Six Things Your Community Could Be Providing

We've taken a look at the necessary ingredients for meaningful, authentic community. Now, we return to the big questions we hope such a community might help us answer.

1. How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?
2. What am I passionate about? What personal life dream of mine creates greater wholeness in the world?
3. Where do I find a genuine sense of belonging? Where do I find authentic community? 
4. What fears get in my way? How can I dismantle those fears and understand what I actually want?
5. How can I get what I most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness?

Specifically, let's look at the intersection of questions 1, 2, and 5. We've already dismantled the criticism that these questions are selfish. We know that we may have to do a bit of introspection and self-examination to determine meaningful answers to these questions, and that can seem like hard work. On the other hand, these questions are all interconnected, so it's likely that the answers are connected too.

Chances are that we are already engaged in community in some way. Human beings are relational, so it's an intrinsic part of being human to form community. Sometimes, the communities we find ourselves in are by happenstance, and sometimes our participation in them is a conscious decision. Whatever the case, we can choose to be more intentional in how we show up in those communities. This involves knowing ourselves well enough to understand what moves us toward wholeness, and it involves giving ourselves permission to do those things.

Knowing ourselves well enough to understand what moves us toward wholeness is a fancy way of saying understanding what we really want. We have to get past our anxiety in order to know this. When we're anxious, what we want in the immediate sense is for the anxiety to go away. If we can't manage our anxiety well, our autopilot reactions will make decisions for us. We can't get what we most deeply want unless we shift into a more intentional way of choosing our responses. 

Sometimes our anxiety is specifically about what we want. We believe that we have to want something noble or grandiose or selfless in order to be "good" people. Or we tell ourselves that we don't deserve what we want, or that we haven't earned it. And we usually don't have a very reasonable sense of what it would take for us to deserve or earn what we most deeply want. Sometimes we even justify not tending to our own needs because we are waiting on a supernatural to arrange our lives differently. And these are just a handful of the nearly infinite roadblocks we put in our own paths. 

The first hurdle, then, is recognizing that what we most deeply want is important. When we understand our personal guiding principles -- our internal guidance system -- and can connect what we want with our deepest values, this hurdle becomes easier to cross. Knowing the principles by which we want our lives to be governed gives us a solid foundation for determining whether we are identifying what we deeply want or we are instead just coming up with the most expedient way to make our anxiety go away. 

Our guiding principles also give us a way to cast vision in our lives, to imagine what a best possible version of ourselves might look like. This vision is, essentially, a way of identifying what we most deeply want. When we engage our imaginations, we can ask ourselves: What would I look like if I were in complete integrity with my guiding principles? The answer to that question is a vision toward which we can orient our decisions -- and something with which we can realign ourselves when we get off course. And we know when we are off course by recognizing when we are reacting out of anxiety rather than making intentional choices.

Orienting around our guiding principles may give the impression that what we most deeply want needs to be lofty and demanding. This is not necessarily so. Most often, what we most deeply want is not so different from what everybody most deeply wants. We just put a lot of obstacles in our own way, including believing that what we want has to fall into neat categories of either "shamefully selfish" or "impressively selfless". The truth is that what we most deeply want is probably rather simple, and our deepest wants probably help meet other people's needs too.

If what we most deeply want is a sense of belonging, for instance, the healthy community we create from that desire is going to benefit others as much as it benefits us. Rather than judging what we are passionate about, then, we have the potential to connect what we are passionate about with our deepest values and make intentional decisions in our lives. We can create community around anything, provided it aligns with our life-affirming guiding principles. 

(I'll reiterate here what I've said elsewhere: If you think your guiding principles aren't life-affirming, you haven't uncovered your actual guiding principles yet. You may have uncovered a fear you didn't know about, but our deepest values are not built on fear. Don't make excuses or feel ashamed when you get to this point, just be honest about the fear and keep searching for the deeper life-affirming values that it's covering up.)

Being honest about what is fulfilling to us -- and being sharp about distinguishing what we most deeply want from our anxious reactivity -- gives us a way toward creating greater wholeness for ourselves and for the world around us. When we engage in any community intentionally, we have the opportunity to develop deeper understanding of ourselves, more meaningful connection with the people around us, and a greater sense of purpose. Meaningful, authentic community inspires our creativity and provides us with accountability so we can stay aligned with our deepest values more consistently. 

The surface level activities of the community don't really matter (provided they're aligned with your life-affirming values). Bowling league, neighborhood parenting co-op, book club, activist organization, community garden, artist collective, whatever. We can be intentional about how we show up in any community, ensuring that our authentic needs are met in legitimate ways and simultaneously contributing toward wholeness in the lives of others. 

If you want a way to consider the strengths and growth edges of your particular community, some research by a couple of students at Harvard suggest six categories of human need that are met by authentic, meaningful community. You can read about their observations of various secular communities at www.howwegather.org. Their evaluation includes some theistic language, but it's easily ignored or translated. I just mentioned the six categories a couple of paragraphs back, but I'll list them again. If your community does one or more of these things well, that's something to celebrate. If it has challenges with one or more of these areas, that may be something you want to build up.

First, community provides for a basic human need in and of itself. Making sure the community has integrity -- that it is meaningful and authentic, as we've discussed over several entries -- is important. Belonging is important for human beings, but building community with a clear identity in which people are genuinely welcomed and accepted can be challenging.

Second, meaningful authentic community gives people opportunities for personal transformation. When we feel safe and can be honest about our deepest values, community can help us align our lives better. We can grow in our personal integrity and authenticity. 

Third, meaningful authentic community give people opportunities for social transformation. This means, we develop more mature and intentional ways of engaging in the world around us. We become more aware of how we can contribute to greater wholeness in the world.

Fourth, meaningful authentic community helps us identify a sense of purpose. Life doesn't have a larger purpose, but human beings are meaning makers -- we determine what will give us a sense of purpose. Even though defining purpose comes from within ourselves, being in community can inform that journey. 

Fifth, meaningful authentic community engages our creativity. Human beings are, by nature, creators. This doesn't mean we are all artistic, but rather that we all have the ability to contribute to creating something new. Community can provide us with collaborators and inspiration.

Finally, meaningful authentic community provides us with accountability -- people who will pay attention to what we say we want in our lives and will keep us encouraged and empowered to take the next steps in that journey. When we set public goals, healthy communities will hold us to those goals until we redefine them. People who care about us, care about what we want for our lives.

If we understand our personal guiding principles, we can identify our deepest wants and needs more easily. Any community can become a place where we engage in having our personal needs met while we contribute toward greater wholeness in the lives of others. Every community can probably become better at the mutual practices of self-disclosure, active and unconditional love, hospitality, truth-telling, and celebration. Every community can probably become better at setting healthy boundaries and clarifying shared purpose or vision. And every community can be evaluated by how well it provides a genuine sense of belonging, opportunities for personal transformation, social transformation, defining purpose, engaging creativity, and offering accountability.

John 17: We Are All Self-Authorizing

The gospel of John was written for a specific community of people, and there are clues that some of the book was more about recording the beliefs of that community than it was about recording a historical biographical tale. John 17 is one instance where a desire to record the beliefs and creeds of the community are prominently on display. In fact, the first several verses refer to Jesus in the third person by name or by pronoun. This is more the language of a community's common creed than it is the language of an individuals speaking about himself.

