Twain×Jesus

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   Welcome back to Reborn Radio. Up next on TITANS: Mark Twain and Jesus, on On the only contemporary they would have wanted to argue with.
2. 00:08
   Mark Twainshare moment

   Well now, here's a peculiar question for a couple of dead men. Who would I have wanted to argue with? I spent half my living days arguing with damn near everybody—publishers, preachers, imperialists, the whole human race on its worst behavior. But if I could pick one fellow to sit down with, just to see if I could crack that shell of certainty... I'd pick Paul of Tarsus. Your apostle.
3. 00:34
   Jesusshare moment

   Paul? Not Caesar, not one of your riverboat captains? That surprises me.
4. 00:40
   Mark Twainshare moment

   Caesar was just a thug with good press. No, I mean Paul—that little tentmaker who never met you but decided he knew exactly what you meant better than the fellows who actually walked around Galilee with you for three years. He turned your dinner-table religion into a theology. I've always wondered what you made of that, if you ever got around to comparing notes.
5. 01:03
   Jesusshare moment

   You think Paul misunderstood me?
6. 01:05
   Mark Twainshare moment

   I think he was a lawyer type, and lawyer types can't leave well enough alone. You told stories about farmers and widows and prodigal sons—plain stuff anybody could grab hold of. He showed up with original sin and justification by faith and the whole elaborate contraption. Made it complicated enough that you'd need experts to explain it, and experts always profit from confusion.
7. 01:29
   Jesusshare moment

   Paul suffered greatly for what he believed. Prison, beatings, shipwreck. Does a man endure that for profit?
8. 01:38
   Mark Twainshare moment

   Profit comes in more than one currency. Some men want money, some want to be right, and some want to build something that'll outlast them. Paul wanted to build. I'll grant him that—he was sincere as a heart attack. But sincerity and accuracy aren't the same thing, and I'd have liked to watch you two in a room together, seeing if he'd take correction from the source.
9. 02:01
   Jesusshare moment

   And you think I'd correct him?
10. 02:03
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Well, wouldn't you? Unless you actually meant all that business about women keeping silent in church and slaves obeying masters. I read your material—you seemed considerably less interested in keeping people in their place than Paul turned out to be.
11. 02:18
    Jesusshare moment

    Paul wrote letters to specific communities facing specific troubles. A letter written to Corinth about their disorder isn't a chain to bind every woman for all time. You wrote differently for different audiences yourself—speeches, novels, letters home. Should we judge all your thought by one angry letter?
12. 02:40
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Touché. Though my letters didn't end up in anybody's holy book. That's the trouble, isn't it? Once something gets between leather covers and stamped with divine approval, every particular opinion becomes eternal truth. Paul's advice to one fractious congregation becomes God's own position on half the human race.
13. 03:02
    Jesusshare moment

    So you'd argue with Paul about what becomes of teaching after the teacher is gone? About who gets to interpret, and how?
14. 03:10
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Exactly that. I wrote books that people misread and misquote—they think Huck Finn is a book about a raft trip, when it's about a boy committing what he thinks is a sin to save his friend. They miss the whole point. But at least I'm not on trial for my soul depending on whether they understood me. Paul's interpretations have consequences for millions. I'd want to ask him: Did you never stop and think, 'Maybe I should check my understanding? Maybe I should be less certain?' But then, certainty is a condition I notice most in people who are wrong.
15. 03:46
    Jesusshare moment

    Now it's my turn to ask you a question. You've told me who you'd argue with. But you haven't told me who I'd choose. Do you want to guess?
16. 03:57
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Oh, that's easy. You'd pick Pontius Pilate. Give him a piece of your mind about washing his hands of the whole business.
17. 04:05
    Jesusshare moment

    No.
18. 04:05
    Mark Twainshare moment

    No? Well then, Caiaphas. The high priest. Political operator, handed you over.
19. 04:12
    Jesusshare moment

    Not him either. Caiaphas was afraid—afraid for his people, afraid Rome would destroy the temple. Fear makes people cruel, but I understood his fear. Pilate was a coward, which is different from evil, though the results can be the same. No, if I could sit across from anyone and talk without interruption, I'd choose Judas.
20. 04:39
    Mark Twainshare moment

    The one who sold you out for thirty pieces of silver? You'd waste your time on him?
21. 04:44
    Jesusshare moment

    Waste? Is it waste to try to understand someone who loved you and betrayed you both? Judas walked with me for three years. He heard everything the others heard. And still he handed me over. But I never got to ask him why—really why, beneath the silver and the midnight meeting.
22. 05:05
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I thought the Bible explained it clear enough. Greed. The devil entering into him. Pick your explanation.
23. 05:13
    Jesusshare moment

    Those are the explanations of people who weren't there, written later to make sense of something that didn't make sense. Think about it: Would a greedy man follow a poor teacher around dusty Galilee for three years? There are easier ways to make money. No, Judas wanted something from me, and when he realized I wasn't going to give it to him, he tried to force my hand.
24. 05:40
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Force your hand? How do you figure that?
25. 05:43
    Jesusshare moment

    He wanted a king, I think. A revolution. Swords drawn, Romans expelled, glory restored. When I kept talking about grain seeds and losing your life to find it, perhaps he thought, 'I'll make him fight. I'll give him no choice.' But that's only my guess. I never got to hear it from him. He hung himself before we could talk.
26. 06:07
    Mark Twainshare moment

    And you'd want that conversation? After what he did?
27. 06:10
    Jesusshare moment

    Especially after what he did. Not to forgive him—he knew he was forgiven, that wasn't the problem. But to understand. And maybe to help him understand himself. A man who can betray his friend and then can't live with what he's done—that's not a simple villain. That's someone who discovered something terrible about himself and couldn't bear the knowledge.
28. 06:35
    Mark Twainshare moment

