John 7:31-52 Being Living Water

In the second half of John 7, lots of different people are discussing Jesus and prophecy. It's obvious that the authors want the Pharisees to be seen as the ignorant villains of the story itself, but there are some interesting statements that suggest the authors may have been arguing with some of their contemporaries as well.

For instance, one of the points of Jewish messianic prophecy seems focused on the birthplace of a messiah. It's clear that Jesus doesn't fit that prophetic mold, because (according to the authors of John) he wasn't born in Bethlehem. He doesn't fit the prophecies, yet the authors clearly think of him as the messiah. This is a different approach than what the authors of Matthew and Luke seem to take. (The gospel of Mark doesn't have any sort of birth story for Jesus.)

It would seem that the authors of Matthew and Luke invent a story about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, including genealogies that don't even line up, just to have the tale agree with prophecy. The authors of John, however, point out that prophecy is less reliable than what people are able to witness for themselves. The people in the story of John 7 believe what they believe about Jesus because they have seen something, not because circumstances line up with predictions from long-dead forecasters.

The criticism of these believers in the story comes from the Pharisees who say that the crowds don't understand religious law, so they can't possibly know what they're talking about. Yet, the Pharisees were supposed to be among those Jewish authorities who instructed others. Any indictment about the ignorance of the students is a denunciation of the teachers. Maybe these fellows weren't really all that bright after all. Or at least, maybe the authors of John wanted them to seem stubbornly unenlightened and ineffectual. In any case, the authors of John point out that prophecies aren't always to be trusted.

Some theological debates seem to have little value. Dare we even go into the business about there not being a Spirit yet? Trinitarians assert that their god is a three-fold entity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One deity, but three somethings. Personalities? Functions? States of existence? Trinitarians don't agree, and it isn't always clear to them what they're talking about. Many Trinitarian formulas, however, assume that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all in some way eternal. Usually, the challenge is to the Son part of the equation, since they equate the Son with Jesus. Being human, Jesus had an obvious beginning, and eternal things do not have a beginning. The observation of John 7, however, seems to be about the Spirit. The Spirit apparently wasn't around at some point, and thus had a beginning, which means that the Spirit cannot be eternal. If you believe John's accounting, that is. All of this is rather pointless unless you are trying to prop up a Trinitarian belief system, which is based on a whole lot of other problematic assumptions before you even get to the bit about people being eternal. But in case it comes up in conversation, John 7:39 challenges the concept of an eternal Spirit.

I would challenge the existence of an eternal Spirit for the same reason that the gospel of John says that people believed what they believed about Jesus. We know what we know about the world by observation and rational analysis. Science continually improves our ability to observe well, but even in ancient times, there was obviously a sense that witnessing something first hand was a key to belief. The people in the gospel of John's story believe because of their own experience. Even Nicodemus, who is among the Pharisees, defends Jesus because of a personal experience.

We know what we know about the world by observation and rational analysis. This is problematic in and of itself, of course, because we don't always know what we're observing. As we mentioned last week, our brains are lazy. If there is an easy answer available, we often stop looking for more complex answers. Lights in the sky? Must be a UFO. No need to consider any other options. An infected person with a 50% survival rate gets better and goes on living? Must be a miracle. It's cold outside today? Must be global cooling. We aren't all good scientists, and even good scientists make mistakes in their observations sometimes.

In our own personal experience, we might find it easy to believe that there are supernatural forces at work. Anything that we cannot rationally explain in the first few moments we think about it seems extraordinary. We have to rely on people who have done the hard work of figuring some things out through intentional observation and rational analysis. There are actually scientists who have studied things like prayer and miracles, and the conclusions of every investigation to date that has followed strong experimental standards has been that what we experience falls within natural parameters. Some people do recover from really serious illnesses. Sometimes people do experience the things that they pray for. These experiences may seem extraordinary to the individuals experiencing it, but they are not unnatural. If an illness has a 1% recovery rate, it stands to reason that out of every hundred people who become infected, one of them will recover. To that one person, it seems miraculous, but someone has to be that one survivor out of a hundred infected, even though the physician can't tell who's in that one percent until they recover.

We all have assumptions and beliefs about how the world works. Some call our set of assumptions and beliefs a mental model. We've mentioned mental models before. One major difference between scientific predictions and prophecy is that scientists allow their mental models to be corrected, while people who adhere to prophecy expect reality to conform to their own mental models. Sometimes, scientists change their mental models very reluctantly, but a basic premise of scientific knowledge is that our beliefs have to adjust to new information. A tendency of prophecy is that, when a prediction fails to come true or seems impossible based on new information, any explanation that maintains old assumptions and beliefs is preferable to changing the mental model.

If we are not willing to change our mental models from time to time, we will be stuck in a perspective that doesn't grow. We will be stunted. We won't bring our best possible selves forward. The gospel of John is a story, but the characters in that story reveal some truths about us. When we see a truth right in front of our faces, and we choose to reject that truth in favor of our old familiar beliefs and assumptions, we are like the Pharisees in the story. When we do this, we miss opportunities to create the kind of lives and the kind of world we most want. We miss out on living into a best possible version of ourselves when we don't let reality and truth outweigh our assumptions.

In the story, though, the Jesus character reflects another possibility. "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" Incidentally, this isn't a quotation from any known Old Testament scripture, so we don't know what scripture the authors are quoting here. The book of Jeremiah does refer to Yahweh as a fountain of living water, but that's about it. "Living water" refers to clean, flowing water that comes from a spring as opposed to dirty, stagnant water in a cistern. Some people take these words attributed to Jesus as self-referential, as if Jesus is referring to himself exclusively as "living water." The actual words suggest something different.

We've said that to "believe in" someone is to fully trust that person's example as the appropriate way to live. In other words, believing in a person is reflected by emulating what that person does. So, if anyone is not satisfied with a current experience of life, consider another way of engaging in life -- a way that expresses unconditional love for others while clearly defining one's own values. If your mental model isn't allowing you to live into a best possible version of yourself, try on a new mental model built on the premises that all people are worthy of love and that you are beautiful, creative, and capable. If you adopt this new way of seeing yourself, other people, and the world, the effects will flow into the lives of other people around you as well. This isn't a selfish vision, but a vision of transformation.

Old inaccurate assumptions and beliefs cannot contribute to a better world. They will only get in our way. If we want to live into a best possible version of self, we have to base our mental models on truth about ourselves, other people, and the world we all share. This also means that we have to revise our mental models as we get new information. All of this goes back to living more intentionally, considering our values and being purposeful in how we act with integrity to those values. When we do that, we are like refreshing water from a pure spring in the lives of others around us.


A Little Experiment: Assuming. As a way of demonstrating to yourself how many assumptions you make about others, notice a stranger at a meeting or restaurant and make a mental list of all the assumptions you can make about that person. Some of your assumptions may be right. If you're at a conference for accountants, you might assume a person's career pretty accurately. Make your list more detailed than that, though. You probably assume some things about a person's education, family, hobbies, faith, and political affiliation too. Notice how many things you assume about a person you actually know very little about.

A Risky Experiment: Verify. Introduce yourself to that stranger from the previous experiment and see how many of your assumptions were accurate. You might even tell the person that you are working on not making assumptions about people.

If you really want to learn something about yourself, repeat these two experiments with as diverse a group of people as you can for a month.

A Big Experiment: Inquiry. Consider one of your beliefs. If you want to play it safe, use a belief in Bigfoot or something like that. If you are willing to go deep, take a belief in which you've invested a little more emotional energy. Examine the evidence for that belief using the SEARCH formula introduced by Theodore Schick, Jr. & Lewis Vaughn in their book How to Think about Weird Things:Critical Thinking for a New Age:

State the belief clearly.
Examine the Evidence for the belief.
Consider Alternative possibilities.
Rate, according to the Criteria of adequacy, each Hypothesis.

The "criteria of adequacy" is a way of saying that an idea (1) can be tested, (2) yields observable predictions, (3) is the simplest explanation [that is, makes the fewest assumptions], and (4) is consistent with other trustworthy observations about the world.

As I said, a big experiment.

Mark 8: Being Conscious About What Kind of Yeast Leavens Our Lives

Mark 8 contains a collection of stories that mostly appear in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke, with some slight variation. Some of the phrases and teachings even make an appearance in the gospel of John. As we have mentioned previously, the gospel of Mark was probably the earliest to be written and distributed, especially considering that some of its stories are copied verbatim by the authors of Matthew and Luke. In Mark 8, we read of another feeding of the multitudes (or perhaps another story of the feeding of the multitude in Mk 6:30-44), a warning against following the teaching of the Pharisees, a healing story, and a famous altercation between the  Jesus and Peter characters. Since we have already considered the feeding of the multitudes and healing stories in some detail, we'll spend some time with the new material in the teachings of these verses. For now, we can concentrate on the first half of the chapter, specifically Mark 8:11-21.

The Pharisees appear once more to challenge Jesus by requesting a sign, some demonstration that he is more than just a Zealot rabble-rouser. He proclaims that there will be no sign forthcoming for his generation. In the gospel of Mark, that is the end of the discussion. No sign. Period. This, despite the claim that he was going about the countryside healing people left and right and feeding multitudes with miniscule amounts of food. So apparently these were not signs of anything spectacular. Most likely, this is because there were several so-called miracle workers running around in the first century. What exactly could the Pharisees have wanted if healing and wonder-working were commonplace enough to be inadmissible as evidence of divinity? That's not really the important question. No one can know what the Pharisees were really demanding or even if they ever actually confronted a historical Jesus. The question is placed by the author of Mark into the mouths of theoretical critics in order to prompt a theological answer: No signs for you.