No one can say with certainty what the author meant by some of the phrases in this "prayer," but believers from various Christian sects interpret it as they see fit. They actually must do so, because otherwise the words have no value aside from a slightly cryptic historical reflection of a first-century community's beliefs and concerns. Moreover, various Christian readers interpret the words differently based on their own individual understanding of Christianity. Thus, we can confidently take the same liberties as other readers, interpreting the words to fit our deeply held convictions.

Before we get to a full interpretation, however, there are a few features of the chapter that bear mentioning. Some of these may seem tedious in isolation, but in the context of interpreting the entire chapter, they may have greater significance. We will also keep in mind that, for our interpretive scheme, the character of Jesus in the gospel of John is representative of us -- of the idealized best possible version of ourselves.

First, most English translations have verse 2 reading that Jesus has been given authority over all people. The actual translation here would be power or authority over all flesh. This does not necessarily mean power of individual people, but could instead mean power to overcome the "fleshly" fears and beliefs that distract us from living with integrity to our most deeply held values.

It may also bear noticing that Jesus is made to say here that he has completed the work that was intended for him (verse 4). In the narrative, this is clearly before the crucifixion. Many Christians seem to focus on the crucifixion of Jesus as being the real significant "work" of Jesus. If this passage is to be interpreted in the context of the narrative, however, the Jesus character claims that his work is done prior to being arrested and killed. Thus, we must conclude that whatever the author of John considered Jesus' work to be had more to do with his life than it did with his death.

We also see a trace of evidence that reflects an idea of destiny, that people do not truly have control over the outcome of their lives, by the way Judas is described in verse 12. This is more a function of later editors and translators than the more ancient "son of destruction" or "one worthy of destruction" that seem to more closely match the original text -- which, I'll just remind you, we do not have. There is no known "original" of the gospel of John, just a variety of copies with some contradictions among them from which translations are created.

Regardless of translation, verses 6-20 are clearly about the community for which the author of John wrote. Their unity is also a topic of the biblical letters attributed to the same author. We might conclude that the community had considerable strife and drama and that the author was attempting to give voice to a need for unity, or we might conclude that the community was proud of this unified quality of their relationships that set them apart from other communities. Either way, this middle portion is clearly intended as a blessing on the author's community, and a somewhat exclusive one based on verse 9.

Some readers would like to suggest that this prayer for unity extends to the whole of Christianity, and not just the author's own community. It may be a nice idea, but Christianities have never embraced unity with one another. There have been differences of opinion since the earliest documentation of the Christian church. Once the church gained more political power, the differing minority opinions were labeled heresies and the church persecuted individuals who held those differing opinions.

Even with a seemingly monolithic Roman Catholic Church for centuries, there were always schisms and conflicts up until the Protestant Reformation, which spawned a number of different Christian sects. Now, the most recent estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity place the number of distinct Christian sects at over 40,000. How's that for unity? Even within the bounds of a single Christian congregation, one will find differences of belief and practice, and those differences lead to conflict, and that conflict often causes schisms within the community. In two thousand years, one thing the Christian church seems to have perfected is disunity.

Criticism is easy, though. What usefulness can we draw from this chapter, should we choose to do so? There is some language about the "name" and the "power of the name." Name here connotes authority; to know something's name in the ancient world was to have power over it, even back to the story about Adam getting to name all the animals in Genesis. If "God" is really our deepest, most noble self, then this is where our authority comes from. We are self-authorizing. Actually, every person is. Some people just pretend that their authority comes from something external to them. Ultimately, though, human beings are self-authorizing entities.

There is also some talk about "evil," and "the world" as the unenlightened practitioners of evil. We have suggested before that "evil" and "sin" are the outcomes of mismanaged fear. If this is the case, the protection from evil would be the ability to dismantle irrational fear. "The world" would reflect those people who behave as victims of fear, and based on casual observation, there are an awful lot of those folks running around. Fear, whether it manifests as shame, hatred, greed, oppression, apathy, or some other nuanced form, is churning within all of us. We self-authorize our reaction to that fear or our dismantling of it.

One way that we dismantle irrational fear is by telling the truth. The truth empowers us (verse 17). The consecration language of this passage reflects the transformative potential of every person. The author of John portrays Jesus essentially passing the torch here, indicating to his disciples (and thus vicariously to the readers) that they have the same ability that he has to live boldly intentional lives of integrity and authenticity. That is a message worth carrying forward.

Thus, a re-envisioned Humanist commissioning of John 17 is still high-minded and idealistic, but it may offer some resources for us that the creed of an ancient community does not:

Then, the Exemplar looked at each of them and said, "Now I am speaking to your deepest, most noble selves. The time has come for you to embrace your own capability. I have honored my deepest, most noble self, and in so doing I have shone a light on my authentic self. I have recognized my power to dismantle my fear and live with integrity, and in so doing, I have made clear a way for others to be fully alive. And this is what it is to be fully alive: that you know your deepest, most noble self -- the root of your deepest life-affirming values and principles -- and that you know your own capability to live with integrity to those values and principles, through connection with your deepest, most noble self. People have always been capable of this, but you have now seen it in action.

"I may have awakened you to connection with your deepest, most noble selves, but you have been the ones to nurture that connection and live into a deeper sense of your authentic selves. You now know that all of your power comes from within you. You understand something that many people do not, and you must live with integrity to your life-affirming guiding principles even as the world around you continues to react to its incessant fear. Your authentic life is the embodiment of your deepest, most noble self. You are the incarnation of yourself. You have the power to dismantle your irrational fear, and you have the power to remain calm in the midst of other people's fear.

"May your lives be full of exuberant joy, even as you continue to live among people who don't understand what you are doing. Other people will resent you for not going along with their anxiety, but don't run away from relationships with others just to feel safe. That would be giving power to your fear. Continue to do the work of connecting with your deepest, most noble self, so that you can dismantle your own fears and be a model for others. Other people's beliefs and decisions and reactions are going to look very different from yours. Continue to seek the truth and base your lives on truth rather than irrational anxiety. In this way, you will serve others and build a better world, just by living with integrity.

"Remember that every person is capable of this kind of connection, to some degree. Every person has inherent worth and dignity. This unites us all as human beings. We are all diverse, and our differences are something to celebrate. Yet, we hold in common our humanity, and thus our intrinsic value. May you find connection with other people, even those who seem different from you. May you recognize the empowerment that flows from meaningful relationship, and may you take responsibility for forming mutually empowering relationships. Then, you will connect with others with the same level of authenticity as you connect with your self. That is the essence and the power of genuine love."

John 14: Within You

The second half of John 14 continues the message of comfort, encouragement, and empowerment. In the story, Jesus is aware of his imminent arrest and death sentence. The disciples seem not to have caught on in the narrative, so some of the words of this passage seem intended to prepare them for the events that are about to unfold. Of course, these words were written at least 60 years after the events they describe would have taken place, so the authors must have had a different reason for writing them down. Maybe it was just to tell the story in a way that had a clear dramatic arc.

