Isaiah 5: We Are Capable of Justice

Using the metaphor of a vineyard, Isaiah 5 denounces injustice in the kingdom of Judah, pronounces the judgment of Yahweh upon the unjust, and connects the military threat from Assyria with the behavior of the people of Judah. Yahweh will either allow or compel the foreign army to overrun Judah because he is displeased with the behavior of the people. There are some problems with this theology, but there is also a message about justice that is still important for us to hear.

First, a horticultural clarification: the vineyard metaphor claims that the owner of the vineyard expected grapes but got wild grapes. Some translations express the owner's disappointment by calling the expected grapes "good grapes" and calling the grapes that grew instead "bad grapes." Wild grapes, especially in the world of the Ancient Near East, were more acidic and bitter or sour than cultivated grapes. All sorts of animals feed on wild grapes, but they aren't of a high enough quality that they would be considered for wine production or put on a dinner table. The presence of wild grapes is very natural, but they aren't the high quality produce that one would expect after investing time and energy in process of cultivation.

So it is with people. We have natural ways of behaving without putting too much effort into it, and much of that is comprised of reactions based on irrational fears, judgments, and beliefs about ourselves and other people. When we invest in personal work -- recognizing more about how to be emotionally mature people, practicing more honesty about ourselves and others, and connecting more with people so that we learn not to fear vulnerability -- we can expect to have higher quality lives. The problem is that we sometimes expect that if we invest time and effort in other people's lives, they will be higher caliber people. Deeper satisfaction with our lives cannot be gained by other people's efforts, though, and we can't do anything ourselves to ensure that other people will dismantle their own fears, connect with their deepest, most noble selves, and engage in life with greater emotional maturity. