Mark 12: Vineyards and Cornerstones

In the next chapter of the gospel of Mark, after the business with the fig tree and Jesus' refusal to credential himself, the author includes several teachings that supposedly originated with Jesus during his time in Jerusalem. The author portrays some of the religious leaders of the day as scandalized by most of these teachings, presumably because they interpreted some criticism in Jesus' words. The first of these teachings is in the form of a story, or parable, and it is copied from the gospel of Mark with some slight variation in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke. Many Bibles call this the parable of the wicked tenants, although such titles are much later conventions than the oldest extant copies of the text.

In this story, a man hires some people to run his business (a vineyard) while he is away. They decide that they can keep all the profits for themselves, so they abuse (or kill) every person the landowner sends to collect, including the landowner's son, thinking that they will be able to keep the place for themselves. According to this teaching, there will be dire consequences when the landowner shows up himself. The author of Mark follows the story with a quote from Psalm 118, but the connection is never explained directly. There is only the general sense that the chief priests, scribes, and elders ("they" here referring all the way back to the end of Mark 11) suspected that Jesus had said something derogatory about them.

The interpretation of this parable in the gospel of Matthew is more explicit. In this variation of events, Jesus tells the chief priests and Pharisees that they are like the wicked tenants in the parable. The author also suggests what the connection with Psalm 118 is, although many ancient copies of the text don't have the verse that clarifies this connection. It was quite possibly copied from the version of the parable in the gospel of Luke, in an editorial attempt to make the different variations match up more closely.

In Luke, the basic parable is the same, but the Psalm 118 quote is shorter. There is no explicit unpacking of the teaching itself, but the author makes a direct connection of the story to the line about "the stone that the builders rejected." Some translators use the word cornerstone and others use keystone to describe how that rejected stone actually functions. In one sense, that stone is a foundational support, and in the other, it is the center stone of an archway that holds everything together. Either symbol is useful, with more or less equivalent interpretation into life application. Still, although it's obviously a reference to the consequences of the wicked tenant's actions, the identity of the symbolic stone is still vague. Even in the original psalm, the bit about the cornerstone is not specific. It is a general poetic statement that what some experts believed to be an unsuitable foundation for action has been demonstrated to be an ideal foundation for action. The credit for that revelation is attributed to God, of course, since that was part and parcel to the culture.

The main point of the parable seems to be that "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom" (Mt 21:43). In other words, the very thing that the tenants were aiming for will become unattainable, and other people will claim it instead. The very thing that the religious leaders were aiming for will likewise become unattainable, and other people will claim it instead. This is not a prediction of future events, but a warning to people who are trying to reach a destination with a faulty set of directions.

You can't build something truly impressive with rotten materials. You can't build loving relationships with fear. You can't build a lasting, admirable reputation on lies. You can't build the kingdom of God on political power and social coercion. There is more that we can say about this, but there are some terms here that may need to be clarified a bit. What is the "kingdom of God," that it could be taken away from people who claim to be believers? What are the "fruits of the kingdom" for that matter? And what is the foundational stone that has been rejected by the people who claim to be expert builders?

Many of these questions likely had specific answers for the original author of the quoted psalm, and for the original authors of the gospels. Such terms have been subject to interpretation for centuries, and there is little agreement among biblical scholars, although many assume that the stone referred to here is Jesus, because some epistles interpret it this way. For early biblical authors, the kingdom of God was not a synonym for Heaven, as is clear even from some of the words put into Jesus' mouth by the gospel writers. "Kingdom of God" is a tough term for us today, when we don't think very highly of monarchies and when scientific discovery has increasingly eliminated the need for belief in supernaturals. Instead of such a loaded term, we can think of this as the kind of world that everyone really wants to live in, if all of our irrational fears were dismantled and we were honest about what we actually value. The kingdom of God is simply a better world than what we experience right now--a world that is characterized by equity, justice, and compassion. These qualities are the "fruit" (outcome or result) of living like that better world is a possibility.

What would prevent the tenants in the parable and the religious leaders of the first century from practicing equity, justice, and compassion? One might say greed. Certainly that seems to be the motivating drive of the tenants. Greed is just another word for fear, though. Greed is fear of scarcity. The religious leaders may have reacted out of fear of scarcity, too. Possibly, they feared insignificance or powerlessness. Their fear overrode their capacity to find peaceful solutions to problems. Fear prevented them from dreaming big with regard to what their people and their world could become. They were more interested in control--conserving what power and wealth they could among a small number of people. This fear-driven conservatism has never resulted in long-term sustainability for any people. Not only were they not creating as much equity, justice, and compassion as they could have in the world around them, they were also preventing the very thing they claimed to want. The tenants in the story had lost the vineyard, and the religious leaders had lost the kingdom of God.

