Mark 16: The Persistence of Belief

This is how the gospel of Mark ends in the oldest manuscripts:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Someone didn't think that was a very good ending, however, so at some later point, this was added: "And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation."

The last chapter of Mark was eventually extended to include more spectacular reports, alluding to an exorcism story about Mary Magdalene that doesn't otherwise make an appearance in the Bible, snake handling, faith healing, and the ability of believers to consume poison without being harmed. As frustrating as I find some Christians to be on occasion, I cannot advocate drinking poison or playing with cottonmouths. The absence of any credibly documented cases of faith healing and the continued deaths of pastors who dance with rattlesnakes (the most recent case being February of this year in Kentucky) should be enough to suggest that the "longer ending" of Mark may not be a helpful prescription of religious practice.

Of course, the authors who continued to add to the gospel of Mark were doing what we all tend to do. When the report seemed unsatisfactory, they "improved" it so that it matched what they wanted to believe. When reality doesn't match what we want it to be, we often attempt to explain things -- or even manipulate things -- so that what we want to believe still seems plausible. If I really want to believe that aliens visit me every night and implant cosmic secrets in my kidneys, it doesn't matter if you videotape night after night of me sleeping undisturbed. I'll embellish my belief to grant that the aliens must be invisible, or at least undetectable by video technology. When we really want to believe in something, we are often undeterred by reality.

This can be amusing if we keep to reading horoscopes, tossing salt over our shoulders, and wearing our lucky socks when we play softball. Our beliefs that ignore evidence sometimes lead us to harm ourselves and other people however. Relying on a supernatural to heal illnesses instead of relying on competent medical professionals is one way that beliefs cause harm every day in the United States. Another type of evidence-resistance belief is the prejudice that we hold toward people of different religions, ethnicities, or sexualities. Once we are committed to the belief that Muslims all hate America, no amount of evidence to the contrary (which exists in abundance, by the way) will convince us otherwise. We have to be willing for our beliefs to evolve in order for our view of the world to be brought into greater alignment with what is actually so. We have to be willing for legitimate evidence to weigh more heavily than what we imagine might well be the case. Moreover, we have to be sharp enough to be willing to distinguish legitimate evidence from propaganda.

Throughout this spring, I participated in a course on Christian ethics. What I concluded was that there is no such thing as explicitly "Christian" ethics. We know how people should be treated, and whether we are Atheist, Humanist, Jewish, Wiccan, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or otherwise, our basic understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior is more or less consistent. We can and do invent plenty of reasons to justify unethical behavior, but we generally know what we ought to do even when we defiantly choose to do something else. Christians may have a special reason for choosing to be ethical, but other groups of people have equally compelling different reasons. No one has cornered the market on ethical behavior.

There is another important reason I've concluded that there is no such thing as "Christian" ethics, at least as the concept was portrayed in the course I took. Christians are not universally consistently ethical. If Christianity in and of itself was enough to make a person more ethical, the past two thousand years would be filled with evidence that Christian people were more ethical than non-Christian people. It simply isn't so. Christian people are as prone to be ethical (or unethical) as people of any other belief system. Christianity isn't the determining factor; it doesn't really impact one's ability to be ethical. From a Christian perspective, however, it would seem to be very easy to dismiss all evidence that contradicts a special claim to ethical or moral identity. Theologians invent terms like "anonymous Christian" for those people who do not accept the premises of Christianity, yet still behave in a way that is seen to be congruent with the example of Jesus. Yet, it isn't that they are "anonymous Christians;" they are simply human beings choosing to live by an ethical standard that is actually congruent with every major religion (and some minor ones, too).

Nearly every theologian studied in this Christian ethics course expressed some version of the same fallacy: "One cannot be ethical unless one is Christian." "One cannot love others without recognizing Jesus as lord." "One cannot care about the well-being of one's community without believing in the sovereignty of the Christian God." "One cannot be moral without accepting the supernatural premises of Christianity." "One cannot be fully human and also be Atheist." When these are the premises that are hammered into a Christian's brain, it's no wonder so many people are scared for the future of their country and their world if there are more and more non-believers.

