John 16: No Messiah Needed

When reading words attributed to Jesus, it is important to keep in mind that we have no record of Jesus from the time during which he was supposed to have lived. We know that some other individuals mentioned in the gospel narratives were historical figures, but we have nothing written by or about Jesus during the first half of the first century. In the case of the gospel of John, it's likely that more than 50 years passed between the supposed time of Jesus' crucifixion and the recording of the gospel text. If someone gave a substantial speech in your presence half a century ago, would you remember it word for word? The long term memories of the gospel writers weren't any better than yours. In John, we even see what appear to be attempts to correct (or at least play upon) earlier gospels.

It is for this reason that we ask, "What might the author have meant by this?" rather than, "What might Jesus have meant by this?" when we read the gospel narratives. Jesus is a character in a story, and we have imagined for our examination of John that Jesus is an exemplar, a representative of an idealized version of ourselves. There are some instances, however, in which it is obvious that the author is writing about something specific to his own community of persecuted believers. John 16 is one such instance.

We have just read the bit about the world hating the disciples. The author follows this by indicating that the followers of Jesus will be ostracized from Jewish places of worship and community, and that they will be killed by people who think they are being righteous. These things had already happened to the author's community by the time the gospel was written. Placing these predictions in Jesus' mouth helped to legitimize the experience of the author's community as part of a divine plan. "If Jesus knew about all of this terror ahead of time, then we can trust that he knew we would survive."

These words, then, are not really to Jesus' disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. They are to a community of people struggling to survive in a world that seemed highly committed to harming them. 

There have always been these people, and the descendants of the gospel writer's community have sometimes been on the side doing the persecuting. Africans were brought to the United States as slaves and treated as less than human, and some of the people in power justified it by their Christian scriptures. Even today, the educational and justice systems in place in the U.S. seem orchestrated to persecute people with darker skin tones. And many people think they are being righteous in perpetuating injustice. Some of those people are Christian. The author of John might suggest that such people have never known God or Jesus.

The LGBT community is another group facing constant persecution in many parts of the world, including the United States. Progress has been made, but there are still places of worship and community where LGBT folks are ostracized. There are still people who inflict harm on LGBT people and think they are doing God's work. The author of John might suggest that such people have never really known God or Jesus, else they would never be able to hate so intensely.

The author of John also provides an answer, and surprisingly the answer is that people do not need Jesus. In fact, in this passage, Jesus tells the disciples that he must be out of the picture so that they will learn to trust an "Advocate" or "Helper" within themselves. The author of John suggests that this internal guidance system cannot function if Jesus remains, perhaps because the disciples would never learn to trust their own sense of what it is to love radically, to live with purpose and integrity to their own principles, to be agents of transformation. 

Whether there was ever an actual Jesus or not, the example set by the gospel narrative is not that far off from the guidance of our deepest, most noble selves. We know what fear looks like, and we know what love looks like. We know what it is to be guided by our anxiety, and we know what it looks like to be guided by solid values. We lift up people who live with purpose and intention because we think of them as extraordinary, but the truth is that it could be very ordinary human behavior to live with a sense of purpose, in impeccable alignment with a clear set of guiding principles. 

Integrity need not seem so extraordinary. 

Our human fears do not have to carry more influence than our human connection. 

Our anxiety need not be more powerful than our ability to love and thrive together. 

We do not need a messiah. 

We need to pay attention to our own selves, our internal sense of what is ultimately true about ourselves and others, once we have cleared away all of the irrational fear and anxiety. 

We are so accustomed to listening to our anxiety that many of us have forgotten what the voice of actual truth sounds like. 

We don't need a savior. 

We just need to learn to listen to ourselves better. 

And that takes courage. 

Integrity seems so extraordinary now because living by clear principles is counter-cultural. In many ways we are addicted to anxious reactivity. 

It takes courage to stand for something besides fear. 

It takes courage to establish values in our lives that acknowledge the inherent worth and dignity of every person. 

It takes courage to recognize that violence and entitlement always come from a place of fear. 

It takes courage to stand calmly in the midst of reactive people and not be swayed by their anxiety.

And no one else can be courageous for you. 

No one else can dismantle your fear for you. 

No one else can have integrity for you. 

This is the human work of human beings, not work to entrust to a supernatural. 

Others can support and encourage and empower you, but the work is yours to do. 

It's what human beings do when they are ready to be fully human.

So, are you ready?

John 12: Loving and Hating Life (and considering the donkey)

After the story about foot-anointing as an unabashed act of appreciation, the chapter continues with several short scenes interspersed with passages from Hebrew scripture. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) more frequently suggest that Old Testament words predicted things about Jesus, but here even the authors of John suggest that Jesus did certain things as a "fulfillment" of prophecies. Especially when we remember that the gospel of John was composed more than 50 years after a historical Jesus would have lived, this raises a few questions. We'll take the remainder of the chapter in two large chunks over the next couple of weeks. First, John 12:9-26.

To begin with, we find the Jewish priests having more murderous thoughts, now focused on Lazarus because his resurrection had understandably impressed some people. Why it didn't impress the Pharisees is unexplained. I suppose it is the plot of a number of horror movies that when a person comes back from the dead it isn't necessarily a good thing, but we have nothing in the biblical text to suggest that Lazarus was doing anything untoward after he returned. Actually, the biblical text doesn't suggest that Lazarus did anything, period. Was this passage just to paint the Jewish leaders in a poor light?

Obviously, every saga needs a villain, and the Jewish leaders are the villains of the gospel of John. In our lives, we also face people who can't see the good that people do because they are focused on undermining some sworn enemy. The Pharisees in the biblical myth have a hard time honoring the good things that Jesus does because they are afraid of something about him. The same thing happens in workplaces, families, and perhaps most blatantly in American politics. As human beings, we are bound to eventually face someone who can't appreciate our accomplishments because they are too busy trying to tear us down. Hopefully, we attend to our principles well enough that we don't fall into that pattern of behavior. There's really nothing of value to be gained from tearing other people down.

When we try to tear other people down, it is a testament to our own fear. We may be afraid that other people are going to be fooled by someone, which is to say that we believe that other people are less intelligent and more gullible that we are. We may be afraid that people will ignore us and pay attention to a more impressive person -- that we will not have our emotional needs met. We may be afraid that someone is going to get more money than us, that we will suffer financially if we don't tear someone else down. All of these fears are understandable, and still these fears sabotage our own happiness more than anyone else's.

A more emotionally mature response is to live with integrity despite the attention or apparent benefit someone else receives. From the flip side, when people's fears and hostility is focused on us, the emotionally mature response is to recognize it as a symptom of their own fear. We can remain connected with people who attack us if we want, but we should be aware of our own tendencies to be provoked. We don't want our attempts to remain engaged with hostile people to wind up knocking us off our intentional, principled path. In every situation, the important place to begin is with clarity about our own deep values and clear guiding principles. From there, we can act with integrity. There are times when the best response for us may be to ignore the reactive hostility of others.

The exemplar of the story in John certainly seems to ignore any perceived threat from the Jewish leaders. He leaves Lazarus unguarded and makes a grand entrance into Jerusalem. Now, this "triumphal entry" scene happens in every gospel narrative, but it does make a lot of sense to be celebrated by the crowds once news spread that someone had been raised from the dead. We have mentioned that the authors of John probably at least knew about the other gospel narratives, since the gospel of John was the last among the biblical gospels to be written. So, perhaps the reference to Zechariah 9:9 in verse 15 is intended to correct a somewhat ridiculous assertion by the authors of Matthew.

See, the authors of Matthew were so insistent on demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy that they wind up suggesting some odd things. In the version of this scene in Matthew, the authors interpret their "prophetic" text to mean that the messiah will ride two animals, and so they insist that Jesus rode two donkeys into the city. This ridiculous assertion isn't repeated in the other gospel narratives, and it's just possible that the authors of John included an uncharacteristic indication of prophecy fulfilled to correct the silliness of the triumphal entry scene of Matthew.

