John 12: Loving and Hating Life (and considering the donkey)

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.

Isaiah 11-12: Common Ideals (and the "law of attraction")

It's said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. One reason for this is that sometimes when we know a little bit about something, we misconstrue that as expertise. We often think that we have a fuller picture than we actually have -- that our grasp of a concept is more complete than it actually is. This is one reason that some ancient passages like Isaiah 11-12 get interpreted to mean things they were never intended to mean. Of course, this stretch of Isaiah isn't unique in this regard; we are often contentedly ignorant of the larger context of our knowledge. We enjoy having a certain degree of ignorance, because then we can make things mean what we want them to mean. Although it can be a challenge, it benefits us to take a broader look before we draw conclusions.

In the midst of a discussion this week, a friend of mine made reference to using the scientific method to prove the "law of attraction." Essentially, the "law of attraction" suggests that positive or negative thinking can create positive or negative results, to the extent that what one finds in the day's mail can be determined by what one expects to find in the day's mail. The idea started in the early nineteenth century as part of the New Thought Movement and has been promoted by a mixture of well-intentioned believers who are adept at fooling themselves and outright charlatans who are adept at fooling others. Recently, the idea of the "law of attraction" was promoted in the film The Secret and a variety of books that promise to show people how to think themselves into health, wealth, and happiness. They claim that the concept is based on scientific principles, but unfortunately, it's nonsense.

Why do people believe such things? Why do we latch on to an appealing idea and then seek to make it true in our lives, when we know that it doesn't quite make sense? If we were to actually employ the scientific method, we would take this "attraction" hypothesis and develop genuine experiments to disprove it. We would consider other possibilities that would better explain the results we experienced. We would honestly recognize all of the times when our thinking had not produced the reality we most desired, as well as all of the times when our thinking had effectively formed reality. Of course, we would need a controlled way to determine whether our thinking had effectively formed reality. We would not be able to take any actions toward creating what we wanted if we were genuinely testing the theory. We would have to limit our engagement to the realm of thinking positive thoughts and honestly examining the results in our lives. This would possibly be a scientific evaluation of the theory. I encourage you to test it out if the "law of attraction" seems compelling to you, but test it honestly.

There are a number of things we should take into consideration when we draw conclusions. One is that we are susceptible to confirmation bias; we know what we want the answer to be, and we orchestrate our experiments or our results to "prove" what we already want to believe. Another is selection bias; we ignore evidence contrary to what we want to believe and concentrate our attention only on those pieces of evidence that support what we want to believe. We might also consider what our conclusions mean in a broader context. For instance, the "law of attraction" sounds great when it's about getting rich and being healthy, but what happens when you get a diagnosis of cancer or get into a traffic collision? If the "law of attraction" is taken seriously, you thought those realities into being; your negative thinking caused your cancer and your collision.

Our beliefs have consequences because our beliefs inform our actions. Most likely, positive thinking plays a role in success, but not because of any "law of attraction." Positive thinking may encourage people to exert more effort toward their goal, to keep pressing toward a desired result even when the path is difficult. Our belief in our ability to accomplish what we have set out to do fuels our actions, and our actions create results.

So, what does any of this have to do with Isaiah 11-12? For one thing, people often read the Bible or other scripture and assume that what they read there is unique, that their own sacred text is superior to every other source of truth. Our assertions about where truth can be found are often susceptible to confirmation bias, selection bias, and lack of thorough examination. We often choose to believe that we have access to some special knowledge, when honestly, what we see is just one thread of a much larger tapestry.

Nearly every Ancient Near East culture expressed an ideal ruler in language similar to Isaiah 11. Many cultures connected kings with divinity, often in terms very much like Isaiah 11:2, in which the divine grants authority and capability to the ruler. Every Ancient Near East culture praised their deities for victories and successes. Many cultures had a concept of a "peaceable kingdom" in which the threat of dangerous animals was removed, and thus fear had no place. Some of these cultures foresaw a removal of the animals themselves, but Egypt's version matches Isaiah very closely: The animals remain, but their ferocity is removed. The ideals expressed in Isaiah (with the exception of a reunited Israel and Judah) are common to all of the peoples living in that area at that time. Rather than assume that Isaiah is somehow superior, it may be more informative to consider why those ideals resonated with these different cultures.