All of this is still a warning cry to the representatives of the church in the twenty-first century. While a great hue and cry often goes up against the non-believers or "unsaved" or "infidels," many of the most visible representatives of religion still build on a foundation of fear rather than equity, justice, and compassion. According to this parable, the people who will actually experience a better world ("the kingdom of God") are not just the people who claim to believe certain things or even people who claim to have a personal relationship with the spirit of a centuries-dead Palestinian. The people who will experience a better world are the ones who create that better world through displaying its evidence--people who actually practice equity, justice, and compassion. Many believers and religious leaders seem not to know that their gospel narratives make this assertion.

What is the proper foundation, then? What is the identity of a cornerstone that promotes equity, justice, and compassion. One interpretation of that stone that some have offered is hope, specifically hope in supernatural guidance and aid, and hope in a desirable afterlife. The problem with the brand of hope offered by many religious traditions, however, is that it's based on mythology and folklore. One doesn't claim sincere hope for leprechauns to make personal debt disappear, or hope for Aphrodite to actually intervene in one's romantic affairs. Genuine hope needs something a bit more solid.

Before you defend the legitimacy of religious hope too vigorously, consider the number of believers currently in prison because of fear-based actions, the number of believers who have been caught in sexual scandals, the number of believers who prefer to divorce rather than work on their relationships, and the number of believers who abuse their children and spouses. People who have legitimate hope in a supernatural who loves them and works all things for their good should presumably also have lives defined by less fear, violence, and harmful behavior than people who lack that kind of hope. The actual data suggests that believers have as difficult a time as everybody else--if not greater difficulty--behaving in a way that reflects equity, justice, and compassion, despite alleged supernatural guidance. So, I suggest that hope needs something a bit more solid underneath it.

If the stone is not a mythological savior, and the stone is not empty hope, what could possibly be an ideal that has been rejected as a worthwhile foundation by many people who strive to build a better world? Several candidates come to mind, actually. Reason is one fine foundation, for those who are capable and willing to employ it. Unfortunately, many people seem to lack the skill to reason well, and many people strangely prefer not to reason well. Self-awareness is another fine foundation. The more we understand ourselves, the more we can act intentionally in the world. This, too, may bump up against some limitations of personal ability, however. So, I'll propose a third identity for the foundation stone that has been rejected by nearly everyone: radical, unconditional love.

You may have just rejected that in your mind when you read it. You may have even rejected it out loud. We've grown accustomed to believing that love doesn't solve anything, possibly because of how we decide to define love. I'm thinking here of affectionate concern for the well-being of others. Not merely strong positive emotions toward someone, because emotions are not completely within our control. Not concern for the well-being of people such that we decide we have to manage their lives and decisions for them because they aren't capable of doing it for themselves. That's control, not love. Radical love is a conscious decision that incorporates all of humanity in that sphere of affectionate concern. Unconditional love means that we don't exclude anybody from our pursuit of equity, justice, and compassion. One advantage to calling radical, unconditional love a cornerstone is that it's exactly what the Jesus of the gospel narratives tells people, so it ought to be something with which any believer would agree.

Everyone's cornerstones don't necessarily need to be the same thing. It's important to recognize, though, that violence, oppression, shame, and dishonesty do not create the kind of lives we most want or the kind of world we most want to live in. There is no external supernatural. We are responsible for building a better world. To do that, we absolutely must learn to dismantle our irrational fears and we must strive toward emotional maturity. Beyond that, we can determine what guiding principles to build on. I believe that all people have inherent worth and dignity, and that keystone holds the entire archway of my life together pretty well. Right now, I'm happy with identifying my cornerstones as science, reason, self-differentiation, and radical unconditional love.

What are your cornerstones? Having four corners makes sense to me. Maybe you have more cornerstones or fewer cornerstones. Maybe you just have one keystone that holds everything together. Whatever the case, your foundation is strongest when it actually makes sense to you. Base your life on things you can actually trust and verify. Don't claim things out of shame or obligation when your deepest, most noble self rejects them. Build on truth, not on fear. When you feel driven toward violence, or toward trying to control other people's lives, or toward pretending to be something that you aren't, you're not building on solid ground. You are the only person who can build the life you most want. All of us together can build a better world.