The fact of the matter is that believers behave as unethically as non-believers, and that non-believers behave as ethically as believers. When we embellish our beliefs in order to stay rooted in familiar assertions despite ample evidence that we need to shift our beliefs a bit, we live apart from reality. We try to engage the world from a false premise. That's a frustrating endeavor no matter who you are. Reality doesn't change just because you believe it ought to be different. All of this effort to make the stories we want to tell seem more true actually prevents us from doing the things that could create the kind of world we most want to live in. Willfully ignoring or misinterpreting reality is not going to get us any closer to a best possible version of ourselves.

Wanting people to believe what we believe is a plea for safety. We want to be right, because being wrong feels bad. We don't want to feel shame; we don't want to be humiliated. Being right -- insisting that we are right no matter what evidence suggests -- allows us to avoid shame and humiliation. The problem is that we are always going to be wrong about something. There is no shame in that. Being wrong means we get to learn and grow into someone better than the person we were when we woke up this morning. Listening to other people's beliefs and listening to their challenges to our beliefs helps us sharpen our perspectives and be more in line with what actually is. We can't create a better world if we are imagining the world to be a completely different place than what it actually is.

And we all want to contribute to a better world. Deep down inside, beneath whatever fears and lies we have cultivated over the course of our lives, we all want pretty much the same thing. We don't have to do dangerous and stupid things to prove that we are right. We can choose to acknowledge that all the people around us are potential co-creators rather than threats. What we believe about people matters, because it determines how we're going to treat them. What we believe about ourselves matters, because it determines how we're going to engage in life. Whether there was an actual resurrection doesn't matter. Whether seven demons inhabited Mary Magdalene doesn't matter. When we try to debate those sorts of things, no one gains any ground. If we are willing to recognize that our beliefs -- precious though they may be to us -- are just one way of looking at the world, we might be open to seeing the merits of other perspectives. This helps us see more clearly, and it helps us express our own perspectives more clearly, without demanding agreement. When we can do that, we can have genuine partnership with other human beings. Isn't that worth more than insisting on something that we have no way of proving or demonstrating?

I will say one more thing about the Christian ethics course. If everyone who claimed to believe that the example of Jesus was worth following actually lived by the example of Jesus, then there might be something the theologians could point to. It would be really something if every Humanist practiced seeing the humanity in everyone, if every Christian practiced seeing Christ in everyone, if every Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Wiccan, and on down the line practiced seeing the divine in everyone. If that were how we allowed our particular belief systems to define how we engage in human relationships, the world would be a different (better) place. And we'd all actually be seeing the same thing when we look at one another: Sacred human beings. People just like us in the ways that matter most. 

Isaiah 7-8: Calm Down, Trust Yourself, and Act with Integrity

Recalling the historical narrative of Judah from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, Ahaz was king of Judah when Israel and Aram joined forces and set out to conquer Jerusalem. Isaiah acted as adviser to Ahaz during this time, offering him reassurance, encouraging him to stand firm, and illustrating his advice with the imminent birth of a son to the young wife of Ahaz. This use of children as images of hope is augmented by Isaiah's two children in this passage as well.

Like the symbolic names of Hosea's children, which proclaimed judgment on an unjust and unfaithful society, Isaiah names his children "A remnant shall return" and "The spoil speeds, the prey hastens." The name of the first son is in reference to Isaiah's confidence that the people of Judah will not be utterly destroyed, and the name of the second son is an indication that Judah's enemies will be utterly destroyed. Although Ahaz names his child Hezekiah, while Ahaz's wife is still pregnant, Isaiah refers to the child by the symbolic name "God is with us," which may indicate that this portion of Isaiah was written after the conflict with Israel and Aram was resolved and after it was clear what kind of leader Hezekiah would be.

