Jesus the strategist, organizer and preparer for 4/5 millennia from his death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection
As an ex-social scientist, I feel it my duty to point out the 'dirty tricks of his detractors ,not just in contemporary Israel but subsequently and in the near and far future. Jesus wasn't a laissez-faire it will be alright on the night individual, but a planner who selected his Apostles and followers individually, who made sure that they had the right skill set to further the nascent birth of Christianity. If he picked Peter to lead by his gut instinct, Mathew to be treasurer, James and John as 'taking minutes, why John as 'taking minutes',a role for Mary Magdela, Joanna Thomas and Paul etc. Why should we ignore the possibility that Jesus enabled his followers to rejoice in skills they had never thought they had? He didn't just maximize his followers but he orchestrated a campaign to be run by mortals who would self-transform in the process of liberating others- that doesn't make Jesus a control freak or a manipulator. Jesus had to weigh -up the prospect of new converts then and converts 3,4,5 millennia later, and probably starting a movement that would one day be taken to the farthest most reaches of the Universe. So where did he put a foot wrong? He didn't! How can you be mindful of a future so far away yet still 'speak' to his contemporaries so persuasively? He could have imposed his divinity by force, but instead showed people about his message of hope rather than get fixated with how corrupt Herod,Pontius Pilatte and the Pharisees were.
As one albeit low grade social scientist to some genius of a social scientist(Jesus), he must have been aware of what power does to corrupt, as well as knowing how quickly idealism can be poisoned by radicalisation, and how mendacious spin can be in any hands, and the curse of doctored evidence, disinformation and misinformation, fake news, white noise, ideology etc . In fact only once did the frustration and anger ever boil up and take root in Jesus- I bet he felt righteous anger and self-loathing at the same time, but did he let it infect his followers or his message? No, he manifested the same anger that his father had felt towards Sodom and Gomorrah. But he didn't persecute business but welcomed it as a way of explaining how best to make double the talents God has given us. Indeed his anger with the money men wasn't the money making but the gross insensitivity of the location that they had chosen to do business. Jesus was not only angry because it was on Gods back yard, but it was ignorant,foolish and not just insensitive. The opposite of this greed and crass insult is the communion we share in the Holy Mass of sharing and breaking bread and wine with him for eternity.
But I digress,let me tell you what a spin doctor would say to undermine Christianity.
Accusations of 'Raving feminists, 'Raving communes of Hippy subversives, run by gay activists who colluded with'unclean' gentiles.
They would try and airbrush out all the miracles Jesus did and then say he was a male witch dealing with Satan. Or a trouble-maker whose heresy was as political as it was religious. Whose appetite for offering the blue collar classes was matched with his appetite to mingle with the rich. That his parables rewarded sloth and lechery (the prodigal son) instead of him being put into Bedlam as a degenerate Rake where he 'belonged'. But do we know what happened after the family had feasted on the fattened calf? Do we know whether the prodigal son survived the next winter because he'd destroyed his health in his degenerate years? Do we know how the other brother forgave his prodigal brother because they worked alongside each other in the fields subsequently? Parables by Jesus not only appeal to the simple mind but also to the over-cerebral, but through the centuries how we have speculated on the limited 1 talent man and the equally offended non-prodigal son. Jesus intervenes to reject fixed bigotry and its opposite, permissiveness to offer us all hope that unfairness and injustice must be mended in our hearts and souls before our heads and bodies can understand peace and joy of Christ- Did he ever say it was easy? Or are we waiting for a cushy job and a easy life without worry? And finally here we are, and we must rejoice when life is easy or simple and yet resolve the boudaries not just material or religious ones that distort, that excludes our fellow human beings, who we have a duty to share and break bread with, the communion that Jesus showed us.