Returning to the gospel narrative of Mark, we find the character of Jesus confronted by his caricaturish nemeses, "the Pharisees and teachers of the law." As one would expect, Jesus not only repels their accusation, but turns their words and behavior back on them and sends them away soundly rebuked. The Pharisees in first century Judaism were something of a political party, religious sect, and social movement. They were often in conflict with the Sadducees, who were more aristocratic, largely controlled activities at the temple, and were cooperative with the Roman government. Although neither sect represented a majority of Jewish people, the Pharisees were more connected to the interpretation of Jewish spirituality in everyday life, and were thus more connected to the people than the elite Sadducees. After the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, it was the thinking of the Pharisees that most contributed to Rabbinic Judaism, which was the basis for most modern iterations of Judaism.
In the particular episode reflected in Mark 7:1-23, the Pharisees are challenging Jesus based on their understanding of purity laws. Through highly ritualized daily practices, the Pharisees kept their spiritual identities at the forefront of their thought, infusing all that they did with spiritual meaning. That was the idea, at least. Unfortunately, as the author of Mark points out, living a highly stylized life can leave something to be desired in terms of human value and ethics. The Pharisees advocated allowing people to withhold wealth and possessions from needy family members if that wealth was dedicated to the temple. It was a loophole that allowed people to excuse themselves from taking care of their families, and also allowed the church to accumulate wealth when those people died. In the meantime, people kept enjoying the "dedicated" resources. It was a system that fed into people's greed, which is just a specific kind of fear.
When the Pharisees challenged Jesus based on the fact that he didn't engage in all of the ceremonial behaviors they advocated, he levied this matter of Corban against them to demonstrate their hypocrisy. This was just one facet of a larger picture, however. Ultimately, the author of Mark suggests that the entire worldview of the Pharisees was skewed. Living in accordance to a personal code of purity does nothing to connect one to other people or to oneself. There are no bonus points in life for being borderline obsessive-compulsive about hand-washing. What actually matters is what one does with one's time and energy.
Brought into focus for the twenty-first century, the author of Mark is saying that it doesn't matter if you go to church, contribute to charities, pray before your meals, put the right bumper stickers on your car, read a devotional every morning, or engage in any other "spiritual" behaviors that ultimately might just make you feel good about yourself. What matters is what we do in the world, how we treat the people around us, what kind of a difference we make in other people's lives -- our fruit. All of the spiritual disciplines or holy habits that people might engage in can be fertilizer, but what matters most is what we produce in the practical realities of our lives. If we don't bear any meaningful fruit, all we've really got is a ton of fertilizer.
So, rather than pride ourselves in how well-behaved we are or how well we have colored inside the lines of our lives, our focus could be on how we respond to the opportunities we have to connect with other people and make a difference in the world -- even if that difference only seems to directly impact one other person. Helping one person's day go more smoothly might actually have a greater ripple effect than we will ever realize. But if we go through our lives willing to help one person's day go more smoothly, we are going to wind up having a positive impact on more than one person.
Being connected to ourselves is important too; we need time for introspection and we operate best when we are aware of our deep guiding principles. Those things are empty, however, if they never feed into an outward expression of the kind of people we most want to be in the world. We have the potential to create a world that is characterized by justice, equity, and compassion. It just requires being intentional about what we do, and perhaps shifting our focus away from being righteous and toward being connected.
Showing posts with label holiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiness. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Exodus 25-31: Being Specific About the Things We Call Sacred
The chapters that follow the Israelites’ agreement to Moses’ laws are extraordinarily detailed instructions about constructing holy places and items--the intended focal points of the culture. A tabernacle (or movable temple), a fancy container for the stone tablets on which their laws were carved, an elaborate breastplate for the high priest to wear, an altar table complete with golden plates and pitchers, and a lampstand. All of these items were representative of spiritual ideas that the Israelites valued. They also required an incredible amount of gold, acacia wood, and valuable gems—not to mention time and craftsmanship. Embedded in all of the detailed instructions for constructing these bits of religious paraphernalia are detailed instructions for consecrating the priests who would use it.
From a historical perspective, it’s hard to imagine the Israelites carrying around all of this wealth, but they did supposedly rob the Egyptians blind before their departure. All of the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, but the instructions say that each person is to give the same amount to the temple, whether they are rich or poor. How are there rich and poor among the Israelites at this point? Or was Moses just thinking ahead? Or was this written at some later time and inserted among these other holy instructions to legitimize it? These instructions were, after all, supposed to be coming from God directly.
