John 9: Being Willing to Have Our Perspectives Challenged

As we observed in last week's interlude, the miracle story in John 9 assumes that there are clear lines that one can draw between people. It is as if people reside in well-defined boxes, and we only want to show approval for people who live in the same box we do. However, there are no "good people" or "bad people." Rather, there are actions which contribute to greater well-being and there are actions that do harm. The same person might engage in "good" and "bad" actions. In fact, we all do.

Perhaps that's the first flaw of the Pharisee perspective. They ask how a "sinner" can offer healing. They operate under an illusion of the world as clearly divided between worthy and unworthy, clean and unclean, loved and unlovable. These are labels that people apply to other people, but they are not reflections of reality. If the same individual can contribute to harm or to well-being, then there is always possibility in human decisions. This offers one reason to recognize that every person has worth and dignity. Every person is worthy of love and respect, even though every action isn't.

Some people will read this story and walk away with the impression that it's about Jesus healing people and the Pharisees judging people. It runs the risk of becoming a "Jesus and Christianity vs the Pharisees and Judaism" debate. This is unfortunate, even though it's probably one of the goals of the authors to lift up Christianity as superior to Judaism. The reality is that physical inconveniences exist even among believers. Belief in Jesus doesn't cure blindness, deafness, epilepsy, cancer, or any other actual physical condition. We get more from this story if we set aside the miraculous backdrop and look at the actual truths involved. When we recall that Jesus can be seen as an exemplar for human beings to emulate rather than a unique superhuman, we stand to get more from the story.

The authors of John portray Jesus as a bit of a provocateur. The character does things that he knows will agitate the Pharisees, but he does some of these things purposefully. John's version of Jesus is willing to publicly acknowledge the flaws in the religious/social system, and he is willing to care for those who are written off by their society. He can't care for every one of them, of course, but he contributes to the well-being of enough people to make a point.

Something is broken about the easy categorization of people into dichotomies. People are not static entities, and we are not made worthless by a bad decision or a bad day. We don't separate easily into neat boxes. The Pharisees can't wrap their minds around someone who doesn't meet their approval performing an action that ought to meet their approval. In the story, they keep questioning the recovered man to find the loophole that will allow them to maintain a worldview that is comfortable and familiar. Instead, they are told that, since they claim to understand things, they are culpable for the harm they do.

Thus, the story says something about ignorance as well. The same harmful action might be more easily forgiven if someone is ignorant about what they're doing than if someone does harm with full knowledge and awareness. We feel no guilt when we don't know we've done something harmful. It's only when we have awareness of the harmful results of our actions that our guilt kicks in to prompt us to set things right, insofar as that's possible. The Pharisees claimed to be knowledgeable and aware, so they must also be accountable for their actions. As they perpetuated and upheld a flawed system that benefited them and harmed others, their own responsibility was magnified.

Of course, some people claim to be knowledgeable and wise when they aren't. The call to accountability might have been intended to allow people a chance to step back and evaluate their awareness. Perhaps our knowledge or wisdom is not as thorough as we believe. Perhaps our easy answers fail to take some portion of reality into consideration. The instructive piece of the story might be found in the differences between the behavior of the Pharisees and the other characters (a trope that is becoming familiar in John).

The characters of Jesus and the blind man and his family were calm, reasonable, celebratory, self-aware. While others may have asked whether the blind man was suffering because of his own sin or his parents', he wasn't perpetuating any such ideas as far as the story tells us. All we know about him was that he was simply unable to see. The Pharisees and their religious worldview tried to concoct an explanation for the blindness that would make sense to them, and in so doing, they gave themselves a reason to look down on the man. They were able to judge people who were (in the Pharisees' opinion) flawed without having to acknowledge their own flaws. That's a pretty comfortable position.

Most likely, the Pharisees said and did what they did because they were afraid. That's what "sin" is after all -- fear put into action. People in positions of power have plenty to be afraid of. They were afraid of acknowledging their own weaknesses or flaws. They were potentially afraid of change, since their system kept them comfortable. They might have been afraid of being wrong. Their way of being wouldn't make sense anymore if they couldn't trust their assumptions about reality. They may even have been afraid of being just like everyone else. Fear prompted them to keep poking at a person who had been made well, rather than celebrating his well-being.