Christians have appropriated this name, "Immanu-el," and this word of reassurance by Isaiah to Ahaz, as a reference to Jesus, but this makes little sense. Isaiah is obviously offering some near-future hope for Ahaz, indicating that the immediate enemies of Judah would be no threat at all by the time a child about to be born was eating solid food. As it happens, Hezekiah was a young boy when Israel fell to Assyria, and his leadership as king was a time of hope for Judah, as he ushered in a wave of internal religious and political reforms. As we shall see, Isaiah was an adviser to Hezekiah, too. In a case of the apple falling not far from the tree, both Ahaz and Hezekiah ignored Isaiah's advice; Ahaz voluntarily made Judah subject to Assyrian rule, and Hezekiah made a dangerous alliance with Egypt against Assyria.

There's no real need to go into whether El was really the same deity as Yahweh. There are plenty of other people making hypotheses about that sort of thing, and we can't really know for sure what the author of Isaiah was thinking. Our task here is to discover if there is something of value for us in this report of advice given to a king over 2500 years ago. Believers might claim the promise that their version of God is with them and has their best interest in mind if they only trust and wait (what Ahaz was instructed to do). This is somewhat flawed theology on a couple of levels. First, the words of Isaiah 8 are clearly to a particular individual about a particular situation, and to other people in different situations, different prophetic advice is given. Second, it's easy to overlook in our assertions that our supernatural will hear our prayers that other people may be praying for the exact opposite thing -- or at least something that is incompatible with what we're praying. Third, if the only point of human existence is to trust a supernatural and wait for everything to just be worked out for us, then we have no real purpose and human life is rather meaningless.

If we consider that there is no external deity orchestrating things on our behalf, but that whatever we call divinity is something within us -- something that is a human characteristic that all people have within them -- we can look at Isaiah's words a bit differently. It's true that circumstances do change, and it's true that patience often serves us better than reactivity. Isaiah's words might be taken here to mean that we should not become anxious at every apparent obstacle or threat in our lives, but that we should respond to our circumstances out of a deep connection with our innermost being. We should not work so hard to defend ourselves; we should instead confidently be ourselves. Rather than try to convince other people of our perspective, we might get more traction out of simply living out our deepest, most noble selves.

Permit me a personal story, if you will. I once worked for a company that had a number of anxious people. A systematic reinforcement of poor communication skills combined with a pervasive sense of entitlement and a lack of clear shared vision resulted in what was, for me, a toxic environment. I had some ideas about how to improve things, not only for my own preferences, but for the sake of everyone connected to the company. I also have an unusually high tolerance for change, and at the time, I did not appreciate or respect that few people share my eagerness to change things, even if it is for the better. The more aggressive I was in promoting a different way of doing things, the more aggressive the resistance became on the other side. In some ways, my situation was like that of Ahaz.

Had I been a little more patient, the situation may have turned out differently. Personnel changed, and people who were more interested in purposeful improvement assumed leadership positions. By then, though, I was long gone. Being more patient, however, would not have meant doing nothing. Developing and maintaining a deep connection with oneself is work. Listening compassionately to other people's anxiety can be work, too. Managing one's own anxiety and dismantling one's own fears is work. Being patient with a set of circumstances doesn't at all mean that no work is being done. In all honesty, in my own Ahaz situation, I had not done the work I needed to do within myself to support the kinds of actions I was suggesting.

It's easy to react to what we perceive as threats. We want to fight back, or defend ourselves, or just roll over and make the anxiety go away through passivity. When we feel threatened, it's important to be realistic about that anxiety. Sometimes, there is some action that we can take, and sometimes there isn't as much of a threat as we might think. Even if there is something we can do, though, it's important for us to act with integrity to who we most want to be in the world, rather than acting out of rabid defensiveness or overwhelming anxiety.

Isaiah was really suggesting three things to Ahaz, which I'm interpreting here into a non-religious context.

