After the story about foot-anointing as an unabashed act of appreciation, the chapter continues with several short scenes interspersed with passages from Hebrew scripture. The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) more frequently suggest that Old Testament words predicted things about Jesus, but here even the authors of John suggest that Jesus did certain things as a "fulfillment" of prophecies. Especially when we remember that the gospel of John was composed more than 50 years after a historical Jesus would have lived, this raises a few questions. We'll take the remainder of the chapter in two large chunks over the next couple of weeks. First, John 12:9-26.
To begin with, we find the Jewish priests having more murderous thoughts, now focused on Lazarus because his resurrection had understandably impressed some people. Why it didn't impress the Pharisees is unexplained. I suppose it is the plot of a number of horror movies that when a person comes back from the dead it isn't necessarily a good thing, but we have nothing in the biblical text to suggest that Lazarus was doing anything untoward after he returned. Actually, the biblical text doesn't suggest that Lazarus did anything, period. Was this passage just to paint the Jewish leaders in a poor light?
Obviously, every saga needs a villain, and the Jewish leaders are the villains of the gospel of John. In our lives, we also face people who can't see the good that people do because they are focused on undermining some sworn enemy. The Pharisees in the biblical myth have a hard time honoring the good things that Jesus does because they are afraid of something about him. The same thing happens in workplaces, families, and perhaps most blatantly in American politics. As human beings, we are bound to eventually face someone who can't appreciate our accomplishments because they are too busy trying to tear us down. Hopefully, we attend to our principles well enough that we don't fall into that pattern of behavior. There's really nothing of value to be gained from tearing other people down.
When we try to tear other people down, it is a testament to our own fear. We may be afraid that other people are going to be fooled by someone, which is to say that we believe that other people are less intelligent and more gullible that we are. We may be afraid that people will ignore us and pay attention to a more impressive person -- that we will not have our emotional needs met. We may be afraid that someone is going to get more money than us, that we will suffer financially if we don't tear someone else down. All of these fears are understandable, and still these fears sabotage our own happiness more than anyone else's.
A more emotionally mature response is to live with integrity despite the attention or apparent benefit someone else receives. From the flip side, when people's fears and hostility is focused on us, the emotionally mature response is to recognize it as a symptom of their own fear. We can remain connected with people who attack us if we want, but we should be aware of our own tendencies to be provoked. We don't want our attempts to remain engaged with hostile people to wind up knocking us off our intentional, principled path. In every situation, the important place to begin is with clarity about our own deep values and clear guiding principles. From there, we can act with integrity. There are times when the best response for us may be to ignore the reactive hostility of others.
The exemplar of the story in John certainly seems to ignore any perceived threat from the Jewish leaders. He leaves Lazarus unguarded and makes a grand entrance into Jerusalem. Now, this "triumphal entry" scene happens in every gospel narrative, but it does make a lot of sense to be celebrated by the crowds once news spread that someone had been raised from the dead. We have mentioned that the authors of John probably at least knew about the other gospel narratives, since the gospel of John was the last among the biblical gospels to be written. So, perhaps the reference to Zechariah 9:9 in verse 15 is intended to correct a somewhat ridiculous assertion by the authors of Matthew.
See, the authors of Matthew were so insistent on demonstrating how Jesus was the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy that they wind up suggesting some odd things. In the version of this scene in Matthew, the authors interpret their "prophetic" text to mean that the messiah will ride two animals, and so they insist that Jesus rode two donkeys into the city. This ridiculous assertion isn't repeated in the other gospel narratives, and it's just possible that the authors of John included an uncharacteristic indication of prophecy fulfilled to correct the silliness of the triumphal entry scene of Matthew.
The discrepancy is telling, however. It becomes obvious at the very least that the authors of Matthew didn't bear witness to the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. This event isn't recorded anywhere else outside of the biblical gospel narratives, which are not independent of one another. Gospel writers often copied previously written passages without any change of detail, which means that they offer no additional support or credibility. The ludicrous scene painted in Matthew of Jesus riding two animals suggests that the authors were willing to invent details in order to match with their interpretation of prophetic scripture, and this in and of itself damages the credibility of the gospel narrative overall.
Perhaps the authors of John realized something along these lines when they included Zechariah 9:9, quoted a little more sensibly. Even if there was a historical Jesus who made a blatantly messianic entrance into Jerusalem, this kind of behavior might be a bit suspect. If the symbolism of a display is going to be interpreted as a fulfillment of prophecy, the prophecy would have to be pretty familiar to people. And if a prophecy is familiar, anyone with the ego to do so could "fulfill" at least some prophecy if they wanted to, especially if the prophecy involved something as simple as riding a donkey into the city. Was the Jesus of the gospel of John trying to demonstrate a fulfillment of prophetic predictions? Or was his action coincidentally supported by scriptural words that seemed prophetic after the fact?
Well, the process taken in Matthew demonstrates that at least some prophecy mining was taking place. The authors looked for texts that seemed to contain a messianic prediction, and they invented stories about Jesus that fulfilled those texts. If this were not the case, the gospel of Matthew wouldn't have suggested that Jesus rode into town on two animals. Even if we assume that the other gospel writers took a different approach, what is the point behind mentioning Jesus riding a donkey? If it is to show that he fulfills a messianic prophecy, one must ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who rode into town on donkeys before and after this event. If the point is that Jesus was humble, riding on a donkey instead of a more majestic mount, one must ask how well the character of Jesus was supposed to know Hebrew scripture. If he knew that riding into town on a donkey would be construed as an indicator of the messiah, how humble could he have been?
The gospel of John even subtly acknowledges that these sorts of messianic claims are problematic, and the authors suggest that the followers of Jesus didn't put all this together until after the fact. What is the difference between "remembering that these things had been written of him" and hunting down scriptural texts that seem to fit? If Jesus was an actual person, and if people had actual (fallible, inaccurate) memories of him, how much easier would it have been to find scriptural references that aligned with him than with anyone else? My guess is that once you've decided that someone was a messiah, it's not difficult to track down some supporting texts that match that person's identity and life, especially given that human beings can be very flawed in their perceptions and very creative in their memories of events.
This is one problem with "authoritative" texts. When a document is lifted up as authoritative, it becomes unquestioned. And if you can twist the words to mean what you want them to mean, you can hide behind an unquestionable text rather than having to be personally responsible for what you say and do. The only thing that can give a text authority is alignment with reality. A text doesn't become true just because we agree with it. While we can play match up between people and prophecies as much as we like, the truth is that we could find correlations between anyone's life and the ancient prophecies of some culture. As entertaining as that may be, it's a distraction from living our lives with intention and purpose.
The story actually moves on quickly to the Jesus character speaking about death and purpose. We may not agree with his metaphors, but the authors of John seem to have Jesus say essentially that a person's life is worth more after it's over. When a grain of wheat dies and is buried, it brings forth abundant fruit that would have been impossible if that grain of wheat had remained whole. Likewise, people who cling to their own life and well-being will suffer loss, while people who release their grip on life and well-being find something eternal and wonderful. Then, it is asserted once more that those who follow the example of Jesus will be rewarded.
Alright, so perhaps there is something to the whole "riding a donkey means you're humble" imagery. If the messiah of this story knows how great he is and still chooses to ride a symbolically humble animal, maybe following the example would mean that we recognize our own human frailty and weakness even as we acknowledge our own personal strengths and greatness. Sure, people were making a spectacle and calling him royalty (and he didn't tell them to stop), but he didn't take advantage of their adoration either. He received it humbly and gracefully, by the account in John. We can endeavor to do the same perhaps, balancing honest and authentic self-awareness of our strengths and power with honest and authentic self-awareness of our weaknesses and dependence on others.
What does it mean then that if we love our life we will lose it and if we hate our life we will gain it? This phrase also appears in all four gospels, although in different contexts. The authors of John seem to support the concept of eternal life, which we must take as a metaphor. The phrase, "abundant life" seems clearer and more useful. If someone "loves" life in this sense, it would seem to be equivalent with a fear for one's safety, an unhealthy longing for security and safety that becomes the priority over and above one's principles. "Hating" life would then indicate not being worried or fearful about one's safety and security, which would free one up to live with authenticity and integrity to deep guiding principles regardless of other people's reactions. When you stop being afraid of the consequences, it's easier to embody justice, equity, and compassion in your life, despite the resistance others may express. And if more people honored their principles over their own safety, perhaps it would become clear how much our deepest values coincide with one another.
This is what is must mean to emulate the Jesus of the gospel of John, to be committed to one's principles so deeply that integrity is more important than safety, which brings us to one additional possibility for the mention of riding a donkey. The donkey may be symbolic of peace. Certainly, the reference to Zechariah 9:9 makes sense with this interpretation as much as the interpretation of humility. If the presence of the donkey in the story is intended to suggest valuing peace over conflict, then we have another suggestion at what it might mean to emulate an idealized self-differentiated person of integrity. Even when we are more committed to our principles than we are to our own safety and security, this doesn't mean we should be brash and hostile to others about our beliefs and values. The value of peace might help temper our interactions, and is obviously a better frame for our relationships than fear. Our lack of fear about other people's reactions need not mean that we are unnecessarily provocative. Our part is to live intentional lives of integrity and to model gentle fearlessness.
As a postscript, I should be clear in this that there are still people in some places in the world who face very real fear for their safety on a daily basis. I'm writing from the context of United States society, in which a lot of our fear is misguided and irrational. For some, it is a much more challenging prospect to allow one's authenticity to take priority over one's safety. I'm not promoting rash, irresponsible public action. Unlike the apparent glorification of martyrdom in this passage from John, I think we have greater potential to make a difference in the world while we are living in the world. We just need to be honest about how realistic or unrealistic our fears are. If we are afraid that someone is going to put a bullet in our heads if we quietly act for justice, equity, and compassion, we should be thoughtful about how we live out our values. If we are afraid that someone is going to embarrass us or that we are going to lose a bit of popularity or even wealth if we live with integrity to our principles, it's important to put those fears in perspective.
Showing posts with label subjective history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label subjective history. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2015
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Mark 15: Sifting Through the Crucifixion Narrative
Continuing for another couple of weeks with the Passion story as it is related in the gospel of Mark, we read of the crucifixion event and some connections with the Hebrew Scriptures made by the early church. It bears repeating that there is very little evidence of a historical Jesus, but we wouldn't necessarily expect there to be. There is very little evidence from the first century of any single person who wasn't a powerful political or military figure, or a historian who wrote about important political and military figures. The Christian cult is mentioned in a couple of historical documents, but in these reports historians repeat what the early church believed about Jesus, rather than verify their story.