We see evidence in this passage of the superstitions of the time, but underneath much of the language here, there is a message of personal empowerment. This is primarily in the bits about the Advocate or Holy Spirit. There are also a few turns of phrase here that we might consider coercive. "If you love me, you will...," is a hallmark of an anxious communicator trying not to sound anxious. We might graciously reinterpret those sentences into a clearer definition of what the authors mean by "love." Although it is a wonderfully concise way of saying a great many things, love is also a rather vague word that is subject to interpretation (or misinterpretation). Thus, we might replace it in this context with something more precise, such as, "If you trust the merits of what I have taught you and how you have seen me engage in life, you will follow my example."

The audience in the narrative have traveled with the Exemplar, they have seen him engaging authentically in living with integrity to his deep guiding principles (which were in alignment with the stated guiding principles of at least some expressions of first-century Judaism), and they have heard him explain to them how they might do the same. Still, they consider him to be uniquely qualified to live as he lives, and they are content to be less than he -- less capable, less aware, less human. The narrative is about to take a nasty turn, and the Exemplar is going to be killed for living with integrity to his principles, because this is a scary thing to people who value quiet compliance over bold authenticity. He takes these final moments with his friends to prompt them to see their own ability to live intentionally and with integrity.

The reader already knows the story, presumably. The Jesus character dies, reminding everyone reading that it can be dangerous to live according to clearly defined, deep guiding principles, even though it is the most rewarding way to engage in the fragile art of living. Then, the authors bring the hero back to life, which undercuts the very core of their message. With this supernatural act as part of the narrative, the Jesus character is turned into something beyond what any person can hope to be. Instead of feeling empowered to engage in this life fully, many readers believe themselves to be weak and incapable of doing anything good on their own. Instead of following an example of how to live with integrity, many readers spend their time waiting for a next life that they think has been promised to them. I guess it's a good thing the dead can't be disappointed.

Abundant examples among twenty-first century believers demonstrate the tendency of the overall narrative to convince people that they are weak, broken, incapable, and even worthless. Every day, people express their conviction that they need a supernatural's help to make basic moral and ethical decisions. How can such a person even consider being fully alive with authenticity and integrity? This depiction of humanity as weak, worthless, and incapable is not only a useless and lazy image, it isn't even an accurate impression of what passages like John 14 are intended to express.

The point of this part of the narrative is for the Jesus character to express the capability and power of human individuals to live fully. The promise given, to the disciples in the story and presumably to the reader as well, is that whatever you think of as divinity is within you. There is no reason for anxiety, because you already know how to be intentional. You already know how to be honest, even when it is challenging. You already know how to live with integrity to your deep values. The promised Advocate "abides in you, and will be in you." This is different language for what we might call a deepest, most noble self -- the very human qualities of truth, beauty, and creativity that help us define our principles and allow them to guide our decisions. Human beings are not weak and incapable; they have within them all that they need to live morally, ethically, and purposefully. You have within you all that you need to live morally, ethically, and purposefully.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"If you really believe that the way of being I've demonstrated to you is the best way to live, take this business about loving one another seriously. You have access to your deepest, most noble self just as I have access to my deepest, most noble self. Pay attention to your deepest values and let them guide you, and you won't be disappointed. Other people are going to think that this is all wrong. They don't understand things that you now know to be true about how to live fully. You aren't responsible for their understanding. You're responsible for your own integrity.

"I'm not going to be here much longer, and yet you will keep seeing things that remind you of me in the world. When you see love and kindness and compassion, you'll be reminded of me. When you see justice and equity being carried out, you'll be reminded of me. When you see people paying attention to their deepest values and living with authenticity and integrity, you'll be reminded of me. I'm not really going anywhere when you look at it like that. And if you live in a way that reflects your deepest, most noble self, other people are going to see my hopes alive in you -- they will see what I care about most, made manifest in your life.

"I say this now, while I'm with you, but you don't really need me to tell you this. You know what your deep values are. Trust them. Trust yourselves. Don't be worried about what other people think you ought to do. Don't be afraid of what will happen. Just live with integrity, and place love as the cornerstone of your life. If you live into a best possible version of yourself, you can be at peace with whatever the outcome is. If you don't yet know the principles that you want to guide your decisions, you can discover them. You are responsible for your lives. You are capable. You are powerful. You are insightful. You don't need someone else to tell you what to do. You just needed someone to show you that it's possible."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

If you want to live fully, you have to connect with yourself. Whatever else you choose to believe in, you have to believe in yourself. This is not to say that you form a set of unrealistic expectations about what you can do. Belief in and of itself will not change reality. Every person has limitations. But if you want to fully inhabit yourself, you have to recognize that you are a capable, whole, powerful, insightful, beautiful, creative human being with inherent worth and dignity. You may have a few things to learn or figure out, and you will definitely make mistakes along the way. The bottom line, though, is that your vision of a best possible version of yourself is worth living into -- that you are worth believing in.

John 10:1-21 Being a Good Shepherd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Isaiah 34-35: Creating Our Own "Holy Way"

The next two chapters of Isaiah are contrasting predictions about the fates of "Yahweh's people" and the fates of everybody else. Some of the symbolic themes from previous portions of Isaiah return here. The blindness and deafness that Yahweh commanded the prophet to enforce (Is 6:9-12) will now be removed. Water, symbolic in much of the prophetic literature, is used here as an assurance of life, but of course only Yahweh's people will have access to the streams and pools of water in the wilderness. After acknowledging the literary context of these prophecies, we might gain something from recognizing one last time the flaws in the suggested dependence upon a supernatural and the Us vs Them perspective of this prophetic writing before considering a more intentional perspective that might better align with our guiding principles.

These are the final poetic chapters of "Proto-Isaiah"; after a short narrative, the book of Isaiah continues with words written at a much later time, as indicated by specific historical references in the text. Recall that no autograph of the book of Isaiah has been discovered, and that the earliest copy we have is from the early first century BCE. On top of that, there are thousands of differences between existing copies of the book. One prevailing conclusion by scholars is that the book was assembled by an editor from disparate writings (perhaps by the same author or school of authors). Thus, the sequence in which the writings appear may have been determined by someone at a much later time than when they were written. The only thing we can honestly assess is the end product, because we don't have anything earlier to examine. At the same time, honest assessment must include the fact that we cannot know the intentions of the author, and that the sequence in which texts are read has an influence on their interpretation.

In fact, "interpretation" may not even be the right word for what we do with such texts. We often read through the lens of our own wisdom and values, and we judge what we read based on what we already believe. The Unitarian Universalist tradition, for instance, currently recognizes six broad sources: direct experience, the words and deeds of prophetic people, ethical and spiritual wisdom from the world's religions, the call to love our neighbors in Jewish and Christian teachings, Humanist teachings, and the spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions. The intrinsic values of Unitarian Universalism were not drawn from these sources, however; the accepted values informed the choices of sources. The whole of Jewish and Christian scripture is not compatible with Unitarian Universalism, just as the whole of Islamic or Humanist teachings is not compatible with Unitarian Universalism. Our values are the scales on which the merits of a particular text are weighed.