Even for people who engaged in a lot of bloody warfare, the ideal was for there to be a ruler who was wise enough to value peace. The ideal ruler is less concerned with personal gain and pride and more concerned with doing what is just and right. Justice, equity, and compassion will be valued more than wealth, power, and prestige. Peace and partnership shall gain priority over conquest and claims of superiority. Isaiah envisions this future idealized partnership between Judah and Israel as crushing their enemy nations to the point that they are no longer a threat. None of these nations ever realized these ideals, however, perhaps in part because they only envisioned justice and righteousness for themselves. Just thinking those ideals had value didn't bring them into reality.

Isaiah sees this idealized ruler as emerging from "the stump of Jesse," Jesse being David's father. From Isaiah's perspective, things had really gone awry for Israel. Although there was a perceived agreement between Yahweh and David, Isaiah was hoping for something even more than the fulfillment of that agreement. Isaiah is suggesting that there will be a new David, even better than the first -- a divinely ordained ruler emerging from what seemed like a spiritually dead line. His interest in a restored and united Israel (meaning both Judah and Israel, which he distinguishes here euphemistically as Ephraim) distinguishes Isaiah from other Ancient Near East writers, but the ideals are not exclusive to Isaiah or Israel.

Some people still hold these same ideals, or at least claim to. Some of us still recognize that peace is better than violence, although we keep finding excuses to solve our problems with violence rather than through peaceful means. Some of us still hold justice, equity, and compassion as ideals in human relationships, although we keep finding reasons to be absorbed by our fears around wealth, power, and prestige. Here's the real secret: just thinking that peace is better will not make us more peaceful. Just thinking that we value justice, equity, and compassion will not create a more just, equitable, or compassionate reality. If we really value these ideals, we have to act in accord with them. If we recognize that violence is not the best solution to our problems, and that struggling to gain or preserve wealth and power cannot create the kind of world we really hold as an ideal, it is our responsibility to do something different.

We can't change the world by just thinking of a better world. We can't even change our lives by just thinking of better lives. We can take our ideals seriously, however, and we can act like we actually value the things we claim to value. If we want a more peaceful world, we start by living more peaceful lives. If we want a more just, equitable, and compassionate world, we start by living more just, equitable, and compassionate lives. Our beliefs and our values matter, because our beliefs inform our actions, and our actions contribute toward creating the reality we most want.

What do you really believe in? What do you really value?
Are you willing to act accordingly?

Isaiah 2-4: Embracing Human Responsibility

The book of Isaiah was composed in stages by different authors, and even the passages that were written earliest show signs of later editing. Still, the first portion of the book seems to directly address the Assyrian crisis, specifically indicating a spiritual reason for political and military threats. Isaiah 2-4 indicates some of the problems the prophet sees in the society of Judah as well as his vision of what Yahweh wants the world to be.

He begins by envisioning the Temple as a place of spiritual learning, where all people learn to manage their conflicts without war, essentially relying on the wisdom of Yahweh to guide their decisions. As it is, he sees pride as a major error of people everywhere. A coming judgment will clearly show how misplaced that pride is. According to the prophet, society will be turned on its head. All supernatural provision will be withheld, and insolent children will be in charge of a place where everyone seeks to profit from the suffering of neighbors. There is a karmic sense of justice in that whatever the wicked will experience the same suffering they have wrought upon others.

