John 19: Personal Sedition and Its Consequences

Following the episode of Pontius Pilate's compromised integrity, the established community's reactivity to the message of radical love and authenticity culminates in an execution. This execution was nothing special within the context of the Roman Empire. Thousands of men were crucified for the crime of sedition, the public torture and capital punishment serving the additional purpose of dissuading other would-be insurrectionists. The Jesus character in the gospel of John is someone special, but the means of his execution is by no means unique for the time.

Like other gospel authors, the author of John can't resist telling the story so that some quips from the Hebrew scriptures seem prophetic. By the time the gospel of John was written, it was already part of Christian culture to look at their Jewish sacred texts and imagine that the earlier authors were writing about Jesus, which is to say that they imagined that the texts were about them. When the followers of a messiah claim that words written centuries ago were about the individual they revere, they are essentially asserting that they have special knowledge. "We are enlightened enough to know who these words really refer to. Everyone else is ignorant. We are special; you are not. You should listen to us, but we have no reason to listen to you."

If I looked back at something written in 1555 and decided that those words were actually referring to a twenty-first century individual, most folks would think I was a bit off my rocker. Except that, people do exactly that with the predictions of Nostradamus. Though the prophetic accuracy of Nostradamus has been debunked (along with much of his legendary biography), some people somehow think that a person living five centuries ago could see into the future and write actual predictive prophecies. At least with Nostradamus, he presumably had some idea that he was writing predictions of the future. The early Christians took things a step further and imagined that many different authors from centuries past were unknowingly writing about a particular individual, who just happened to be the legendary founder of their sect.

Thus, portions of the passion narrative in every gospel wind up being a somewhat cobbled together string of short excerpts from various authors within Hebrew Scriptures, interpreted as a sequence of events which then appear to have been prophetically predicted. It's a clever way to tell a story that legitimizes one's beliefs, and it also seems to have enough depth of meaning without digging any deeper than the appearance of prophetic fulfillment. Once you realize that what happens in the story seems to be the fulfillment of prophecy, there might seem to be no reason to look for a deeper meaning than that.

One way of seeking deeper meaning in the story is to reject the idea of a singular historical messianic figure and instead consider the personal application in our own lives. If the Jesus character here continues to be an exemplar who represents us, what does this story say about us? That we should placidly go to our death at the hands of angry and fearful religious conservatives who abdicate their violent desires to a cowardly, complicit government? Maybe not. Perhaps a more metaphorical approach will continue to serve us.

Crucifixion was the punishment primarily for sedition -- a crime which the Roman Empire considered to be worthy of public humiliation and torture, as a means of control as well as a means of execution. We know how poorly capital punishment works as a deterrent, and yet we're still strangely committed to that idea as a society. We can't really expect that the Romans could have been any more enlightened about its efficacy that we are. Sedition is rebellion against an authority, attempting to upset the balance of an existing power structure or social order. That is the explicit crime for which the Jesus character is executed. We know that the story doesn't end with the Jesus character's death, but he is effectively removed from participating fully in community in the same way he had been.

In our own lives, growth sometimes means committing acts of sedition, not against an actual government, but against some established social order or authority in our lives. Claiming our own personal power and creating a life that aligns with our deepest, most noble selves sometimes means upsetting some patterns that other people find comforting. When we act in a way that seems to threaten other people's sense of security -- especially if those people believe they are in positions of power over us -- those people are likely to react. Few people know how to manage their reactivity in a healthy way, and even fewer people are willing to do it, even if they know how. That means that our own growth and empowerment sometimes evokes fear in other people, because it seems like we're upsetting an order that they find comfortable.

Their reaction toward you may begin gently, with some effort to kindly guide you back into the patterns they find comfortable. They may escalate into threats about what will happen to you if you continue to upset the status quo. Eventually, some kind of violent reaction might close the door on your participation in that social structure. This doesn't necessarily mean that people will kill you or even physically harm you for outgrowing an established way of being, but emotional violence can still be devastating. People might kill a relationship by cutting off contact, by sowing rumors, or all sorts of other social and emotional executions. It isn't at all pleasant, but other people's reactivity is not your fault. Some relationships can heal again (which we'll consider as the gospel narrative continues), but they won't ever be quite the same. Once you leave a particular orbit, you can't quite forget all that you know from seeing things from a broader perspective.

