and prayer is not an erotic experience. Erotic is an experience between women, men and queer, it is an interaction that brings to life our humors, animates our minds and revives our spirits. Why should the Christians not implicate Jesus in the knowing “of the twists in human desire” (ibid, 49)? Why should the Gospels not write about Jesus speaking about sex? We must be clear, that we do not understand Antiquity and the taboos or desires, the sexual longings and satisfactions of the Gospel’s Umwelt by reading, meditating and praying the Gospel, but Jesus’s teaching and healing do not hinder us from enjoying sexuality, the Gospel empowers us to enjoy our personal integrity.

Catherine Keller testifies that the feminists in religion “were quick to recognize” in the abstract concepts of Go’d together “with an invasive nearness (theos), the Western hypostasis of a self-interested masculinity” and she suffers from “the disinterest of death of God theologians”, “in the terribly particular struggles – institutional, grammatological, sexual, political – of women” (Keller, Catherine. 2011. “Returning God: The Gift of Feminist Theology.” In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, edited by Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo, 55–76. 60. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Keller reconstructs the “love of Love” of Christian women in the past. For the future she is clear, that “all the love in the universe cannot evaporate for us the uncertainty of what is coming” and the necessity of always beginning again (ibid, 73). For Keller the eros experience seems not a possibility of this beginning. She kind of baptizes the eros by speaking of “the gift of the possible”, a self-realization of “agapic embodiment of passion, the com/passion that makes passion possible again – after loss” (ibid, 70). For me there is no need to baptize the eros again as a kind of agape, which is love. This procedure in the end again silences the eros by substitution.

Kelly Brown Douglas speaks of contemporary expressions of the black female body that join songs of sexual desires and satisfactions with womanist God-talk (Brown Douglas, Kelly. 2011. “It’s all about the Blues: The Black female body and Womanist God-talk” In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, edited by Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo, 103–123. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Kelly Brown turns the point of reference from religion and sexuality to sexuality and religion. First there is sexuality and sexual intimacy as experience of the body-selves as empowering satisfaction of the need for intimacy, and this kind of “sexuality is inextricably linked to religion in that the positive valuation of sexuality is essential to one’s relationship with the transcendent, with God” (Brown Douglas 2011, 104). The need for intimate communion concerns communion and communication with humans and Go’d. Jordan and Keller do not trust that sexual intimacy empowers the self, and Brown Douglas is right that Christian theologians are used to associate sexual desire and pleasure with sinful evil and “an anathema to God” and not than with a wonderful expression of Go’d’s creatures (ibid, 105). She describes “religion’s troubling influence on sexuality” exploring “the exploited black female body/sexual” (ibid).

Black women have been sexualized by the male patriarchal world and by the “discourses of hegemonic power” of white male Christians with a “sexualized white supremacist ideology” that “caricatures black women and men as hypersexualized beasts controlled by lust”, as “immoral animals driven by abnormal sexual proclivities” (ibid, 107). Since sexuality is integral to one’s very humanity, this kind of supremacist discourse dehumanizes a “person’s self-image, relationships with others, and relationship to God” (ibid). White culture does not only penetrate the black psyche by presuming a mind filled with lustful intentions, it distorts at the same time the relationship of white women and men with black men and women as a whole (ibid, 109). Historically, the black community reacted by complying with “white patriarchal heterosexual narratives” and tried to shape black behaviors and morals accordingly (ibid, 110). The stories of black life were brought to the urban centers of the North of the United States by black women singing the blues, liberating themselves from the oppression, singing “with an awareness of the racially sexualized narratives that attempted to seize control of their bodies and circumscribe their lives” (ibid, 112). By singing “brazenly about sexuality, they are taking control of their own sexuality”, they claim sexual agency and freedom “choose one’s partners, to marry, to engage in romance” (ibid) 114). The black church community was not ready to follow the liberation of the blues women who restored “a right relation between sexuality and religion, sexuality and God” (ibid, 120).

Nevertheless, rescuing sexuality from its sinful space through the blues, points at the black religion tradition that “emerged within the enslaved community” and was holistic and free of any dualism of body and soul. In this tradition, “all life was considered sacred – including the body, the flesh, sexuality” (ibid). The incarnate God Jesus of this religion “reaches out to black people and cares for their very bodies”, Jesus “entered history in a blues context” from the manger to the point of crucifixion Jesus’s ministry “showed his compassionate solidarity with the blues people of his own day” (ibid, 121). The cross is central to black faith and the spiritual asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” (ibid). Sexuality, desire, satisfaction or deep suffering “as an expression of loving relationship (opening the way for homoerotic intimacy)” is “a vehicle through which loving relationship can be experienced (opening the way for an appreciation of who Jesus was as a sexual being)” (ibid).

At the conference where Brown Douglas was speaking, she cited the text of Bessie Smith’s (1894–1937) singing “I need a little sugar in my bowl” commenting that the black women blues singers sang “about their sexual needs, wants, and preferences” (ibid, 113). Nonetheless, in the concluding roundtable of the conference, Mary Aquin O’Neill, a white Catholic religious woman theologian writer, actually complained that she missed “the presence of the female body” in the talks of the conference (Martín Alcoff, Linda, and John D. Caputo. 2011. “Concluding Roundtable: Feminism, Sexuality and the Deconstruction of Religion.” In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, edited by Linda Martín Alcoff and John D. Caputo, 160–185. 176. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Brown Douglas instantly replied, “My whole talk was on the black female body. Were you present for the talk? I hope you weren’t suggesting that in my talk black women weren’t accepted as such” (ibid). If Mary Aquin O’Neill missed “the presence of the female body”, it was not because nobody talked about the female body but because she did not listen when the female body came up as a theme. In the contemporary world of the Roman Catholic Church, still only a handful of women, men and queer theologians listen to their body, their desires and their sisters and brothers experiencing loving relationships.

Gianni Vattimo is right, Jesus did not come into world to deviate from the norms of the patriarchal society that constitutes his Umwelt and the power structures in society, “but to disrupt it in the name of charity” (Vattimo 2011, 126). The Roman Catholic Church does not follow the message of Jesus when defending “the natural order of monogamic reproductive family against any charity toward (naturally!) gay people, or prohibits the priesthood to women (again, in the name of a pretended natural vocation of the woman)” (ibid).

[i] “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations, www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights (accessed January 18, 2019).