In other words, according to the author of Mark, there is no proof and there will be no proof (for that generation at least) that Jesus is anything special. This answer wasn't good enough for the author of Matthew, who added the caveat,

except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nin'eveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (Mt 12:39-42)

This "sign of Jonah" was also cited by the author of Luke (Lk 11:29-32), except that the gospel of Luke doesn't interpret this sign as an allusion to death and resurrection. Actually, one might assume that resurrection would have been a pretty serious sign of something to that generation. So, somewhere between the writing of the gospel of Mark and the writing of the gospel of Matthew, belief in a messianic resurrection must have become more widespread. The gospel of Mark doesn't even include any resurrection appearances after the passion narrative. This suggests that the beliefs and assertions of the Jesus cult were still evolving as the Bible was being written.

What good is it for a person to go around claiming to be a divine figure and then assert that there won't be any forthcoming evidence? As a theological assertion, the author of Mark may have been pointing to the humility of Jesus. Presumably, he is not out to draw attention to himself through performing miracles on demand, he is doing what he is doing for a different, more noble purpose. Perhaps the author of Mark was pointing to the ignorance and blindness of the Pharisees; the verse is followed by a strongly-worded criticism against that sect. There is also a deeper message here that rings true with human experience, though. If one wants to know a person's values or deeply held beliefs, one need only observe their actions. By corollary, then, if you want people to know what you believe and value, make sure your actions demonstrate those beliefs and values clearly.

The criticism the author of Mark has Jesus level at the Pharisees actually supports this truth as well. The author of Mark doesn't spell it out as clearly as the authors of Matthew and Luke, but the general warning is the same: Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the Herodians. (The Herodians were another political cult in the first century, supportive of Herod the Great and his dynasty.) The passage in the gospel of Mark doesn't state why there was something amiss with the teachings of the Pharisees, but the author of Luke says it plainly when he relates this teaching: The Pharisees are hypocrites. In other words, they say one thing and do another. They claim to believe something that is not clearly demonstrated in their actions. And presumably following their teachings--allowing their "yeast" to bud and ferment in one's psyche and spirit--will lead to hypocrisy in one's own life.

There is a comparison happening in these parallel passages between signs and truth. People can be so impressed with astounding behaviors and unusual events that they can go chasing after personalities with only a shallow understanding of what that individual stands for. Jonah was a "sign" to the people of Nineveh not because he was vomited up on the beach after three days inside a big fish, but because he spoke boldly, passionately, and sincerely to them. The people of Nineveh still had to take personal responsibility for what they would do with Jonah's words, and that required them to weigh his message carefully and thoughtfully. They weren't just pursuing some new shiny distraction.

What the authors of the gospel suggested about Jesus was that he was not just a shiny distraction or a bit of entertainment or even a conquering general to drive back the Romans and reclaim Jerusalem. Perhaps Jesus represented a way of being that was more about integrity than it was about miracles, more about treating people with respect than about distracting people from their lives, more about growing people through empowering them than about growing a following by bedazzling them. In other words, the core of the message is about what ordinary people can do in relation to one another, not what people must rely on an extraordinary person to do for them.

That is not necessarily the Jesus message that is propagated throughout Christian circles today, but perhaps the quality of Christlike-ness is more about living with integrity in one's own life than it is about telling others how they must live. Perhaps our human social constructs have given us permission to practice hypocrisy, and that practice has spread like yeast through our habits, our relationships, and our ideals. Whatever we may believe about Jesus, it seems that at least some portion of the gospel message advocates understanding one's own self deeply, knowing and trusting in one's guiding principles and living by them with integrity, and actually valuing one's values enough to act in alignment with them. We do not need faith for that. We do not need miraculous proof. In fact, if we were to live like this--with intentionality and integrity in all our moments--we would be the sign, perhaps even enough of a sign to inspire others. That's worthwhile leavening.

Mark 6:30-56: A Choice between [Scarcity, Anxiety, Entitlement, and Fear] or [Abundance, Gratitude, Generosity, and Honesty]

As a rare miracle story that appears in all four canonical gospels, the "Feeding of the Five Thousand (Men)" has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Some more conservative readers take the story at face value and assume that there is nothing to figure out -- Jesus miraculously provided food for thousands of people from an amount that would have fed only a few at best. Others consider the story to reflect a "miracle of sharing" -- most people had a bit of food with them, and when they witnessed one act of generosity they brought out what food they had and shared it with one another. One thing that is clear from the story is that Jesus was unwavering in his confidence regarding abundance; the text never attributes to Jesus a fear or concern about scarcity. If there is anything to emulate in this passage, it is that propensity for abundance thinking.