The discrepancy is telling, however. It becomes obvious at the very least that the authors of Matthew didn't bear witness to the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This event isn't recorded anywhere else outside of the biblical gospel narratives, which are not independent of one another. Gospel writers often copied previously written passages without any change of detail, which means that they offer no additional support or credibility. The ludicrous scene painted in Matthew of Jesus riding two animals suggests that the authors were willing to invent details in order to match with their interpretation of prophetic scripture, and this in and of itself damages the credibility of the gospel narrative overall.

Perhaps the authors of John realized something along these lines when they included Zechariah 9:9, quoted a little more sensibly. Even if there was a historical Jesus who made a blatantly messianic entrance into Jerusalem, this kind of behavior might be a bit suspect. If the symbolism of a display is going to be interpreted as a fulfillment of prophecy, the prophecy would have to be pretty familiar to people. And if a prophecy is familiar, anyone with the ego to do so could "fulfill" at least some prophecy if they wanted to, especially if the prophecy involved something as simple as riding a donkey into the city. Was the Jesus of the gospel of John trying to demonstrate a fulfillment of prophetic predictions? Or was his action coincidentally supported by scriptural words that seemed prophetic after the fact?

Well, the process taken in Matthew demonstrates that at least some prophecy mining was taking place. The authors looked for texts that seemed to contain a messianic prediction, and they invented stories about Jesus that fulfilled those texts. If this were not the case, the gospel of Matthew wouldn't have suggested that Jesus rode into town on two animals. Even if we assume that the other gospel writers took a different approach, what is the point behind mentioning Jesus riding a donkey? If it is to show that he fulfills a messianic prophecy, one must ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who rode into town on donkeys before and after this event. If the point is that Jesus was humble, riding on a donkey instead of a more majestic mount, one must ask how well the character of Jesus was supposed to know Hebrew scripture. If he knew that riding into town on a donkey would be construed as an indicator of the messiah, how humble could he have been?

The gospel of John even subtly acknowledges that these sorts of messianic claims are problematic, and the authors suggest that the followers of Jesus didn't put all this together until after the fact. What is the difference between "remembering that these things had been written of him" and hunting down scriptural texts that seem to fit? If Jesus was an actual person, and if people had actual (fallible, inaccurate) memories of him, how much easier would it have been to find scriptural references that aligned with him than with anyone else? My guess is that once you've decided that someone was a messiah, it's not difficult to track down some supporting texts that match that person's identity and life, especially given that human beings can be very flawed in their perceptions and very creative in their memories of events.

This is one problem with "authoritative" texts. When a document is lifted up as authoritative, it becomes unquestioned. And if you can twist the words to mean what you want them to mean, you can hide behind an unquestionable text rather than having to be personally responsible for what you say and do. The only thing that can give a text authority is alignment with reality. A text doesn't become true just because we agree with it. While we can play match up between people and prophecies as much as we like, the truth is that we could find correlations between anyone's life and the ancient prophecies of some culture. As entertaining as that may be, it's a distraction from living our lives with intention and purpose.

The story actually moves on quickly to the Jesus character speaking about death and purpose. We may not agree with his metaphors, but the authors of John seem to have Jesus say essentially that a person's life is worth more after it's over. When a grain of wheat dies and is buried, it brings forth abundant fruit that would have been impossible if that grain of wheat had remained whole. Likewise, people who cling to their own life and well-being will suffer loss, while people who release their grip on life and well-being find something eternal and wonderful. Then, it is asserted once more that those who follow the example of Jesus will be rewarded.

Alright, so perhaps there is something to the whole "riding a donkey means you're humble" imagery. If the messiah of this story knows how great he is and still chooses to ride a symbolically humble animal, maybe following the example would mean that we recognize our own human frailty and weakness even as we acknowledge our own personal strengths and greatness. Sure, people were making a spectacle and calling him royalty (and he didn't tell them to stop), but he didn't take advantage of their adoration either. He received it humbly and gracefully, by the account in John. We can endeavor to do the same perhaps, balancing honest and authentic self-awareness of our strengths and power with honest and authentic self-awareness of our weaknesses and dependence on others.

What does it mean then that if we love our life we will lose it and if we hate our life we will gain it? This phrase also appears in all four gospels, although in different contexts. The authors of John seem to support the concept of eternal life, which we must take as a metaphor. The phrase, "abundant life" seems clearer and more useful. If someone "loves" life in this sense, it would seem to be equivalent with a fear for one's safety, an unhealthy longing for security and safety that becomes the priority over and above one's principles. "Hating" life would then indicate not being worried or fearful about one's safety and security, which would free one up to live with authenticity and integrity to deep guiding principles regardless of other people's reactions. When you stop being afraid of the consequences, it's easier to embody justice, equity, and compassion in your life, despite the resistance others may express. And if more people honored their principles over their own safety, perhaps it would become clear how much our deepest values coincide with one another.

This is what is must mean to emulate the Jesus of the gospel of John, to be committed to one's principles so deeply that integrity is more important than safety, which brings us to one additional possibility for the mention of riding a donkey. The donkey may be symbolic of peace. Certainly, the reference to Zechariah 9:9 makes sense with this interpretation as much as the interpretation of humility. If the presence of the donkey in the story is intended to suggest valuing peace over conflict, then we have another suggestion at what it might mean to emulate an idealized self-differentiated person of integrity. Even when we are more committed to our principles than we are to our own safety and security, this doesn't mean we should be brash and hostile to others about our beliefs and values. The value of peace might help temper our interactions, and is obviously a better frame for our relationships than fear. Our lack of fear about other people's reactions need not mean that we are unnecessarily provocative. Our part is to live intentional lives of integrity and to model gentle fearlessness.


As a postscript, I should be clear in this that there are still people in some places in the world who face very real fear for their safety on a daily basis. I'm writing from the context of United States society, in which a lot of our fear is misguided and irrational. For some, it is a much more challenging prospect to allow one's authenticity to take priority over one's safety. I'm not promoting rash, irresponsible public action. Unlike the apparent glorification of martyrdom in this passage from John, I think we have greater potential to make a difference in the world while we are living in the world. We just need to be honest about how realistic or unrealistic our fears are. If we are afraid that someone is going to put a bullet in our heads if we quietly act for justice, equity, and compassion, we should be thoughtful about how we live out our values. If we are afraid that someone is going to embarrass us or that we are going to lose a bit of popularity or even wealth if we live with integrity to our principles, it's important to put those fears in perspective.

John 10:22-42 Trailblazing

When you begin to develop your emotional maturity beyond where it has been, an interesting thing often happens. You might start to notice how many people around you are emotionally immature. It isn’t that everybody else suddenly changed. Your perspective changes when you start engaging in some deeper personal work. It can be tempting to just settle back into a comfortable level of emotional immaturity, particularly since you developed most of your relationships at that lower level of emotional maturity. If we want to cast more inspiring vision for our lives, though, we have to experience the growing pains of developing ourselves into the capacity required to journey toward what we want.

This is largely what John 10:22–42 is about. The crowd meets the Jesus character in this passage with hostility, because he’s saying things in a way that challenges their assumptions. He has insights they don’t have, and he wants to share his knowledge with them so that they might grow. Sharing insights with people who are comfortable where they are is often met with defiance, however, even in the real world of the twenty-first century. The Jesus character sets up an example for us as people growing in emotional maturity and developing a clear vision for our lives.

Primarily, he gently sticks to his insights. When you are in a room full of people who are used to doing things a certain way, and you have a revolutionary idea, that room full of people might not want to hear your innovative thoughts. Even if you have researched more than anyone else and tested theories in your own life, people may not be interested in hearing what you have to say. The Jesus character shows patience, attempts to persuade them to consider the merits of his insights, and gives the crowd a chance to let down their defenses a little bit. Then, he moves on. He doesn’t insist that they agree with him. He accepts their belligerence and moves on.

Of course, the explanations that the authors of John express through the Jesus character are a bit difficult to hear. They don’t use plain language. They use metaphors and provocative terminology. It is almost as if the way the ideas are expressed is intended to rouse the ire of the crowd. This is not an example worth following. If you want people to listen to you, use language they can hear. If you want a small band of friends who agree with you and a massive adversarial population against you, use nuanced, unclear, incendiary turns of phrase.