Even if there were more evidence of a historical Jesus, this would not necessarily validate any particular story about him. That a person names Nunzio exists is one kind of assertion; to say that Nunzio is manager of an Italian restaurant is another kind of assertion; and to say that Nunzio never buys wine for his restaurant because he can just turn water into alcohol whenever he wishes is yet another kind of assertion. To prove that Nunzio is a real person does not thereby lead to the conclusion that Nunzio can turn water into wine. Even to prove that Nunzio seemed to turn water into wine on one occasion does not necessarily conclude that he could do it again, or that he could perform any other amazing feat. With regard to Jesus, there is simply no way to prove the claims of the gospel narratives.
This is not a glaring indictment for most believers. Many people would say that accepting the gospel narratives requires faith, and they believe that their lives are improved by that faith. I have suggested that believing in a historical Jesus or that such a person performed miracles is rather shallow when one considers the minimal impact such belief could have in an individual's life. To believe in unicorns or dragons matters not at all (save that one may be a target for those who would take advantage of such gullibility), until one decides to quit one's job, leave one's family, and go hunting for unicorns or dragons. Then, it matters a great deal. Belief in what Jesus symbolizes -- belief to the extent that the values represented by the Jesus archetype permeate one's life -- would seem to be more vital than belief that Jesus actually existed.
Thus, when reading the Passion story in any of the gospels, one might do well to push past the question of whether something really happened and look to the symbolism as one would look at any other mythological tale. What is the wisdom being communicated? Where does one find oneself in the story? If the story is about Hercules slaying a hydra, does one identify most with the heroic role, with the role of the nephew Iolaus, with the townsfolk who were victims of the danger until someone heroic came along, or with the naysayers after the event who minimized the accomplishment? Can one learn something from every character in the story about oneself, or about what a best possible version of oneself might look like? This would seem to be a more valuable approach than blind belief that someone accomplished something unique a long time ago, and that the intangible benefits are available to anyone who just believes the story.
For the early church, it was important to set Jesus up as a unique messianic figure connected to Hebrew Scripture. This was possibly an unfortunate misinterpretation of the intentions of the prophets, particularly Isaiah, who cast vision for every individual to live into the ideal of compassionate justice. When the words of the ancient scriptures are made to be about a single person, it rather lets everyone else off the hook for living into that ideal. Several of the quotes and details of the crucifixion story are thus attributable to attempts on the part of the early church to affirm that Jesus was a unique fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. The mythologizing of the story can be seen in the wine mixed with myrrh which Jesus refuses, the fall of darkness over the land, the casting of lots (gambling -- rolling dice) for his clothing, the presence of criminals alongside him (although this would certainly not be unusual, since criminals were crucified in droves in the Roman empire), and the words that Jesus speaks, which are a reference to a psalm of lament.
An interesting feature of the story is the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. Many have interpreted this as a symbol that the separation between God and man was no more -- that people did not have to go through priests and sacrificial rituals to connect with the divine. Others have suggested that this is a symbol that God no longer lives in houses made by human hands, which would have been a significant concept in the first century. In any case, it was certainly an indictment against the religious power structures of the time, and it was a call to a change of perspective.
The burial scene is intended to provide enough details to make the resurrection event convincing, even though that event is a bit odd as it is told in the earliest version of the gospel of Mark. The verification that Jesus is dead, the traditional appropriate Jewish treatment of the body, and the heavy stone rolled across the tomb entrance are to make resurrection reports credible and impressive. Normally, a poor man crucified as a criminal would have been tossed in a mass grave, and whether he was still there or whether he had gotten up and walked off somewhere would be very difficult to determine. Like the other seemingly historical aspects of the story, hanging one's faith on whether things happened exactly as a gospel narrative suggests is a rather shallow reading. The real value is in determining the application in one's own life, and there are more worthwhile applications that mere belief in an event.
When I say that it is unfortunate that the early church appropriated Hebrew scripture to assert that Jesus was a unique messianic figure, I mean that it is very difficult to reclaim some of the ideas of those writings if one believes that they applied specifically to one particular person. Lament psalms were meant to be available to a community and to any individual who experienced the kind of suffering and pain reflected in the poem/song. Connecting a lament psalm to Jesus takes it somewhat off the market for personal expression, because, from the perspective of believers, no one suffered or felt pain like Jesus.The lament becomes about Jesus' suffering instead of our own, and our own suffering is made insignificant by comparison.
Except that our own suffering isn't insignificant. Comparing it to someone who has suffered more might seem like our preoccupation with our own pain isn't legitimate, but that doesn't keep us from feeling the pain. It just gives us reason to feel guilty or ashamed about feeling our pain. One big lesson that we could take from understanding how the gospel writers and the early church made use of well-known Hebrew scriptures is to reclaim our experience. The original intent behind much of the prophetic writing in the Old Testament was for individuals and communities to be more intentional in their behavior and to have more integrity to their values. These ideas are not unique to the Old Testament. This has been a challenge in many cultures from many different perspectives throughout human history. Seen as such, the Hebrew scriptures become one resource among many resources to influence individuals toward living in a way that contributes to holistic well-being in their own lives and in the lives of their communities and neighborhoods. We need to experience our own suffering without being ashamed of feeling pain, and we need to recognize our own role in influencing our realities.
There are two symbolic results of the crucifixion that bear acknowledgment -- truths that the early church recognized and expressed as well as it could in the culture of the first century. First, there is that image of the curtain being torn in two. There is no separation between the divine and humanity. Since whatever we call divine is intrinsic to humanity, we can connect with those qualities within ourselves whenever we wish. We might become more skillful at introspection, but we are never denied access to our deepest, most noble self and we do not have to go through any particular ritual actions to connect with ourselves. God is a word people use to refer to a deep part of themselves, but we do not have to follow any linguistic protocol to connect with that part of ourselves that we could characterize as divinity.
Second, there is the idea of forgiveness. In the context of a covenant relationship between a supernatural and humanity, human beings had to somehow account for the things they did that were out of alignment with what their supernatural wanted. This is what the Jewish sacrificial system was largely about: staying in alignment with the values of their supernatural. It became something of an obsession in Jewish society. Keeping oneself pure, remaining personally in step with religious law, became more important than risky acts of justice or compassion. People were perhaps apt to disconnect from real, deep community because they didn't want to be scrutinized. Even today, a lot of people are more concerned about what they have done wrong, what other people have done wrong, what people might be thinking about doing wrong, or what wrong motives they may have had for doing something that seems quite good on the outside. It is also much easier to stay in a judgmental frame of mind when you're focused on how people are failing.
The early Christian church solved this issue, but most of them didn't seem to realize it. By inventing a dying and rising messiah figure who eliminated the need for ritual animal sacrifice, the early church essentially said, "We don't have to worry about sin anymore." This is not to imply licentiousness (although some people in the early church apparently did take it that way), but rather to say that the best thing to do when you fall short of your ideal is to get up -- hopefully with the help and embrace of a loving community of people -- and take another run at it. The idea of sinfulness is laced with shame, and it winds up not being incredibly helpful. If we were to accept that we have nothing to fear from getting something wrong, we might get past the self-obsession with where we might spend an imaginary afterlife and focus on things that matter right now -- like how we are in our relationships with the people we encounter every day.
Even for people who want to believe in the historical validity of the Passion story, then, there are these two big things that can transform the way we do life. We are not separated from whatever it is we call divine, and we are capable of making mistakes and moving on. There are often consequences when we fall out of alignment with our deep guiding principles, but those consequences don't have to come with shame or insurmountable guilt. We are human beings. We are not perfect. We will disappoint one another because we will have expectations of one another that go unmet. That's life. Our real work is not to try not to do anything wrong and to do whatever we can to make up for all of the mistakes we make. Our real work is to bring our capability into full engagement in the communities where we live.
This doesn't mean permissiveness with regard to harmful behavior. It means focusing on what will create greater well-being rather than what someone has done wrong. We never just do harm to one person; our harmful acts always affect ourselves and a whole network of people -- often even people that we will never meet. The idea behind grace is not that we shrug our shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I'll do better next time," but instead to direct our focus away from our own "eternal destinies" and toward how we can positively influence the world around us right now, in this moment. This is how we move beyond our fears of scarcity, fears of embarrassment, fears of insignificance, and fears of powerlessness and move into transformational relationships with the people around us. Whether the Passion story sources that kind of focus for you or whether you draw inspiration from somewhere else, we are capable of building incredible powerful connections with other people when we are willing to set shame aside and bring our authentic selves forward.
Even if there were more evidence of a historical Jesus, this would not necessarily validate any particular story about him. That a person names Nunzio exists is one kind of assertion; to say that Nunzio is manager of an Italian restaurant is another kind of assertion; and to say that Nunzio never buys wine for his restaurant because he can just turn water into alcohol whenever he wishes is yet another kind of assertion. To prove that Nunzio is a real person does not thereby lead to the conclusion that Nunzio can turn water into wine. Even to prove that Nunzio seemed to turn water into wine on one occasion does not necessarily conclude that he could do it again, or that he could perform any other amazing feat. With regard to Jesus, there is simply no way to prove the claims of the gospel narratives.
This is not a glaring indictment for most believers. Many people would say that accepting the gospel narratives requires faith, and they believe that their lives are improved by that faith. I have suggested that believing in a historical Jesus or that such a person performed miracles is rather shallow when one considers the minimal impact such belief could have in an individual's life. To believe in unicorns or dragons matters not at all (save that one may be a target for those who would take advantage of such gullibility), until one decides to quit one's job, leave one's family, and go hunting for unicorns or dragons. Then, it matters a great deal. Belief in what Jesus symbolizes -- belief to the extent that the values represented by the Jesus archetype permeate one's life -- would seem to be more vital than belief that Jesus actually existed.
Thus, when reading the Passion story in any of the gospels, one might do well to push past the question of whether something really happened and look to the symbolism as one would look at any other mythological tale. What is the wisdom being communicated? Where does one find oneself in the story? If the story is about Hercules slaying a hydra, does one identify most with the heroic role, with the role of the nephew Iolaus, with the townsfolk who were victims of the danger until someone heroic came along, or with the naysayers after the event who minimized the accomplishment? Can one learn something from every character in the story about oneself, or about what a best possible version of oneself might look like? This would seem to be a more valuable approach than blind belief that someone accomplished something unique a long time ago, and that the intangible benefits are available to anyone who just believes the story.