What keeps us oriented toward scarcity rather than abundance? Quite a lot, actually. A significant portion of advertising attempts to induce in consumers the fear that there is not enough to go around, and that they must act quickly if they want to be safe, well-fed, and happy. Our modern mythologies about finances encourage scarcity thinking as well. We believe at a certain level that there is not enough wealth or resources to meet the needs of everyone, and therefore we must strive to get all that we can so that at least our needs will be met. Those who have money and power have a strong desire to hang on to that money and power, because they fear what might happen if they let go of it. Even though one hears tales (often meant to inspire people to spend money on something they don't need) about millionaires who have been bankrupt many times over before accumulating their current wealth, there are profound cultural differences between the "haves" and the "have-nots" -- systems that perpetuate over generations.

It would be fallacious to suggest that everyone in the world has more wealth than they need. In our individual lives, there is a reality of scarcity that cannot be overlooked if one is honest. Most of us cannot sit back and trust that all of our needs will be taken care of by someone else. If we want to be responsible people, most of us must make decisions about how we are going to spend our time and money so that our lives have integrity with our guiding principles. Budgeting time and money and other resources may seem like an exercise in scarcity thinking, but it is possible that many people in industrialized nations spend their personal resources on things that do not actually matter all that much to them -- things that do not align clearly with their personal guiding principles. So, being intentional about how we use what we do have may reveal that we have more abundance in our personal lives than we often think.

Thinking in terms of abundance and scarcity on a small scale, such as the context of a nuclear family or one individual's life, are possible indicators of the level of irrational fear being courted. When one is thinking in terms of scarcity, one is likely to be more anxious and fear-driven, thus one is more prone to reacting to circumstances rather than living out of one's authentic guiding principles. When one thinks instead in terms of abundance, one is more likely to act out of integrity and invoke an inherent creativity -- one is more in tune with what I have taken to calling "inner divinity" or one's most noble self. This does not mean pretending that one has resources that are not practical realities, and it does not mean making fanciful assumptions that something will manifest just because one wills it. Such behaviors are rejections of one's current reality. What is required for authentic abundance thinking is a humble, honest acknowledgement of current reality and commitment to a meaningful guiding principle (or set of principles). A path toward a compelling vision for a preferred future can only be charted if one is honest about one's point of origin.

As an example, we can turn back to the miracle story. Those who see the story as a "miracle of sharing" might assume that most of those thousands of people who decided to follow Jesus out into the countryside were smart enough to take a little food with them. Perhaps they were keeping their food hidden out of fear that others were less well prepared, and scarcity thinking suggests that we need to protect what we have since there isn't enough to go around. The disciples were really the only ones who demonstrated anxiety in the story, though. As they became concerned about how to feed everyone, it's possible that people in this crowd of thousands were already pulling out their food. Perhaps they were even sharing it with one another by the time the disciples made it around with the offer of a bit of fish and bread. Even those who may have been reluctant to let on that they had come prepared would eventually recognize that they could eat what they had -- and perhaps even share some with other people -- without anyone taking advantage of them. As it turned out, there was an abundance. It was thus easy for people to contribute to the twelve baskets of leftovers, since people with an abundance mindset find it much easier to practice generosity.

When we pull back from the perspective of individual lives to examine the larger state of things in our society and in our world, the fact is that we live in a state of abundance. Human beings have constructed artificial systems to consolidate money and power (out of beliefs founded on irrational fears), the result being that every person does not have equal access to the abundance of our world, but that does not change the fact that we have plenty of resources to meet the needs of everyone. Many of us have become very accustomed to satisfying a large percentage of our wants and desires in addition to our needs, however. Scarcity thinking tends to make us a bit self-absorbed from time to time, and we can develop a sense of entitlement that suggests that we are worth more than other people -- that we deserve something that other people do not deserve. We create imbalance. We create the lines that separate Us from Them. That is our current reality.

We could judge that current reality, and we could suggest that the system needs to change to satisfy our ideas about how things should be. We are limited in the extent of our control, however. We actually have control over our own decisions, and we actually have responsibility for our own thoughts and actions. So, while it can be superficially satisfying to proclaim how the world ought to be, what is potentially even more deeply satisfying is for us to make decisions in our own lives that reflect our awareness of abundance and our own meaningful guiding principles. That will most likely mean something a little bit different to everyone. Perhaps it will mean reallocating some time and money more intentionally. Perhaps it will mean being less anxious and fearful about not getting what we think we deserve. Perhaps it will mean taking a few months and going overseas to build wells or care for children on the fringes of their society. Everyone's life is different.

Most likely, even the most intentional among us will slip into scarcity thinking from time to time. We will want to protect ourselves and what we have, we will be anxious about not having enough, and we will perhaps even make claims that we deserve more than other people. Abundance thinking, however, realigns us to a deeper self, a calmer and less anxious self. Abundance thinking affirms the possibilities available to us and invokes our vast creativity. From abundance thinking, generosity and gratitude flow. My personal guiding principle is that people matter -- that every person has inherent worth and dignity. I simply cannot align with that guiding principle in my life if I think in terms of scarcity. What is your guiding principle? Is it served best by thinking in terms of scarcity or in terms of abundance? 