You can probably reason what the implications of this story are for our lives. When our fear drives our behavior, our perspective becomes skewed. We can start looking for ways to protect our worldview rather than looking at the world more honestly. When we choose to live into our principles and values rather than our fear, we can be more tuned in to what we can do to contribute to the well-being of others. We can also be purposeful in our approach to injustice and prejudice, and we can recognize our own flaws and weaknesses without being ashamed of them. This last one may seem a bit odd, but when we can embrace our own humanity, we are less inclined to judge others harshly because of their humanity. When we recognize that there is more that we all share in common than there is that makes us all different and unique, we can partner more easily with one another. At the same time, when we are conscious of our own weaknesses, we can engage intentionally with people who have complementary strengths -- we can learn something from other people.

We do better for ourselves and for the world around us when we don't try to figure out whether a person is worthy or unworthy, good or bad, wise or foolish -- and instead start from the awareness that everyone has worth and everyone has the potential to contribute to a better world. This isn't as easy as pointing at people and making snap judgments based on a little bit of information, but it creates a better foundation for our lives. When we feel prompted to call out someone's beliefs or behavior, maybe we can find ways to do so calmly and without malice. We create better lives and a better world when we are honest about our strengths and weaknesses and we seek out the strengths of others before we start judging their weaknesses. It might even serve us well to keep in mind that what we think of as weaknesses, other people might think of as strengths. The bottom line is that we all still have something to learn, and if our worldview tells us something different, we need to examine that worldview very carefully.

 A Little Experiment: Be curious. When you see someone doing something well, or even doing something differently than you would do it, be curious. Observe what they do. If appropriate, ask them about their process. Don't offer advice or judge, just learn how they do what they do well.

Another Little Experiment: Catch yourself. It's easy to use short, dismissive labels for other people, especially when we want to write them off or explain away actions we don't like. This week, when you catch yourself using a dismissive label for someone, especially when you're feeling judgmental or angry, stop. Often we use the word "just" along with these labels, as in, "She's just clueless," or, "That's just what you can expect from overweight people." Stop yourself when you reduce people to a stereotype or a one-word label and consider what you might not know about them.

One More Little Experiment: You too. Sometimes we use one-word labels to self-criticize and judge ourselves too. We may not know enough about other people to honestly understand their behavior, but we can know ourselves. Be honest about who you are. Don't go overboard in either a positive or a negative self-description, but acknowledge the truth about yourself. Rather than self-critical language -- like, "I'm just stupid," or "I'm worthless" -- be honest. Maybe you didn't have all the information you would have liked when you made a decision. Say that instead of deciding that you're stupid or foolish. Just tell the truth. Try it for a week or two and see what happens.

John 8:31-59 Truth and Freedom

Sometimes it seems like some people just want to be argumentative, that some people interpret words in a way that intentionally fails to grasp their meaning. Maybe some people are just set in their ways, or maybe some people are just a little more dense than I'd hoped. We get a sense of the frustration we all probably feel when someone seems to intentionally misunderstand us toward the end of John 8. It is as if the crowd has never heard of metaphor. Of course, the whole conversation may be contrived by the authors of John to demonstrate a particular point. Remember, the book was written at least 60 years after this conversation would have taken place, if it even took place outside of the authors' minds. So, let's assume that the back-and-forth arguing here is didactic and not a debate between two equally strong perspectives.

What does that leave us with? First of all, it leaves us with some terminology that may need a bit of interpretation. Sin, for instance, is not a terribly useful word, especially since it has been so connected to shame. Shame doesn't create anything worthwhile. Personally, when I see the word sin, I interpret it as fear or reactions prompted by fear.

Likewise, I have previously interpreted God and its synonyms as a deepest, most noble self -- a natural part of what it means to be human rather than an external supernatural. Your deepest, most noble self is the seat of your values and guiding principles, and the fountainhead of your vision of a best possible version of yourself. Scandalous though this still is to some people, I began this entire endeavor locating the idea of divinity within people, so this is just an extension of that basic principle.

With these interpretations in place, then, we see a few ideas put forth. Truth leads to freedom. Everyone is potentially enslaved by their fear and reactivity. Following the example of Jesus (as he is depicted in John) places truth over fear. At the same time, fear is habitual, and the habit of personal fear is reinforced by societal fear.