One could get lost in the details of these directions, which actually include the names of craftsmen God has chosen to oversee various parts of the project. The fact that so many details exist is worth noting, however. Anyone who has ever been part of a collaborative effort knows how much easier it would be if all of the instructions were spelled out explicitly and came from an infallible source. Often, people come to the table with their own ideas believing that their way of doing something is superior to everyone else’s and the bulk of the collaborative effort is spent just trying to decide how something is going to be done. That was not what the Israelites in the story needed to spend time on.
Giving people a clear task and setting them to it is a brilliant bit of leadership. Stay busy doing something sacred and you won’t be complaining as much. And the instructions came from God, so there’s no arguing with how you’re going to do it; there is only the task itself to focus on. On top of that, God named the people who are in charge of various tasks, so there’s no reason to argue with their authority. God has appointed them, so just follow their direction and focus on the task. Brilliant. Of course, as we see just after this span of chapters, people still have a mind of their own, but that’s beside the point.
It would be wonderful if we had such detailed instructions for the things we spend our time on. We could get a lot more accomplished. One obstacle is that we so rarely consider anything to be sacred anymore. Even people who spend a great deal of time involved in church activities do not really grasp the idea that what they are doing is somehow holy, elevated, or special. In many Protestant churches, there is still the problem of people who lack respect for their spiritual leaders and time lost debating whose idea is superior, with spirituality and faith being the furthest thing from the conversation. The religious implements that Moses described were something special. Work on them was meaningful because the end product was sacred. We don’t often have that sense of meaning in the things we do.
With an understanding that the divine is truly a facet of who we are, though, we can recognize our own authority to determine for ourselves what has meaning in our lives. We determine what is sacred and holy and special to us. We don’t require an outside authority to direct us with the details, and often we are culturally trained to question authority and challenge any manner of control that someone tries to exert over us. It becomes a fight to defend our autonomy rather than a calm and purposeful sense of what has meaning to us. Our energy gets spent on defending ourselves rather than doing the things that have real value.
There are times when partnership is necessary, too. How do we collaborate when each individual decides what is sacred and meaningful? We could just assign leadership, the way Moses’ instructions do. “This person is in charge of this task, no questions or arguments.” Of course, every collaborator would have to agree on who that person will be. The key is in realizing that the collaboration itself has something sacred about it. Here are these people, each embodying those divine qualities of truth, beauty, and creativity, all committed to a meaningful purpose. It isn’t necessary to be in control, or to defend one’s ideas. The role of each individual in that collaboration is to speak from a place of truth and inspiration that is deeper than ego and petty agendas. Partnership is something sacred. It’s something that calls forth the divine within us if we allow it.
In our own lives, we are in charge of what is sacred. And if we do not ascribe meaning to our activities, no one else will do it for us. It is our own responsibility to recognize what is holy to us. Likewise, it's not our place to decide for anyone else what is sacred or holy. Their own divine self will guide them in that regard. When we collaborate with others, we have an opportunity to share that sacred space with other people, to learn what means holiness to them and to share our own sense of meaning and purpose. When we begin to see how deeply meaningful our actions are, the sacredness of what we choose to do with our time and energy, perhaps we will put the same level of attention into our lives as Moses did when giving instructions about the Israelites’ implements of worship.
From a historical perspective, it’s hard to imagine the Israelites carrying around all of this wealth, but they did supposedly rob the Egyptians blind before their departure. All of the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, but the instructions say that each person is to give the same amount to the temple, whether they are rich or poor. How are there rich and poor among the Israelites at this point? Or was Moses just thinking ahead? Or was this written at some later time and inserted among these other holy instructions to legitimize it? These instructions were, after all, supposed to be coming from God directly.
One could get lost in the details of these directions, which actually include the names of craftsmen God has chosen to oversee various parts of the project. The fact that so many details exist is worth noting, however. Anyone who has ever been part of a collaborative effort knows how much easier it would be if all of the instructions were spelled out explicitly and came from an infallible source. Often, people come to the table with their own ideas believing that their way of doing something is superior to everyone else’s and the bulk of the collaborative effort is spent just trying to decide how something is going to be done. That was not what the Israelites in the story needed to spend time on.
Giving people a clear task and setting them to it is a brilliant bit of leadership. Stay busy doing something sacred and you won’t be complaining as much. And the instructions came from God, so there’s no arguing with how you’re going to do it; there is only the task itself to focus on. On top of that, God named the people who are in charge of various tasks, so there’s no reason to argue with their authority. God has appointed them, so just follow their direction and focus on the task. Brilliant. Of course, as we see just after this span of chapters, people still have a mind of their own, but that’s beside the point.