First, calm down. Whatever it is in your life that allows you to bring your own anxiety under control, be committed to doing that. If you don't know what brings your anxiety under control, be committed to discovering that. Knowing how to become less anxious (and actually doing it) is the most important thing you can do in your life, for your own well-being and for the well-being of everyone around you.

Second, trust yourself. Your deepest, most noble self is trustworthy. There may be lies that you have come to believe about yourself, other people, and reality, and there may be vows that you have made about what you must or must not do or be. Beneath those artificial protections, though, you are capable. You are trustworthy. You are enough. You are creative. You are beautiful. You are insightful. You have inherent worth and dignity. If you don't know and trust this about yourself, commit to discovering this truth about you. Develop a discipline of introspection. Engage in self-discovery activities. Work with a trusted friend or coach to learn how to be more connected to who you really are and what you really want. You cannot be who you most want to be in the world if you don't know who that is. This is important because you are important.

Third, act with integrity. I don't mean here "integrity" in the sense of keeping your word; sometimes promises need to be broken. I mean "integrity" in the sense that we say a bridge or a building has integrity. I mean allowing your words and actions to be congruent with your authentic self. Once you have managed your anxiety and honestly analyzed the threats, and once you have connected with yourself beyond the fears and lies we all carry around and recognized who you most want to be in the world, be that person. Act in accordance with who you are. This goes beyond horoscope-style adjectives; who you are engages the very things that nourish you, your passions, your convictions, your commitments, your dreams. Acting with integrity means creating the world we most want to live in.

That's what Isaiah was suggesting to Ahaz. It takes a bit of work. No wonder Ahaz had a hard time following through. It's possible, though. It's possible for you. Whether there are no apparent threats on your horizon, or whether you feel constantly under fire, you can calm down, trust yourself, and act with integrity to who you most want to be in the world. One big help is having people to journey with, people who embrace the same commitment in their own lives. We are bound to stumble a bit; we are bound to get anxious or act out of line with who we most want to be. When we journey together with others, it seems a lot easier to be graceful with ourselves and get back on track.

Mark 10: Divorce and Personal Responsibility in Human Relationships

People get married for all sorts of reasons in the twenty-first century. Considerable research has gone into the views of marriage and women in the first century, and to some extent this research has helped to make some sense of words written centuries ago. In Mark 10, some specific and absolute instructions regarding divorce are expressed through words attributed to Jesus, and it is worth considering the spirit of those words in addition to how those instructions may be of use to us.

First, it is worth noting that the author of Mark is, to a certain extent, promoting greater justice for women. Jewish society and law favored men. Since wives were largely seen as the property of husbands, married women could be stoned to death for adultery, while married men were not necessarily subject to such severe punishment. A divorced woman also had fewer options in society, since the primary role of women at the time was that of wife and mother. With priority placed on virginity, it was challenging for a divorced woman to remarry; divorced men did not face such difficulties. In fact, it was legal at the time for a man to have multiple wives, but a woman could not have multiple husbands. While some interpretations of Jewish law allowed for a husband to divorce a wife for any reason, limiting the circumstances under which divorce was acceptable meant greater security for women.

Second, rather than inventing something that could be considered heresy, Jesus is portrayed as quoting from accepted scriptures. The Pharisees, according to the story, intended to test Jesus, perhaps expecting that he would side with either Hillel or Shammai, two competing houses of rabbinic thought. Hillel taught that a man was justified in divorcing a wife if he became in any way displeased with her, even over trivial matters. Shammai taught that divorce was only permissible for serious offenses. Jesus perplexed his inquisitors by quoting from the Torah and deriving an even stricter position on divorce than the strictest school of Jewish thought. When the author of Matthew copies the story from the gospel of Mark, he adds a point of clarification, however. According to the gospel of Matthew, not only does Jesus allow for divorce on the grounds of unchastity (adultery or other sexual immorality), but he also encourages men who are willing to do so to forgo marriage altogether.