If we translate the words put in the Jesus character’s mouth into greater clarity, we might interpret this passage (John 10:25–38) as:

The exemplar said, “Listen, what I’m doing is well-aligned with my deepest, most noble self, and if you look at my actions, then you know my values. You don’t trust that, because you are used to living by a set of external rules. You’re constantly reacting to your own anxieties and the anxieties of people around you. The people who are connected to their deepest, most noble selves understand what I’m doing. The example that I’m setting—to live by a meaningful set of deep values—is the way to live a truly fulfilling life. Once you have lived into that level of personal satisfaction, nobody can convince you that you ought to be doing something different. What my deepest, most noble self prompts me to do is more compelling than any set of external rules or societal expectations.” 

The crowd responded with violence. The exemplar replied, “Everything I’m doing contributes to the well-being of everyone around me. With which of those actions do you take offense?” The crowd answered, “We don’t take offense at your actions, but at your arrogance. You talk about connection with your deepest most noble self and your principles like you’re better than everyone else.” 

The exemplar replied, “Do you think I consider myself uniquely capable? Do you not realize that everyone has the capacity to connect with a deepest, most noble self? To develop a compelling vision of a best possible version of oneself? Every person has the ability to clarify meaningful guiding principles and live by them with integrity. If you would choose to do so, you would act for the greater well-being as I do. You can see by my actions that my way is noble and beneficial. Your unwillingness to live by my example is what truly limits you.” The crowd wouldn’t relent in their hostility, so the exemplar slipped away.

No matter how insightful, tactful, or purposeful you are, there will be those who take insult at your intentionality and integrity. Some people will assume that because you have a vision of how you will move toward what you most want, they are somehow prevented from moving toward what they most want, even though few people have connected with themselves deeply enough to know what they actually want.

On the other hand, there will also be people who are inspired by your path. Sometimes, we have a tendency to focus more on the people who disapprove of us, the people who call our ideals or even our value into question. Chances are that there are also a few people who are ready to encourage and support us. Sometimes we may need to let them know when we need a little encouragement and support. And sometimes the people who believe in us also challenge us and help bring us back on course when we get distracted.

Part of our own challenge is not to fall into the same trap the crowd of John 10 falls into. When we see someone doing something inspiring or admirable, we might learn something from them that can contribute to our own journey. We may not agree with their reasoning or their beliefs, but if we can tell that they are contributing to building a better world, we can hopefully accept some differences of opinion in service to a greater goal. We don’t need to dismiss the good work that someone does just because they believe something different from us. In fact, we can appreciate and acknowledge someone and still challenge some of their ideas respectfully.

So, it’s important for us to find those people who are more emotionally mature than we are—who are a little further along in their journey than we are in ours. And it’s important for us to recognize that, as we move forward, a lot of people we know are going to resist that forward motion. The people who know us and approve of us as we are today would be most comfortable if we stayed just as we are today. When we grow, we can expect that some people around us won’t like it. Hopefully, they don’t actually pick up stones to throw at us, but even their words of derision or hostility can hurt. Even so, our deep values most likely steer us toward compassion and not retaliation. Most importantly, there will be people who see what we are doing and decide to journey with us, even if they are not the people we started the journey with or even the people we hoped for. 

A Little Experiment: Speak. Practice speaking what's so for you without insisting that others agree with you. It may be tempting to get defensive or "persuasive." How do others respond when you just speak for yourself? Is it different from the way they respond when you try to convince them of something?

Another Little Experiment: Focus. It helps us to grow when we have others sharpening and challenging us in a supportive and empowering way. Lots of people think they know better than you. You may receive advice or "correction" from a great many people if you're willing to listen. Not all of those people are wise, however. Consider how other people are living out their values in their own lives, and choose the people who will offer you the best consistent challenge and sharpening.

A Big Experiment: Forecasting. It is said that if we look at the people we spend the most time around today, we can see what we will be like in five years. So, take a look at the people you spend the most time around. Do they reflect who you want to be in five years? Are you being influenced in a direction that makes sense and is satisfying to you?

John 10:1-21 Being a Good Shepherd

Translation becomes a little more challenging with passages like John 10:1-21, in which the authors of John identify Jesus as the "good shepherd" and every other teacher as a coward, thief, and liar. Many readers tend to treat Jesus as a unique figure and take the passage at face value without much thought. Considering our definition of "divinity" as something inherent to every human being and our rational conclusion that there is no external supernatural intelligence guiding human life and decisions, finding value in this passage requires sticking with the understanding that the Jesus character in the gospel of John is intended as an exemplar.

As with many of these passages, we have a few characters (or groups of characters) to examine. First, there are the sheep; then there are the hired hands, thieves, and bandits; then there is the good shepherd archetype. Let's consider the sheep first. Calling people sheep is not flattering. Sheep were easy for people to domesticate because of their flock behavior. If one sheep heads toward a new grazing area, the flock has a tendency to follow right along. For a sheep, leading a flock of sheep is as simple as moving before anyone else does. Sheep also have a tendency to run away if anything not-sheep gets too close. So, controlling sheep is easy for people who know how to exploit the flocking and fleeing tendencies of the animals. Sheep also seem to quickly adapt to getting food from people, which leads them to treat people as safe.

However intelligent sheep may be, they don't seem to be particularly thoughtful. It's understandable that people -- especially large groups of people -- would be likened to sheep. Human beings have a fairly strong drive toward togetherness, too. And human beings aren't particularly thoughtful when they shift into mob mentality. Like sheep following whoever happened to move first, people sometimes seem to gratefully follow the first person with an idea. It's almost like we appreciate not having to think through an issue for ourselves. Someone else's impulsiveness saves us the hard mental work of evaluating an issue.

The description of sheep in John suggests that sheep-people know the difference between people who intend harm and people who intend to contribute to their well-being. This is a bit confusing, though, because people have listened to a wide variety of teachers, and it has historically seemed difficult for people to distinguish between good ideas and harmful ideas when they are part of a flock. Individuals can be brilliant, but those same individuals in the midst of a reactive group might behave just as impulsively as everyone else, grateful for the opportunity not to have to think. The quote that comes to mind is from the first Men in Black, in which Tommy Lee Jones observes, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals."

This would seem to be something of a choice. Yes, we have a tendency to follow the flock thoughtlessly, but we're capable of thinking through a situation and connecting our values to our behavior. If we're capable of doing that as individuals, we're capable of doing that in a group of people, even if everyone around us is mindlessly following the flock. Should the sheep analogy hold true, we may end up being inadvertent leaders, just because we choose to move in a direction before anybody else.

Sheep don't choose to lead, though. There's no voting. There's no volunteering. Among sheep, leadership is an accident. This might be the case among people sometimes, too, but it doesn't have to be. We can be more intentional in our decisions and in our influence. If we understand that people in groups are going to be mentally lazier than individuals, we have the potential to influence people through our intentional action. Some individuals step into leadership with the idea that they can get their way by being persuasive in front of a group of people. Through manipulation and coercion, some people wind up leading a flock into dangerous territory. These kinds of leaders are reacting to their own un-confronted fears, and the fears that lead us to seek wealth, power, and safety are never satisfied. Even the wealthiest people often think they need more money to be happy, and even the most powerful people are concerned about their vulnerabilities. Leading because of fear does not create a better world, and it does not create a more satisfying life.

The thieves and scoundrels of the story in John 10 are these sorts of leaders, wrapped up in their own fear to the extent that they bring harm to the people who listen to them. We see and hear this sort of fear-laden persuasion and coercion all the time. They don't really have the best interests of anyone else in mind. If something tragic happens to one of the people they've persuaded, the fear-driven leader might quickly disown that unfortunate soul. Like the hired hand who runs when one of the sheep is snatched up by a wolf, fear-driven people are quick to distance themselves from people who might jeopardize their influence.

