FOREWORD
In John 10, New International Version, we have:
10:1 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.
2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”
6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees
did not understand what he was telling them.
7 Therefore Jesus said
again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them.
9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
ANALYSIS: Implies that anybody teaching religion but him is a robber and a thief in spiritual terms. As robbers and thieves in those days usually meant murderous bandits it was a vicious slander indeed. He would condemn the pagan Centurion and the Syro-Phoenician woman despite allegedly helping them.
JESUS THE RACIST
The gospels say a Roman centurion came to Jesus to request the healing of his sick servant. The story stresses how he told Jesus he was not worthy to come under Jesus' roof. This bigshot telling Jesus he is not worthy to come to him to ask for his help is interesting. It reads as if the centurion is saying he is not Jewish so he is pandering to Jesus’ racism. Jesus praises his faith and says he has not met it so far in Israel.
What? Jesus upbraids his intimate disciples all the time for having poor faith. Maybe he just wasn't credible? Why were they following him around anyway?
And his mother had poor faith as well for she turned up one time to take care of him saying he was out of his mind and he snubbed her. He did not go out and said whoever kept God's word was his mother.
And what about John the Baptist's alleged faith in Jesus?
Was the centurion story just a lie made up decades after Jesus to whitewash the Romans and get converts?
If it is the humility of the centurion's faith that Jesus refers to, then it is a man admitting that despite building synagogues for the Jews and being good he is not a great person. Whether he humiliates himself as a man or as a non-Jew or both the account glorifies humiliation not humility. And Jesus is very sceptical about how genuine nearly all religious people’s faith is. If they are that bad then surely he knows that by acting in a way that looks racist he is adding fuel to the fire.
Some say the episode makes sense in the light of Deuteronomy 10:17-19 which has God saying you must love the alien who lives in your country. Being just to them is an act of love. But nothing in the text says the centurion was a citizen of Israel. Was he just a visitor? No wonder Jesus gave him patronising reluctant love.
The gospels do not tell us all about Jesus so the racism he exemplified could be worse than we will ever know.
A pagan woman came to Jesus to exorcise her daughter and he evilly ignored her and then got her to call herself a dog fit only for crumbs from a table. Then he said the demon would go. He did not even say he cast it out. He just said in some unspecified way it would depart.
The centurion if he got equal treatment only shows that Jesus preferred to confine his racism, or at least the worst of it, to WOMEN! Against that the centurion had to admit his inferiority too. What did he admit? It is assumed he meant he was unworthy over his sins when he asked for healing from Jesus to make him worthy. But that could be the sin of being of another race.
We can assume that Jesus never challenged this man for overseeing and implementing crucifixions of his innocent countrymen. The land was littered with nailed and tied bodies left to die by the Romans over the slightest things. Rome was genocidal against the Jews.