For the early church, it was important to set Jesus up as a unique messianic figure connected to Hebrew Scripture. This was possibly an unfortunate misinterpretation of the intentions of the prophets, particularly Isaiah, who cast vision for every individual to live into the ideal of compassionate justice. When the words of the ancient scriptures are made to be about a single person, it rather lets everyone else off the hook for living into that ideal. Several of the quotes and details of the crucifixion story are thus attributable to attempts on the part of the early church to affirm that Jesus was a unique fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. The mythologizing of the story can be seen in the wine mixed with myrrh which Jesus refuses, the fall of darkness over the land, the casting of lots (gambling -- rolling dice) for his clothing, the presence of criminals alongside him (although this would certainly not be unusual, since criminals were crucified in droves in the Roman empire), and the words that Jesus speaks, which are a reference to a psalm of lament.
An interesting feature of the story is the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. Many have interpreted this as a symbol that the separation between God and man was no more -- that people did not have to go through priests and sacrificial rituals to connect with the divine. Others have suggested that this is a symbol that God no longer lives in houses made by human hands, which would have been a significant concept in the first century. In any case, it was certainly an indictment against the religious power structures of the time, and it was a call to a change of perspective.
The burial scene is intended to provide enough details to make the resurrection event convincing, even though that event is a bit odd as it is told in the earliest version of the gospel of Mark. The verification that Jesus is dead, the traditional appropriate Jewish treatment of the body, and the heavy stone rolled across the tomb entrance are to make resurrection reports credible and impressive. Normally, a poor man crucified as a criminal would have been tossed in a mass grave, and whether he was still there or whether he had gotten up and walked off somewhere would be very difficult to determine. Like the other seemingly historical aspects of the story, hanging one's faith on whether things happened exactly as a gospel narrative suggests is a rather shallow reading. The real value is in determining the application in one's own life, and there are more worthwhile applications that mere belief in an event.
When I say that it is unfortunate that the early church appropriated Hebrew scripture to assert that Jesus was a unique messianic figure, I mean that it is very difficult to reclaim some of the ideas of those writings if one believes that they applied specifically to one particular person. Lament psalms were meant to be available to a community and to any individual who experienced the kind of suffering and pain reflected in the poem/song. Connecting a lament psalm to Jesus takes it somewhat off the market for personal expression, because, from the perspective of believers, no one suffered or felt pain like Jesus.The lament becomes about Jesus' suffering instead of our own, and our own suffering is made insignificant by comparison.
Except that our own suffering isn't insignificant. Comparing it to someone who has suffered more might seem like our preoccupation with our own pain isn't legitimate, but that doesn't keep us from feeling the pain. It just gives us reason to feel guilty or ashamed about feeling our pain. One big lesson that we could take from understanding how the gospel writers and the early church made use of well-known Hebrew scriptures is to reclaim our experience. The original intent behind much of the prophetic writing in the Old Testament was for individuals and communities to be more intentional in their behavior and to have more integrity to their values. These ideas are not unique to the Old Testament. This has been a challenge in many cultures from many different perspectives throughout human history. Seen as such, the Hebrew scriptures become one resource among many resources to influence individuals toward living in a way that contributes to holistic well-being in their own lives and in the lives of their communities and neighborhoods. We need to experience our own suffering without being ashamed of feeling pain, and we need to recognize our own role in influencing our realities.
There are two symbolic results of the crucifixion that bear acknowledgment -- truths that the early church recognized and expressed as well as it could in the culture of the first century. First, there is that image of the curtain being torn in two. There is no separation between the divine and humanity. Since whatever we call divine is intrinsic to humanity, we can connect with those qualities within ourselves whenever we wish. We might become more skillful at introspection, but we are never denied access to our deepest, most noble self and we do not have to go through any particular ritual actions to connect with ourselves. God is a word people use to refer to a deep part of themselves, but we do not have to follow any linguistic protocol to connect with that part of ourselves that we could characterize as divinity.
Second, there is the idea of forgiveness. In the context of a covenant relationship between a supernatural and humanity, human beings had to somehow account for the things they did that were out of alignment with what their supernatural wanted. This is what the Jewish sacrificial system was largely about: staying in alignment with the values of their supernatural. It became something of an obsession in Jewish society. Keeping oneself pure, remaining personally in step with religious law, became more important than risky acts of justice or compassion. People were perhaps apt to disconnect from real, deep community because they didn't want to be scrutinized. Even today, a lot of people are more concerned about what they have done wrong, what other people have done wrong, what people might be thinking about doing wrong, or what wrong motives they may have had for doing something that seems quite good on the outside. It is also much easier to stay in a judgmental frame of mind when you're focused on how people are failing.
The early Christian church solved this issue, but most of them didn't seem to realize it. By inventing a dying and rising messiah figure who eliminated the need for ritual animal sacrifice, the early church essentially said, "We don't have to worry about sin anymore." This is not to imply licentiousness (although some people in the early church apparently did take it that way), but rather to say that the best thing to do when you fall short of your ideal is to get up -- hopefully with the help and embrace of a loving community of people -- and take another run at it. The idea of sinfulness is laced with shame, and it winds up not being incredibly helpful. If we were to accept that we have nothing to fear from getting something wrong, we might get past the self-obsession with where we might spend an imaginary afterlife and focus on things that matter right now -- like how we are in our relationships with the people we encounter every day.
Even for people who want to believe in the historical validity of the Passion story, then, there are these two big things that can transform the way we do life. We are not separated from whatever it is we call divine, and we are capable of making mistakes and moving on. There are often consequences when we fall out of alignment with our deep guiding principles, but those consequences don't have to come with shame or insurmountable guilt. We are human beings. We are not perfect. We will disappoint one another because we will have expectations of one another that go unmet. That's life. Our real work is not to try not to do anything wrong and to do whatever we can to make up for all of the mistakes we make. Our real work is to bring our capability into full engagement in the communities where we live.
This doesn't mean permissiveness with regard to harmful behavior. It means focusing on what will create greater well-being rather than what someone has done wrong. We never just do harm to one person; our harmful acts always affect ourselves and a whole network of people -- often even people that we will never meet. The idea behind grace is not that we shrug our shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I'll do better next time," but instead to direct our focus away from our own "eternal destinies" and toward how we can positively influence the world around us right now, in this moment. This is how we move beyond our fears of scarcity, fears of embarrassment, fears of insignificance, and fears of powerlessness and move into transformational relationships with the people around us. Whether the Passion story sources that kind of focus for you or whether you draw inspiration from somewhere else, we are capable of building incredible powerful connections with other people when we are willing to set shame aside and bring our authentic selves forward.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
1 Kings 14-16: Using God as an Explanation Rarely Leads to Wisdom
John the Baptist was certainly not the first prophetic individual to operate outside the organized Jewish church. The Jewish scriptures reflect an evolution of people (mostly men) who boldly proclaimed truth as they saw it, under the auspices of being chosen by God as special messengers. Often, these men were spiritual advisers to kings, as was the case with Nathan, who served as David's voice of conscience. In the historical interpretations of Kings and Chronicles, other prophets begin to appear, speaking for God. For whatever reason, Yahweh seems only to select certain people as his messengers, and this special honor is rarely bestowed upon people who have positions of power and authority. The historians themselves were acting as self-appointed prophets, speaking for and defending God in a way, since they interpreted the events they recorded through the lens of God's presumed intentions. Eventually, many of the prophets who figured into Jewish history would have books dedicated to them, perhaps even written by these holy spokesmen, and these writings are best understood in light of the historical context within which they were conceived.
Some of the stories recorded as historical accounts are clearly folklore, such as the tale in 1 Kings 14 in which the prophet Ahijah predicts the death of everyone in Jeroboam's family because of God's anger. Obviously, transitions of rulership of Israel were more conflict-ridden than the passing on of the hereditary crown in Judah, but to claim that God decided certain people had to die is to miss the very human motivations for events. In fact, Baasha (whose ascension to Israel's throne is mentioned in 1 Kings 15:25-31) had all of Jeroboam's family murdered when he usurped the throne after killing Jeroboam's son, Nadab. It was an understandable decision, since it eliminated any people who could be perceived as legitimate heirs and it drastically reduced the likelihood of someone seeking vengeance for the death of a family member. Murdering Jeroboam's family was a very human act that didn't require God's involvement at all, but looking back at historical events, the writers of Kings apparently felt the need to elaborate above and beyond actual data and create a prophecy to foreshadow the murders.
This literary technique accomplishes a few things, not all of them desirable. It places accountability for all events on an untouchable deity. People are not ultimately responsible for who lives and who dies if God is the one who decides such things. Even if a man murders his next door neighbor, who can really fault him if God had already decided that his neighbor needed to die? If a general loses a battle, it is because God determined that course of events. If a foreign king invades a land, it is because God prompted him to do so. Except that the Israelites are constantly doing the very things that God does not want them to do, not in the rampant violence and warmongering, but rather in the worship of other spiritual forces. The spiritual lives of his chosen people are apparently outside of God's purview, but a large number of military and political decisions are squarely under his control.
Except when things turn out badly, as they did for Asa, king of Judah. The writer(s) of Kings look a bit more favorably upon Asa, because he was a descendant of David, and there is an obvious favoritism toward Judah in the book of Kings. The writer(s) of Chronicles also favor Judah, since the kingdom of Israel is barely mentioned, but Asa is described much less favorably. After a promising beginning, Asa is chastised for relying on a foreign government for aid rather than relying solely on God (even though God is said to be able to influence the decisions of foreign governments and the actions of their armies). At the end of his life, it is implied that Asa died from a foot condition because he sought the aid of doctors rather than the aid of God. Incidentally, his obituary in Kings is less judgmental.
It is certainly understandable that the ancient Israelites understood very little about the fallacy of false cause. When something happened in their lives, they looked for an explanation, and if an explanation was not readily apparent, the easy answer was God. Their God could be manipulated into doing good things for them if the general populace worshiped him properly, but this was historically a tough row to hoe for the Israelite people. Thus, bad things were always happening because enough people just would not fall in step with the whole monotheistic organized religion policy. In reality, religion most likely had very little to do with the things that happened to the Israelite people. It is far more probable that poor decisions, greed, and fear on the part of the Israelite leaders were largely to blame for the challenges they faced. On top of that, there were some serious empire builders emerging at the time. While the Israelites never seemed interested in widespread military conquest, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and eventually the Greeks and the Romans all took an interest in adding the Israelites and their lands to a larger imperial body. That wasn't any sort of god at work; it was people.