This is true of everyone. American Christians reading the Bible do not honestly accept everything within its pages as legitimate timeless ethical and moral truth. They all recognize, to varying degrees, that there are cultural differences between twenty-first century Western society and the ancient Middle-Eastern societies in which the biblical texts originated. They determine the validity of a particular portion of scripture not based on the fact that it is in the Bible, but based on a set of values that they already accept as guiding principles in their lives. To be sure, those values are also supported by some portions of scripture. The call to reconciliation and love in human relationships is a major theme in the Bible, for instance. Yet, this theme is in conflict with passages like Isaiah 34-35, in which it is clear that the enemies of Judah are considered to be the enemies of Yahweh, and proclaiming their destruction is justified in the name of religious superiority. This is incompatible with the values of reconciliation and love.

Even if one interprets Isaiah as saying that human beings are free to seek reconciliation and love because God will take care of those other people, this does not resolve the conflict. The Bible also suggests that human beings are supposed to be emulators of God, and a perception of God as vengeful and destructive creates some problems. Readers of the Bible have to be selective and discerning, and that selectivity and discernment derives from the values through which the pages are read. We are always going to be biased readers. We can only strive to have biases that reflect our deepest values rather than our fears.

This brings us to a couple of flaws in the writing that we have noted before, but which bear repeating. Isaiah 33 and 34 both express a reliance on a supernatural to either punish or provide. There is surely some comfort in the idea that God is going to punish the people you don't like, although laying waste to the environment may be a bit extreme. There is surely some comfort in the promise that everything will be alright for you because God will provide what you need. There are problems with the implied converse of these assumptions, though. What happens when you do not have the things that you need? Has God abandoned you? Are you wicked? Are you being punished, or are you supposed to take comfort in the eventual good things that God is going to do, even if they happen long after you are dead? What about other people who suffer? If God has promised to provide for what his people need, doesn't it follow that people who are hungry or thirsty or oppressed are not God's people, and are thus wicked? The implications of God's partiality and the impossibility of interpreting "divine will" make such promises very problematic, even though they provide some shallow comfort.

Seeing the world as Us vs Them is a natural perspective for people to adopt. We are fearful by nature, and if we let our fear be in control, then we might imagine anything and anyone as a threat. We want to be right, and thus in our anxiety about possibly being wrong, we construct a worldview in which everyone else is wrong and blind to it. Thus, we get to be right at the expense of connection with other human beings, or at the expense of ever growing beyond what we are currently able to do in the world. Our fears are not values.

The people of ancient Judah were put in a position -- as the result of warfare -- in which they were in a constant state of acute fear. Foreign soldiers were laying siege to their cities and taking them into exile. They were not in a position to live by their values. They were living desperate lives. This happened multiple times in the history of Israel, and it is happening in some places today. People cannot live by a set of deep values when their lives are constantly threatened by legitimate, real dangers. It's important to know who is safe and who is dangerous when your life is literally on the line, and it's natural to invent some stories about the people who seem dangerous. In those stories, the people you perceive as dangerous are obviously going to be the bad guys, and when you feel desperate and powerless, the most hopeful story you can tell might seem to be that a powerful superhuman force will punish the bad guys and rescue the helpless victims.

Our tendency, though, is that we sometimes see ourselves as victims when we aren't. We sometimes feel threatened when we aren't. We sometimes believe we are powerless when we aren't. And we still make up stories about the people we perceive as dangerous, even when they aren't an actual threat to our safety and well-being. We have to learn to recognize the difference between actual threats to our well-being and anxiety that originates and thrives inside our own heads. There may be a lot of different people on the planet with a lot of different beliefs and a lot of anxiety prompting them to tell stories about how the wicked will be punished and the righteous will be saved, but in actuality, our well-being depends upon the well-being of everyone else. There is no Them. There is only one big Us. This idea may be as much of a hard sell to the oppressors as it is to the oppressed, but those of us who can recognize this simple truth and start living it out in our lives can influence things toward greater hope for everyone.

This is the real power that Isaiah 34 and 35 miss: Human beings are responsible for human relationships. The problems we create will not be resolved by supernatural intervention. We are responsible for living according to our values. We are responsible for finding solutions to the challenges in our lives. We are responsible to the people around us -- the people with whom we share our lives, our communities, and our world. There is no more empowering and hopeful truth than this. It just isn't necessarily what we want to hear when we look around and see evidence that other people are not behaving very responsibly. Since we can't really control anybody but ourselves, it's tempting to want a more powerful entity to take care of all the irresponsible people in the world and reward us for being so awesome. That isn't going to happen. We need a more reliable approach to navigating our own awareness of human responsibility and the apparent lack of awareness around us.

First, we can be more aware of our values. We are constantly interpreting the things we read and hear through the lens of our values, but we don't often take the time to articulate just what those values are. When we are aware of the ideals that matter most to us, it's much easier to determine how we want to be in particular situations, and it's much clearer when we are reacting out of anxiety or fears that are not aligned with our values.

Second, we can stand to see a larger perspective. When we are willing to bear witness to the actual suffering that takes place in the lives of people in more poverty-stricken countries, for instance, or even in the lives of people in our own neighborhoods, our own sense of suffering might be more realistic. We might be less inclined to play the role of victim inappropriately, and we might be less inclined to demonize other people for petty reasons. Our lives have value, and we need not be so self-sacrificial that we deny ourselves what we need. Still, being honest about our own positions on the spectrum of human suffering can help us live more intentionally.

Third, we can recognize our role in the world. Once we know what we care about most deeply, we can start living more intentionally according to those values. When we are willing to see the realities of people's lives, we can start to see opportunities to influence things toward greater well-being. This might mean funding education for a girl on the other side of the world, or it might mean spending time with people in our own neighborhoods. Our values and our own personal passions will guide us toward ways that we can influence the world, even if it is in some seemingly small way. I personally don't like building or fixing up people's homes, but I know a lot of people who love swinging a hammer. I really love teaching and tutoring people, whether its educating people about human trafficking or tutoring folks in a GED program. Some folks would be terrified to stand up and speak to a group of people. We all have values and passions that can direct us toward meaningful action.

This is how we contribute to a better world. We cannot wait for a supernatural to sweep in and destroy all the people we choose to see as villains and create a lush and thriving landscape just for us. This is not a realistic hope. Such stories might symbolically represent something to us, but our real hope is in our values and our willingness to live intentionally by them. Our ability to recognize our values and live intentionally is not impeded by other people's lack of awareness. This doesn't have to create an Us and Them dichotomy, but it's alright to acknowledge that some of us are becoming more practiced at managing our anxiety. We may be frustrated sometimes by other people, but if we look around, we will probably also spot some people who are living more intentionally. Two or three people with shared values and a willingness to live intentionally might be able to create more together than one person can create alone. Having community with people who have shared values can be a source of hope when we start to feel angry or frustrated.

So, what are your values? What ideals matter most deeply to you?
Where are you on the spectrum of human suffering? Do you need to focus on your own well-being before you consider how you can positively influence other people's lives?
What actions do your values and passions call you toward?
Who are your potential collaborators? With whom will you build partnership and mutual support?