We get into habits. It's easy to do, and it saves us having to consider every moment carefully, which could mentally incapacitate us. When we grow into a more intentional way of aligning with our deepest life-affirming values -- our personal guiding principles -- we inevitably have to examine some of the habitual ways we participate in our social structures and relationships. Living into a vision of a best possible version of ourselves may mean adopting some radically different behaviors than what we've habitually done in the past. This is not just an internal shift. When we change the dance, everyone on the dance floor with us is affected. Ultimately, we strive for our commitment to integrity and intentionality to improve the well-being of everyone around us. But change is unsettling for people, and they may not be ready for improved well-being if it means changing familiar and comfortable patterns.

Our decisions can be based on other people's anxiety. In fact, we often decide what to do based on how we think other people will react. We may be afraid of rejection, of being "unacceptable", or of losing a sense of belonging. We create limitations for ourselves based on what we think other people can handle. We play it safe. We might understandably choose the safety of familiar and comfortable patterns over the riskier path of personal empowerment. Many people seem content with conformity.

Or our decisions can be based on our own sense of self. We can prioritize our own deep values -- our own vision of a best possible version of ourselves -- over and above the anxiety of people around us. It's true that pursuing a path of greater integrity to our deepest, most noble selves might get us metaphorically crucified for sedition against an established social order. It's also true that alignment to our deepest life-affirming values creates greater wholeness not only for us, but also for the people around us. There is always more to the story than mourning what anxiety destroys.

When we dismantle our own irrational fears and live toward a vision of a best possible version of ourselves, we will necessarily connect with other human beings. We may end up finding new people to connect to, and we may connect with people differently. One way or another, though, we need connection with other human beings. It's scary to feel unwelcome, but there will be new places of welcome that we can't discover if we stay entrenched in old habits. It can be painful to be the object of other people's anxiety, but we are capable of experiencing pain and emerging on the other side of it.

Most importantly, our willingness to risk doesn't necessarily mean that we'll lose something. Sometimes, our journey toward greater integrity will actually inspire people around us rather than making them anxious. Sometimes, our commitment to our deepest values will make our bonds with other people stronger. Rather than compromising our sense of safety and familiarity, we might create something new with the people who are already a part of our tribe. It's up to us whether we're willing to risk losing comfortable patterns in order to build something better in our lives.

John 16: No Messiah Needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Integrity need not seem so extraordinary. 

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

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

We do not need a messiah. 

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

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

We don't need a savior. 

We just need to learn to listen to ourselves better. 

And that takes courage. 

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

It takes courage to stand for something besides fear. 

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

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

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

And no one else can be courageous for you. 

No one else can dismantle your fear for you. 

No one else can have integrity for you. 

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

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

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

So, are you ready?

John 15: Criticism Is Not a Righteousness Indicator

Immediately after having Jesus telling the disciples to base all that they do on love, the author of John observes a dichotomy between the way the disciples are supposed to live and the rest of the world. The author of John asserts in John 15:18-27 that the world will persecute the followers of Jesus because they do not know (or willingly remain ignorant of) the truth of Jesus' message.

Some people wear persecution as a badge of honor. Some people even read in the Bible that they should expect persecution if they follow the example of Jesus, and then they go out of their way to make sure others will criticize them. The problem is that some people believe that if other people criticize what they are doing, they must be doing something right. They use persecution as confirmation that they are being righteous. This is horribly misguided.

When we decide that other people's derision is a sign that we are headed in the right direction, we walk a very dangerous path. We need other people's insights and observations, because we cannot see everything ourselves. We have blind spots. When we refuse to consider the feedback other people offer to us, we miss opportunities to adjust our behavior when we are misaligned with our deepest values.

The author of John is suggesting that if people take seriously the call to radical love, then there will be others who attack that position out of fear and ignorance. The point is not that if people criticize you, you're doing something right. The point is that if you're doing what is right, some people will criticize you. There is a huge difference. Criticism is to be expected, and we should prepare for it so we don't get knocked off course. Criticism is not a measurement tool, though. We can't assume that all criticism is an indication that we are effectively basing all that we do on sound principles in alignment with our deepest values. 

Anxiety causes people to base their decisions on all manner of things that are worthy of criticism. People crave more wealth, more exclusive neighborhoods, more toys, more isolation from people who seem different, more access to high quality healthcare and education and food and entertainment. We see suffering and we often run the other way, trying to escape it in our own lives because we can't stand seeing it in other people's lives. We build walls of protection around ourselves so that we don't have to face a reality that might cost us something. We fail to love because we are too busy being right, we just don't always know what we're trying to be right about. We lose our sense of our principles and our values because we are too focused on making our anxiety go away.