Mark 4:35-5:43: If Someone Started Handing Out Miracles, Everybody Would Want To Be First in Line

The miracle stories in the gospels reflect many myths about healers and miracle workers in the ancient world. For instance, close parallels to the gospel accounts can be found in the legends of a Greek demigod of healing, Asclepius. The symbol associated with Asclepius is a serpent coiled around a staff, which is similar enough to the "caduceus" of Hermes (two serpents coiled around a winged staff), that many North American medical practitioners have mistakenly adopted the caduceus as a symbol of healing. Hermes, incidentally, was a protector of merchants, thieves, and liars, but we need not read too much into an honest mistake of the medical community. Asclepius, on the other hand, was a supernatural healer who traveled around performing the kinds of miracles we read of Jesus performing in chapter 5 of the gospel of Mark. In fact, various bits of mythology about Asclepius suggests that raising people from the dead got him killed at the hands of another god who was upset about the healer's intervention.

The comparison to Asclepius is particularly relevant because the gospel stories so closely resemble tales of this Greek figure, but every human culture has stories about miracles and magic. We have always been fascinated with stories that suggest the possibility that a loved one could be brought back from the dead, or be inexplicably healed when all seemed lost. Many stories even suggest the penalties or curses that must accompany tampering with the natural order of things. We are still drawn to tales about individuals who can perform miraculous or magical feats, perhaps because there is a part of us all that longs for the ability -- or at least to know someone with the ability -- to defy the natural order of things on our behalf. We want to be exceptional, or at least well liked by someone who is exceptional.

People everywhere have these stories, and yet so often we get wrapped up in which stories are truth and which are fiction. Today, no one actually believes that there is a sun god Apollo, much less that he had a half-human son who went around performing miracles until his beneficent actions crossed a line that worried Hades, god of the underworld. Some of those who insist that any tale of Asclepius must be patently false would believe the story, however, if the names were changed a little bit. Tell any story of Asclepius and substitute the name "Jesus," and suddenly the miracle story seems more believable. This is a rather remarkable phenomenon, actually. Instead of recognizing how much people everywhere long to be exempt from the natural order of things, some people insist that they are, in fact, exempt from the natural order of things.

Here is something to consider: If every culture has stories about magic and miracles, and we do not witness any magic or miracles on the scale of these folktales, then perhaps all these stories say more about human culture than about any specific miracle worker. "But miracles do still happen!" Sure, if you want to shift the qualification of a miracle to "something I didn't expect," then we have modern-day miracles. However, none of the "miracles" we might see in the world today are on the scale of these mythological stories of Jesus, Asclepius, and others. We have lowered the bar on what constitutes a miracle, perhaps, but this also says a great deal about our longing to ignore the complexities of the natural world in order to consider ourselves in some way exempt, special, important, or even powerful.

After all, why do people believe that God will answer their specific prayers? Is it not because they believe that they are in some way special? More beloved, more important, more powerful than other people? Perhaps some people actually expect that God will defy the natural order of things for anyone who prays sincerely, but most people are keen enough to realize that this would mean God could favorably answer the prayers of people they don't like -- or that God could potentially be faced with sincere yet contradictory prayers. In other words, there would be no natural order of things if God disrupted the natural order of things in response to everyone. Which means that, if God works miracles for anyone at all, some people must be special, set apart, chosen, better than everyone else. At some level, we all want to be exceptional enough that someone considers us worthy of being exempt from the natural order of things.

Miracle stories are wonderful tales that can grant us insight into the things we want and fear most. When we begin to insist that they are factual accounts, and that we can realistically expect the same sorts of results in our own lives or the lives of people around us, we miss the point. Religious justification keeps us disconnected from reality and from the people with whom we share this world. We are all the same, at the end of the day. Whether one believes in God or not, mature wisdom will lead one to reconcile faith with the reality that everyone fears sickness and death to some extent, and everyone is attracted to some sort of story that suggests that sickness and death -- even the weather -- can be overcome. Tales of boy wizards or fantastic stories of Middle Earth touch on this very thing. We want to believe that someone we are exceptional enough to be free of pain. If the miraculous is possible, then perhaps we can be the beneficiaries. Isn't that better than not believing in the miraculous at all?