No one will be able to argue effectively against this judgment from God, because the evidence is in their lives: they are caught red-handed with the spoils gained from oppressing the poor, and their very posture and gait is incriminating. Even though their leaders are leading them astray, the people are responsible for their actions. The judgment will strip them of adornment and reveal their shameful and unmerited pride. Once this spiritual cleansing transpires, Yahweh will create an atmosphere of comfort and refuge. The judgment is not intended to wipe people out, but to eradicate any justifications for pride and oppressions so that the people, faced with the bare honesty of their inappropriate attitudes and actions, have no option but to change. It is as if people are incapable of change unless a higher power gives them no alternative.

However, the kind of pride the author of Isaiah is criticizing should not be mistaken for genuine acknowledgment of one's ability and accomplishments. It's healthy to be honest about one's abilities and strengths, and it's healthy to fully embrace what one can accomplish in the world. Destructive pride is the belief that you are intrinsically worth more than other people -- that you deserve wealth, comfort, and respect that other people do not deserve. When one's sense of Self become over-inflated, then it becomes easier to justify profiting from other people's suffering. An unbalanced sense of pride dismisses the inherent worth and dignity of other people and makes equitable, just relationships impossible. Isaiah challenges that kind of pride and envisions a world in which people are honest about their own value, and everyone else's value, too. The author also envisions a world in which Yahweh is active in the lives of people and is acknowledged as every nation's god.

It's nice to dream about what the world could be. It's perhaps even more pleasant to dream about what someone else is going to do to make the world better. Of course, when there are hostile armies at your doorstep, a believer must do something with beliefs about a deity. Either that deity is not as powerful as the hostile forces, or the deity is completely in charge of what's going on. If a deity is completely in charge of things, and there is an enemy army threatening to take over one's home, then the deity must be sending a very powerful message. That deity's worshipers had better shape up, or else.

This kind of situation was an ongoing struggle for ancient Judah. One of the biggest problems is that misidentifying the causes of the effects one experiences still leaves no reasonable means of improving one's situation. If you assume that bill collectors are harassing you because God is trying to teach you a lesson, you won't necessarily determine that you need to manage your finances more responsibly. Even more to the point, if one is waiting for God to cleanse the wickedness from people and establish less prideful, more peaceful, just relationships between human beings, one is going to wait a long time. Addressing human pride and oppression and violence is not the job of some extra-human authority; human relationships are the responsibility of human beings. Envisioning what an external divine being is going to do is just one way to maintain an attitude that human beings are incapable of being more just and equitable and compassionate -- and if the responsibility for a just, equitable, compassionate world is shifted to God, the people don't have to be capable.

As challenging as this may be to accept, there is no supernatural being who is just waiting for the right moment to sweep in and change the world. It's understandable if we would prefer to sit back and wait for a superhuman someone, bigger and more capable than us, to transform reality, because waiting doesn't require a whole lot of effort. If we have any real desire to see change in the world -- to see justice, or real equality, or authentic human relationships that aren't based on how much one person can take advantage of another -- creating that world is on us. It's up to us to set aside unhealthy pride that convinces us that we have more inherent value than other people, and it's up to us to maintain an honest assessment of our capability and worth. It's up to us to build just relationships with other people and to be willing to make some sacrifices when we realize that we are profiting from someone else's suffering. It's up to us to be authentic in our power and not adorn ourselves with clothing or lifestyles or honorifics that conceal who we really are behind a smoke screen of what we want people to think of us.

God is not going to change the world or punish the world. Our experiences in life are the results of human decisions. If an army attacks, we might justifiably blame that on our leaders. In our own personal lives, though, what we experience is ours to manage. If we don't like our reality, we have the power to learn from it and create something better. That kind of creation isn't always easy, but it at least has a chance of building the kind of world we want to live in. Waiting for someone else to solve our problems for us will get us nowhere. So, if you choose to pray, pray for courage. Prayer cannot in and of itself create justice or peace or equality, but human action can. We are capable of creating a better reality, if we are courageous and intentional in our actions. That creation starts with the relationships that already matter to us. That creation starts with greater awareness about the decisions that we make every day about how we treat other people (and ourselves). In other words, we engage in creating a better world by first engaging in creating and re-creating ourselves.