A good shepherd isn't consumed by fear. Good leaders know their values and guiding principles, and they also work at dismantling the fears that are likely to be a distraction. They accept that people are often going to stop thinking when they get into a group and start reacting to something, Instead of using this information to take advantage of others for personal gain, a good leader chooses to respond out of a space of those values and guiding principles, influencing a flock toward greater well-being, even when the flock is too busy not thinking to realize what's going on.

You may be skimming past these statements about leaders because you think that you aren't one. The point of the passage, though, is that you are. If you are even thinking about living by a set of meaningful guiding principles, you are in a position to make clearer decisions than the average mob or committee. You can choose to be a sheep, of course. You can shut your brain down when someone else in a group has an idea. You can stop thinking when someone else moves in a direction. That is your prerogative. If you choose to act with integrity to your guiding principles, though, you will influence people. The reality of humanity is that most people will not be willing or able to think through purposeful, intentional responses to the things that spark their anxiety, and being in a group of people diminishes that capacity even further. Should you be willing to act with integrity in the midst of an anxious flock, you might influence people toward well-being that they cannot even imagine in that moment.

Now, the authors of the gospel suggest that a good shepherd lays down life itself, and so many believers look at this as a rather unique role for Jesus. The authors also say that the good shepherd takes life back up again, which becomes interpreted as a resurrection -- another unique role for Jesus. The passage is filled with metaphor, however. What if laying down one's life actually means setting aside one's fears and accepting the vulnerability of living with intention and integrity? What if laying down one's life actually means sacrificing a sense of personal security in order to contribute to the greatest well-being of greatest number of people? Understanding the nature of systems, we cannot actually have well-being in every dimension of our own lives if the people around us aren't experiencing well-being. In this way, perhaps we take our lives back up again. Or perhaps taking life back up again is what happens when we channel our energy toward living with integrity where we once devoted it toward alleviating our irrational fears. It's possible that we can set aside one way of being (fear-driven or sheep-like) for another way of being (intentional and principled). We are potential good shepherds. This is not a unique role.

The authors of the gospel also suggest the value of unity -- one flock for one shepherd. This is perhaps based on a fear of diverse opinions or some other fears. Maybe even rational fears of other people's reactivity. Even in the twenty-first century, people are killing each other over differences of opinion. Unity under one banner would seem to be a superb vision, and yet I can't imagine how such a unity would be accomplished without coercion or manipulation of someone. It may be enough to recognize the palpable tension in society at the time this gospel was written and to accept that the only unity worth achieving would be a unity of free-willed individuals with shared values, living intentionally with one another. Hold it as a vision if you like, but don't let it become another reason to mistreat people who disagree with you.

At the heart of this passage, then, we have choices to make. We can choose to thoughtlessly follow the groups in which we find ourselves, or we can act with our own sense of individuality. Should we choose to act, we can act out of our fears or we can act with intentionality and integrity to our guiding principles. However we choose to act, we will influence others. We can lead others toward doing what we think will alleviate our own anxiety, or we can lead others toward greater well-being. In the words of the passage, we can be thieves and bandits or we can be good shepherds. Or we can be sheep.


A Little Experiment: Move First. Sheep don't lead intentionally, but people can. If you aren't accustomed to making decisions, see what happens if you offer the first suggestions to a group about where to go and what to do. Maybe others will offer their suggestions as well. Leading doesn't mean digging in our heels unless we get our way.

Another Little Experiment: Wait a Minute. Sheep don't lead intentionally, but the first one to move in a direction often influences the entire flock. If you're the usually the first one to offer a suggestion in a group, try hanging back and see if anyone else moves first. You might be surprised what you learn.

A Bigger Experiment: Shepherd Well. When you are in a group, be particularly aware of how your guiding principles inform your behavior. If the group seems to veer in a direction that doesn't align with your guiding principles, state your principles and your concern clearly, and propose the course of action you will take. The group may still head off in a direction that doesn't work for you. You get to decide whether to head off with them or to stick with your principled decision.

John 5:1-15 False Identity, Blame, and Healing

Similar to the stories that we observed some time ago in the gospel of Mark, the next passage in John 5 is a healing passage in which Jesus oversees the healing of a paralytic man on the Sabbath and catches some heat for it from Jewish religious leaders. As has become our habit, we will not get bogged down in fruitless discussion about historical accuracy. There is simply nothing in that debate to empower us in our lives. There are a couple of interesting details worth noting in this passage, each of which we will unpack a little bit. First, Jesus does nothing apart from talk to the man. Second, the man then carries his mat around of his own volition. Finally, there is an implication that there will be further consequences based on the man's actions.

Unlike many biblical healing stories, there is no ritual action that takes place here. Jesus simply talks to the man and tells him to get up. Actually, first he asks, "Do you want to be well?" And then he says, "Get up and go on about your life." Perhaps something miraculous took place, or perhaps this man had convinced himself that he was incapable of living his life fully. Once the identity of "cripple" is taken on, it might be easier just to give in to that label and reinforce it through daily actions.

What are the labels in our lives that we accept and carry around for years? Lazy? Incompetent? Worthless? Ugly? Selfish? Stupid? No-talent? Damaged goods? Even though none of these are physical labels, they can be crippling nonetheless. It's likely that someone else put this label on us first, but we had to determine whether to accept that identity and live it out. When these kinds of words come from someone important or influential to us, it's really tough not to accept it as truth.

For many of us, it is not as simple as discarding the label and living into a different identity. The first step we have to take, though, is declaring that we want to be well. We have to know that we want to have a different vision for our lives. As long as we are willing to look for evidence to support the crippling labels we have taken on, we will find plenty of evidence. When we are willing to live into a different identity, we can begin to find supporting evidence of a more empowering set of declarations. This takes time, because we've probably developed a habit of reinforcing a crippling identity. So the story shows us a moment that is symbolic of a long trajectory of personal work. Taking on a more authentic and empowering identity is certainly worth the effort. I point out that it's going to take some time so that we don't get discouraged when our habits don't change in a moment.

The story doesn't end there, though. When the man with the mat recognizes that his identity as a cripple is a false identity, he gets up and carries his mat. He probably knows that it is unlawful to do certain things on the Sabbath in his culture (although the authors of John may be engaging in a bit of exaggeration here, since it was still permitted to carry personal items short distances on the Sabbath). Maybe this fellow was just on his way home when he was accosted. Maybe he was running around town telling everyone that he had recovered from his false identity. There's no telling. It doesn't really matter for the story to make its point.

Whatever he was doing, the man with the mat was not taking responsibility for his own behavior. He was the one carrying a mat. He was the one who had stood up and started walking. Yet, when he is confronted about his behavior, he shifts the blame to someone else. "That other person told me to do this, and so I did it." Really? We recognize immediately how weaselly this response is, and yet, we often say very similar things in our lives.

When anxiety builds, especially when we are personally confronted about our behavior, we often try to make that anxiety go away by finding someone else to blame. "I was only following orders." "This is how I was told to do it." It seems like such a good excuse, but the bottom line is that we are claiming not to be able to think for ourselves. In blaming others for our behavior, we are claiming that we should not be held responsible for what we do. We even go so far as to blame other people for our anger -- and the things we do and say when we're angry.

The bottom line is that blaming others is a dishonest reaction to anxiety. We are responsible for our actions, even if we do something based on another person's advice. It's unfortunate that we are often rewarded for effectively laying blame at someone else's feet. That we get away with it sometimes still does not make it laudable. If we want to become more emotionally mature -- if we want to have a more satisfying and fulfilling experience in our lives -- we must reject the temptation to shift blame to someone else. Certainly, we should be honest about our actions and the influences that we are able to identify. We can do this and still be responsible for our own decisions.

At the end of the passage, the Jesus character tells the man that his new identity still needs care. "What you do next will have consequences." Now, Jesus says something here that suggests that being crippled was a result of some sin that the man committed. This is contrary to what the gospel says elsewhere, and it doesn't help that it has some language that has become rather loaded. Another way to think about it is: If your actions do not line up with your guiding principles, you will know it by the consequences you experience. Even when your actions do line up with your guiding principles, there may be short-term consequences you don't like. All of our actions have consequences. When we live into a best possible version of ourselves, we will have greater peace about how we handle the consequences of our behavior. When our actions are more principled, we stand a better chance of having the experience of life that we want.