Mark 10: Wealth and the Kingdom of Heaven

After the teaching on divorce, the author of Mark records a story about a rich man seeking advice from Jesus about how to "inherit eternal life," or as Jesus rephrases the goal, "enter the kingdom of God." Incidentally, the author of Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven" synonymously with "kingdom of God" when he copies this story, but the author of Luke kept most of the terminology identical to what is found in Mark. It's a challenging story, although some commentators suggest clever loopholes around the blatant message that wealth presents a challenge to spiritual and ethical integrity.

There are those who think that this message was just about one person's inappropriate greed or attachment to his possessions. This ignores the bit of the tale in which Jesus tells his disciples that anyone with wealth -- any rich person -- will have a difficult time entering the kingdom of heaven. It's clear that this passage is about wealth, not just one man's particular weakness. We'll come back to that.

Some scholars also wish to point out that a specific gate into the city was called the "Eye of the Needle," and that this gate was a particular challenge to camels. It doesn't matter. The author is clearly suggesting that wealthy people will have a very difficult time entering the kingdom of heaven, ultimately using the word "impossible." Contextualizing the metaphors of the passage doesn't make its message any easier.

What exactly is the kingdom of God, though? In Mark, there are three statements about reward. First, Jesus claims that people who sacrifice everything for the sake of the "good news" will receive a hundredfold reward in this temporal life, and this is specified in terms of relationships, property, and the hardships that go along with them. Second, people who sacrifice everything for the sake of the "good news" will have eternal life in the "age to come." Third, there will be a hierarchical relationship in the kingdom of God which will turn the earthly order of power and respect on its head: the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Not only does that not clear things up, but the bit about receiving a hundredfold houses, fields, siblings, mothers, and children simply does not ring true in real life experience of people who have made sacrifices for the "good news." Unless, one wants to specifically define what the "good news" actually is (which I will do in my own way), and follow that with the claim that no one has ever sacrificed enough for the "good news" in order to test this promise that they will receive a hundredfold reward, in which case there would have been no point in making the promise in the first place.

The gospel of Luke is more vague than Mark about the kingdom of God, simply saying that everyone who sacrifices for the kingdom of God will receive "much more" in this temporal life, and "in the age to come eternal life." The author of Matthew has a very specific idea of what that eternal life will be like, though. Jesus will be seated on a "throne of glory," and all the disciples will have thrones of their own, from which they will judge the twelve tribes of Israel. By this count, Judas would need to be included in that enthronement, but we won't worry about that. This is obviously also before Jesus considered extending his mission beyond just the Jews, but we won't worry about that either. The point is that different people have different ideas about what the "kingdom of God" actually means.

I am less inclined to concern myself with claims about living forever or afterlife. There is no way to prove any claims about such things, and there seem to be an awful lot of competing versions of the "age to come" floating around, none with more merit than any other. When I think about the "kingdom of heaven" or the "kingdom of God," the first hitch for me is that bit about kingdom. I don't think of spirituality in monarchical or feudal terms; the metaphor just opens the way for a lot of assumptions that don't make any sense. I get what the gospels writers were going for, but the word kingdom isn't as useful now as it was two thousand years ago. The second hitch for me is the bit about "heaven" or "God," for obvious reasons. From my perspective, why would I sacrifice anything for the sake of the monarchical establishment of an imaginary being? And yet, there's something deeper to that term that I can sink my teeth into.

Often, when the gospel writers have Jesus speak about the kingdom of heaven, what he says is that it is "at hand," it is a present reality and not something that only becomes knowable or enter-able upon physical death. If the kingdom of heaven is at hand, then what evidence do we have of that? Some would point to miracle stories, but this is a dead-end. Most of the miracle stories in the Bible were most likely confabulations to begin with, and even if they weren't, no one is performing any miracles today to demonstrate the remaining present-tense reality of the kingdom of heaven. So, I prefer to look at the example set by Jesus in the gospel narratives (and some other people, come to think of it), in the way that people are treated in those stories. The Jesus of the gospels treats people as if they have value, regardless of their station in life or their material possessions. He speaks with people who are interested in what he has to say, whether they are respected religious leaders or outcasts. He tells parables that clearly reflect the priority of caring for fellow human beings, particularly those who can't care for themselves very well. This points to a definition of the kingdom of heaven that I can get behind (although I still want to call it something else).