The version of this teaching in the gospel of Matthew brings up that it is preferable to become a eunuch, and the most direct definition of this word suggests that Jesus advocated willing castration. There were different sorts of eunuchs in the ancient world, however, and only certain roles required eunuchs to be castrated, primarily working in a harem. Some people in the ancient world who lived as men were not born with male genitalia. These men were also called eunuchs; they are probably included in the group Jesus refers to as eunuchs from birth. We have more precise language now than what was available in the ancient world. There were also men who abstained from sexual relations with women (even though they were physically capable) for reasons of religious conviction. This is probably what the author of Matthew is actually endorsing. There were also men who had no interest in sexual relations with women, although they were physically capable and not prohibited from doing so by any sense of religious purity. These men could also be labeled eunuchs, or natural eunuchs (to differentiate them from mutilated eunuchs); natural eunuchs may round out Jesus' category of eunuchs from birth. This was common enough in society that Josephus suggested that some people with masculine physical bodies had feminine souls. All of this suggests that we can't always know what the biblical authors were really intending by their words. It's obvious that the author of Matthew expresses through Jesus a preferred alternative to traditional heterosexual marriage relationships, and that this is very different from what the author of Mark conveys.

What is the point of going through all of this? Just to demonstrate that we can't superimpose biblical morality verbatim over twenty-first century culture. Even the Bible itself doesn't agree on how this teaching on divorce should be interpreted. Humanity has not necessarily matured all that much from two thousand years ago, though. There are places in the world in which women are still treated as property; still stoned, burned, or shot for issues of familial honor; still subjected to the whimsical abuses of the men around them. Religion has not matured with technology and knowledge and economy. Religion has, in many ways, reinforced primitive behavior. In part, this is because our religions do not necessarily challenge us to interpret truth from ancient texts, but rather allow us to project our preferences onto whatever scriptures we revere. If we look closely at the implications of Mark 10, we might find that it is a call toward greater emotional maturity in our relationships.

Through Jesus, the author conveys an absolute message that divorce is simply not justified. We know that this is not true. People get married without recognizing the long-term consequences of their decision. Sometimes people get married to people whose character turns out to be very different than what was portrayed during a courtship. Some spouses are abusive or dangerous, and it isn't reasonable to expect a person to adhere to a commitment without regard for personal safety. Breaking a vow is sometimes necessary for our own well-being. We run the risk of treating that flippantly, however, interpreting our well-being the way Hillel might -- considering the slightest offense as grounds for throwing in the towel. There are relatively few relationships that are actually restrictive, abusive, or dangerous enough to require for matters of personal safety that we break a commitment. So, what we are usually talking about is divorce as a personal preference.

There is no longer much of a societal stigma against divorce in most of the Western world. Even people who self-identify as Christians (but who are not particularly active in a faith community) are as likely as non-believers to end a marriage. "Nominal Conservative Protestants" are actually more likely to divorce than the religiously disinterested. So, even among people who worship Jesus, his words on divorce are not necessarily taken very seriously. According to the gospel of Mark, divorce was only permitted in the first place because people are hard-hearted. If we aren't going to take the strong words about the severity of divorce seriously, perhaps we can at least recognize the condition of our own hearts.

What the author of Mark calls hard-heartedness, we might call a lot of other things: selfishness, stubbornness, emotional immaturity. In all of our relationships, marriage and otherwise, we often dig our heels in and demand that the other person change if the relationship is to continue. If we aren't happy, we look for someone to blame, and we either try to fix that person or we require that they fix themselves. When that doesn't work, we might feel justified in moving on, and we might feel a strange mixture of superiority and victimhood when we do. The truth is that we have a lot to do with the quality of our relationships. The people with whom we're in relationship have a part to play, of course, but it's dishonest to suggest that someone else is responsible for our own happiness. When we allow ourselves to make demands of everyone but ourselves and to write off relationships that don't meet our standards, we limit our own growth and development as human beings. We stunt ourselves emotionally. This is the actual problem Mark 10 addresses.