Actually, no. Recognizing that the unexpected can happen is a brilliant way to bear witness to the wonder and complexity of nature. Belief in the truly miraculous, though, usually comes with a set of false expectations about life. When we are honest, we realize that people are all pretty much the same. No one is more worthy of a miracle than anyone else. We are responsible for our own well-being. We must care for ourselves in a way that does not consider an "escape hatch" miracle to be a plausible way of handling our lives. We must bear our grief and our pain, and hopefully we can do so in connection with other people. There will be pain, and no one is exceptional enough to avoid it. And while it is comforting to believe in an afterlife, we do not have any convincing evidence that people experience anything at all after the brain shuts down. Quite the opposite, actually. We know with certainty that we have this life, though. If there are no miracles in store for us, and we may have just a brief time in this life to experience all that we can, learn all that we can, and love all that we can, let's do that.

If we truly live our deepest intentions and do all that we can to make this world a better place, then we will actually be quite exceptional. But it still won't mean anyone's worth more than anybody else.

Casting Out Demons

In the Gospel of Mark, after Jesus calls his first disciples, he begins his ministry of miraculous healing and exorcism. The authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke copy these stories from Mark, editing them a bit as suited their particular messages. Throughout the Gospel of Mark there runs a thematic element of Jesus telling demons and people to keep his identity a secret; this is known as Mark's "messianic secret" theme. The author of the Gospel of Luke preserves the formulaic silencing of demons in his retelling of the exorcisms, probably because these texts were used in actual exorcisms, and thus the specific words and actions were ritually important. For this collection of short passages, the Gospel of Luke closely follows the version in Mark with a few minor edits. The author of the Gospel of Matthew spaces out these passages in three separate places, interspersing other miracle stories and teachings that were important to the author's portrait of Jesus. The thrust of these passages is that Jesus performed effective acts of healing and exorcism as part of his ministry.
Of course, we have lots of stories of exorcisms and miraculous healing from both before and after the writing of the gospels. Some of these stories make spectacular claims about actual people while others feature fictional healers, like the abundant ancient stories of the Greek demigod Asclepius. Faith healing has been associated with a variety of belief systems, as has exorcism, and both are still practiced to some extent in the world today. The breadth of these claims across human history offers a few choices about how one may respond in terms of belief.

One could believe that all faith healing and exorcism is to some extent true, but that would be a difficult position to maintain. Apart from many of the stories being clearly fictitious, belief in faith healing is challenged by the exposure of many frauds like Jack Coe, Kathryn Kuhlman, and Peter Popoff, and abundant scientific research has shown the ineffectiveness of spiritual healing and intercessory prayer in a medical setting. Even the American Cancer Society and the American Medical Association have published statements against faith healing, because of numerous tragic reports of people with serious illnesses who died because they relied on faith rather than medical treatment. Choosing to believe in faith healing in light of the evidence equates with ignoring reality.

It is possible that some stories are true while many are false, however. Some might choose to believe in the veracity of ancient stories that predate modern medicine, or in just the stories that paint the heroes of their particular faith in a positive light. The challenge then becomes how to discern which stories are true and which are false with no evidence. A person will obviously approach a story already committed to a belief, and the story itself will be judged by presumption rather than on its own merits. Since we do not have any verifiable, scientifically documented cases of faith healing or demon possession, there is no real support for believing in any faith healing. Although it is impossible to disprove an assertion that Jesus (and his true disciples throughout the ages) performed actual miracles while all others were mere charlatans, the available evidence suggests that actual, effective faith healing is unlikely.

There is a reason that faith healing and exorcism are lumped together in the gospel stories. The ancient world believed that many cases of illness were manifestations of demonic activity. Their understanding of biological reality was not as advanced as ours, and they wanted explanations for the things they did not understand. Demons were an easy explanation for bad things like disease. For some reason, even though our understanding of the physical world increased exponentially, belief in demons still persists. In twenty-first century books on Christian spirituality, one can still find abundant assertions that demonic activity and spiritual warfare are legitimate concerns, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. What is so appealing about holding on to a primitive worldview?

First of all, the evidence refuting demonic activity and possession is easy to dismiss if one believes that demons are real. If demons actually exist, they would certainly be able to fool a few scientists and doctors, after all. The belief seems far too deeply convincing to be damaged by a little scientific report. In actuality, if demons were prevalent, it would be a miracle if any scientific studies were ever replicable. If the world is constantly influenced by the supernatural, there would be no way to obtain reliable evidence about disease, or any natural phenomenon for that matter. If demons caused disease, we would not be able to create medical cures and vaccinations, unless demons are susceptible to the laws of the natural, scientifically verifiable world. And if demons are susceptible to the laws of the scientifically verifiable world, science would be able to test for demonic activity and verify which instances of disease are the result of demons and which instances of disease are caused by something else. What we know about the natural world and about the increasing efficacy of medical treatment strongly suggests that there are no demons.