We have to know what we value first and foremost, and we have to live with integrity to those values. If we envision ourselves as loving people, for instance, that value is the guide by which we evaluate our behavior, not people's criticism. If we want to be loving, and other people give us feedback that we aren't being very loving, we need to pay attention to that feedback. Using criticism as an indicator that we must be on the right path can lead us far astray from the principles upon which we most want our lives to be built.

As the author of John suggests, we have within us an internal guidance system. Some of us may not pay a lot of attention to it, especially if we are accustomed to writing off criticism as validation. Yet, we know when there is something off about our behavior, or when there is something off in our relationships. The author of John probably experienced some persecution as he and his community strove to build their behavior on the foundation of radical love. The radical love was the goal, though, not the persecution.

There are those today who believe that their religious liberties are threatened when other people gain equal freedoms under the law. When they speak out in hatred and fear, they are sometimes criticized, and sometimes they turn to passages like this one and claim that the people doing the criticizing are misguided and ignorant. Such fearful and hateful people often miss the context of the passage, that love is intended to be the foundation of every action. 

Hatred and violence are worthy of criticism, and any belief system that promotes fear and violence is worthy of all the admonishment we can muster. We can speak words of admonition without becoming hateful and fearful ourselves. We can be loving and still provide strong corrective feedback when others allow their fear to run away with them. We absolutely must offer boldly loving admonition if we want our world and our relationships to be just and equitable.

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"If people hate you for being loving and for living with integrity, be aware that people have always done so. If you had their level of unchecked anxiety, you would fit right in and people would accept you more easily. Because you have taken on a more intentional way of being, some people are going to hate you. You are not alone. Many other people before you have been persecuted by fearful people. But there have also always been people who sought a better way of living.

"If people had no resources to manage their anxiety and live more intentionally, it would be easier to forgive their ignorant hatred. By now, though, there have been plenty of examples in every religious tradition that could equip and empower people to live with integrity to the deepest value of love. When they hate you for being loving, they wind up hating the very thing they say they most value, even their own gods. They have no justifiable reason to be anxious, but they refuse to realize it.

"You have a connection with your deepest, most noble self. Nurture that connection and let it guide you into integrity with what you value most. Your very life will be a testimony to those who are willing to listen, and a model for those who are willing to follow your example."

Mark 13: Days of Future, Past

Mark 13 contains several biblical passages that have fueled speculation about the "end times" throughout Christian history. Part of this speculation arises from assumptions about when the gospels were composed, and part of this speculation arises from a human desire to feel special. If you believe that you are among a select group of people who know an incredible secret, that can be very psychologically persuasive. Even for people like me who believe that there is no supernatural, it helps to have reminders that all human perception is limited -- it helps to know what would convince you to believe something different. If you don't know what would convince you to revise your beliefs, then your beliefs are more likely to be incongruous with reality. That is what happens to some people who believe that Mark 13 is describing something about their circumstances rather than the circumstances of people in the first century.

The Jewish people during the days of Roman occupation didn't like the Roman Empire very much. They staged rebellions every so often, and these rebellions were led by "messiahs" -- men who people thought would fulfill a prophetic role and establish a Jewish kingdom that surpassed all other kingdoms. Jesus was just one of a number of messiahs running around in the first century, but if the portrayal of Jesus in the gospels is anywhere close to an accurate depiction of an actual human being, he was not the typical militaristic messiah that people were becoming accustomed to seeing. Most messiahs collected a militia and struck out against Roman authorities. Eventually, as one might imagine, Rome became rather weary of this, and under the military leadership of Titus (who would become emperor), the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. Literally, the stones of the temple were pushed down a steep hillside so that they could not be easily used to reconstruct the place.

People were scattered, some forcefully relocated and some fleeing to the hills. The historian Josephus reported that 97,000 Jews were captured or enslaved. Prior to the Roman attack, Caius Caesar had intended to have a statue of himself erected in the temple in Jerusalem (this was perhaps the desecrating sacrilege -- a term that refers back to the book of Daniel), but historical records suggest that he died before it could be installed. Another Roman emperor may have followed suit, or there may have been some other Roman religious paraphernalia installed at the temple. It is clear that Roman authorities pilfered the temple treasury, and that some of the Jewish sects known collectively as Zealots retaliated against what they saw as abuses of Roman rule. This chaotic environment was the norm of first century Jerusalem, but particularly during the period between 50 and 70 CE.