It would be wonderful if we had such detailed instructions for the things we spend our time on. We could get a lot more accomplished. One obstacle is that we so rarely consider anything to be sacred anymore. Even people who spend a great deal of time involved in church activities do not really grasp the idea that what they are doing is somehow holy, elevated, or special. In many Protestant churches, there is still the problem of people who lack respect for their spiritual leaders and time lost debating whose idea is superior, with spirituality and faith being the furthest thing from the conversation. The religious implements that Moses described were something special. Work on them was meaningful because the end product was sacred. We don’t often have that sense of meaning in the things we do.
With an understanding that the divine is truly a facet of who we are, though, we can recognize our own authority to determine for ourselves what has meaning in our lives. We determine what is sacred and holy and special to us. We don’t require an outside authority to direct us with the details, and often we are culturally trained to question authority and challenge any manner of control that someone tries to exert over us. It becomes a fight to defend our autonomy rather than a calm and purposeful sense of what has meaning to us. Our energy gets spent on defending ourselves rather than doing the things that have real value.
There are times when partnership is necessary, too. How do we collaborate when each individual decides what is sacred and meaningful? We could just assign leadership, the way Moses’ instructions do. “This person is in charge of this task, no questions or arguments.” Of course, every collaborator would have to agree on who that person will be. The key is in realizing that the collaboration itself has something sacred about it. Here are these people, each embodying those divine qualities of truth, beauty, and creativity, all committed to a meaningful purpose. It isn’t necessary to be in control, or to defend one’s ideas. The role of each individual in that collaboration is to speak from a place of truth and inspiration that is deeper than ego and petty agendas. Partnership is something sacred. It’s something that calls forth the divine within us if we allow it.
In our own lives, we are in charge of what is sacred. And if we do not ascribe meaning to our activities, no one else will do it for us. It is our own responsibility to recognize what is holy to us. Likewise, it's not our place to decide for anyone else what is sacred or holy. Their own divine self will guide them in that regard. When we collaborate with others, we have an opportunity to share that sacred space with other people, to learn what means holiness to them and to share our own sense of meaning and purpose. When we begin to see how deeply meaningful our actions are, the sacredness of what we choose to do with our time and energy, perhaps we will put the same level of attention into our lives as Moses did when giving instructions about the Israelites’ implements of worship.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Fear and Family Ties: Examining the Exotic Cultural Origins of Judeo-Christian Thought
Some say that blood is thicker than water. It's also scarier than water for a lot of people. In the story of Isaac and Rebekah and their sons, Jacob and Esau, we find that Judeo-Christian ethics emerge from a culture that is very foreign and very familiar at the same time. It is the very insular and fearful culture of one family that forms the basis for biblical spirituality. This, again, refers to passages in Genesis chapters 24 through 34.
Fear is a natural human emotion, and certain circumstances and relationships can foster fear more than others. In Isaac's case, a certain amount of fear is learned from his father, Abraham, and he responds to it as Abraham did. When Isaac is living in Abimilech's land, his fear of the other men there leads him to tell the same lie Abraham had told about his wife on more than one occasion. Isaac identifies Rebekah as his sister. When Abimilech sees Isaac and Rebekah being affectionate with each other, he realizes the truth and chastises Isaac.
Abraham's insistence on purity of the bloodline is also handed down to Isaac. When Esau (technically the eldest son) marries local Hittite women, his parents Isaac and Rebekah are not pleased. But Esau was responding to a dynamic that his parents created. Even though Esau was the elder son, his brother Jacob was the one that mommy loved best. In fact, Rebekah encouraged Jacob to steal a final blessing from dad while Esau was out hunting. If the story is to be believed, when the two brothers were younger, Jacob had demanded his older brother's birthright in exchange for food. When their father was about to die, mom apparently wanted to make sure the deal was sealed. So, in a feat of trickery that seems unbelievable, Jacob tricks Isaac into believing that he is Esau and Isaac blesses him.
Here is the weird bit: When Esau returns, Isaac oddly declares that he only had one blessing to give and now he's out. Even understanding that words have power and such, this seems like a strange claim to make. "I have two sons, but only one of you can receive my favor." How does that not equal atrocious parenting? To make matters worse, when Esau challenges Isaac on the "only one blessing" claim, Isaac basically curses him with a prophecy of a challenging and violent life. No wonder Esau gets back at mom and dad by marrying a few Canaanites.