Sometimes we reject the truth because we don't like it -- which is to say that we are afraid of its implications. We are afraid of the consequences of accepting the truth. We are afraid of the changes we may have to make or the work we may have to do if we are honest. In other words, we are sometimes afraid of being uncomfortable and unsettled. The reason we have these fears is that we are not connected to our deepest values and guiding principles. We are operating on autopilot instead of living intentionally.

Now, the authors of John have the crowd respond with an unrelated ad hominem attack, the clumsy tactics of an amateur debater. "Isn't it true that you're a crazy immigrant!?" We still hear such "clever" attacks by people who don't want to engage with challenging ideas. As human beings, it's often very important to us that we are right. We have a lot riding on being right, especially about how we live our lives. It's easier to undermine the character of someone with challenging ideas than it is to honestly engage in those ideas. The response of the Jesus character to the attack is clear and direct: "You're insulting me, but you're not hearing me." If we're assuming that the Jesus character is in the story as an exemplar, we might do well to envision him as remaining calm in the midst of the desperate accusations. We can see this response as an example of emotional maturity.

Time and again, the crowd refuses to consider the possible truth of what they hear. They interpret literally what could be taken as metaphor. They actively refuse to listen or consider the merit of a message they don't expect. Eventually, the crowd in the story responds with violence, a reaction even less mature than name-calling. They are so desperate to cling to their perspective, so unwilling to consider the possibility that they have some learning and growing to do, that they lash out at the messenger of truth.

We are sometimes the crowd. We are sometimes so set in our perspective that we are hostile toward anything that doesn't seem to agree with our view of the world. Even when we could easily find common ground, we listen to our fear instead and choose some pretty clumsy and desperate tactics to defend and preserve our way of thinking. When we do this, we are being willfully dishonest. We make ourselves liars. Our fear does not lead us to behave according to our deepest values. Our fear suggests that those values can't have priority when there is a more serious threat -- a clear and present danger. The problem is that truth is not a legitimate threat. Truth is what sets us free from our fear.

This is not to say that every idea is worthy of merit, or even that our perspectives are completely wrong or misguided. When we consider another perspective calmly and honestly weigh it against our own perspective, we might walk away from that engagement with unaltered views. We don't have to attack people's character or get violent. Truth will win out. If we are afraid of the truth, especially if we are afraid of the truth to the point that we are considering doing something harmful to another human being, we need to examine that. If we are already being honest, then we don't have to worry about it. We can express our views honestly and calmly without needing anyone to agree with us, and we can listen deeply to the views of others without feeling offended that someone believes something different from us.

Fear is powerful, though. And it's understandable that we are scared of truth that prompts us to grow or change from what has become comfortable. It takes personal discipline to value honesty over fear, and we may need to practice that for awhile before it becomes our habit. Here is what this passage suggests as a possible way to get better at valuing honesty over fear:

Be clear about your guiding principles -- the values that you most want to govern your life -- and live with integrity to those principles. A wise person would consider love first and foremost among those values. If you do this, you'll be able to live more honestly, and truth will free you from fear.

Everyone who experiences fear or anxiety knows that it can take control if you aren't careful. You become a slave to your fear when your fear governs your decisions. There's no way to live out your values with integrity when you're controlled by fear. At least, not with any consistency. If you are free from your fear because you know your deep values -- because you know what you want to stand for in your life -- then you'll have power over your fear. You'll have an actual skill that you can use to live into a best possible version of yourself.

This isn't easy. We want to see ourselves as good people who aren't governed by fear. Yet, we often don't want to hear the truth. We are often afraid of challenges to our way of seeing things. We know our values and we have a sense of the kind of people we want to be, but we don't always live up to that vision of ourselves. That's something we often don't want to admit. We are of two minds. We want to live by our values, and we are afraid of all manner of things.

If we had strong connection with our deepest, most noble selves, we would embrace the truth with love and calmness. The truth resonates with our deepest, most noble selves. We know deep down inside that we are capable of adapting and changing as we learn more. If we are honest about things, we would have to admit that letting our fear control us is a choice that we make. It seems easier perhaps, or it seems necessary in order to preserve our sense of comfort. Yet, so much of our fear is based on lies. We wind up believing things that aren't true about ourselves and other people. How can we embrace truth if we are defending the lies that prop up our fear?