The man was either a bit dull or he didn't like the threatening tone of Jesus' warning, because he went back and reported to the Jewish leaders. Even when we claim a new identity, we will be faced with difficult decisions. It takes practice to keep showing up as the people we most want to be in the world -- as people with clear guiding principles, growing in emotional maturity. If we choose not to take responsibility for our identities, we will have plenty of opportunities to slip back into old lies about who we really are, and we will have plenty of opportunities to start believing new lies about who we really are. It's helpful sometimes to consider what others see, but if we choose to take on what others see in us, that's still our choice. We are responsible for our own well-being. We are responsible for our own identities.

Do you want to be well? Stop living into the false identity you've taken on and live into a better vision of yourself. Start now. Take responsibility for your own actions and your own identity. As you clarify your values and guiding principles, commit to aligning your actions and decisions with those values. This is the way of healing.

A Little Experiment: Taking responsibility. The next time you find yourself starting to blame someone else for your own behavior, stop and take responsibility. See what happens when you are authentic and honest.

A Big Experiment: Rebranding. What inauthentic label do you need to be done with? What would it take for you to adopt a new label that more accurately reflects your values and principles? If you can identify one lie about yourself that you've taken on, you can probably extrapolate something true about yourself to live into. For instance, if you have been carrying around that you are incompetent, you might start looking for honest evidence of your competence. It will take time to get rid of an old habitual lie, but this is the path toward a best possible version of yourself.

Isaiah 2-4: Embracing Human Responsibility

The book of Isaiah was composed in stages by different authors, and even the passages that were written earliest show signs of later editing. Still, the first portion of the book seems to directly address the Assyrian crisis, specifically indicating a spiritual reason for political and military threats. Isaiah 2-4 indicates some of the problems the prophet sees in the society of Judah as well as his vision of what Yahweh wants the world to be.

He begins by envisioning the Temple as a place of spiritual learning, where all people learn to manage their conflicts without war, essentially relying on the wisdom of Yahweh to guide their decisions. As it is, he sees pride as a major error of people everywhere. A coming judgment will clearly show how misplaced that pride is. According to the prophet, society will be turned on its head. All supernatural provision will be withheld, and insolent children will be in charge of a place where everyone seeks to profit from the suffering of neighbors. There is a karmic sense of justice in that whatever the wicked will experience the same suffering they have wrought upon others.

No one will be able to argue effectively against this judgment from God, because the evidence is in their lives: they are caught red-handed with the spoils gained from oppressing the poor, and their very posture and gait is incriminating. Even though their leaders are leading them astray, the people are responsible for their actions. The judgment will strip them of adornment and reveal their shameful and unmerited pride. Once this spiritual cleansing transpires, Yahweh will create an atmosphere of comfort and refuge. The judgment is not intended to wipe people out, but to eradicate any justifications for pride and oppressions so that the people, faced with the bare honesty of their inappropriate attitudes and actions, have no option but to change. It is as if people are incapable of change unless a higher power gives them no alternative.

However, the kind of pride the author of Isaiah is criticizing should not be mistaken for genuine acknowledgment of one's ability and accomplishments. It's healthy to be honest about one's abilities and strengths, and it's healthy to fully embrace what one can accomplish in the world. Destructive pride is the belief that you are intrinsically worth more than other people -- that you deserve wealth, comfort, and respect that other people do not deserve. When one's sense of Self become over-inflated, then it becomes easier to justify profiting from other people's suffering. An unbalanced sense of pride dismisses the inherent worth and dignity of other people and makes equitable, just relationships impossible. Isaiah challenges that kind of pride and envisions a world in which people are honest about their own value, and everyone else's value, too. The author also envisions a world in which Yahweh is active in the lives of people and is acknowledged as every nation's god.

It's nice to dream about what the world could be. It's perhaps even more pleasant to dream about what someone else is going to do to make the world better. Of course, when there are hostile armies at your doorstep, a believer must do something with beliefs about a deity. Either that deity is not as powerful as the hostile forces, or the deity is completely in charge of what's going on. If a deity is completely in charge of things, and there is an enemy army threatening to take over one's home, then the deity must be sending a very powerful message. That deity's worshipers had better shape up, or else.

This kind of situation was an ongoing struggle for ancient Judah. One of the biggest problems is that misidentifying the causes of the effects one experiences still leaves no reasonable means of improving one's situation. If you assume that bill collectors are harassing you because God is trying to teach you a lesson, you won't necessarily determine that you need to manage your finances more responsibly. Even more to the point, if one is waiting for God to cleanse the wickedness from people and establish less prideful, more peaceful, just relationships between human beings, one is going to wait a long time. Addressing human pride and oppression and violence is not the job of some extra-human authority; human relationships are the responsibility of human beings. Envisioning what an external divine being is going to do is just one way to maintain an attitude that human beings are incapable of being more just and equitable and compassionate -- and if the responsibility for a just, equitable, compassionate world is shifted to God, the people don't have to be capable.

As challenging as this may be to accept, there is no supernatural being who is just waiting for the right moment to sweep in and change the world. It's understandable if we would prefer to sit back and wait for a superhuman someone, bigger and more capable than us, to transform reality, because waiting doesn't require a whole lot of effort. If we have any real desire to see change in the world -- to see justice, or real equality, or authentic human relationships that aren't based on how much one person can take advantage of another -- creating that world is on us. It's up to us to set aside unhealthy pride that convinces us that we have more inherent value than other people, and it's up to us to maintain an honest assessment of our capability and worth. It's up to us to build just relationships with other people and to be willing to make some sacrifices when we realize that we are profiting from someone else's suffering. It's up to us to be authentic in our power and not adorn ourselves with clothing or lifestyles or honorifics that conceal who we really are behind a smoke screen of what we want people to think of us.

God is not going to change the world or punish the world. Our experiences in life are the results of human decisions. If an army attacks, we might justifiably blame that on our leaders. In our own personal lives, though, what we experience is ours to manage. If we don't like our reality, we have the power to learn from it and create something better. That kind of creation isn't always easy, but it at least has a chance of building the kind of world we want to live in. Waiting for someone else to solve our problems for us will get us nowhere. So, if you choose to pray, pray for courage. Prayer cannot in and of itself create justice or peace or equality, but human action can. We are capable of creating a better reality, if we are courageous and intentional in our actions. That creation starts with the relationships that already matter to us. That creation starts with greater awareness about the decisions that we make every day about how we treat other people (and ourselves). In other words, we engage in creating a better world by first engaging in creating and re-creating ourselves.

Mark 9: Stumbling Blocks and Concrete Overcoats

We are still mining a section of Mark 9 comprised of a string of short scenes with a couple of overlapping themes. Having considered the theme of authentic power a couple of weeks back, we're on to this business of causing another person to sin. Although it may be tempting to write this concept off and stand on the principle that all people have personal responsibility for their own actions, there is also truth to the statement that none of our decisions take place in a vacuum. Our actions have an influence on the people around us, and part of personal responsibility includes an appreciation for how what we do affects others.

The author of the gospel of Mark places the warnings about putting stumbling blocks in front of people quickly on the heels of using a child as an example, although the final scene of this chapter goes further than just talking about how people treat children. Still, what we learn as children sticks with us for a long time. As children, we make vows about how we must be and what we must do without even realizing that we're making vows. We also develop ideas about what or who we should be afraid of (or even hate) when we are children, when we are too young to even question why. So, it is especially important for adults to be conscientious about what we teach the children in our lives. Children cannot be held responsible for their beliefs about themselves, other people, or reality, but when children grow into adults, we expect them to suddenly be able to take responsibility for themselves. If we have filled the minds of the children in our lives with fear, what kind of adults do we expect them to be?