The answers to these questions strengthen weak hands and make feeble knees firm. The answers to these questions inspire courage and help to dismantle irrational fear. The answers to these questions help us see and hear and act and speak with greater clarity. The answers to these questions are our streams in the desert, our refreshment and empowerment in life. The answers to these questions are our Holy Way, and all are welcome to travel on it. (cf. Is 35:3-8)

Mark 14-15: Personal Authenticity and What Happens When We Don't Have It.

I had hoped to get to the remainder of Mark before Easter, but that just didn't happen. Being a little behind the Christian holiday, though, has the advantage of not seeming like it is intended to be some sort of odd Lenten devotional reading. As we have observed, the Passion story in Mark is the earliest of the biblical Passion narratives, save perhaps for a few vague mentions in Pauline letters. Since the narratives are very different (the version in Matthew is based on the book of Isaiah and a couple of psalms), we will stick with just what appears in the gospel of Mark. This part of the story is after Jesus has been arrested, up until he is taken to be executed, so Mark 14:53-15:20.

First of all, we must recognize that this is a story that cannot be narrated by a firsthand witness. One disciple (Peter) tries to follow Jesus as far as he can, but no one follows Jesus into the assembly of Jewish priests, and the priests certainly would not have recounted the story as it appears here. It's a dramatic story, with some great stock characters, but someone is filling in a few gaps here. Likewise with the subplot involving Peter denying his association with Jesus. Very dramatic. 

Second, it is important to acknowledge that there are some cultural implications and some narrative implications. Culturally, the Jewish people could not execute anyone; only the Roman government had that authority. This is what prompts the involvement of the local Roman official, Pontius Pilate (who was an actual historical figure, although that does not mean that he did any of the things attributed to him in the biblical narrative). Also culturally, certain sects of Jewish people, namely Zealots, launched frequent rebellions against Roman rule. Every charismatic Zealot leader who could effectively organize a militia was heralded as the messiah who would free Israel from the tyranny of Rome and establish a new Jewish kingdom. This is the kind of insurrection in which Barabbas would have potentially participated. It was this sort of constant rebellion that eventually provoked the Roman military to tear down the temple in Jerusalem and scatter the Jewish people across the empire.

Narratively, however, it was important that the Roman government think favorably of the new Christian cult that was emerging in the empire. It was bad enough that Christians refused to pay homage to the emperor and allegedly had secret love feasts at which they ate flesh and drank blood (of babies, by some reports). The story of their founder had to paint the Roman official involved in the execution as blamelessly as possible. The Jewish people (who were antagonistic toward the upstart sect) needed to be the real villains of the story. It is worth mentioning that the antisemitism inherent in the Christian passion narrative contributed to oppression, violence, and genocidal acts against Jewish people through the twentieth century, and perhaps still in some places today. Historically, Roman officials didn't customarily release a murderer once a year. They didn't have to; they were very much in control with no real need to appease the populace.

Also, it was important for the early Christian church to create a dramatic and ironic contrast between the violent authoritarian leadership exhibited by Zealot militia leaders and Roman authorities and a more humble relational leadership style that sought to change external circumstances by changing internal realities of human perceptions and expectations. The abuse by the soldiers may have been a historical reality in terms of how criminals slated for crucifixion were treated, but even more importantly for the early church, it reflected something about the character of Jesus -- a character that they were supposed to emulate.

There can be no doubt that the story of Jesus' arrest and torture is emotionally charged, especially for people who think that he was a historical divine figure. Setting aside torture porn like The Passion of the Christ, however, we can draw forth something of potentially greater personal value than the unwarranted feelings of guilt or shame that some religious figures seem to want this story to evoke. Specifically, I think we can learn something from the Jesus character, from the Pilate character, something from the Jewish leaders, and something from the mob and soldiers.

Should any of us decide to engage in non-violent protest, this story demonstrates a rather extreme case. Jesus is willing to state his identity as he sees it, but he doesn't resort to defending himself or arguing with anyone about his guilt. One might say he takes things a little too passively, but we might think of the character as an archetype. The early church had a few decades to develop their origin story, and the way they tell it, Jesus knew all along that he was going to get himself killed if he tried to challenge the status quo. Understanding that danger, he challenged the status quo. He spoke out against injustice, and he promoted what he believed to be a better way of building community, based on love and respect for one another rather than coveting power and hoarding wealth. He believed in his principles strongly enough that he was willing to die for them, and he was centered and grounded enough that he could stand in the face of obviously fabricated accusations and remain calm and unprovoked. How well do you know yourself and your guiding principles? 

When you don't know yourself or your guiding principles, you might wind up behaving like the Jewish mob and the soldiers, who abdicated control of their decisions to other people. If you aren't willing to be personally responsible for your actions, there will usually be someone else who will happily direct you toward their ends. We have authority in our own lives; we have responsibility for our actions and beliefs. When people give that power over to other people, we sometimes wind up with violent mobs. Granted, sometimes revolution might be necessary, and sometimes oppressed people feel so disenfranchised and powerless that violence seems like the only option available. When we know ourselves and our guiding principles well, we might just be able to see other alternatives.

The Jewish leaders were, of course, afraid. Their way of doing things was being called into question, and change terrifies us like little else. They were attached to a certain identity of power and authority, and to give up that identity was a big threat. Eventually, they had to give it up anyway, in 70 CE when the Romans destroyed the temple. They had to learn a new identity, based on something other than the potentially superficial things on which they had based their previous identity. We're talking about characters in a story in which the Jewish leaders were the bad guys, of course, so it would be a mistake to think that every historical Jewish leader behaved in the way depicted by the early Christians. Still, if we are going to derive some value from the example of these characters in the story, it might be that we not only need to know ourselves and our guiding principles, but we also need to know what we are afraid of. 

When we know what makes us anxious, when we know what that anxiety feels like, we can better manage ourselves. We can calm ourselves down and get back to the guiding principles that we care about most. When we let our anxiety determine our behavior, we stop thinking and just react, which means that we probably are not acting with our guiding principles in mind. If we want to be people of integrity, we must manage our anxiety. Had the Jewish leaders in the story managed their anxiety, they may have realized that what they most wanted was not all that different from what Jesus most wanted. They got anxious about some superficial things and missed the opportunity for connection and growth. 

Pilate had a different sort of identity problem. Again, we are looking just at the character as he was portrayed by the author(s) of Mark, and not considering the historical Pilate. Here we see a man in a very lonely leadership role, faced with a decision that he didn't want to make. More than the mob of people who were unwilling to be personally responsible for their behavior, more than the Jewish religious leaders who were so wrapped up in their anxiety that they had forgotten themselves, Pilate was in a position to decisively act on what he knew to be right. He had the political authority to make a decision and the military power to back it up. He knew that Jesus was innocent of any crime worthy of execution, and he recognized that ordering his death would be unjust. Yet, unlike Jesus, he was intimidated by a willful mob and abdicated authority to the loudest voices rather than what he knew to be right. Knowing his principles, and knowing his role in the situation, Pilate betrayed himself because of some unidentified fear. He felt helpless, even though he wasn't.