It may sound crazy, but we have to let go of the death grip that we have on our perspective if we want to live into our values. Our values have to be sharpened by truth, not by lies. Our deepest values lead us toward contributing to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Fear can't do that. Lies can't do that. We have the opportunity to experience life fully, and to have a lasting influence on the world. If we want to do that -- if we want to really live -- we have to focus on truth more than we do on fear. The path to living fully is to trust the vision we have of a best possible version of ourselves, and to continually temper that vision with honesty.


A Little Experiment: Ad hominem. Notice this week when someone (maybe even you) attacks a person's character rather than addressing their message. What about the message makes it seem unsafe? Is there some truth in the message that is avoided by attacking the messenger?

Another Little Experiment: Honesty. We are in the habit of telling "little white lies" all the time. Whether we realize it or not, this is an attempt to protect ourselves from what we think will be painful consequences of telling the truth. When you are tempted to be dishonest this week, challenge yourself to be honest. You can still be tactful and sensitive to other people. Just don't lie. Are the consequences as bad as you thought they would be?

One More Little Experiment: Sharpening. By now, you've had a lot of encouragement to clarify your guiding principles and values. Go over them carefully this week. Are any of those values or principles based on a subtle fear about yourself or other people? Is there a way that you can reframe or reword those principles so that they don't reinforce those fears?

(This is one reason that living into a best possible version of ourselves is a journey: We constantly have opportunities to refine what we are doing and who we are being.)

Mark 9: Stumbling Blocks and Concrete Overcoats

We are still mining a section of Mark 9 comprised of a string of short scenes with a couple of overlapping themes. Having considered the theme of authentic power a couple of weeks back, we're on to this business of causing another person to sin. Although it may be tempting to write this concept off and stand on the principle that all people have personal responsibility for their own actions, there is also truth to the statement that none of our decisions take place in a vacuum. Our actions have an influence on the people around us, and part of personal responsibility includes an appreciation for how what we do affects others.

The author of the gospel of Mark places the warnings about putting stumbling blocks in front of people quickly on the heels of using a child as an example, although the final scene of this chapter goes further than just talking about how people treat children. Still, what we learn as children sticks with us for a long time. As children, we make vows about how we must be and what we must do without even realizing that we're making vows. We also develop ideas about what or who we should be afraid of (or even hate) when we are children, when we are too young to even question why. So, it is especially important for adults to be conscientious about what we teach the children in our lives. Children cannot be held responsible for their beliefs about themselves, other people, or reality, but when children grow into adults, we expect them to suddenly be able to take responsibility for themselves. If we have filled the minds of the children in our lives with fear, what kind of adults do we expect them to be?

Children are not the only people susceptible to influence, though. Influential messages bombard us all the time in the form of advertising, political commentaries on television or radio, and less blatantly through just about every form of entertainment. We are responsible for aligning our beliefs and actions with our deep guiding principles rather than the influence of a paid angry or attractive spokesperson, but that isn't always an easy feat. We are also responsible for recognizing how our beliefs and actions influence adults around us. Bullying people into agreement, arguing from a position of half-informed righteous indignation, or promoting an identity of victimhood all come from fear. When we become afraid or anxious, and we lose our connection to our deepest selves, our influence on other people can be harmful. To make matters worse, our fear or anxiety can make us less aware of the impact we're having. Even though we can hold an expectation that other people should be emotionally mature and centered, and even though we aren't ultimately responsible for other people's behavior, it's better for us to empower other people to live based on their principles than it is for us to foster fear.

One interpretation of this scene in Mark is that the afterlife was seen to involve a continued physical existence. The author of the gospel of Mark is possibly saying that it's better to enter into a blessed afterlife maimed than to suffer in one's entirety. The gospels don't actually say much about hell, though, and even this passage is lacking much of its reference to hell in the earliest copies of the text. Plus, throughout the gospel narratives, the authors suggest (through words attributed to Jesus) that the kingdom of God (or the kingdom of Heaven, depending on who's writing) are not future-tense possibilities, but are present realities. Jesus is quoted as saying, "The kingdom of God is at hand," meaning, it's right here and now. So, perhaps the author of Mark is suggesting something else when he proposes mutilating oneself and entering the kingdom of God with a few parts missing.