If we think we can dismiss a spouse for any miniscule slight, it creates a power dynamic that requires nothing from us and dooms the other person to failure. If we create relationships characterized by equality, respect, and genuine love, those relationships stand a much better chance of being satisfying. That kind of relationship requires something of us. We have to take responsibility for our own role in creating that kind of dynamic with another person. If our relationships are to be mature and deeply satisfying, we have to be emotionally mature ourselves. We have to learn what we want and learn how to communicate that clearly to another human being. We have to learn how to listen and how to allow our guiding principles to be lived out in the messiness of human relationships. We have to be intentional about our words and actions. We have to keep growing.

The end result of an honest, loving, authentic relationship may not look like what any other two people would create. The goal is not to create a marriage or friendship or partnership that matches up with an arbitrary list of characteristics or a mold that society has created out of majority practice. Acting out what a spouse or partner or friend is "supposed to" be or do is not the goal. Sincerity, vulnerability, personal integrity, and bold authenticity are the key characteristics worth evoking. The goal might be better framed as a relationship in which you are willing and able to be completely yourself and in which the other party is able to be completely authentic as well, with no expectation that one individual is worth more than the other. Chances are that the result of such an intentional goal will look nothing like what first century Jewish marriages looked like, and that's probably a good thing. The point is that the quality of our relationships is our responsibility.

Sometimes, we will find that other people are not willing to participate in sincere, trusting, authentic relationships. Some people are not yet capable of living with intentionality and integrity. Some people aren't sure what their guiding principles are, and they aren't even sure how to figure it out. If we find ourselves in relationships with such people, we have choices. It isn't a matter of what is permissible under the law; it's a matter of what's permissible to our own deep sense of well-being. We can hopefully approach such circumstances with a deeper sense of self than just our personal preferences; we can hopefully get beyond our shallow stubbornness, selfishness, and immaturity.

Relationships are systems, though, and individuals cannot carry systems by themselves. When we have done all that there is to do -- when we have dismantled our irrational fears; deepened our sense of who we want to be in the world; confronted our lies about ourselves, other people, and relationships in general -- and we still find a relationship wanting, we can choose appropriate endings. There is no shame in doing our best, even if the end result winds up being less than we had hoped. If the time should come, we are capable of ending relationships with integrity and authenticity, too.

Mark 3:13-35: True Family and Recognizing Fearful Fruits

The remainder of Mark 3 has three distinct pieces: a list of The Twelve (the group of men who were supposedly authorized to run the sect in Jesus' absence), a discourse about sources of power, and a teaching about true family. The list of The Twelve is most likely an important credentialing of early church leaders, even though the authors of Matthew and Luke do not agree with the author of Mark or with one another as to who should be included in this list. We discussed discipleship a few weeks back, and while some may find spiritual lessons in these lists of names, there is much more attractive meat on the table in the verses that follow the list.

In the midst of his exorcisms and healing miracles, Jesus is accused of being in league with the prince of demons. In some circles, this is still an effective way to attack a person who challenges religious power structures. The response of Jesus as recorded in Mark (and copied by the authors of Matthew and Luke) is that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. In other words, if a person is doing good work in the world, how can he do this through an evil source? (Although Hollywood directors have been able to conceive of situations in which it would be advantageous for a powerful demon to drive off a less powerful demon, there was apparently no argument to the gospel writer's logic.) This leads into an illustration about robbing a strong man in all three synoptic gospels, and in the gospels of Matthew and Mark there is a warning about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, essentially saying that it is unforgivable to assert that work done by God is actually empowered by Satan. Mark moves on from there, but the authors of Matthew and Luke tacks on a little something extra. In Luke, this amounts to Jesus stating, "You're either for me or against me." In Matthew, however, there is a striking lesson about good and evil, in which the author scripts the famous line, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."

This chapter of the gospel of Mark ends with Jesus' family coming to see him, either because they were concerned that he was a few cards short of a full deck or just to pay him a visit, depending on which version of the story you read. In all three synoptic gospels, however, the authors agree on one thing: Jesus' true family are those people who behave the way God wants them to behave. This stretch of the gospel of Mark, taken in its full context as it occurs in other gospels, allows for some striking extrapolations about people and behavior.