We only have some unreliable and biased stories to go on, so we aren't really trying to derive any lessons from history. We're looking at the representations of human tendencies and finding connections with our own behavior so that we might do things better in our own lives. Even if there was a historical Jesus, and even if he was actually crucified, we still don't have any guarantees that it happened as the gospel of Mark conveys. What we do know is that only one person in the story reflected the kind of personal authenticity we hold in high regard, and everybody else was being something other than the best possible version of themselves. What we do know is that when we don't know what matters most to us, and when we don't manage our anxiety, we wind up with less than satisfactory results in our lives. Introspection is the key to all of these issues, and introspection is a skill. We must get to know ourselves deeply -- what we care about, what we fear, and what we can do to support one and dismantle the other. When we know what to be intentional about, we stand a better change of creating the lives and the world we most deeply want.  

The "G" Word

I've wrestled with using the word "God" for some time now. I know that there are some people who invent their own definitions in order to keep using the word without necessarily meaning what other people mean by the word.

"God is the space between people."
"God is a person's ultimate concern."
"God is the life force that flows through all things."

This is all well and good, except that I know when I use the word "God" without going into detail to define it, other people are going to conjure up whatever their own image of God is, and most likely they're going to have an image of God that is somehow connected to the Judeo-Islamo-Christian God. Even if they have a different image of God, it's not likely to be identical to my image of God. I keep using capital-G "God" at this point because that term has come to be synonymous with a singular higher power, most often portrayed as intelligent, willful, and benevolent, with a vengeful streak toward people who hold different opinions or lifestyles than the person doing the portraying. Given that I can't control what a listener does with the word, I generally choose not to use the word "God" (unless I'm asking a question about someone's specific claims about their image of a deity).

That doesn't mean I don't have any ideas about God. Aside from acknowledging that no actual gods exist in objective reality -- that indeed there is no credible evidence to support claims of supernaturalism -- I still have some ideas about God. Those ideas extend to any god, goddess, ancestral spirit, fairies, and so on. If I were to use the word "God," I know what I would mean by it. Maybe it's better to get over what other people will do with the word in their interpretation.

God is a word people use to describe a deep part of ourselves. Sometimes, it's easier to imagine that inner part of our being as something outside of us. It's easier to imagine talking to something external to ourselves; it's easier to imagine being comforted by something external to ourselves; it's easier to imagine being loved by something external to ourselves. Some people get so accustomed to imagining this deep part of themselves as something external to themselves that they forget that God is the inner part of their being. They start to believe that what they imagine about God being external to them should be what everyone imagines about God. It's difficult for them to see that, since God is just a word people use to describe a deep part of themselves, everyone is going to have a different image of God.

People have concocted a lot of gods, as it turns out. None of those gods are real, but they are the ideas that were evoked from the inner lives of lots of different people. People feel angry sometimes, so they might imagine a god that is angry about the same things. People are awed by nature, so they might imagine that nature has gods too, that nature has a self. People imagine gods that act and feel the way those people act and feel, and sometimes people imagine gods that act and feel in ways that those people wish they could act and feel. From within different people, many different ideas of gods have emerged. None of those external ideas of gods actually do or feel anything, but they reflect what people do and feel within the innermost parts of their being.

Sometimes imagining that God is something external can be used as a buffer. When people say that God blessed them with certain abilities, they can speak boldly about themselves without seeming egotistical. When someone says that God punished a group of people with a hurricane, that person is actually expressing personal hatred or fear about a group of people and using an external idea of God as a deflector. When people pray that a person will recover from an injury or illness, they are actually expressing their own desire for the person's recovery... which is kind of odd, when you think about it. Why not just say what one wants or feels?

I believe people don't say what they honestly want or feel because they either fear how other people will respond or they fear that they are somehow not enough in their own lives. Using the idea that God is something outside of them allows people to talk about things they would be otherwise afraid to talk about. This doesn't make God real as something outside of them. It just offers people the illusion that they are not actually talking about themselves. It provides a persona on which people can project what they want and what they feel, and this feels safer than vulnerable authenticity.

The ideas people create about gods have inspired lots of stories, and many of these stories hold incredible bits of wisdom. Unfortunately, sometimes people forget to look for the wisdom within the stories and believe that the stories are intended to represent surface-level reality. Stories become "histories" rather than legends, and histories are about recounting factual data. Stories about gods aren't about factual data; they're about the inner development of people -- about growth within a person and between people. When we recognize that God or god (or goddess) is a word we use for something deep within ourselves, then it becomes easier to look at stories about God or gods (or goddesses) as lessons about who we are rather than vessels of factual data. Stories about gods are stories about us; when we make them more than that, they become less useful.

We don't insist that other people have the same innermost being as us. We shouldn't insist that people have the same God as us. Neither is possible. Whatever God you believe in is something you have imagined. If you don't believe me, ask 10 of your adult friends to describe God (or better, to draw a picture of God) using their own words and not quoting any sacred text. How many of your friends describe God exactly as you do? This isn't a matter of blind men describing an elephant. People have different descriptions of God because people have different selves. This is a problem for some, because they expect their God to do something that isn't possible -- something that they are not capable of doing.

Our innermost beings are not capable of producing miracles in the world around us. Our innermost beings are not capable of changing other people. When we forget that God is a word we use for something deep within us -- an intrinsic part of ourselves -- we develop untenable expectations. God is a way for us to forgive ourselves for doing something that goes against our guiding principles. God is a way for us to guide ourselves toward better decisions, greater integrity, or more authentic love for others. God is a way for us to comfort ourselves in the face of loss. Having a word for that deep part of ourselves is useful. Until we make that word mean something more.

When I hear anyone talk about deity or fairies or ancestral spirits or anything of the like, I understand that they are telling me something about themselves. Sometimes translation is difficult when people become more academic in their communication, but I know that these are just ways that say things about themselves that they would otherwise find difficult to communicate. No one can ever tell me anything about God that I don't already know. No one can ever tell you anything about God that you don't already know. I can't worship anyone else's God, and neither can you. I can't know anyone else's God, and neither can you. God is a word we use for something deep inside of us, an intrinsic part of us. We can never know someone deeply enough to truly know their God, but we can appreciate that when people speak of God, they are speaking of themselves. They are speaking of a very deep part of themselves.

I may still avoid the use of the word. It's a messy word because so many people believe that it means something different than what it actually means. I may still strive to speak about what I want and what I feel in a way that is vulnerably authentic and leave God out of the conversation altogether. Should I start using the word "God," though, you'll at least have some idea what I mean. More importantly, I'll have a clear idea what I mean. It helps me listen to people sometimes, except when they insist that their imagination defines objective reality for other people. Maybe this will help you in some way, too. There are probably volumes that could flow from what I've articulated here, but the basic idea that all those volumes would flow from is still fairly simple: God is a word we use to talk about our innermost being.

Mark 12: Authority, Money, and Responsibility

Two short passages finish out Mark 12. First, the author of Mark tells us that the scribes love their positions of authority in the community, and they use their power to take advantage of the disenfranchised (particularly widows). This is inappropriate behavior for a person claiming to be righteous, and thus they will receive condemnation in proportion to the respect they demand. The second passage turns contributions to the temple treasury into an object lesson. The wealthy give appropriate amounts, but not so much that they are inconvenienced; a widow gives "everything she had, all she had to live on," and is praised for being the most generous contributor.