The Israelites wrote their histories from their own limited perspectives, just as we interpret the events of our lives in our own very limited ways. Two things which have been said before bear repeating: First, we are responsible for who we are in the circumstances of our lives. Second, we are prone to inventing supernatural causes when logical, rational causes escape us. While there may be very straightforward causes for the events and circumstances of our lives, nothing is ever as it is because a supernatural entity decided that it should be so. We cannot control everything around us, but we can have some measure of control over our responses to everything around us. When we are willing to dismiss the easy dismissive answers like, "God must want things to be this way," we can look deeper for real, meaningful answers. While those answers are not always easy to discern, we can safely start from the assumption that rational answers exist. Nothing is magic, even the things we don't understand. Our lack of knowledge or understanding does not constitute evidence of the supernatural. Said another way, our not knowing does not make something unknowable.
When we look back at history, we can invent some hidden conspiracy theory tying events together if we like. We can assume a hidden supernatural agenda at work and connect imaginary dots to form a picture we invent. Human beings are by nature creative creatures, and our propensity for creativity can sometimes lead us to some strange and irrational conclusions. When we embrace the notion that there is no supernatural hand guiding decisions and events, but rather very real, natural, logical causes for the effects we observe, we will not be disappointed. There are no events in history that cannot be explained through rational means, and there are no events in our lives that require a supernatural explanation. The challenge is one of proximity. Sometimes we are too close to the events in our lives to engage in detached inquiry. We need a starting premise that can guide us toward realistic meaningful assessment of the decisions and events of our lives without being tempted toward the easy and unprovable supernatural. One possible starting point is our own personal responsibility for who we are in the midst of our circumstances.
Very few of us will ever be in a position to murder people and take their positions of authority, just like we do not have the occasion or need to personally send a nation's supply of gold and silver to foreign powers for protection. Still, we know the kind of people we most want to be, if we take a little time and really think about it. We know when our actions are out of sync with that vision we have of our potential. Inventing a supernatural justification or excuse will not get us any closer to being the people we most want to be. At a certain level, we have to get real about our personal responsibility in our lives. By claiming our personal responsibility, we gain the power to change the things we most want to change -- in ourselves and in the world around us.
Some of the stories recorded as historical accounts are clearly folklore, such as the tale in 1 Kings 14 in which the prophet Ahijah predicts the death of everyone in Jeroboam's family because of God's anger. Obviously, transitions of rulership of Israel were more conflict-ridden than the passing on of the hereditary crown in Judah, but to claim that God decided certain people had to die is to miss the very human motivations for events. In fact, Baasha (whose ascension to Israel's throne is mentioned in 1 Kings 15:25-31) had all of Jeroboam's family murdered when he usurped the throne after killing Jeroboam's son, Nadab. It was an understandable decision, since it eliminated any people who could be perceived as legitimate heirs and it drastically reduced the likelihood of someone seeking vengeance for the death of a family member. Murdering Jeroboam's family was a very human act that didn't require God's involvement at all, but looking back at historical events, the writers of Kings apparently felt the need to elaborate above and beyond actual data and create a prophecy to foreshadow the murders.
This literary technique accomplishes a few things, not all of them desirable. It places accountability for all events on an untouchable deity. People are not ultimately responsible for who lives and who dies if God is the one who decides such things. Even if a man murders his next door neighbor, who can really fault him if God had already decided that his neighbor needed to die? If a general loses a battle, it is because God determined that course of events. If a foreign king invades a land, it is because God prompted him to do so. Except that the Israelites are constantly doing the very things that God does not want them to do, not in the rampant violence and warmongering, but rather in the worship of other spiritual forces. The spiritual lives of his chosen people are apparently outside of God's purview, but a large number of military and political decisions are squarely under his control.
Except when things turn out badly, as they did for Asa, king of Judah. The writer(s) of Kings look a bit more favorably upon Asa, because he was a descendant of David, and there is an obvious favoritism toward Judah in the book of Kings. The writer(s) of Chronicles also favor Judah, since the kingdom of Israel is barely mentioned, but Asa is described much less favorably. After a promising beginning, Asa is chastised for relying on a foreign government for aid rather than relying solely on God (even though God is said to be able to influence the decisions of foreign governments and the actions of their armies). At the end of his life, it is implied that Asa died from a foot condition because he sought the aid of doctors rather than the aid of God. Incidentally, his obituary in Kings is less judgmental.
It is certainly understandable that the ancient Israelites understood very little about the fallacy of false cause. When something happened in their lives, they looked for an explanation, and if an explanation was not readily apparent, the easy answer was God. Their God could be manipulated into doing good things for them if the general populace worshiped him properly, but this was historically a tough row to hoe for the Israelite people. Thus, bad things were always happening because enough people just would not fall in step with the whole monotheistic organized religion policy. In reality, religion most likely had very little to do with the things that happened to the Israelite people. It is far more probable that poor decisions, greed, and fear on the part of the Israelite leaders were largely to blame for the challenges they faced. On top of that, there were some serious empire builders emerging at the time. While the Israelites never seemed interested in widespread military conquest, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and eventually the Greeks and the Romans all took an interest in adding the Israelites and their lands to a larger imperial body. That wasn't any sort of god at work; it was people.
The Israelites wrote their histories from their own limited perspectives, just as we interpret the events of our lives in our own very limited ways. Two things which have been said before bear repeating: First, we are responsible for who we are in the circumstances of our lives. Second, we are prone to inventing supernatural causes when logical, rational causes escape us. While there may be very straightforward causes for the events and circumstances of our lives, nothing is ever as it is because a supernatural entity decided that it should be so. We cannot control everything around us, but we can have some measure of control over our responses to everything around us. When we are willing to dismiss the easy dismissive answers like, "God must want things to be this way," we can look deeper for real, meaningful answers. While those answers are not always easy to discern, we can safely start from the assumption that rational answers exist. Nothing is magic, even the things we don't understand. Our lack of knowledge or understanding does not constitute evidence of the supernatural. Said another way, our not knowing does not make something unknowable.
When we look back at history, we can invent some hidden conspiracy theory tying events together if we like. We can assume a hidden supernatural agenda at work and connect imaginary dots to form a picture we invent. Human beings are by nature creative creatures, and our propensity for creativity can sometimes lead us to some strange and irrational conclusions. When we embrace the notion that there is no supernatural hand guiding decisions and events, but rather very real, natural, logical causes for the effects we observe, we will not be disappointed. There are no events in history that cannot be explained through rational means, and there are no events in our lives that require a supernatural explanation. The challenge is one of proximity. Sometimes we are too close to the events in our lives to engage in detached inquiry. We need a starting premise that can guide us toward realistic meaningful assessment of the decisions and events of our lives without being tempted toward the easy and unprovable supernatural. One possible starting point is our own personal responsibility for who we are in the midst of our circumstances.
Very few of us will ever be in a position to murder people and take their positions of authority, just like we do not have the occasion or need to personally send a nation's supply of gold and silver to foreign powers for protection. Still, we know the kind of people we most want to be, if we take a little time and really think about it. We know when our actions are out of sync with that vision we have of our potential. Inventing a supernatural justification or excuse will not get us any closer to being the people we most want to be. At a certain level, we have to get real about our personal responsibility in our lives. By claiming our personal responsibility, we gain the power to change the things we most want to change -- in ourselves and in the world around us.
Monday, November 12, 2012
2 Samuel 6-10: Beliefs Are Worth Examining
The story of Yahweh's promise that David's throne would be established forever was nearly as important to the ancient Israelites as the legendary agreement made between Moses and Yahweh. After the kingdom of Israel split, the promise to David was understandably more important to Judah, the Israelite kingdom that kept the temple and the throne. Although David wanted to build a great temple to the Yahweh, it is his son Solomon who gets credit for that achievement in the book of Samuel. By the time the book of Chronicles was written, however, David was seen as having a much greater role in the temple planning. David's legendary status for the culture led the author(s) to leave out his human mistakes and failings that were recorded in Samuel. Incidentally, 1 Chronicles records the promise of Davidic rule in chapter 17 more or less identically to the version in 2 Samuel.
The challenge for the Israelites was the same as it is for many people today: Once you take a stand on a particular belief, you look at the world through that lens. If the belief and the world seem to be in conflict, we try to figure out why. Typically, we don't want to give up our belief (because then we would have to admit that we were wrong about something), and we can't change the world. So, we invent some reason that the conflict might exist. The ancient Israelites eventually had to invent reasons why their kingdom was overthrown and they were taken into exile. Some people decided that the promise to David was not unconditional, and that the nation's unfaithfulness toward their cultural religion had landed them in hot water. Others decided that the promise to David meant that restoration was imminent. Later, some people in the Christian sect would trace the lineage of Jesus back to David, thus establishing Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise of eternal rule.
History is a strange and liquid creature. We do not report every detail when we recount history; we concentrate on those events that seem to form a pattern. We look at events that seem significant, either because of their impact on the world or because of their place in a sequence of events. We learn about the inventors of significant machines or processes, but we do not learn about the inventor of the spring or specialized wing nut that allowed the larger machine to function. We remember the names of assassins or generals, the dates of battles and victories, and when we delve into the systems and subcultures to gain a clear understanding of what led up to significant events, we know what we're looking for. We seek to understand the cause-and-effect relationships that make sense of history. Some people recording the history of the ancient Israelites saw certain cause-and-effect chains, while other people had a different perspective. In the biblical narrative, both are preserved to a certain extent, but they are every bit a product of their culture.
Israelite historians -- at least the ones that wrote anything that wound up in the Bible -- always traced their cause-and-effect chains back to God. When God was pleased, he allowed their country to prosper. When God was angry, he allowed foreign powers to destroy their cities. We have the same kind of thinkers in our world today. "I'm wealthy, and therefore God must want me to be prosperous while others struggle." "I'm sick or injured, so God must want me to suffer for some reason." Hurricanes become messages from God rather than natural events. Elections are interpreted as punishment or blessing rather than democratic process. Our personal lives become mysterious chains of cause-and-effect that are beyond our control if God is seen as the one moving the pieces on the board, while we are left to figure out why. When we look back at history, whether it is our own personal history or the history of a larger community, are we honestly seeing rational chains of events? Or are we crediting supernatural forces with some intelligent purpose in the course of history that we can only observe?
In the biblical narrative, when David hears the promise from Yahweh for the first time, it is delivered by the prophet Nathan. There haven't been a lot of prophets in the narrative before this point, but they become more important in the generations that follow David. Prophets in the Bible speak for God. They call people to accountability, and they make predictions based on the signs of the times. Sometimes their prognostications are intended to tell people to shape up, and sometimes they offer messages of hope. Ancient peoples relied upon prophets because they didn't believe that just anyone could have direct access to the divine. Of course, people didn't always listen to the prophets' messages. It all depended on how much the prophet was challenging something the people believed.