For one thing, people may not be who they think they are or who they claim to be, but an observant person can know the truth about an individual based on the visible fruit born out of action. For example, there are lots of people who claim to be Christian yet consistently behave contrary to the teachings of Jesus. The gospel writers suggest in this passage that we don't actually need people to tell us what they believe, because we'll know what kind of people they are by their words and actions. If a person is constantly speaking hatefully about certain groups of people, this passage suggests that we can tell something about the mind of the speaker. Put more bluntly, when people speak hatefully about the GLBT community, or illegal immigrants, or any sort of religious group, it says more about the people speaking than it says about the objects of their derision. According to this passage, people cannot hide what is in their hearts.

Honestly, more than using this passage as a means of judging people as good or evil, keen observation can suggest to us when people are allowing their fears to run rampant and when they are tapping into a deeper sense of beauty, truth, and inspiration. People who say hateful things are really just communicating that they are afraid of something, maybe not even what they're being hateful about. Fear is incredibly powerful, and we are not trained to keep our irrational fears in check. Thus, when fear is prominent in our hearts, our actions will reflect it.

Another extrapolation, then, is that we need different sorts of people to sharpen our perspectives. When we are willing to engage openly and honestly with people who disagree with our beliefs, we stand a chance to learn something about ourselves and other people. Articulating what we want our lives to be about is one way that we can measure whether our own actions are lining up with what we want to create in the world, or whether we have allowed some measure of fear to take root in our own minds. Our vision of what we want in our lives does not have to match what other people envision. We do not need for anyone to agree with our beliefs or approve of our decisions for our own lives. When we recognize that clearly, we can engage more openly with people who disagree with us without either side needing to convince the other of anything. Our interaction can become a dialogue of learning, clarifying, and understanding.

We also benefit from the comfort of people who are like-minded. People who understand us also sharpen us, provided they are not the only people with whom we interact. Of course, it's easier to spend time around people who bolster our own points of view than it is to spend time with people who challenge us. Most people don't have trouble connecting with others who think like they do, but the sharpening happens when we have a clear sense of what we want to create in the world -- what kind of people we want to be. People with similar perspectives can also cultivate similar fears, and it can seem that our irrational fears are validated by outside confirmation. On the other hand, recognizing fear for what it is and dismantling it in cooperation with other people can be powerfully effective.

So, actions reflect beliefs. We can know whether fear is at work in our lives or in the lives of the people around us by observable words and actions. When we see that fear is at work in other people, we can avoid judging people as evil, and we can acknowledge that they are human beings of worth who happen to be experiencing fear. When we see fear at work in our own lives, we can more easily keep from judging ourselves, and we can seek ways to dismantle our irrational fears and get closer to living like the people we most want to be. This is easier when we have a group of people we can trust, around whom we can be vulnerable. The gospel writers had Jesus call these people his family. We can call it whatever we want, but the sentiment is that we can seek out people who are "true" brothers and sisters, working toward the same things, confronting the same challenges, holding the same ideals. We can seek out "true" mothers and fathers, mentors who have had a little more practice and who understand the irrational fears we want to dismantle in our lives. Some of us have actual blood-relative families that can be included in the category of "true family," but the hope expressed in the story of Jesus is that even when those human individuals disappoint, there are others in the world seeking the same things we are seeking.

This is actually true whether one wants to do harm or good in the world. We can find people who agree with our values, no matter what our values are. As one version of our passage reads, a person can use wealth to bring about good, and a fearful person can use wealth to bring about harm. I would like to suggest that any amount of harm we may want to inflict -- any hatred on which we may want to act -- is irrational fear wanting to be expressed. Honestly, we can do better than manifest more fear in the world. There is something deeper about us than the fears and beliefs we have taken on, and that something deeper is creative and hopeful and honest. We can tell the truth about how much we have in common with the people around us, even when it challenges some familiar and comfortable fears. We can create rather than destroy, even though creation often seems like much harder work. We can do these things because within each of us, despite all of our fears and beliefs about ourselves, we are capable, worthy, beautiful human beings. If we set aside our irrational fears and embrace our capability, how can we not create something incredible in our lives and the lives of people around us?