As has been our practice, we can look to parallel passages in which the authors of Matthew and Luke have copied from the gospel of Mark. The authors of Luke presents these two passages almost identically to the gospel of Mark. (This is what we might call plagiarism today, but the ancient world took a different view.) The authors of Matthew, however, have quite a bit to say against the scribes and Pharisees. The authors of Luke include similar words in an earlier chapter. The sentiments are about the same as what the authors of Mark express, just a bit less succinct and a bit more incendiary. Due to the drastic differences, it would serve us best to wait for a walk through the gospel of Matthew to deal with this extensive castigation. The gospel of Matthew, incidentally, leaves out the object lesson about the widow's generosity.

Both of these observations bear some similarity to situations we see in the twenty-first century, and while we could delve into first-century Jewish sectarianism and expectations of contributing to the temple treasury, such intellectual pursuits would not necessarily bring us any closer to understanding and applying the basic points of these passages in our own lives. At first, the two seem like unrelated comments on two different behaviors. The underlying foundation of both of these passages, however, is understanding the motivations behind actions. We may not be able to understand the motivations of another person, even though we may think we have somebody pegged. We should, at the very least, be attentive to our own motivations, though.

Looking at the scribes of Mark 12, then, we get a picture of people who think very highly of themselves and want other people to think very highly of them too. We don't actually know what the motivations of the scribes were; we know that they were religious and legal authorities with a lot of community responsibilities. In an authoritarian system, lack of respect for the people who make the rules is a problem, so it's possible that the stereotypical scribe persona was an intentional attempt to command respect from the people over whom one had responsibility. It could also have been a corrupt system that allowed for some people to benefit from other people suffering.

We can probably think of a long list of people who think very highly of themselves today. Some politicians, celebrities, religious leaders, and even big fish in little civic groups have a habit of telling everyone who will listen how important and right they are. Some people are a little more subtle, but astute observation will indicate that they are putting on a bit of a show. There are also some politicians, religious leaders, and celebrities who do some admirable things while maintaining very admirable attitudes. It's not really about the position of authority they hold, it's how they behave in that position. Some people may not know how not to react with boisterous self-inflation when they think they are being attacked. Other people seem to have developed the skill of remaining centered even in the midst of chaos.

This speaks to a person's emotional maturity then--what some call self-differentiation. When we are emotionally immature, we sometimes do harmful things to ourselves and to other people because we are trying to alleviate our own anxiety. We might throw our authority around because we're afraid that people aren't going to respect us. We might make a show of force because we're afraid that if we look weak, people won't do what we want them to do. We might take things from people we perceive as less important than us in order to curry favor with people we think can benefit us. All of this comes from letting anxiety or fear govern our behavior. We can't know what the scribes criticized in Mark were thinking, but it's obvious that not all of them were handling their authority with emotional maturity. Their actions wound up harming the people and the community for which they were supposed to be responsible.

It isn't just famous people who have responsibility, though. It isn't just politicians and celebrities and leaders of organizations who suffer from emotional immaturity. There may be times in our own lives when we just want people to listen to us and do what we want, and we may be tempted to throw our own authority around, such as it may be. It's tough in those situations to realize that our anxiety is pulling the strings. When we work toward greater emotional maturity, we benefit ourselves and the people around us--the people to whom we are responsible regardless of our title or level of fame. More about emotional maturity in a moment.

First, though, let's take a closer look at the widow that the authors of Mark praised. It's important to recognize that the people who gave "out of their abundance" aren't criticized for doing so, but it's clear that the widow is considered more generous because of the proportion of her wealth that she gave. Unfortunately, knowing only what we are told about this woman's circumstances, she seems to be committing an act of profound irresponsibility. Why would she give everything she had to live on? (This is what we are told. It's pointless to question whether that is an accurate assessment of what she gave.) The only reason she would give everything she had to live on would seem to be that she knew that someone else was going to provide for her needs. The modern day equivalent would be to sign over your social security to a church because you know that the people around you are going to buy your groceries, mow your lawn, pay your utility bills, and generally take care of you. There may be some people in this very situation, but does this reflect a lack of responsibility in one's life?

Money is a frequently discussed issue in a lot of ethical and religious contexts, and the practicalities of managing money are not always easy. Only about 10% of the population of first century Jerusalem could be considered wealthy, and there was a profound gulf between the wealthy and the common citizen. One could not work one's way into the upper class. In our own time, what had seemed to be a gradual equalization of wealth has been reversed to such an extent that we are in nearly the same position, except for the illusions of prosperity that coat the West. We have become a part of a global economy in which the wealthiest 10% of the world's population holds 86% of the world's wealth. On the lower end of the scale, 50% of the world's adult population (altogether) holds 1% of the world's wealth. This means that any of the problems of this world that can be solved by throwing money at them cannot be realistically shouldered by half (or more) of the people who currently exist, no matter how inspired they might be to contribute something. The hope of working together financially is an illusion for most of the world in terms of global issues.

In more localized systems, however, cooperation can be much more meaningful. Contributing money toward something in cooperation with one's immediate neighbors can have a big influence for that community of people. What is more responsible, then, if a person has a small amount of money? Is it best to give that money to an organization that doesn't directly support one's well-being holistically? Or is it best to pool one's resources with one's neighbors in order to improve well-being for a community of people of which one is a part? When the widow gave all that she had, paltry though it may have seemed to some, she was assuming that she would be dependent upon others. Fortunately, the Jewish practice at the time was to take care of widows and orphans, so she was contributing toward an organization that was committed to tending to her care. Our culture is different, for better or worse. Our decisions require a bit of thoughtfulness if we are to be personally responsible in our lives.

Even when we choose to contribute some of our money toward something we consider to be worthy, we have a choice about our attitude. A wealthy person who gives to a cause out of sincere generosity and a wealthy person who gives to a cause for a tax break or out of a sense of obligation do not have the same experience. The fact that they are wealthy has nothing to do with it. The values behind their contributions are what makes their experiences distinct. A wealth of psychological research has demonstrated that altruism is pleasing to people. We like to be generous. We like to help others. There is something about the development of our brains that has linked altruism with our own sense of personal satisfaction. So, when we are altruistic, we are happier. It seems a shame to limit the opportunities for altruism to a minute portion of the world's population simply because they have the most money with which to be altruistic.

From a logical standpoint, then, it seems most reasonable to place the financial responsibility for global issues on the shoulders of the wealthiest 10% of the world's population. It seems most reasonable (especially for the 2/3 of the world whose personal wealth is less than $10,000 each) to use available funds to be as personally responsible as possible for one's own well-being. There's a bit more to these stories than the allocation of wealth and responsibility, though. These lessons are about one's motivation. Are you giving money because you feel ashamed or afraid? Are you giving money out of a sense of obligation? Are you giving away money without considering how that act will affect your ability to care for yourself and the other people for whom you are responsible? Or are you being thoughtful and passionate in what you contribute? Are you giving because you care about something greater than yourself and you can do so without jeopardizing your own well-being? What we have to offer goes far beyond money. If we care about other people and want to make a difference, there are many ways that we can do so without harming ourselves or those around us.