Children are not the only people susceptible to influence, though. Influential messages bombard us all the time in the form of advertising, political commentaries on television or radio, and less blatantly through just about every form of entertainment. We are responsible for aligning our beliefs and actions with our deep guiding principles rather than the influence of a paid angry or attractive spokesperson, but that isn't always an easy feat. We are also responsible for recognizing how our beliefs and actions influence adults around us. Bullying people into agreement, arguing from a position of half-informed righteous indignation, or promoting an identity of victimhood all come from fear. When we become afraid or anxious, and we lose our connection to our deepest selves, our influence on other people can be harmful. To make matters worse, our fear or anxiety can make us less aware of the impact we're having. Even though we can hold an expectation that other people should be emotionally mature and centered, and even though we aren't ultimately responsible for other people's behavior, it's better for us to empower other people to live based on their principles than it is for us to foster fear.

One interpretation of this scene in Mark is that the afterlife was seen to involve a continued physical existence. The author of the gospel of Mark is possibly saying that it's better to enter into a blessed afterlife maimed than to suffer in one's entirety. The gospels don't actually say much about hell, though, and even this passage is lacking much of its reference to hell in the earliest copies of the text. Plus, throughout the gospel narratives, the authors suggest (through words attributed to Jesus) that the kingdom of God (or the kingdom of Heaven, depending on who's writing) are not future-tense possibilities, but are present realities. Jesus is quoted as saying, "The kingdom of God is at hand," meaning, it's right here and now. So, perhaps the author of Mark is suggesting something else when he proposes mutilating oneself and entering the kingdom of God with a few parts missing.

If the kingdom of God is at hand, presently accessible to those willing to be a part of it, then it must not be a physical location. Perhaps as some have suggested, heaven is a state of mind -- a way of being. If so, then what is sin? And how can one's hand or eye or foot cause one to sin? Many people have pointed out that sin is an old archery term that essentially means, "to miss the mark." Some people would suggest that God sets the mark, but this is problematic, given that the supposed moral bull's eye established in the Hebrew Scriptures consists of a list of prohibitions that were impossible to keep, even for the ancient Israelites who invented it. If one considers Jesus to be a divine figure, a different mark was established in the gospels: love. Jesus' one big commandment was to love, and although that may be tricky to navigate in some situations, it's not a bad bull's eye for life. For people like myself, who don't recognize any superhuman divine beings, the bull's eye comes from deep guiding principles.

Sin, then, is what shifts our focus, the action that stems from something other than our guiding principles or the noblest form of love. Various believers might point to specific behaviors that constitute sin, but the problem is not really the behaviors. The problem is what lies at the root of the behaviors. As you may already have guessed, I believe that fear is what lies at the root of what the gospel writers call sin. When we allow fear to govern us, we forget about love or guiding principles and shift away from the mark we've set for who we want to be in the world. We let fear about ourselves, other people, or reality prompt our actions rather than bringing our most authentic selves forward. I'm not keen on what the church has done with the concept of sin, because it has become a weapon of judgment and condemnation wielded by people who have no more reason than anyone else to feel righteous. Fear is something that affects all people, but we are also all capable of dismantling fear if we choose to do so.

The point, then, is that your hand can't cause you to miss the mark. If you steal something with your hand or strike someone with your fist, your hand doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your deep guiding principles fueled those actions.
Your foot can't cause you to miss the mark. If you step on someone as you ascend whatever ladder of success you're climbing or turn around when you see an opportunity to help someone less fortunate, your foot doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your compassion for and connection to other human beings fueled those actions.
Your eye can't cause you to miss the mark. If you see other people as objects to be manipulated or you remain willfully blind to how your actions harm the people around you, your eye doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your capacity for love fueled those actions.
So, if we're going to amputate the cause of our "sin," our physical body isn't what we need to operate on. We need to amputate our fear.

Since Spencer Johnson and Sheryl Sandberg made it famous, the question has often been asked, but bears repeating:
What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I don't know what you're afraid of. You may fear scarcity -- that there isn't enough _________ for you and everyone else, so you have to protect what you have and do everything you can to get what you deserve. You may fear that, deep down, you are selfish or worthless at your core -- that you have to do everything you possibly can to prove how generous and worthwhile you are, including pleasing everybody around you, even at the expense of your own well-being. You may fear people of a certain ethnicity, religion, or sexual identity. You may fear that you are insignificant. Anything you fear -- especially irrationally -- can distract you from what actually matters most to you. Fear can prompt you to behave in ways that simply don't line up with who you most want to be in the world. Staying immersed in our irrational fears and expecting to be principled or loving people is like putting on a concrete overcoat and expecting to be able to swim. Dismantling our irrational fears opens the way for our guiding principles to be lived out more intentionally.

I'll bet you just glossed over it a paragraph back. Think about it:

What would you do if you weren't afraid?
          What would you create?
                    What would you stand for?
                              How would you be more authentically yourself more of the time?

The author of Mark includes a few sentences about salt at the end of this scene. Many people would suggest that salt symbolized purity for a great many ancient religions. If that's what salt means in this instance, the author of Mark is saying, "Have purity in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." When we live with integrity (or purity) to our deep guiding principles, we can be more connected with the people around us -- and even with people far away from us. Fear is not wise or just or compassionate or even honest. It's hard to live at peace with people -- even people about whom we care deeply -- if we keep fear in the driver's seat. If we recognize our ability to live with integrity by meaningful guiding principles, we can be at peace with others, because we trust our deepest, most noble selves.

So, with or without any religious convictions about Jesus' identity, the words of this section of the gospel of Mark can prompt us to have some conviction about our own identities. We do not need to be people defined by fear. We can be people defined by a deeper sense of truth, beauty, and creativity inherent to all human beings. We can be people who exhibit justice and compassion without suspicion or obligation. We can be people defined by vulnerable, authentic love. Some might call that a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Some might just call it being fully human.

What will you do as a capable, authentic, beautiful, creative human being?

Mark 9: Authentic Power

The next portion of Mark 9 is a string of short scenes with a couple of overlapping themes. As such, they are probably best approached over two weeks rather than trying to fit everything into one entry. We'll look first at the scenes, and then at how the authors of Matthew and Luke treat them, and finally we'll consider the argument about greatness. Next week, we'll look closer at what it means to "cause another person to sin," especially in a more humanist context that doesn't grant validity to the idea of sinfulness.

Both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke include a version of the first scene, in which the disciples argue about which of them will be in positions of authority when the Romans are overthrown and a new world order is established by their revolutionary leader. The response recorded indicates that they have some misconceptions about the new measure of leadership that is being established. This scene is followed by what appears to be a threat to Jesus' brand, as another miracle worker is seen performing some wondrous deeds without the direct approval of Jesus or his followers. The gospel of Matthew doesn't represent this scene, but the author of Luke included a truncated version of it. Once again, the response to the disciples' indignation is a revision to their assumptions about authority.

In the gospel of Matthew, the final scene in this grouping is dovetailed into the discussion of leadership, with the symbolic child being the bridge between the two passages. The author of Luke includes an abbreviated version of the teaching, separated from the scenes about leadership and authority. This scene suggests that the people who promote wrongdoing (or wrong thinking) in others will suffer for it, with symbolism suggesting that the author had an impression that individuals would have some kind of physical bodies in the afterlife.

This is also one of the passages that has given us a perspective of hell as a fiery place, but the actual word used here (Gehenna) refers to a specific place, also called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom in the Old Testament. It was here that Moloch and Ba'al worshipers (some of whom were Israelites) are said to have sacrificed their children to the fire. Since no mass graves of children's bones have been discovered anywhere in the area, many archaeologists and scholars have concluded that the symbolic sacrifices were something more akin to child dedications involving fire. Obviously, upstanding Jewish citizens would disapprove of parents dedicating children to a foreign god, and they would have had obvious reasons for equating such dedication as tantamount to sacrificing the child's spiritual future. The author of Mark puts clever words in Jesus' mouth, suggesting that anyone who is a negative spiritual influence on a child will be punished not just by being sacrificed to a fire, but by a fire that never quits consuming -- a darkly ironic Gehenna that is never quenched. We'll return to this passage next week, but it's obvious that the author of Matthew connects it with the earlier discussion of who deserves to be in positions of power.