Logically speaking, the gospel of Mark, with its reference in chapter 13 to the destruction of the temple, must have been written after 70 CE. At least the version that we now have (and there are no extant complete copies of Mark that lack this "little apocalypse" section) must have been completed after the destruction of the temple. Some evidence (internal monetary and administrative terminology) suggests that Mark was written in or near Rome, which would make a great deal of sense in the aftermath of the siege of Jerusalem. The book also appears to be written to an audience of people already converted to Christianity, since is assumes familiarity with the Old Testament and includes themes of mature discipleship and comfort. If one insists that this biography was written in the midst of persecution, then this could push the date of composition to the end of Domitian's reign (89-96 CE), but its use by the authors of Matthew and Luke would limit the latest possible date for the document's completion to about 92 CE.

With that in mind, then, Mark 13 offers a contextualization of the destruction of the temple within the framework of Christian identity. Thus, all of the words about upheaval, persecution, fleeing to the hills, and false prophets or messiahs are about first century realities. You may have noticed the words, "this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place" (Mk 13:30), and you may have noticed that included in "all these things" that was supposed to happen before that generation passed away was that the Son of Man would visibly descend from the heavens, send forth angels, and collect those who were chosen for salvation from across the planet. This, as you may be aware, did not happen.

Attempts to reconcile this failure of prophecy with a belief that the Bible is absolutely true has caused a lot of people a lot of problems. Some believers interpret a different definition of "generation" and are still expecting a major supernatural event. Some believers want to include themselves as part of those who suffer persecution, assuming that public admonition or even ridicule is equivalent to being beaten in synagogues and tried before political authorities. More often than not, in developed nations, some Christians proclaim messages of hatred and judgment or try to deny people equal treatment under the law, and then wear the subsequent "persecution" as a badge of honor. Mark 13 is not talking about so misrepresenting the Christian message that you suffer adverse consequences in your society.

What can we derive from this collection of passages intended for first century people in a situation we will never experience? Consistently throughout the last two thousand years, people have predicted the end of the world, some of them Christian, and some of them thinking that they were following the advice of Mark 13, attending to the secret signs around them. No predictions about the end of the world have come to pass. Perhaps people are profoundly unskilled at interpreting signs, or perhaps people cannot actually make risky predictions about the future with any sort of accuracy. It even says right there in Mark 13:32-33 that nobody knows when this supernatural event will happen. The value in this chapter is not about how to predict things to come.

Rather, the value in this passage is recognizing that people need hope, especially in extremely dire circumstances. One reason that religion thrives is because it offers people hope. Sometimes they still take that hope and infuse it with anxiety, which is understandable given the level of anxiety in our world. Let's assume for a moment that there will not be a massive supernatural event in which all of the elect are gathered from across the world by the Son of Man. Let's assume for a moment that human fear is the biggest threat to our well-being -- our own fear and the fear of people around us. Fear is, after all, the underlying motivator of all of the first century upheaval as well as the upheaval we continue to see in the world. How do we respond to our circumstances if we have no firm grasp of the future? How do we respond to fear if we cannot trust a supernatural to eventually rescue us?

Sometimes I feel like I'm repeating myself, but this just seems like the best place to start, and I don't hear a lot of other people saying it. We have to recognize who we are, at a deeper level than our fears, at a deeper level than our daily struggles to make it through traffic and get a certain number of tasks done and pay our bills on time. We are human beings of inherent value who need connection with other human beings. And other people are human beings of inherent value who need connection with us. We are, at our core, loving beings -- even though our fear gets in the way. What we long for is the same thing that everyone else longs for: wholeness and well-being in every facet of our lives. We want to be able to express ourselves as individuals, and we want meaningful relationships with other people. We want our lives to have purpose, and we want hope that what we do will make a difference.

The remarkable thing is that we can create these things in our lives and in the lives of others. We can't know the future, but we can know ourselves. We can express ourselves authentically, and we can connect with other people. We can create meaning by reaching beyond our fears and recognizing what matters most in our lives -- who we most want to be in the world. We can help others create meaning in their lives, too. We create hope for ourselves and other people every time we recognize how little actions make a big difference in someone's life. Every time we recognize commonality or offer a simple smile to a stranger, we bring forward a little bit more the best possible versions of ourselves. With a little intentionality, we might be able to bring our deepest most noble selves forward even more. Whatever future that creates, we'll be more deeply satisfied with the journey.