Exodus 14: The Other Side of the Coin (Recognizing When You Are the Leader and When You Are Not)

Thus far in the Exodus story, I’ve suggested that it’s more accurate for us to identify with the personal power of Moses rather than the victimhood of the other Israelites.  I’ve also suggested that what we think of as the divine is not an external intelligence but an inner part of ourselves.  It’s important to remember that the same is true for everyone, that each person has the capability to tap into a deep truth, beauty, and creativity.  Exodus 14 provides a couple examples of what happens when we fail to acknowledge our personal power and the personal authority of others.

Moses leads the Israelite plunderers on a cunning escape route that provokes the Egyptians to pursue them and attempt to reclaim their stolen goods.  When the Israelites see the Egyptians coming, their response to Moses is, “Were there not enough graves in Egypt that you led us out into the wilderness to die?”  Encouraging words from a devoted following?  Hardly.  And yet, there are probably similar accusations leveled at leaders all over the world each and every day.  While spiritual leadership can be abused, it’s also important to realize when someone else is exercising their capabilities for the greater good.

Every leadership role lives and dies by the trust of other people.  Some people are good at winning trust and fall short on the follow-through.  Some people are incredibly capable but have a difficult time helping other people see a lofty vision.  Some people fail to recognize how their strengths could turn the tide of a situation, so everyone loses out.  And some people are too busy trying to maintain control to recognize where their strengths end and another person’s strengths begin.  There is a balance that must be struck between embracing our own personal power and opening space for the capability of other people to shine.  When we tap into the deep truth, beauty, and creativity within us, our perception of equality may be challenged.

All people are equally valuable as human beings, but all people are not equally skilled in all things.  It’s simply dishonest to treat life like a game of kids’ “fair and fun” sports, where no score is kept and there are no winners and losers.  A false sense of equality leads to frustration, stagnation, and separation.  We wind up complaining about leaders instead of giving their ideas a chance to succeed.  We sometimes decide that we are being overlooked and spend our time trying to outdo someone else rather than focusing on the things that we are uniquely capable of doing.  Recognizing the deep truth, beauty, and creativity within ourselves and others leads to an honest sense of what we are able to contribute to the world and honest acknowledgement of the contributions of others.

As the story of the parting of the Red Sea continues, the people following Moses become convinced of his capability for a short time.  His connection with the divine was perhaps stronger than theirs was at the moment.  They don’t make much effort to develop their own connections to the divine, though, and before long, they are complaining once again and demanding that Moses’ leadership look like what they want it to.  They complain about things without suggesting any practical alternatives.  They make demands without considering what is required to satisfy those demands.  They expect to have something done for them rather than being part of a cooperative effort to make things better.  And as we’ll see later on, when leadership apart from Moses does emerge, it’s shallow and irresponsible.

Connection with the divine brings a certain amount of personal responsibility with it.  This goes for people who claim the labels of organized religions as well as people who chart their own spiritual courses.  It’s unwise to blindly accept the words of everyone who claims to speak for God.  But it’s also unwise to dismiss everyone who speaks with authority just because they may say something we don’t like.  Hostility and petty conflicts most often result from fears and false beliefs.  Our connection with the truth, beauty, and creativity within us combats those fears and beliefs and opens paths of cooperation.  Paths where we can confidently bring our honest strengths forward while allowing space for the honest strengths of others to shine as well.  Trying to tear other people down, or building ourselves up in dishonest ways, can never yield the same level of satisfaction that honest and authentic partnership brings.  Great satisfaction comes from partnership that places equal value on people as human beings while recognizing diverse abilities.