We don't have to try very hard to find modern day parallels to the two earlier scenes in this passage. Sometimes we become quite preoccupied with what our position is, in the microcosms of our life as well as in a broader sense. We find ways to measure our level of power, whether in terms of the titles bestowed upon us, the amount of money we have, the number of friends (or "friends") we have in our networks, or some other scale that represents power to us. Some people are impressed by those who seem to have an air of authority, people who just exude self-confidence or seem to have an unshakably high opinion of themselves. The lesson expressed through Jesus in this passage suggests that all of this is valueless. These things are illusions that have no real bearing on what matters most. More important than how much apparent power one wields is how well one serves, particularly how well one serves those who are unable to do anything in terms of compensation.

A child is used as a powerful example here of the kinds of relationships that most reflect how well any of us understand what is most important. A child cannot pay us for our actions. A child cannot award titles or promotions. A child can't even vote in the next election. A child can do very little to increase our apparent power. Yet, if we are truly aware of ourselves -- if we are adept at dismantling fears about scarcity and insignificance, if we practice living with integrity by guiding principles that reflect something deeper than titles and dollar signs -- then we will likely be paying attention more to what we can do for other people than we will what other people can do for us. It won't matter that a person will be unable to offer us anything for our efforts (including a chance to have our picture in the paper and a headline with the word "Hero"). What will matter is that we have an opportunity to act with integrity to a deeply held value.

When we start thinking in terms of our role in the pecking order, or our position in a hierarchy, we can start determining personal value (of ourselves and of others) based on superficial details. Our value as human beings is not based on apparent power. It's an inherent trait that all human beings have in common. Chains of command and hierarchies of responsibility have their usefulness, but their benefits do not include knowing a person's value based on place within a hierarchy. People who wield authority have greater responsibility (as is indicated by the discussion about diving suits fitted with millstones), but they do not have greater value as human beings.

We determine how our human capability will be expressed in our lives. If we release our need to be seen as powerful, our actual capability will have more of a chance to shine through with authenticity. Our fears about there not being enough respect or love or admiration to go around can cloud our thinking on this to some extent, but we really don't know what the world would look like if everyone stopped worrying and started living out of their deepest guiding principles. If everyone stopped being afraid and just loved, we might all look pretty powerful. The truth is that we all are powerful, and we don't need to prove it to anyone. We are all capable of incredible acts of love and creativity. We are all capable of being peacemakers. We are all capable of profound feats of connection. We are all capable of seeing the inherent worth in people who seem to be doing their very best to keep it hidden.

The disciples in the story were concerned (probably even angry) because someone else was stealing their schtick. You've probably already seen through this as more fear of scarcity being expressed. There were then, as there are now, plenty of hurting people to go around. The point behind helping people was not then, as it need not be now, a chance to make a name for oneself, or an opportunity to get appointed to a position of authority, or a way to get ahead financially. The point behind helping people was and is to help people. The point behind living with integrity and intentionality was and is to live with integrity and intentionality. Being authentic and exercising one's full capability is the reward; our relationships with other people are just the context in which we get to be authentic and capable.

There was a book a while back with a title suggesting that if we do what we are passionate about -- what "feeds our soul" some might say -- then financial well being will come automatically. The content of the book revealed something different, that if we do what we love, then the satisfaction of doing what we love will follow. That's potentially a discouraging message to people who are caught up (like the disciples were in these scenes) with concerns about apparent power, market share, and personal brand management. The message of these scenes is not intended to be discouraging at all, though. The author of Mark is conveying that if we recognize what really matters to us and we intentionally live like those things really matter to us, we will be noticed by all the people we need to be noticed by and we will have all of the things we need to be happy.

Honestly, we may not have all of the wealth or apparent power that we want, or all that will allow our every whim to be entertained. The point, though, is that we don't get any closer to living by our deepest guiding principles by prioritizing wealth or wielding power over others. In other words, we've allowed our standards to become skewed toward something artificial and superficial. Most likely, we've done this because looking inward at what really matters most to us is scary at some level. Some people are afraid that they won't find much there at all if they look within, and others are afraid that if they are honest about their deepest guiding principles, their entire life will have to change. Maybe it will. The message of these scenes in Mark is that it will be worth it: Realize what really matters. Change your standards. Change your life -- and quite possibly the lives of everyone around you. It's an image of authentic power that any of us can choose to embrace.

John the Baptist: Developing Eyes Willing to See Human Worth and Voices Willing to Speak Truth

The Gospel of Mark is the earliest collection of Jesus stories that made it into the Bible. In fact, other gospel writers quote directly from Mark. The Gospel of Mark doesn't begin the stories about Jesus with a census and a manger and a band of shepherds shirking their duties at the behest of a supernatural choir. Mary and Joseph are not even mentioned. Instead, this short collection of Jesus tales begins with the character of John the Baptist, herald of the messiah figure. Instead of legitimizing Jesus as divine by a special birth story, the Gospel of Mark illustrates the divine nature of Jesus by a holy proclamation when Jesus is baptized, an event which initiates the public ministry of Jesus in all of the gospels. This was quite possibly an earlier origin story about the Christ figure than the familiar Christmas tale, which may have developed as the Jesus mythology matured in the first century.

John the Baptist sets an interesting stage for Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark, he serves as a prophetic herald, baptizing people for "repentance" and the "forgiveness of sins." In other words, when people felt shame about some way that they had not lived up to their expectations of themselves, and they wished to refocus and strive to come closer to their ideal of themselves, John ceremonially gave them permission to set aside their feelings of shame and boldly move forward in their lives. He foretells the coming of a messiah figure, and when Jesus is baptized, God identifies Jesus as that messiah figure. Later gospel writers expanded on the character of John the Baptist.

The Gospel of Matthew includes a rebuke of the prominent religious authorities of the day, and John recognizes the special nature of Jesus when he approaches for baptism. Jesus tells John that his baptism is a matter of propriety, since presumably he had never missed the mark in his first three decades, being the son of God and all.

The Gospel of Luke begins with a legendary birth story for John the Baptist, and when the time comes for Jesus and John to meet as adults, John has already been preaching the same kinds of messages that Jesus will carry on after John's death: lessons like people who have more should share with people who have less, and extortion and lying are bad. Luke also includes a little more information about John's arrest by Herod, since John spoke up about some of the dictator's illegal and unsavory behavior.

The Gospel of John (named pseudonymously for a different John) is a bit more blatantly metaphysical than the "synoptic" gospels, but John the Baptist still figures prominently early in the story. In this telling of the story, John recognizes Jesus because of divine revelation, and Jesus is once again legitimized as a uniquely qualified spiritual leader.

None of these stories is particularly useful as mere historical data; there is nothing more verifiable in these tales than there is about any other mythological origin story. What is important, however, is the message behind John the Baptist's character. The Christ figure did not choose to begin his teaching within the organized Jewish religion, but rather began his public ministry outside the organized political and religious systems of the day. John the Baptist was apparently ministering primarily to people disenfranchised from established power structures. When the religious authority figures came to investigate, he chastised them for their pride and their "viperous" natures. The character of Jesus was not spiritually astute because of intense religious study or the ability to follow or understand Jewish dogma and rules; his credentials came from a deeper authority.

When the gospel writers use the character of John the Baptist to say something about Jesus, they have an obvious message to convey. Jesus serves as an idealized persona, fully in touch with his divine nature while walking around in a human body in a human world. Perhaps what John the Baptist saw was only partially correct however. Perhaps if he had been willing to look for it, John would have seen a deeper spiritual self within every person, ignored or undeveloped maybe, or covered over with lies and beliefs that were initially very well-intentioned. Perhaps if we look around intentionally, we will see something more than John saw in the multitude of people around him.

John the Baptist didn't really need to tell people not to take more money than they ought from people, or to share what they had with people who had less. We already know right from wrong. We know when we are acting out of selfishness (fear of losing what we have) or greed (fear of not having enough). And yet John got thrown in prison for saying out loud things that everyone already knew. This is, in part, because we get rather defensive when we do things out of fear. Sometimes we would rather be defiantly out of alignment with our truest, most noble selves than be told that we are wrong. We would rather lie to ourselves than honestly face our fears, even when we know at our core that we are way off base. This is one of the reasons we need one another.