As has been mentioned, it's a simple thing to write prophecies back into stories after the fact. If the history of these two brothers and the legacy they leave behind are the main themes of the story, then prophetic words from the mouth of their father make for good storytelling. This is essentially the way that an oral tradition works. One has to keep the listener interested in the story if they are to remember it and pass it down to their descendents, and foreshadowing is a very effective tool for maintaining interest. Still, the impression of Isaac as a father comes across as less than model parenting. And while it may still be the way some mothers behave, the intensity of Rebekah's favoritism (which leads her to encourage deceitfulness between her children) isn't much closer to an idealized picture of what a mother should be.
In any case, according to the story, Rebekah and Isaac are not happy with the idea of Jacob also marrying some local trash, and Rebekah is afraid that Esau may be angry enough to kill Jacob. Thus, Jacob is sent off to find a wife among his family's people and live with his uncle, Laban (Rebekah's brother). He finds two wives, as a matter of fact, and they are sisters. Rachel and Leah are actually Laban's daughters, and as the story goes, they are the first women Jacob sees. Since they are Rebekah's nieces, that makes them Jacob's first cousins. Since they are also Isaac's cousins twice removed, the two sisters are also Jacob's second cousins twice removed.
Laban doesn't make Jacob's courtship easy, either. Jacob wants to marry Rachel, and Laban demands seven years of labor in exchange. At the end of the seven years, Laban pulls a fast one and sends Leah instead of Rachel. (Laban and his sister must have learned from the same teacher.) But Jacob wants Rachel, so he works for another seven years and earns her hand as well. Their story has lessons of its own, but the basic theme in all of this can be seen in the best light as maintaining purity and in the worst light as insular and xenophobic. After all, holiness in its most basic definition means to be set apart.
The patriarchal family of the entire biblical narrative creates a belief system out of a fearful, insular culture in which deceit is practiced even within the closest familial relationships. All of the mandates and "shalt nots" in the scriptures can be traced back to this behavioral tradition. While we sometimes hear arguments that the culture of biblical times was different from modern-day culture, we rarely stop to think just how different it was. This family preferred marrying multiple cousins in order to maintain a purity apart from the influence of the rest of the world. Does that level of paranoia seem healthy on any level? Why do we accept rules and axioms based on fear and deception? Why is it impossible to conceive of a scenario in which brothers are encouraged to coexist peacefully and relatives don't deceive one another just to get their way? Aren't people capable of more than this?
That's a rhetorical question, of course. Some people don't believe people are capable of anything more than this. Some people believe that we are indeed deceitful, conniving, and scared at our very core, just like Abraham's family. The only person in the bloodline who seems to have any sense is Esau, who sees the relationships around him and decides he wants nothing to do with it. Although even he goes a bit overboard with marrying four Canaanite women just to spite his parents. Children of all ages are influenced by their parents' dramas, and the patriarchal line of Genesis is no different. Everyone has choices, though. We are only bound by the fears and beliefs of our parents as far as we want. We have the option to claim an identity based on trust and hope rather than fear and deception. And we don't have to go overboard like Esau in order to do it.
The desire for separateness brings up another issue for modern American society, however. If those who wish to honor biblical standards of behavior also were content to keep themselves apart from mainstream society, there are few people who would challenge them. Like Abimilech, leaders would most likely say what they could to make believers feel safe and let them do as they wished provided it didn't infringe upon the livelihood and well-being of others. However, some believers want to hold everyone to their standard. They want the whole of the population to be compelled to adhere to a standard that has more to do with fearfulness than it does with right and wrong. And many of them are quite willing to practice deception in order to get their way. While we can see a biblical precedent for this kind of behavior, this is not keeping oneself apart. This is not maintaining holiness. This is bullying, plain and simple. Frankly, I believe we are capable of better than that.
Fear is a natural human emotion, and certain circumstances and relationships can foster fear more than others. In Isaac's case, a certain amount of fear is learned from his father, Abraham, and he responds to it as Abraham did. When Isaac is living in Abimilech's land, his fear of the other men there leads him to tell the same lie Abraham had told about his wife on more than one occasion. Isaac identifies Rebekah as his sister. When Abimilech sees Isaac and Rebekah being affectionate with each other, he realizes the truth and chastises Isaac.
Abraham's insistence on purity of the bloodline is also handed down to Isaac. When Esau (technically the eldest son) marries local Hittite women, his parents Isaac and Rebekah are not pleased. But Esau was responding to a dynamic that his parents created. Even though Esau was the elder son, his brother Jacob was the one that mommy loved best. In fact, Rebekah encouraged Jacob to steal a final blessing from dad while Esau was out hunting. If the story is to be believed, when the two brothers were younger, Jacob had demanded his older brother's birthright in exchange for food. When their father was about to die, mom apparently wanted to make sure the deal was sealed. So, in a feat of trickery that seems unbelievable, Jacob tricks Isaac into believing that he is Esau and Isaac blesses him.