Many people today have very adamant beliefs. Some of these are religious beliefs, but most people wind up with a whole catalog of beliefs about themselves, other people, life in general, the government, the economy, and on and on. Most people are not well practiced at examining those beliefs when something in reality doesn't line up with their beliefs, however. It's easier on some level to concoct another auxiliary belief to explain any discrepancies between our beliefs and reality. We might wind up with an enormous pile of beliefs all designed to support one thing about which we've decided to dig in our heels, never examining how reasonable or beneficial those beliefs are. Our entire view of reality -- including our view of ourselves -- may be clouded by a mass of beliefs we've never really examined.
The divine is somewhere underneath that pile of beliefs. If there is any guidance to be had from the divine, we have to clear away some of the irrationalities to which we've grown accustomed and make sure that our beliefs make sense. No prophet can come along and tell you what the divine wants from you. No one knows what the divine is doing in someone else's life. When anyone claims to know what God wants for somebody else's life, that person is lying, whether they realize it or not. The prophets in our lives might point us toward the divine within us. Our prophets can hold us accountable to the agreements we have made. But people can not know what the divine intends for anyone but themselves. Whenever someone claims to speak for God, all they are expressing is their own personal values and desires. They are speaking from within their own big pile of unexamined and unquestioned beliefs, describing their own clouded view of reality as if their perspective is the only possible way to see the world. It is an understandable perspective. After all, their view is honestly the only possible way for them to see the world in that moment.
Here is a view of reality for you to test against your own beliefs:
What is your truth? Really? Do your beliefs and actions reflect that truth? Are you happy with that? Does it lead you to the life you most want to live? To the world you most want to create?
The challenge for the Israelites was the same as it is for many people today: Once you take a stand on a particular belief, you look at the world through that lens. If the belief and the world seem to be in conflict, we try to figure out why. Typically, we don't want to give up our belief (because then we would have to admit that we were wrong about something), and we can't change the world. So, we invent some reason that the conflict might exist. The ancient Israelites eventually had to invent reasons why their kingdom was overthrown and they were taken into exile. Some people decided that the promise to David was not unconditional, and that the nation's unfaithfulness toward their cultural religion had landed them in hot water. Others decided that the promise to David meant that restoration was imminent. Later, some people in the Christian sect would trace the lineage of Jesus back to David, thus establishing Jesus as the fulfillment of that promise of eternal rule.
History is a strange and liquid creature. We do not report every detail when we recount history; we concentrate on those events that seem to form a pattern. We look at events that seem significant, either because of their impact on the world or because of their place in a sequence of events. We learn about the inventors of significant machines or processes, but we do not learn about the inventor of the spring or specialized wing nut that allowed the larger machine to function. We remember the names of assassins or generals, the dates of battles and victories, and when we delve into the systems and subcultures to gain a clear understanding of what led up to significant events, we know what we're looking for. We seek to understand the cause-and-effect relationships that make sense of history. Some people recording the history of the ancient Israelites saw certain cause-and-effect chains, while other people had a different perspective. In the biblical narrative, both are preserved to a certain extent, but they are every bit a product of their culture.
Israelite historians -- at least the ones that wrote anything that wound up in the Bible -- always traced their cause-and-effect chains back to God. When God was pleased, he allowed their country to prosper. When God was angry, he allowed foreign powers to destroy their cities. We have the same kind of thinkers in our world today. "I'm wealthy, and therefore God must want me to be prosperous while others struggle." "I'm sick or injured, so God must want me to suffer for some reason." Hurricanes become messages from God rather than natural events. Elections are interpreted as punishment or blessing rather than democratic process. Our personal lives become mysterious chains of cause-and-effect that are beyond our control if God is seen as the one moving the pieces on the board, while we are left to figure out why. When we look back at history, whether it is our own personal history or the history of a larger community, are we honestly seeing rational chains of events? Or are we crediting supernatural forces with some intelligent purpose in the course of history that we can only observe?
In the biblical narrative, when David hears the promise from Yahweh for the first time, it is delivered by the prophet Nathan. There haven't been a lot of prophets in the narrative before this point, but they become more important in the generations that follow David. Prophets in the Bible speak for God. They call people to accountability, and they make predictions based on the signs of the times. Sometimes their prognostications are intended to tell people to shape up, and sometimes they offer messages of hope. Ancient peoples relied upon prophets because they didn't believe that just anyone could have direct access to the divine. Of course, people didn't always listen to the prophets' messages. It all depended on how much the prophet was challenging something the people believed.
Many people today have very adamant beliefs. Some of these are religious beliefs, but most people wind up with a whole catalog of beliefs about themselves, other people, life in general, the government, the economy, and on and on. Most people are not well practiced at examining those beliefs when something in reality doesn't line up with their beliefs, however. It's easier on some level to concoct another auxiliary belief to explain any discrepancies between our beliefs and reality. We might wind up with an enormous pile of beliefs all designed to support one thing about which we've decided to dig in our heels, never examining how reasonable or beneficial those beliefs are. Our entire view of reality -- including our view of ourselves -- may be clouded by a mass of beliefs we've never really examined.
The divine is somewhere underneath that pile of beliefs. If there is any guidance to be had from the divine, we have to clear away some of the irrationalities to which we've grown accustomed and make sure that our beliefs make sense. No prophet can come along and tell you what the divine wants from you. No one knows what the divine is doing in someone else's life. When anyone claims to know what God wants for somebody else's life, that person is lying, whether they realize it or not. The prophets in our lives might point us toward the divine within us. Our prophets can hold us accountable to the agreements we have made. But people can not know what the divine intends for anyone but themselves. Whenever someone claims to speak for God, all they are expressing is their own personal values and desires. They are speaking from within their own big pile of unexamined and unquestioned beliefs, describing their own clouded view of reality as if their perspective is the only possible way to see the world. It is an understandable perspective. After all, their view is honestly the only possible way for them to see the world in that moment.
Here is a view of reality for you to test against your own beliefs:
People matter.I believe that there is no intelligent supernatural being orchestrating events in history or making promises for the future. I believe that our stories as individuals and as a people are accounts of human success and failure, of intentional and unintentional human actions that have consequences. Our histories and our futures are stories about us, not merely stories that we witness from the sidelines. And since all of our stories are human stories about people, I must conclude that people matter. I cannot do otherwise. For me, this is truth. Against this truth, all of my beliefs can be weighed, all of my actions evaluated.
What we do has an impact on other people, and since people matter, what we do matters.
And if what we do matters, then it's worth being conscious of what we are doing.
It's worth being conscious of what we are doing because the people we touch matter.
And if people matter, then we matter.
If we matter, then we are worth our own care and attention.
What we do is informed by what we believe,
so our beliefs are worth some care and attention as well.
If we take the time to examine what we believe and consider the impact of what we do,
we stand a better chance of living the kinds of lives we want to live,
because if people matter -- if we matter -- then it only makes sense to live like people matter.
If we insist on believing and doing things that devalue ourselves or other people,
why?
What purpose does it serve in our lives to believe that people don't matter?
What purpose does it serve in our lives to believe that we don't matter?
Are we alright with that?
What is your truth? Really? Do your beliefs and actions reflect that truth? Are you happy with that? Does it lead you to the life you most want to live? To the world you most want to create?
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Deuteronomy 28-34: Blessings and Curses, and Putting Deuteronomistic History in Its Place
The narrative of Deuteronomy ends with Moses passing the mantle of authority to Joshua, son of Nun, and dying on a mountain overlooking the Promised Land. The bulk of the final chapters of Deuteronomy are taken up with promises of blessings and warnings of curses: blessings for those who are obedient Israelites, and curses for those who adopt the practices of the cultures around them. Archaeologists can trace to a certain extent the development and compilation of the actual documents that eventually became the book of Deuteronomy, but the idea of blessings and curses from something outside of ourselves seems to be as old as religion itself.
First, a brief look at why Deuteronomy exists in its current form. King Josiah is largely responsible. Josiah was an Israelite king who appears biblically in the second book of Kings and whose existence is supported by archaeological evidence. During the 7th century B.C., the eight-year-old Josiah became king of a polytheistic Israel, during a time of international instability. When he was in his mid-twenties, temple renovations led to the discovery of a scroll which was possibly the original text of the book of Deuteronomy. Some would say that this document was not a discovered scroll at all, but was rather written by 7th-century priests to unite the kingdom under Josiah with the church as a prominent power structure. At the very least, the original text was adapted to serve this purpose, which is understandable given a certain amount of international upheaval around Israel at the time. Many biblical scholars believe that the Jewish history which runs from the book of Joshua to the second book of Kings was written during Josiah's time on the throne to further solidify his authority and to anchor the authority of the temple more firmly in the culture. Monotheism served this purpose better than the polytheism that had been the norm for the historical Israelite community.
In scholarly terms, this religious reform is the core contribution of the Deuteronomist source, one of three major contributors to the Old Testament. The Deuteronomist history reflects a movement, or a philosophical school, rather than a single individual, revising or creating books of Jewish scripture over the course of a couple of centuries, based on an ideal. In many ways, their efforts preserved Jewish culture and religion during times of occupation and captivity by foreign empires. Still, it's important to remember that the cultural ideal preceded the writing, and that cultural ideal related to a select group of people who were special, set apart from the rest of the world because of their bloodline, and obligated to behave in a way that reflected how set apart they were from the rest of the world. It was clearly in violent opposition to the way the rest of the world behaved.
This may seem harsh, but you're nothing special. Sure, you have a unique personality and skill set, and you have capabilities that other people don't. You are the only one who can create your life, and you have a unique impact on the people around you. But that describes every single person on the planet. We are all special. We are all unique. We are all worthy of respect. We are all valuable. One group doesn't need to proclaim why they are better than another group, because they simply aren't. No country or culture or religion or community has any right to claim superiority. We are all wonderfully unique, amazing people, and we benefit from connection and relationship with other wonderfully unique, amazing people. Life is not a contest, and it doesn't have to be a battle. Our only real competition is with ourselves.
Which is why blessings and curses are simply a matter of perspective. There is no entity watching our actions and waiting to smite or reward us. We do that all on our own. The threat of being cursed may encourage some people to do what is right out of fear, but living in fear keeps us from truly engaging in life. Whatever we do, there will be challenges. "Bad" things happen to everyone, and "good" things happen to everyone. Some of those blessings and curses are direct results of our behavior. We don't like to blame ourselves when someone else is within easy pointing range, but many times it's our own behavior that directly results in the rewards and challenges we face. Sometimes, though, it has nothing to do with us. We just happen to be moving through the intersection when someone runs a stop sign. We just happen to pick the winning lottery numbers. We just happen to have been at the company for a short time when they go through a round of lay offs. We just happen to drive a different route on the day the bridge collapses. Some things are just out of our control.