There is a growing movement among some Christian churches, called the missional church movement, that strives to embody this kind of definition of the kingdom of heaven. The focus for these believers is less on church growth and membership numbers and more on being a meaningful presence in the neighborhood, caring for the people around them without regard for what those people believe about God or Jesus. I respect this. Some of these churches still want to get people saved and usher them into a personal relationship with Christ, which I respect a bit less, but I respect that they start by caring for people. Many people in the missional church movement see their work as partnership or participation with God in building his kingdom. Their actions have value and meaning in a larger faith context.

In this way, the kingdom of heaven becomes something of a replacement for the metaphor of Promised Land that the ancient Jews held. Promised Land or kingdom of heaven is that better world that is characterized by greater justice, greater equity, and greater compassion than what we experience and express today. The Promised Land/kingdom of heaven isn't something that we encounter upon death, and it isn't something that is going to happen to us -- it's something we create. While I don't believe that there is any sort of supernatural aid in that creative action, I do believe that we must be connected to our deep, most noble selves in order to consistently engage in that sort of intentional living. I don't have a better metaphor than Promised Land or kingdom of heaven, but I think of that action as building a better world.

And building a better world does require sacrifice, and we don't have any guarantees that we're going to get anything we sacrifice back, in this life or in some future life. What we often wind up sacrificing to build a better world, though, are things that don't really do us a lot of good to begin with. We don't need to sacrifice deep, meaningful relationships, but we often need to give up our sense of obligation and entitlement in those relationships. We could stand to give up our fear of scarcity, or our over-protectiveness. We could stand to sacrifice the lies we hold about ourselves: that we are not enough, that we are failures, that we are worthless. We can't easily build a better world of justice, equity, and compassion if we are battling those kinds of fears and lies on a regular basis.

We can't really know what the author of Mark (and those who cribbed his writing) thought wealthy people had stacked against them. It does seem in our current reality that people who have more often live as though they have more to lose. It isn't just a matter of bank account totals; there are issues of prestige, influence, lifestyle, relationships... There aren't a whole lot of people who willingly choose to give up that identity. It's easier to just do a little bit toward creating a better world -- just enough to feel proud of the contribution -- and trust other people to do their little bit, too.

We sometimes forget a couple of things, though. We sometimes forget how creative we can be when in comes to inventing justifications and excuses. If we aren't careful, we might actually start believing something that isn't true, just because it seems like something we would like to be true. We also forget that not everyone is equally positioned to build a better world. The reason we would even think about building a better world in the first place is that there are people who are suffering from the injustices and inequities we have come to accept as normal. Some of those people simply can't do as much to affect their circumstances as we would like to think. Even some of those people who want to do something to make the world a better place are hard-pressed to contribute much and still exercise personal responsibility for their own lives. Money is not the only thing that goes into building a better world, but money and all its trappings can sometimes separate people from others. It can separate people from awareness of the reasons why anyone would want to build a better world.

Which is where the "good news" comes in. For many Christians, good news has a very specific definition which has to do with Jesus' (mythologized) death and resurrection and the supernatural results in terms of individual sins. I think that there is even better news than that. You have inherent worth and dignity. All people do. Whatever lies you have come to believe about how unworthy you are or how unlovable you are, or how insignificant you are -- those lies are not you. You are a creative, capable, worthy being. No matter what happens to you or around you, nothing can change your inherent worth and dignity. That is good news if ever I have heard good news.

Recognizing our own inherent value, and recognizing the inherent value of all people, allows us to live out opportunities to build a better world, doing what we able to do, as we are able to do it. We don't have to sacrifice everything we have -- but we might want to give up some things we don't need. We might want to give up some ideas that aren't useful to us anymore. We might want to give up irrational fear and false beliefs about ourselves and other people. When we make those kinds of sacrifices, we lighten our own lives, and we create space for participating in building a better world in a way that is authentic to us. It doesn't have to become all-consuming. It's more of a way of being, a way of relating to other people, that is more possible when we aren't wrapped up in ourselves. Plus, it never hurts to be really honest with ourselves about what we have, what we actually need, and how much we can realistically offer of our personal resources toward creating a better world for everyone.

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.