Here is the weird bit: When Esau returns, Isaac oddly declares that he only had one blessing to give and now he's out. Even understanding that words have power and such, this seems like a strange claim to make. "I have two sons, but only one of you can receive my favor." How does that not equal atrocious parenting? To make matters worse, when Esau challenges Isaac on the "only one blessing" claim, Isaac basically curses him with a prophecy of a challenging and violent life. No wonder Esau gets back at mom and dad by marrying a few Canaanites.
As has been mentioned, it's a simple thing to write prophecies back into stories after the fact. If the history of these two brothers and the legacy they leave behind are the main themes of the story, then prophetic words from the mouth of their father make for good storytelling. This is essentially the way that an oral tradition works. One has to keep the listener interested in the story if they are to remember it and pass it down to their descendents, and foreshadowing is a very effective tool for maintaining interest. Still, the impression of Isaac as a father comes across as less than model parenting. And while it may still be the way some mothers behave, the intensity of Rebekah's favoritism (which leads her to encourage deceitfulness between her children) isn't much closer to an idealized picture of what a mother should be.
In any case, according to the story, Rebekah and Isaac are not happy with the idea of Jacob also marrying some local trash, and Rebekah is afraid that Esau may be angry enough to kill Jacob. Thus, Jacob is sent off to find a wife among his family's people and live with his uncle, Laban (Rebekah's brother). He finds two wives, as a matter of fact, and they are sisters. Rachel and Leah are actually Laban's daughters, and as the story goes, they are the first women Jacob sees. Since they are Rebekah's nieces, that makes them Jacob's first cousins. Since they are also Isaac's cousins twice removed, the two sisters are also Jacob's second cousins twice removed.
Laban doesn't make Jacob's courtship easy, either. Jacob wants to marry Rachel, and Laban demands seven years of labor in exchange. At the end of the seven years, Laban pulls a fast one and sends Leah instead of Rachel. (Laban and his sister must have learned from the same teacher.) But Jacob wants Rachel, so he works for another seven years and earns her hand as well. Their story has lessons of its own, but the basic theme in all of this can be seen in the best light as maintaining purity and in the worst light as insular and xenophobic. After all, holiness in its most basic definition means to be set apart.
The patriarchal family of the entire biblical narrative creates a belief system out of a fearful, insular culture in which deceit is practiced even within the closest familial relationships. All of the mandates and "shalt nots" in the scriptures can be traced back to this behavioral tradition. While we sometimes hear arguments that the culture of biblical times was different from modern-day culture, we rarely stop to think just how different it was. This family preferred marrying multiple cousins in order to maintain a purity apart from the influence of the rest of the world. Does that level of paranoia seem healthy on any level? Why do we accept rules and axioms based on fear and deception? Why is it impossible to conceive of a scenario in which brothers are encouraged to coexist peacefully and relatives don't deceive one another just to get their way? Aren't people capable of more than this?
That's a rhetorical question, of course. Some people don't believe people are capable of anything more than this. Some people believe that we are indeed deceitful, conniving, and scared at our very core, just like Abraham's family. The only person in the bloodline who seems to have any sense is Esau, who sees the relationships around him and decides he wants nothing to do with it. Although even he goes a bit overboard with marrying four Canaanite women just to spite his parents. Children of all ages are influenced by their parents' dramas, and the patriarchal line of Genesis is no different. Everyone has choices, though. We are only bound by the fears and beliefs of our parents as far as we want. We have the option to claim an identity based on trust and hope rather than fear and deception. And we don't have to go overboard like Esau in order to do it.
The desire for separateness brings up another issue for modern American society, however. If those who wish to honor biblical standards of behavior also were content to keep themselves apart from mainstream society, there are few people who would challenge them. Like Abimilech, leaders would most likely say what they could to make believers feel safe and let them do as they wished provided it didn't infringe upon the livelihood and well-being of others. However, some believers want to hold everyone to their standard. They want the whole of the population to be compelled to adhere to a standard that has more to do with fearfulness than it does with right and wrong. And many of them are quite willing to practice deception in order to get their way. While we can see a biblical precedent for this kind of behavior, this is not keeping oneself apart. This is not maintaining holiness. This is bullying, plain and simple. Frankly, I believe we are capable of better than that.
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