    You're more charitable than I'd be. Then again, I never claimed to be the son of God, so I get to hold grudges. But I see your point. The people we'd most want to argue with aren't the obvious enemies—they're the ones who were almost with us, who understood just enough to do real damage.
29. 06:54
    Jesusshare moment

    Paul was almost with me?
30. 06:56
    Mark Twainshare moment

    In his way, yes. He got the passion right, the commitment. He just got tangled up in the fine print and lost the melody. You can forgive a Pharisee who never heard you for not understanding. But Paul claimed your voice, your authority. That's different. That's worth arguing about.
31. 07:16
    Jesusshare moment

    And Judas claimed to be my friend. Yes, I see the parallel. The people closest to us can misrepresent us most thoroughly because they know enough of the language to sound authentic.
32. 07:31
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Exactly. A complete stranger botches your message, nobody's surprised. But your own apostle, your own disciple—they can reshape everything and people will believe them because, well, they were there, weren't they? They must have known. Except knowing someone isn't the same as understanding them.
33. 07:50
    Jesusshare moment

    I lived with twelve men for three years and on the worst night of my life, they all ran away or denied knowing me. Peter swore he'd never met me. Three times before the rooster crowed. So yes, proximity doesn't guarantee understanding.
34. 08:07
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Did you get to argue with Peter later? After he'd had time to feel properly ashamed of himself?
35. 08:12
    Jesusshare moment

    We talked, yes. By a fire, early morning, after everything. But that wasn't an argument—that was a restoration. I asked him three times if he loved me, once for each denial. Gave him a chance to say yes when it wasn't dangerous anymore.
36. 08:31
    Mark Twainshare moment

    That's downright decent of you. More patient than I'd manage. When my brother Orion made a hash of things, I made sure he knew it. Repeatedly. And he usually deserved it.
37. 08:44
    Jesusshare moment

    But you loved him anyway?
38. 08:46
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Well, of course. He was my brother. Loving someone and wanting to throttle them aren't mutually exclusive. Anyone who says they are hasn't got family.
39. 08:55
    Jesusshare moment

    I had brothers. They thought I was out of my mind. They came to take me home once, worried I'd embarrassed the family beyond repair.
40. 09:05
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Is that so? The Gospels leave that part a bit fuzzy. What'd you do?
41. 09:09
    Jesusshare moment

    I asked who my mother and brothers were, and pointed to the crowd listening. 'These are my family,' I said. 'Whoever does what God asks.' My actual mother was standing right there. I've often wondered what she thought of that.
42. 09:24
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Probably thought you were being dramatic. Mothers have a way of cutting through your profound statements to remind you that you're still the boy who tracked mud on the clean floor. Mine did that right up until she died.
43. 09:36
    Jesusshare moment

    Yes. Though I notice you're dodging now. We started by talking about Paul and Judas, and somehow we've ended up talking about mothers and mud. Which one of us changed the subject?
44. 09:50
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Guilty as charged. It's a habit—when conversation gets too serious, I tend to look for the exit marked 'humor.' But all right, I'll stay with it. Here's what I wonder: Would your argument with Judas have changed anything? Could you have talked him out of that rope?
45. 10:08
    Jesusshare moment

    I don't know. But I would have tried. Not to change history—what's done is done. But to reach him before despair did. There's a difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says, 'I did something wrong.' Shame says, 'I am something wrong.' Judas moved from one to the other, and shame is a killer.
46. 10:30
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Peter denied you three times and lived. Judas betrayed you once and died. What made the difference?
47. 10:36
    Jesusshare moment

    Peter ran toward me afterward, even ashamed. Judas ran away. And maybe that's what I'd want to argue with him about, if I could. That running away is the only unforgivable thing because it's the only thing that makes forgiveness impossible to receive.
48. 10:54
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Now that's something Paul might have understood. For all his complicated theology, he knew about forgiveness. Used to murder Christians before he became one—that takes some forgiving.
49. 11:06
    Jesusshare moment

    Yes. Perhaps that's why he wrote so much about grace. Men who've needed it most urgently often understand it most clearly.
50. 11:15
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Or they overexplain it until nobody else can find it. But I take your point. Maybe I'd start my argument with Paul by admitting he got that part right—that business about grace being free or it's not grace at all. Then I'd work my way around to asking him why, if grace is free, his churches spent so much time making lists of who's in and who's out.
51. 11:38
    Jesusshare moment

    And if he were here, Paul would probably remind you that he argued with Peter about exactly that question. Whether Gentiles needed to become Jews first. He thought the door should be wider.
52. 11:51
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Fair enough. Maybe I'd have liked him after all, if we'd stuck to the big questions and steered clear of the household codes. A man's entitled to be wrong about some things if he's right about the important ones.
53. 12:04
    Jesusshare moment

    The same might be said of you, you know. You were wrong about some things.
54. 12:09
    Mark Twainshare moment

    More than some. But I tried to get less wrong as I went along, which is all anybody can do. Still, I wouldn't mind the chance to argue my positions one more time with someone sharp enough to knock the weak spots out of them. That's the value of a good opponent—they make you better, even when they're infuriating. Maybe especially then.
55. 12:31
    Jesusshare moment

    So we've agreed: The people worth arguing with are the ones who almost understood, who came close enough to matter. The ones who make us want to say, 'No, wait, you nearly had it—let me try one more time to explain.'
56. 12:49
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Yes. Though whether Paul would have listened or Judas would have put down that rope, we'll never know. But the attempt would have been worth making. Some arguments you have to have, even if you lose, just to know you tried. That's as close to redemption as an old cynic like me is likely to get.