If the kingdom of God is at hand, presently accessible to those willing to be a part of it, then it must not be a physical location. Perhaps as some have suggested, heaven is a state of mind -- a way of being. If so, then what is sin? And how can one's hand or eye or foot cause one to sin? Many people have pointed out that sin is an old archery term that essentially means, "to miss the mark." Some people would suggest that God sets the mark, but this is problematic, given that the supposed moral bull's eye established in the Hebrew Scriptures consists of a list of prohibitions that were impossible to keep, even for the ancient Israelites who invented it. If one considers Jesus to be a divine figure, a different mark was established in the gospels: love. Jesus' one big commandment was to love, and although that may be tricky to navigate in some situations, it's not a bad bull's eye for life. For people like myself, who don't recognize any superhuman divine beings, the bull's eye comes from deep guiding principles.

Sin, then, is what shifts our focus, the action that stems from something other than our guiding principles or the noblest form of love. Various believers might point to specific behaviors that constitute sin, but the problem is not really the behaviors. The problem is what lies at the root of the behaviors. As you may already have guessed, I believe that fear is what lies at the root of what the gospel writers call sin. When we allow fear to govern us, we forget about love or guiding principles and shift away from the mark we've set for who we want to be in the world. We let fear about ourselves, other people, or reality prompt our actions rather than bringing our most authentic selves forward. I'm not keen on what the church has done with the concept of sin, because it has become a weapon of judgment and condemnation wielded by people who have no more reason than anyone else to feel righteous. Fear is something that affects all people, but we are also all capable of dismantling fear if we choose to do so.

The point, then, is that your hand can't cause you to miss the mark. If you steal something with your hand or strike someone with your fist, your hand doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your deep guiding principles fueled those actions.
Your foot can't cause you to miss the mark. If you step on someone as you ascend whatever ladder of success you're climbing or turn around when you see an opportunity to help someone less fortunate, your foot doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your compassion for and connection to other human beings fueled those actions.
Your eye can't cause you to miss the mark. If you see other people as objects to be manipulated or you remain willfully blind to how your actions harm the people around you, your eye doesn't make you do those things. The fear within you that clouded over your capacity for love fueled those actions.
So, if we're going to amputate the cause of our "sin," our physical body isn't what we need to operate on. We need to amputate our fear.

Since Spencer Johnson and Sheryl Sandberg made it famous, the question has often been asked, but bears repeating:
What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I don't know what you're afraid of. You may fear scarcity -- that there isn't enough _________ for you and everyone else, so you have to protect what you have and do everything you can to get what you deserve. You may fear that, deep down, you are selfish or worthless at your core -- that you have to do everything you possibly can to prove how generous and worthwhile you are, including pleasing everybody around you, even at the expense of your own well-being. You may fear people of a certain ethnicity, religion, or sexual identity. You may fear that you are insignificant. Anything you fear -- especially irrationally -- can distract you from what actually matters most to you. Fear can prompt you to behave in ways that simply don't line up with who you most want to be in the world. Staying immersed in our irrational fears and expecting to be principled or loving people is like putting on a concrete overcoat and expecting to be able to swim. Dismantling our irrational fears opens the way for our guiding principles to be lived out more intentionally.

I'll bet you just glossed over it a paragraph back. Think about it:

What would you do if you weren't afraid?
          What would you create?
                    What would you stand for?
                              How would you be more authentically yourself more of the time?

The author of Mark includes a few sentences about salt at the end of this scene. Many people would suggest that salt symbolized purity for a great many ancient religions. If that's what salt means in this instance, the author of Mark is saying, "Have purity in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." When we live with integrity (or purity) to our deep guiding principles, we can be more connected with the people around us -- and even with people far away from us. Fear is not wise or just or compassionate or even honest. It's hard to live at peace with people -- even people about whom we care deeply -- if we keep fear in the driver's seat. If we recognize our ability to live with integrity by meaningful guiding principles, we can be at peace with others, because we trust our deepest, most noble selves.

So, with or without any religious convictions about Jesus' identity, the words of this section of the gospel of Mark can prompt us to have some conviction about our own identities. We do not need to be people defined by fear. We can be people defined by a deeper sense of truth, beauty, and creativity inherent to all human beings. We can be people who exhibit justice and compassion without suspicion or obligation. We can be people defined by vulnerable, authentic love. Some might call that a glimpse of the kingdom of God. Some might just call it being fully human.

What will you do as a capable, authentic, beautiful, creative human being?