We need other people to honestly remind us of the things we don't want to hear. We need other people who care when we go off the rails, who are willing to speak up when they see us careening out of control because of our irrational fears or our false beliefs. Even when we are just slightly out of alignment with the people we most want to be, an honest and loving word from someone can remind us of the things that matter most in our lives. Speaking the truth to someone is not always easy, especially when we have such a tendency to get mad when someone tells us something we don't particularly like. The character of John the Baptist gives us a model in this regard.

Without getting caught up in the intent of the gospel writers to legitimize the hero of their story as uniquely divine, there are a few things that we might glean from John the Baptist. First and foremost, we might strive to more gracefully correct our course when we recognize that we are out of alignment with the selves we most want to be. This requires being honest about our deepest selves as well as being honest about where we are potentially falling short. We might also strive to appreciate the people in our lives who are honest and caring enough to remind us who we are, to see our most noble selves in spite of our fearfulness. We can be those honest and caring people as well, willing to speak out in truth and love so that another individual might recognize that they are not entirely living as the person they want to be.

In one sense, we are all John the Baptists, surrounded by John the Baptists: people capable of seeing the intrinsic value of every person, and people capable of speaking the truth without judgment, so that together we might sharpen one another, strengthen one another, and create the kind of world we most want to live in. In our own ways, we can give people opportunities to set aside shame and irrational fear and move forward in their lives with hope and dignity. We don't need to herald a superhuman messiah who will come to save us from ourselves, we can simply proclaim one another as capable, worthy, beautiful.

This is the good news: Truth, beauty, and creativity are within you and always have been. You have value and worth because you are, and you need no further credential than that.

Joshua 1: Courage Is a Vital Ingredient to Living with Integrity

About half of the book of Joshua is folklore about this Israelite leader's success in conquering the Promised Land.  The other half is about how the land was divided up among the Israelites, which reads about as interesting as any tax roll.  Joshua's life as depicted in the Bible would make a very exciting movie, and let's face it, telling stories with the community gathered together was the ancient civilization equivalent of a movie theater.  We can draw spiritual truth from these stories as easily as we can draw spiritual truth from the stories of any culture, but the book of Joshua begins with one of the most blatant and timeless admonishments found anywhere in scripture.  Be strong and courageous.

Moses was dead, and Joshua had been selected to fill his shoes.  The Israelite people hadn't been entirely respectful of Moses' leadership.  They were quite an unruly lot from time to time.  Now a new leader has to manage a rather belligerent young society, while they most likely did what any classroom of students do with a new teacher: test boundaries and see what they can get away with.  Now, the Bible doesn't include much about the Israelites' bad behavior in the relatively short book of Joshua, but if the previous books are anything to go by, Joshua had his hands full.  Fortunately, most of his reported leadership was a series of successful military battles, so his popularity was probably much higher than his cantankerous predecessor who was always telling people what they couldn't do and meting out punishments for their constant complaining.

The biggest problem when someone new takes charge, or when we enter some new phase of life -- a new job, a new city, parenthood, retirement -- is that we have gotten accustomed to things being a certain way, and now we have to deal with change.  Some people aren't wired to enjoy change.  They like the appearance of a predictable, secure existence, even if that includes a predictable level of stress.  Unpredictable pleasure is almost more threatening than predictable pain to some people.  While I respect the preferences of those people and understand the comfort to be found in predictable patterns, I would submit that very little in life is truly predictable and consistent.  We are faced with a certain amount of upheaval over the course of our lives, no matter how well we may have planned everything out.  Since there is no way to truly avoid change, what matters most is how we handle it.

Our beliefs determine a lot of our decisions.  What we believe about ourselves and other people (and life in general) informs how we respond to changes, however slight they may be.  Whether the change is someone moving our coffee cup or someone firing us from a job, whether it's a little rain on our picnic or a natural disaster destroying our home, our beliefs are the source of our responses.  And those beliefs are constantly being challenged.  If we believe that people are inherently good, there will be evidence to the contrary whenever we get around enough people who all want to get to the same place at the same time.  If we believe that people are inherently selfish, there will be generous acts that challenge that belief.  Whether you believe that you are attractive or unattractive, there will be people who disagree with you, some more vocally than others.  Our beliefs cannot remain intact by mere observation of things around us.  Strong beliefs originate from someplace deeper.

Not all of our beliefs are beneficial to us.  If we want our beliefs to be useful, we have to sort through them and stake our claim on the beliefs that truly make sense to us.  Our beliefs also change over time.  We may start off thinking one way about a particular group of people and wind up changing that belief when we gain new information.  When we are aware of how our beliefs are affecting our decisions, we can take a bit more conscious responsibility.  There aren't a lot of people who are going to confront us on what we believe, so we are best off taking some initiative to confront ourselves. 

Plenty of folks claim to believe one thing and then act completely contrary to that claim.  These people are being dishonest somewhere along the line.  Either they know what they believe and are unwilling to admit it because they fear what people will think of them, or they don't know what they believe and make a claim based on what they think they're supposed to believe in.  Some of these people even have strong convictions that are essentially empty of meaning because there is no real thought behind the convictions.  It is spiritual laziness to express unexamined beliefs with vehemence and passion.

When we are willing to engage in some self-examination, both of what we believe and how we behave, we can see clearly enough where the disconnections are, and we can address those disconnections.  We might revise what we believe so that our beliefs clearly line up with the decisions we want to make, or we might change our behavior so that it best reflects what we believe.  We might discover that we have some beliefs that are in conflict with one another, and we can make a clear decision about which we will strengthen and which we will jettison.  Without this level of integrity, we will always be struggling with conflict that comes from within our very being, and everything we do and experience will be to some extent impacted by this conflict.  Living a satisfying life depends upon knowing what we believe and having the integrity to make decisions based on those beliefs.

Being spiritually strong involves knowing who we are and committing to a life that reflects that identity clearly.  It doesn't mean bullying people who believe differently, and it doesn't mean being louder than anyone else.  Spiritual strength is about how well our behavior reflects what is at our core.  I am convinced that the beliefs that arise from that core will ultimately reflect the truth that human beings have value, that we are all imbued with creativity, and that we live in abundance.  A lot of the beliefs that seem contrary to those truths are actually fears that we have clung to for so long that they seem true.  Beliefs about needing to be wealthy, or needing to make people behave the way we want them to, or needing to eradicate a certain type of person in order to make our own lives better.  Fear is not great at disguises, but it's often enough for us to convince ourselves.  When we begin to examine our beliefs, though, we can start to recognize fear for what it is.  We can work to let go of irrational beliefs about ourselves and other people and the way life must be, and we can strengthen the beliefs that better allow us to create the kind of life we most want with integrity.

And this requires courage.  There will be challenges to what we believe.  Some of the challenges will arise from within us, as those irrational fears continue to crop up.  Some of the challenges will arise from outside of us, in the way that other people behave, or the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  It takes courage to stand in the face of violence and claim that all human beings have value and are worthy of respect.  It takes courage to look at a difficult situation and trust that you have the creativity and resources to find a way through to the other side with your integrity intact.  It takes courage to keep living by a certain set of principles when other people seem to be doing just fine -- even better than you perhaps -- by taking advantage of people or lying.  Fear is enticing, and it takes courage to live from the core of who we are rather than be distracted by whatever fears may seduce us away from that. 

Be strong and courageous.  Do not give fear a foothold.  Do not fall prey to discouragement.  You have within you the capability to live a satisfying and fulfilling life.  You will have an impact on the world around you, and you have the power to choose what kind of impact that will be.  Build integrity between your beliefs and your actions.  Verify that your beliefs serve you and the world around you, and be fearless in the knowledge that you embody an undeniable beauty and creativity.  Be strong and very courageous.  Fear has done enough damage in the world and in our lives.  Fear destroys our integrity.  And even though fear will always be present in our lives, we don't have to give it control of our behavior.  Be strong and courageous, and live like you mean it.