We make our own blessings and curses, though. When we engage in life fully, taking responsibility for our own decisions, respecting ourselves and other people, creating lives that reflect what matters most to us, the results will look like blessings. When we ignore our own value and the value of other people, when we blame everyone and everything around us and play the victim, when we give in to fear and deny our own beauty and creativity, the results will look like curses. Of course, a lot of people are miserable in some areas of life, but very proud of their successes in other areas. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and from time to time we all give some goals a lot of attention while ignoring other things that matter to us. It can look like we are always blessed and cursed if we want to think of things in those terms.
The truth is that we are alive, and as long as we are alive we have opportunity. We can make choices and decisions about who we are going to be and what kind of life we are going to create for ourselves. Whatever our circumstances, and however people around us behave, as long as we are alive, we have the opportunity to create beauty, the opportunity to be connected to other people, the opportunity to experience -- life. If there is any blessing, it is that we are alive, and that trumps any curse if we want it to.
First, a brief look at why Deuteronomy exists in its current form. King Josiah is largely responsible. Josiah was an Israelite king who appears biblically in the second book of Kings and whose existence is supported by archaeological evidence. During the 7th century B.C., the eight-year-old Josiah became king of a polytheistic Israel, during a time of international instability. When he was in his mid-twenties, temple renovations led to the discovery of a scroll which was possibly the original text of the book of Deuteronomy. Some would say that this document was not a discovered scroll at all, but was rather written by 7th-century priests to unite the kingdom under Josiah with the church as a prominent power structure. At the very least, the original text was adapted to serve this purpose, which is understandable given a certain amount of international upheaval around Israel at the time. Many biblical scholars believe that the Jewish history which runs from the book of Joshua to the second book of Kings was written during Josiah's time on the throne to further solidify his authority and to anchor the authority of the temple more firmly in the culture. Monotheism served this purpose better than the polytheism that had been the norm for the historical Israelite community.
In scholarly terms, this religious reform is the core contribution of the Deuteronomist source, one of three major contributors to the Old Testament. The Deuteronomist history reflects a movement, or a philosophical school, rather than a single individual, revising or creating books of Jewish scripture over the course of a couple of centuries, based on an ideal. In many ways, their efforts preserved Jewish culture and religion during times of occupation and captivity by foreign empires. Still, it's important to remember that the cultural ideal preceded the writing, and that cultural ideal related to a select group of people who were special, set apart from the rest of the world because of their bloodline, and obligated to behave in a way that reflected how set apart they were from the rest of the world. It was clearly in violent opposition to the way the rest of the world behaved.
This may seem harsh, but you're nothing special. Sure, you have a unique personality and skill set, and you have capabilities that other people don't. You are the only one who can create your life, and you have a unique impact on the people around you. But that describes every single person on the planet. We are all special. We are all unique. We are all worthy of respect. We are all valuable. One group doesn't need to proclaim why they are better than another group, because they simply aren't. No country or culture or religion or community has any right to claim superiority. We are all wonderfully unique, amazing people, and we benefit from connection and relationship with other wonderfully unique, amazing people. Life is not a contest, and it doesn't have to be a battle. Our only real competition is with ourselves.
Which is why blessings and curses are simply a matter of perspective. There is no entity watching our actions and waiting to smite or reward us. We do that all on our own. The threat of being cursed may encourage some people to do what is right out of fear, but living in fear keeps us from truly engaging in life. Whatever we do, there will be challenges. "Bad" things happen to everyone, and "good" things happen to everyone. Some of those blessings and curses are direct results of our behavior. We don't like to blame ourselves when someone else is within easy pointing range, but many times it's our own behavior that directly results in the rewards and challenges we face. Sometimes, though, it has nothing to do with us. We just happen to be moving through the intersection when someone runs a stop sign. We just happen to pick the winning lottery numbers. We just happen to have been at the company for a short time when they go through a round of lay offs. We just happen to drive a different route on the day the bridge collapses. Some things are just out of our control.
We make our own blessings and curses, though. When we engage in life fully, taking responsibility for our own decisions, respecting ourselves and other people, creating lives that reflect what matters most to us, the results will look like blessings. When we ignore our own value and the value of other people, when we blame everyone and everything around us and play the victim, when we give in to fear and deny our own beauty and creativity, the results will look like curses. Of course, a lot of people are miserable in some areas of life, but very proud of their successes in other areas. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and from time to time we all give some goals a lot of attention while ignoring other things that matter to us. It can look like we are always blessed and cursed if we want to think of things in those terms.
The truth is that we are alive, and as long as we are alive we have opportunity. We can make choices and decisions about who we are going to be and what kind of life we are going to create for ourselves. Whatever our circumstances, and however people around us behave, as long as we are alive, we have the opportunity to create beauty, the opportunity to be connected to other people, the opportunity to experience -- life. If there is any blessing, it is that we are alive, and that trumps any curse if we want it to.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Deuteronomy 1-3: Wanting All of the Credit and None of the Blame
The book of Deuteronomy is an interesting part of the biblical canon. It's more or less a review of the information included in the previous three books, written as if Moses is being quoted directly. This was supposedly what Moses spoke to the Israelites as they were leaving their period of wandering and settling in the "Promised Land," a kind of oral history of their journey in the form of sermons. Of course, Moses didn't have a scribe writing down everything as he said it. The book was probably actually written much later, four centuries or more after the supposed lifespan of Moses, recording stories and ideas that had grown and developed as a part of Israelite culture for some time. The first few chapters recall the highlights of their journey before a recounting of the ten commandments and other religious laws.
What's interesting about the words put in Moses' mouth is that they reveal a distinctly different version of things than the previous books contained. Moses takes credit for delegating authority to other leaders instead of mentioning anything about his father-in-law offering that bit of wisdom. He does give God full credit for their military victories and losses, as the writers of the previous books in the canon. As was described in the book of Numbers, Moses tells of the Israelites' conquest and distribution of land east of the Jordan (although he takes credit for proclaiming that God had bequeathed the land to certain tribes rather than suggest that the tribes had asked Moses for the land directly), and he announces Joshua as his successor.
Moses doesn't openly admit any fault in himself, however. When he briefly approaches the topic of why he won't be crossing over into the Promised Land with the rest of the Israelites, Moses blames the Israelites for making God angry: "Because of you the Lord became angry with me also and said, 'You shall not enter it, either...'" Moses doesn't seem to recall his angry outburst at the rock at Horeb, in which he took credit for calling water from the stone instead of acknowledging God. Instead, the burden of Moses being denied entry into the Israelites' new home is placed on the people. It does make sense, writing after the fact about a cultural hero, to exonerate the behavior of a great man and use the opportunity to demonstrate the dire consequences of people grumbling and complaining and not trusting God.
It's hard to blame Moses for anything said in Deuteronomy (or any other bit of scripture), since it's highly unlikely that anything the man said or did was documented reliably. Even if the figure of Moses is based on an actual person, by the time anything was written down about him, he had become more icon than historical fact. Still, there is a profound lesson that we can draw from the first few chapters of this book, and it applies to us as a culture as well as to us as individuals.
Recounting history is not a bad thing. Remembering what we've done, or what other people have done, is one of the key ways we learn and grow. If we don't remember our mistakes, we are likely to repeat them, and if we don't remember our successes, it can be very difficult to develop any consistency in our abilities. The way we remember history is equally important, however. If we recall that we went into a meeting with no sleep and poor preparation and lost an account over it, we can see some things to improve in the future. We can make changes to our behavior and reasonably expect different results. If we recall nothing about our own preparation but only know that we lost an account, and we pair that with the belief that God is in control of everything, we can write our own history to read that God didn't want us to have the account and so he took it away from us. There is nothing practical for us to learn from this, and there is nothing for us to do differently. We don't have to use God as a scapegoat, though. We can blame our boss, a secretary, a computer, lots of other people or circumstances, without coming close to looking at ourselves. We can be very creative when it comes to avoiding blame.
Our history as a people has some great moments and some disappointing moments. Our tendency is to rewrite the facts so that our pride isn't in danger of being bruised. We don't want a record of any mistakes or wrongdoing. We'd rather not think of ourselves as fallible. The truth is messier than that, though. It's part of our nature to make mistakes. It's one of the ways we learn and develop. No one is immune. If our history suggests otherwise, we've written a work of fiction, and we've lost a valuable opportunity to recognize how we can get closer to what we actually want.
We don't just rewrite history to make mistakes go away, though. When we actually like the outcome, we sometimes rewrite history to make ourselves look better. When we actually get the account, we are sometimes quick to pat ourselves on the back without recognizing that there were other people involved in putting a presentation together, training us and teaching us what we need to know, getting clients warmed up to the idea of working with us, or any number of other contributions. We want all the credit we can take when things turn out favorably, and we want none of the blame when we don't like the outcome. Being aware of this tendency gives us the opportunity to look at things more closely, to grow and get better at creating what we want more reliably.
This is why it's hazardous to look too quickly at uncontrollable forces. Often our desire to attribute things to God, some other supernatural intelligence, the alignment of the planets and stars, the weather, or anything else that lies outside our control, stems from self-preservation rather than any kind of honest observation. People have all kinds of beliefs about what governs reality, but we miss something if we discredit our own ability to make a difference in our lives and the lives of people around us. We can get closer to what we most want by being willing to recognize our responsibility in creating it. Looking for something greater than ourselves on which we can pin responsibility can be a convenient smokescreen from honestly looking at ourselves. Part of this is because we have become convinced that making mistakes is shameful and that we have to present ourselves in the best possible light if we are going to "succeed."
Making a mistake is not shameful. It's important for us to realize this for ourselves and also for us to extend this awareness to how we treat other people. Surely, some mistakes are bigger than others, and actions often have consequences. But the act of making a mistake is a function of being human. We don't have to write mistakes out of our history. When we acknowledge that things didn't go the way we wanted them to, we can examine the circumstances and determine if there is something we did to contribute to that result. If so, we can potentially improve something and get closer to what we want. Sometimes, the outcome really has nothing to do with us. We are only in control of our own decisions, and that's worth recognizing, too.