There are some cases, however, that seem to fly in the face of that evidence, however. Anecdotes about an exorcism in which some supernatural event transpired, or about how prayer healed someone, or about some personal encounter with spiritual forces entice us to leave the door open for the supernatural. The more we learn, the more we realize how creative we can be when we don't understand something. Human beings are creators. When something doesn't make sense to us, we invent a hypothesis. Sometimes we test that hypothesis -- we do a bit of research, we perform a few experiments, we determine if our hypothesis really holds water. Other times, we are so satisfied with our hypothesis that we simply run with it, even when our hypothesis leads us to do real harm to ourselves or other people (as is the case in many documented exorcisms). Our belief in the supernatural, thus, is evidence of human creativity and laziness. When we take the time to investigate the things we do not understand, and we persist until we have understanding, we learn that the natural world can be bizarre and astounding all on its own, without the need for supernatural influence.

The real attraction, though, is that belief in demonic activity gives us a scapegoat. If we are constantly being assaulted by dark spiritual forces, then we have something to blame when we act shamefully. We can still beat ourselves up for giving in to temptation, but it's much easier to be a helpless victim to demons than it is to be a personally responsible human being. When our children behave in a way that we don't understand, belief in demonic activity can allow us to preserve our impression of them as innocents who need to rely on us to survive. Out of our own insecurities and fears, we might fail to provide effective medical or psychiatric care for our loved ones. If we believe that it's possible for our actions, or the actions of other people, to be influenced by external, powerful, supernatural entities, we don't have to examine our own thoughts and actions as closely. We don't have to confront the real challenges in life because we have invented imaginary challenges. While demons are not necessarily more attractive than reality, our ways of confronting demons might be more appealing than the sometimes difficult emotional work of confronting reality and taking responsibility for our own growth. Belief in demons is a crutch that hinders people from being fully engaged in their own lives.

People become addicted to things -- substances, behaviors, routines. People get sick. People commit crimes. People break their promises. People do things that harm other people. People do things they later regret. Not demons. People. Not people under the influence of demons. Just every-day, ordinary people. If a person wants to change -- if a person wants to break an addiction, treat a medical condition, keep promises, respect other people, act in accordance with a nobler inner self -- the answer is not exorcism. The answer is personal responsibility. If we confront the things within ourselves that lead us away from our own deep sense of worth, then we can more effectively be our authentic selves in the world. We can figuratively call those things our "inner demons" if we want to, but it's all just us. The lies we tell and the false beliefs we cultivate come from within ourselves, and we have the power to dismantle those lies and false beliefs and tell the truth about ourselves and the people around us. Integrity comes from letting go of blame and embracing our own capability.

So there are no demons, although there are things in the world we do not yet understand. We don't always like what we do, particularly when our actions don't line up with what we claim to believe. Still, we are responsible for all of our actions, even the ones about which we aren't happy. We are responsible for our beliefs, too. We don't have to believe things that reinforce the idea that we are weaklings or victims. Such beliefs hinder us from being all that we can be in the world, and such beliefs keep us from seeing other people clearly. It makes sense to believe in what's real. People are incredible. The world is amazing. If we start there, our journey will be infinitely more satisfying.

1 Kings 17-18: Seeing Beyond Caricatures to an End of Religious Arrogance

There were probably many Elijah stories floating around in ancient Israel, only a handful of which made it into canonical biblical texts. The character of Elijah makes frequent appearances in Jewish rabbinic literature and folklore as well. While the tales are blatantly legendary, many of these Elijah myths are instructive. The prophet's first appearance in the Old Testament is 1 Kings 17-18, where Elijah appears as a holy foil to the evil King Ahab and his foreign, Jew-hating wife Jezebel. These chapters relate the tale of a fallen Jewish people who have abandoned their religion and adopted the worship of foreign deities, for which they suffer a devastating drought. Elijah humiliates and kills the prophets of the other faith and convinces the Israelites to return to the worship of their own deity. Most likely written in the years following the Babylonian Exile, this story offered hope that there could be restoration after a period of perceived punishment.

Several interesting characteristics about the prophet are present in this story. First, Elijah claims power over the drought (although he does express fealty to the god of Israel). His time with the widow at Zarephath seems strikingly similar to (and thus was possibly a model for) a miracle story attributed to Jesus regarding making a little bit of food go a long way. Elijah has the power to effectively restore life to people who have died, and he has no problem killing people who promote a different religion from his own. Stories about Elijah fit typical patterns of hero myths from the ancient world, and the basic theme of "our god is better than your god" is an effective message of hope for a people who have been immersed in a foreign culture for decades.

The story is also a striking commentary about the Israelite people (or perhaps all ancient peoples). They are perfectly happy to go along with the most impressive magician of the moment and call it faith, and they are willing to slaughter 850 people at the word of one charismatic fellow with a convincing stage act. They don't seem to mind the implication that Yahweh will do what Elijah tells him to do, while their other faithful Jewish prophets have been holed up in a cave for three years, presumably unable to make any spectacular requests of the god they serve. Either God is only willing to work through one special person, or none of the hundred other prophets were tuned into God's plan. Whichever the case, it paints a tenuous and unsettling picture of a nation's relationship with the divine. What would they do if Elijah didn't happen to be around? How could they trust any of their priests and prophets to effectively guide them once they return to their ancestral religion?  