Whether we are considering how we use our power and authority or how we use our wealth and resources, the underlying foundation is our attitude. Basically, it is a matter of considering whether we are being emotionally mature about our decisions. Emotional maturity is the ability to respond thoughtfully to a situation instead of reacting thoughtlessly. Emotional maturity reflects one's commitment to deeply held guiding principles instead of being influenced by the anxiety of the moment. Emotional maturity is about one's willingness to be responsible for one's own actions and beliefs instead of blaming other people or circumstances. From a perspective of emotional maturity, then, being responsible for one's own well-being is very different from being self-indulgent or hedonistic. Emotionally mature people keep their commitments (and make commitments they can keep). They don't fold or discard their values in the face of flattery or criticism. Emotionally mature people exhibit gratitude and humility, and they recognize the value of connection and partnership as much as they recognize the value of having clear boundaries in human relationships.

When it comes down to it, we are capable of doing those things that lead toward the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. We can't be responsible for other people's actions, but we can strive for our own actions to reflect our deepest, most noble selves. We can commit to being the best possible versions of ourselves. That means handling our authority well--not demanding respect but earning it, and not harming the people under our care. It means handling our finances well--not hoarding what we have out of a fear of scarcity, and not neglecting our own well-being out of a sense of shame or obligation. It also means handling all of the resources of our lives in a way that reflects our guiding principles. Our time, our intelligence, our communication, our compassion, our skillfulness--anything that we have at our disposal through which we can live authentically.

All people have inherent value, and that includes us as well as every person with whom we come into contact. We can live by that principle if we choose.

Mark 11: (Don't) Let Them Eat Figs -- Problematic Lessons on Prayer

Surrounding the story of Jesus causing a ruckus in the temple in the gospel of Mark is a problematic lesson about faith and prayer which begins when Jesus curses a fig tree. The gospel of Matthew includes this fig tree episode, but places it just after the cleansing of the temple. For whatever reason the author(s) of Matthew include the end of the fig tree lesson earlier, after an exorcism story. The gospel of Luke doesn't say anything about the fig tree, or draw the same conclusions about faith and prayer (although the Gospel of Thomas twice proclaims that people can move mountains, not by faith, but by being at peace and in unity with one another). The final passage from Mark 11, dealing with the source of authority for Jesus' actions and teachings, appears in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke, more or less just as the gospel of Mark conveys it. In Matthew, this passage follows just after the fig tree episode, just as it is in Mark. In Luke, this passage about authority occurs immediately after the cleansing of the temple.

We should also ask a question about a source of authority, but first, let's examine what happens with this fig tree. It's not the season for the fig tree to bear fruit, but since Jesus is hungry, he curses the fig tree. The next time the disciples see the tree, it has withered and died, and they assume that this is because Jesus pronounced a curse on it. Jesus goes on to tell them that if they have enough faith, they will be able to pray for anything and receive it, even if what they want defies natural law. He also says that people should forgive others when they pray.

Forgiving people is generally a good idea. Yet, this lesson leaves some gaping questions. If Jesus could ask for anything he wanted, including having a mountain go for a walk, why didn't he ask for the fig tree to bear fruit out of season? After all, what he actually wanted was food, right? Or did he really, deeply just want to make a tree wither? What is accomplished by this that would not have been accomplished by causing fruit to appear on the tree? He could have satisfied his hunger and made a very potent illustration about the power of faith. The lesson actually seems to be, "when you are bitter about not getting what you want, you can punish even nature for displeasing you, if you have enough faith." What an immature (not to mention utterly false) idea!

There are some things we know about the way the world behaves. Sure, there are plenty of things that we still have to learn, but the hypothesis that people's thoughts and wishes alone can change natural law has been tested and disproved. "Natural law" means that consistent observations made over a long period of time, by a variety of observers, has yielded predictable patterns. Trees don't wither because you curse them. Mountains don't move because you pray for them to. Don't believe me? You don't have to. Try it out.

Believe in yourself, or believe in whatever supernatural you like, and curse a tree that's in full bloom. Don't take any other actions to harm the tree; just curse it. Preferably gather some impartial observers, too. If your curse fails to affect the tree, is it really because you don't believe strongly enough? Or is it because curses don't really do anything?

Perhaps the idea of cursing something is too harsh. Try another experiment then. Pray for your lemon tree to bloom with roses. Or for your oak tree to sprout pomegranates. Pray for it. Really believe that it will happen. As the gospel of Mark says, believe that you have already received it. When your experiment is concluded, will you decide that your faith is weak? Or will you recognize that lemon trees don't produce roses and oak trees don't produce pomegranates? And don't excuse a failed experiment by quoting the line about not testing God. The same Jesus that is purported to have quoted that line to the devil is the one telling his disciples they can make mountains dance if they really want to.

Here's a better idea. Figure out what you really want, and do something to create it. If what you really want in your heart of hearts is to kill a fig tree, you can figure out a way to do it. We can even literally move big chunks of earth around with the right machinery. Even when we really, deeply want something, it isn't made available to us just because we want it, or wish for it, or pray for it -- even if we wish with every ounce of our being, and even if we pray with impeccable confidence. Some things are not within our control, even if we want them very badly. We can't wish people back to life; we can't pray disease away. Our wishes or prayers can't eliminate our debt, or make people like or respect us, or land us a job, or allow us to pass a test with no preparation. The studies have been done; the research is conclusive. Wishing and praying don't alter reality. Some things we are better off accepting.

We do have some influence over some things, though. When we are sharp about what we really want, beyond the fears and entitlements and vows that often impede our connection with ourselves, we have some capability to effect change. If we want better health, we have some control over our behavior and environment. If we want better relationships, we have some control over our willingness to listen, to be vulnerable, to love. If we want a more just world, we have some control over how we express compassion and speak out for justice. The things we really want in our lives and in the world are not about withering trees and moving mountains. More often than not, the things we really want are about growing within ourselves and influencing other people in a positive way. We don't do that by wishing or praying; we grow and influence by taking meaningful action.

When the question of authority comes up for Jesus in the gospel narrative, the authors aren't clear whether the priests and scribes are genuinely curious or are just trying to catch Jesus in some scandalous admission. What so many of us fail to realize is that we do not need authorization to create the lives -- the world -- we most want. Understanding that we can't revise natural law with wishes and prayers, and that we can't control other people, we can still accomplish a great deal in our lives and in the world. Of course, we have to dismantle our fears and our inappropriate shame in order to connect with our deepest, most noble selves and understand what we really want. When we understand that, though, we have permission to act in accord with our deepest, most noble selves. When we are ready to act, not out of fear or shame or entitlement, but out of our deep love for ourselves and for one another, we can be self-authorizing.

Often, we authorize ourselves to act anyway. Many times, though, this means we are authorizing ourselves to take or protect what we think we're entitled, or to fight or defend against what we fear. That level of authorization doesn't come from a place of emotional maturity; it's like cursing a fig tree out of season. If we really want a thriving fig tree that produces delicious fruit, we have to take some responsibility for the care of that tree. Our lives are like that. We can take some responsibility for the things we really want, and we can get better at distinguishing between our fears and our deep passions. Prayer won't change reality. We won't ever move mountains with just a thought. Yet, we can change reality -- for ourselves and for others -- if we are willing to create the lives and the world we most want.