Likewise, there is no reason to hoard credit when things go the way we want them to. There is value in self-recognition, but balance it out with a glance around at the other people that contributed to the outcome. People rarely accomplish anything entirely on their own, and there is value in acknowledging the people who made a difference. We might not be able to see completely the complex set of factors that led to a particular result, but we can do our best to have a balanced awareness of our strengths and weaknesses and the contributions of others. There are volumes that could be written about team management and getting a group of people focused on a specific goal, but the key to accomplishing any of that is being an honest historian, accepting appropriate proportions of credit and blame. What you want to create can guide what you do with the data at your disposal, but there's never any real value in creating false data.
What's interesting about the words put in Moses' mouth is that they reveal a distinctly different version of things than the previous books contained. Moses takes credit for delegating authority to other leaders instead of mentioning anything about his father-in-law offering that bit of wisdom. He does give God full credit for their military victories and losses, as the writers of the previous books in the canon. As was described in the book of Numbers, Moses tells of the Israelites' conquest and distribution of land east of the Jordan (although he takes credit for proclaiming that God had bequeathed the land to certain tribes rather than suggest that the tribes had asked Moses for the land directly), and he announces Joshua as his successor.
Moses doesn't openly admit any fault in himself, however. When he briefly approaches the topic of why he won't be crossing over into the Promised Land with the rest of the Israelites, Moses blames the Israelites for making God angry: "Because of you the Lord became angry with me also and said, 'You shall not enter it, either...'" Moses doesn't seem to recall his angry outburst at the rock at Horeb, in which he took credit for calling water from the stone instead of acknowledging God. Instead, the burden of Moses being denied entry into the Israelites' new home is placed on the people. It does make sense, writing after the fact about a cultural hero, to exonerate the behavior of a great man and use the opportunity to demonstrate the dire consequences of people grumbling and complaining and not trusting God.
It's hard to blame Moses for anything said in Deuteronomy (or any other bit of scripture), since it's highly unlikely that anything the man said or did was documented reliably. Even if the figure of Moses is based on an actual person, by the time anything was written down about him, he had become more icon than historical fact. Still, there is a profound lesson that we can draw from the first few chapters of this book, and it applies to us as a culture as well as to us as individuals.
Recounting history is not a bad thing. Remembering what we've done, or what other people have done, is one of the key ways we learn and grow. If we don't remember our mistakes, we are likely to repeat them, and if we don't remember our successes, it can be very difficult to develop any consistency in our abilities. The way we remember history is equally important, however. If we recall that we went into a meeting with no sleep and poor preparation and lost an account over it, we can see some things to improve in the future. We can make changes to our behavior and reasonably expect different results. If we recall nothing about our own preparation but only know that we lost an account, and we pair that with the belief that God is in control of everything, we can write our own history to read that God didn't want us to have the account and so he took it away from us. There is nothing practical for us to learn from this, and there is nothing for us to do differently. We don't have to use God as a scapegoat, though. We can blame our boss, a secretary, a computer, lots of other people or circumstances, without coming close to looking at ourselves. We can be very creative when it comes to avoiding blame.
Our history as a people has some great moments and some disappointing moments. Our tendency is to rewrite the facts so that our pride isn't in danger of being bruised. We don't want a record of any mistakes or wrongdoing. We'd rather not think of ourselves as fallible. The truth is messier than that, though. It's part of our nature to make mistakes. It's one of the ways we learn and develop. No one is immune. If our history suggests otherwise, we've written a work of fiction, and we've lost a valuable opportunity to recognize how we can get closer to what we actually want.
We don't just rewrite history to make mistakes go away, though. When we actually like the outcome, we sometimes rewrite history to make ourselves look better. When we actually get the account, we are sometimes quick to pat ourselves on the back without recognizing that there were other people involved in putting a presentation together, training us and teaching us what we need to know, getting clients warmed up to the idea of working with us, or any number of other contributions. We want all the credit we can take when things turn out favorably, and we want none of the blame when we don't like the outcome. Being aware of this tendency gives us the opportunity to look at things more closely, to grow and get better at creating what we want more reliably.
This is why it's hazardous to look too quickly at uncontrollable forces. Often our desire to attribute things to God, some other supernatural intelligence, the alignment of the planets and stars, the weather, or anything else that lies outside our control, stems from self-preservation rather than any kind of honest observation. People have all kinds of beliefs about what governs reality, but we miss something if we discredit our own ability to make a difference in our lives and the lives of people around us. We can get closer to what we most want by being willing to recognize our responsibility in creating it. Looking for something greater than ourselves on which we can pin responsibility can be a convenient smokescreen from honestly looking at ourselves. Part of this is because we have become convinced that making mistakes is shameful and that we have to present ourselves in the best possible light if we are going to "succeed."
Making a mistake is not shameful. It's important for us to realize this for ourselves and also for us to extend this awareness to how we treat other people. Surely, some mistakes are bigger than others, and actions often have consequences. But the act of making a mistake is a function of being human. We don't have to write mistakes out of our history. When we acknowledge that things didn't go the way we wanted them to, we can examine the circumstances and determine if there is something we did to contribute to that result. If so, we can potentially improve something and get closer to what we want. Sometimes, the outcome really has nothing to do with us. We are only in control of our own decisions, and that's worth recognizing, too.
Likewise, there is no reason to hoard credit when things go the way we want them to. There is value in self-recognition, but balance it out with a glance around at the other people that contributed to the outcome. People rarely accomplish anything entirely on their own, and there is value in acknowledging the people who made a difference. We might not be able to see completely the complex set of factors that led to a particular result, but we can do our best to have a balanced awareness of our strengths and weaknesses and the contributions of others. There are volumes that could be written about team management and getting a group of people focused on a specific goal, but the key to accomplishing any of that is being an honest historian, accepting appropriate proportions of credit and blame. What you want to create can guide what you do with the data at your disposal, but there's never any real value in creating false data.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Numbers 21: Cause and Effect Relationships and the Human Imagination
It's tempting to brush past some portions of the biblical narrative because they seem somewhat redundant to what has gone before. Knowing that the archaeological record paints a different picture than the actual scriptures can also feed a dismissive attitude. It helps to recall that the point here is to draw some spiritual truth from what is written, even if that truth is contrary to the point of the narrative. In Numbers 21, there are some stories about how the Israelites were victorious in combat because God wanted them to be, and there is the story of the magical bronze snake.
There's a reason that we say that history is written by the victors. Whether we're talking about one nation conquering another or someone getting fired from a job, the people who remain in control in a certain context get to decide how to frame events. Sometimes we misremember events, and sometimes our perspective is different enough from someone else's that we interpret events completely differently. Mixed in with that faulty memory and difference of perspective are the occasions in which we blatantly lie, usually because we believe that we need to protect ourselves somehow. That protection may be as simple as not wanting to look foolish, but when we proclaim an altered history, we miss an opportunity to learn from the actual events.
Many times, we just become so convinced of something that we can't really see things through a different lens. Once we completely believe that a friend has betrayed us, it's hard to shake the idea and trust that person, whether there's actually been any betrayal or not. When we believe something, it affects the way we act and the way we see other people. If you believe that you're ugly, you'll assume that everyone else thinks so, too. You might be suspicious if someone asked you out on a date. If you think you're doing a lousy job at work, you'll either assume that everyone else knows it, or you'll try to hide it. When every comment that a co-worker makes gets filtered through that lens, it's tough to have honest and productive relationships. If you believe that a supreme being is completely in charge of all that happens, you'll look at events differently than someone who assumes that there is a scientific explanation for everything.
A big problem with unexamined beliefs is that there is no challenge that can threaten them. We assume that we are right, and we manage to justify everything that happens through a belief that may or may not reflect reality. The Israelites had a belief in a god that was so powerful and vindictive that he sent plagues against anyone who did things he didn't like, but this god was also a mighty ally to those who were willing to obey. Therefore, every good thing that happened in the life of the Israelite community was considered to be something that God caused to happen, and everything bad that happened in the life of the Israelite community was viewed as evidence of their failure to be obedient. Later on in the Old Testament, this becomes a real concern when the Israelites are conquered and the temple is destroyed.
For now, the Israelites trust God and their enemies fall before them, "enemies" being the word used for people who had occupied the land for generations, but whom God didn't like. It's easy to write that history. "God leads his people to victory against all who oppose them" makes a great headline. Except that there are still complaints being made to Moses about the quality of the food and the lack of water. So, there is a plague of venomous snakes that starts killing off the Israelites. It's easy to write that headline, too. "Complain and die." But God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that anyone who gets bitten can look at this snake idol and be spared. Bizarre. The writer of Hebrews uses this scene as a clever allegorical connection to the cross, but the whole scene is a bit strange. Golden calves are bad, but bronze healing serpents are fine.
Cause and effect are not always what we imagine them to be. Do we believe that poison can be alleviated by looking at a particular object? Some would say, "Well, if God wanted it to work, then it would work." It's primitive witchcraft, but it is justified because the belief in the community is strong enough to overlook the disconnect. Flipping the calendar forward to the 21st century, we aren't just looking back at a relatively unsophisticated people and their primitive beliefs. We are in a world of colliding beliefs that are unexamined and basically unchallengeable. There is an incredible number of people of varying faiths who believe that their god sanctions violence against other people. We are essentially living in a technologically advanced era with a primitive worldview when we accept violence against the people our god doesn't like. And let's face it, we assume that our god doesn't like the people we don't like.
If we assume that a supreme being is in control of all that happens, we remove personal responsibility from the picture. Except that we still want to convince other people to behave the way we think God wants them to behave. If God is in control of everything, isn't he completely in control of everything we might want to complain about? And if we're complaining about how God is handling things, aren't we at all afraid that he will send venomous serpents after us? If God is in complete control, then God is in control of abortion, homosexuality, suicide bombers, who gets killed in the wars that God has obviously sanctioned, unemployment, the distribution or concentration of wealth, ... everything. There is nothing to complain about.
When we start to look for other causes for the effects that we see around us, however, the simplistic answer of "God said so" becomes replaced by a complex set of circumstances that aren't always easy to address. Rather than tell people God disapproves of their behavior and expect that to change the course of their lives, when we set aside the simplistic belief that God is the cause for every effect, we may find that there are actual human beings with needs and beliefs of their own, and that we have some opportunity to have a significant impact. It's not easy to make a real difference in someone's life while you're looking down your nose and pointing a judgmental finger at them. There really are people who set aside simple answers that eradicate personal responsibility, and in seeking the actual causes for the things that disappoint them about the world, create something truly meaningful.