Hero myths never presume to answer such questions, though. People necessarily become caricatures in folktales, and after all, the story isn't intended as an actual report of historical events; it's about the Israelites rebuilding their sense of religious connection after a time of exile, which they interpreted as divine discipline. There was a message of hope and redemption imbedded in this story featuring a well-known folk hero. What then shall we derive from this tale, we who do not thirst for a sense of post-Exilic restoration?

It isn't that we should expect miracles. There are no recent reputable reports of miraculous occurrences like the dead being raised by a fervent prayer or a water-logged altar being consumed by divine fire. In other words, we have no counterpart for these miracles in contemporary society, and thus we must consider the miracles to be symbolic elements in a story and not replicable historical events. We should not even expect that God will do what we want if we pray fervently enough. Certainly, if we pray for rain long enough (such as the three years that Elijah waits in the story), it will eventually rain. That doesn't mean that our prayer was actively, intelligently answered. It simply means that what we desired eventually lined up with reality.

There is also no real value in turning this story or others like it into a popularity contest between religions. There were no real good guys and bad guys here; Baal and Asherah are as fictional as Yahweh. The hero of this sort of tale is determined by who is telling the story. If anything, we might recognize the disconnect between our present age of scientific knowledge and the time of our ancestors, who believed that unseen supernatural forces were in control of the weather and used it to reward or punish human beings. The idea seems preposterous to most people today, although even in the twenty-first century there are those who hold prayer rallies to pray for rain (ineffectual though such rallies turn out to be). We know more about the world than people once did, and we should live our lives based on that very real, testable knowledge.

Here is something worth noting: If we want to light a fire, we should get matches. Or a butane lighter of some kind perhaps. If we want to arrive someplace safely, we should be cautious and patient drivers. There are other factors, of course, but we have a great deal of control over creating what we want. If we take time for introspection, we will learn that we have the answers to a great many dilemmas in life; we are simply not accustomed to listening to ourselves. We are so unaccustomed to paying attention to our deepest and most noble selves, in fact, that it can seem like the action of some supernatural force outside of ourselves when we perceive a clear and direct sense of who we most want to be and what we most want to be doing. Even decisions like what subject to choose as a major in college, which job to accept, which route to take across town -- these decisions ultimately come from within ourselves, and we are often quite insightful when we give ourselves a chance. Prayer puts the focus on an imaginary force outside of ourselves; time for quiet, focused introspection can yield the same exact result without the unnecessary baggage of religious dogma.

The only reason the Israelites were willing participants in the worship of Jezebel's gods is that religion made sense to them as a way to address the issues of their lives. It doesn't actually matter what Jezebel thought about the Phoenician gods, we know enough to say that people of the ancient world imagined a supernatural underpinning to their perceivable reality. If something doesn't make sense to us today, we are capable of considering we simply don't understand without resorting to supernatural explanations. Moreover, if we are less hasty to attribute the things we don't understand to the supernatural, our curiosity can drive us to discoveries about ourselves and the world around us we might never have made otherwise. We can realistically create meaningful and connected societies on the basis of actual data and honest exploration rather than on what we imagine a supernatural being might want of us or accomplish for us.

Religion teaches us to undervalue ourselves on the one hand, by robbing us of our personal capability and responsibility and pinning it to an imaginary supernatural entity. On the other hand, religion imbues us with a sense of superiority, assuming our version of an imaginary supernatural entity is better than anyone else's. Religion gives us compelling parameters by which we can effectively judge other people who disagree with our confabulation and draw lines of separation between ourselves and people who look, behave, or think differently from us. Some may say that human beings will do this with or without religion, but removing the unfounded and irrational justification of religious dogma from the mix takes the teeth out of a great many lines of division in our world. Without religious justification, we are forced to admit that by and large, most of our assertions about other people are only opinions, however strong those opinions may be.    

There is still suffering in the world in the twenty-first century, and the answer is not to round up and execute a bunch of heretics. We have to learn to see other people not as caricatures and stereotypes, but as human beings with inherent worth. We share this planet, this reality, with an awful lot of people who think and live differently from us, and the answer is not to eradicate or dehumanize everyone that is "Other." By growing ourselves to allow the whole of humanity within our sphere of acceptability, we build what is called the "kingdom of God" by the writer of the gospel of Matthew. Our world has outgrown the prescriptions of religion that separate people into worthy and worthless, if such delineations were ever truly needed. No supernatural entity is going to do the work for us, but we are capable of phenomenal acts of creation when we are willing. The value and dignity of every person is where that creative act begins.