The good news is that we all have the power to examine our beliefs and decide if they make sense or not. We can keep convincing ourselves that there's a supernatural reason why looking at a bronze serpent can cure snakebites, or we can reevaluate what we believe based on the evidence around us. Even evidence is subject to our beliefs, though. As a friend of mine often says, "Statistics don't lie... but you can lie with statistics." What we actually know may be completely different from what we choose to assume. We all have beliefs, and many of those beliefs are nothing more than assumptions we've chosen. Recognizing that we have a choice in what assumptions we're alright with is where wisdom comes into the picture.
What do you believe? Not just in the big picture, "what's the meaning of it all?" kind of beliefs. What do you believe about yourself? About the people around you? Are some of your beliefs in conflict with other beliefs? Are you happy with the assumptions you're making? You have choices.
There's a reason that we say that history is written by the victors. Whether we're talking about one nation conquering another or someone getting fired from a job, the people who remain in control in a certain context get to decide how to frame events. Sometimes we misremember events, and sometimes our perspective is different enough from someone else's that we interpret events completely differently. Mixed in with that faulty memory and difference of perspective are the occasions in which we blatantly lie, usually because we believe that we need to protect ourselves somehow. That protection may be as simple as not wanting to look foolish, but when we proclaim an altered history, we miss an opportunity to learn from the actual events.
Many times, we just become so convinced of something that we can't really see things through a different lens. Once we completely believe that a friend has betrayed us, it's hard to shake the idea and trust that person, whether there's actually been any betrayal or not. When we believe something, it affects the way we act and the way we see other people. If you believe that you're ugly, you'll assume that everyone else thinks so, too. You might be suspicious if someone asked you out on a date. If you think you're doing a lousy job at work, you'll either assume that everyone else knows it, or you'll try to hide it. When every comment that a co-worker makes gets filtered through that lens, it's tough to have honest and productive relationships. If you believe that a supreme being is completely in charge of all that happens, you'll look at events differently than someone who assumes that there is a scientific explanation for everything.
A big problem with unexamined beliefs is that there is no challenge that can threaten them. We assume that we are right, and we manage to justify everything that happens through a belief that may or may not reflect reality. The Israelites had a belief in a god that was so powerful and vindictive that he sent plagues against anyone who did things he didn't like, but this god was also a mighty ally to those who were willing to obey. Therefore, every good thing that happened in the life of the Israelite community was considered to be something that God caused to happen, and everything bad that happened in the life of the Israelite community was viewed as evidence of their failure to be obedient. Later on in the Old Testament, this becomes a real concern when the Israelites are conquered and the temple is destroyed.
For now, the Israelites trust God and their enemies fall before them, "enemies" being the word used for people who had occupied the land for generations, but whom God didn't like. It's easy to write that history. "God leads his people to victory against all who oppose them" makes a great headline. Except that there are still complaints being made to Moses about the quality of the food and the lack of water. So, there is a plague of venomous snakes that starts killing off the Israelites. It's easy to write that headline, too. "Complain and die." But God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and put it on a pole, so that anyone who gets bitten can look at this snake idol and be spared. Bizarre. The writer of Hebrews uses this scene as a clever allegorical connection to the cross, but the whole scene is a bit strange. Golden calves are bad, but bronze healing serpents are fine.
Cause and effect are not always what we imagine them to be. Do we believe that poison can be alleviated by looking at a particular object? Some would say, "Well, if God wanted it to work, then it would work." It's primitive witchcraft, but it is justified because the belief in the community is strong enough to overlook the disconnect. Flipping the calendar forward to the 21st century, we aren't just looking back at a relatively unsophisticated people and their primitive beliefs. We are in a world of colliding beliefs that are unexamined and basically unchallengeable. There is an incredible number of people of varying faiths who believe that their god sanctions violence against other people. We are essentially living in a technologically advanced era with a primitive worldview when we accept violence against the people our god doesn't like. And let's face it, we assume that our god doesn't like the people we don't like.
If we assume that a supreme being is in control of all that happens, we remove personal responsibility from the picture. Except that we still want to convince other people to behave the way we think God wants them to behave. If God is in control of everything, isn't he completely in control of everything we might want to complain about? And if we're complaining about how God is handling things, aren't we at all afraid that he will send venomous serpents after us? If God is in complete control, then God is in control of abortion, homosexuality, suicide bombers, who gets killed in the wars that God has obviously sanctioned, unemployment, the distribution or concentration of wealth, ... everything. There is nothing to complain about.
When we start to look for other causes for the effects that we see around us, however, the simplistic answer of "God said so" becomes replaced by a complex set of circumstances that aren't always easy to address. Rather than tell people God disapproves of their behavior and expect that to change the course of their lives, when we set aside the simplistic belief that God is the cause for every effect, we may find that there are actual human beings with needs and beliefs of their own, and that we have some opportunity to have a significant impact. It's not easy to make a real difference in someone's life while you're looking down your nose and pointing a judgmental finger at them. There really are people who set aside simple answers that eradicate personal responsibility, and in seeking the actual causes for the things that disappoint them about the world, create something truly meaningful.
The good news is that we all have the power to examine our beliefs and decide if they make sense or not. We can keep convincing ourselves that there's a supernatural reason why looking at a bronze serpent can cure snakebites, or we can reevaluate what we believe based on the evidence around us. Even evidence is subject to our beliefs, though. As a friend of mine often says, "Statistics don't lie... but you can lie with statistics." What we actually know may be completely different from what we choose to assume. We all have beliefs, and many of those beliefs are nothing more than assumptions we've chosen. Recognizing that we have a choice in what assumptions we're alright with is where wisdom comes into the picture.
What do you believe? Not just in the big picture, "what's the meaning of it all?" kind of beliefs. What do you believe about yourself? About the people around you? Are some of your beliefs in conflict with other beliefs? Are you happy with the assumptions you're making? You have choices.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Is Violence a Religious Freedom or Obligation? (or When Did "Might Makes Right" Become an Accepted Theological Claim?)
As I look at Genesis 14-15, what stands out is the matter-of-fact cultural belief that a divine being approves of and encourages violence under certain circumstances. While many pundits decry the violence of our modern-day society, it strikes me that our current level of violence is really nothing new to the human race. Although Plato disputed the claim long ago in The Republic, the concept that 'might makes right' still walks hand-in-hand with concepts like 'turn the other cheek' and 'love thy neighbor' in Christian circles. It may be time to take a critical look at the way violence is condoned (and even exalted) in religious texts before we critique the violence in our current society.
“History is written by the victor,” is also a familiar proverb. Thomas Jefferson put it this way, “A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.” Even adult siblings who grew up in the same house often have differing memories of the events of their childhood. Unfortunately, most stories purported to be historical come with agendas. When one hears such a tale, it is best to dig down just a bit to determine what the agenda may be. It’s possible that the point of a story is to illustrate a valuable lesson about life and how to treat other people, in which case it could have great merit. Other agendas are less altruistic, attempting to denigrate a people, prove legitimacy to a claim on some property, or simply indicate why we deserve favors and others do not.
For centuries, people have made war with each other. There may have even been good and wholesome intentions behind participation in war at some points in history. In the end, though, the side that “wins” gets to decide why they won, and it always seems to go beyond superior military might. Victors have a propensity for claiming a religious right to have won, stating that the favoritism of a god must be behind their success. Now, it’s one thing for an ancient Greek to make a statement like, “Ares smiled upon us this day,” as a euphemism to indicate that they won a battle. In modern society, any hint of symbolic reference has disappeared when a claim is made that, “God is on our side.” This can lead to all sorts of trouble, since belief in divine approval for one’s actions can override all interest in open-minded discourse or even moral or ethical ramifications. If God is on our side, then we can do no wrong.
How many sides can a divine being support, though? And why would a divine being who honored life support any side in actions that are essentially based on the premise that the lives and comfort of one group of people is more valuable than the lives and comfort of another group of people? Rather than pin things on any sort of god, it might be more honest to take responsibility for our own violence and for the hardship that it causes. “We bombed your country because God told us to,” just doesn’t hold water.
Whether it is street violence, domestic violence, “ethnic cleansing,” or out and out war between two countries, the choice to be violent rests with each person. There may be cases in which violence is necessary for personal safety, but in an age that considers itself somewhat enlightened, it seems like an immature and lazy option for groups of people to choose. Honoring the truth and the beauty and the value of every human being is a much more challenging option, but we are up to the challenge. Likewise, it is important for us to weigh the agenda behind the stories that we hear and the stories that we tell, to determine whether they contribute toward honoring humanity or whether they contribute toward a culture of violence.
“History is written by the victor,” is also a familiar proverb. Thomas Jefferson put it this way, “A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.” Even adult siblings who grew up in the same house often have differing memories of the events of their childhood. Unfortunately, most stories purported to be historical come with agendas. When one hears such a tale, it is best to dig down just a bit to determine what the agenda may be. It’s possible that the point of a story is to illustrate a valuable lesson about life and how to treat other people, in which case it could have great merit. Other agendas are less altruistic, attempting to denigrate a people, prove legitimacy to a claim on some property, or simply indicate why we deserve favors and others do not.
For centuries, people have made war with each other. There may have even been good and wholesome intentions behind participation in war at some points in history. In the end, though, the side that “wins” gets to decide why they won, and it always seems to go beyond superior military might. Victors have a propensity for claiming a religious right to have won, stating that the favoritism of a god must be behind their success. Now, it’s one thing for an ancient Greek to make a statement like, “Ares smiled upon us this day,” as a euphemism to indicate that they won a battle. In modern society, any hint of symbolic reference has disappeared when a claim is made that, “God is on our side.” This can lead to all sorts of trouble, since belief in divine approval for one’s actions can override all interest in open-minded discourse or even moral or ethical ramifications. If God is on our side, then we can do no wrong.
How many sides can a divine being support, though? And why would a divine being who honored life support any side in actions that are essentially based on the premise that the lives and comfort of one group of people is more valuable than the lives and comfort of another group of people? Rather than pin things on any sort of god, it might be more honest to take responsibility for our own violence and for the hardship that it causes. “We bombed your country because God told us to,” just doesn’t hold water.
Whether it is street violence, domestic violence, “ethnic cleansing,” or out and out war between two countries, the choice to be violent rests with each person. There may be cases in which violence is necessary for personal safety, but in an age that considers itself somewhat enlightened, it seems like an immature and lazy option for groups of people to choose. Honoring the truth and the beauty and the value of every human being is a much more challenging option, but we are up to the challenge. Likewise, it is important for us to weigh the agenda behind the stories that we hear and the stories that we tell, to determine whether they contribute toward honoring humanity or whether they contribute toward a culture of violence.
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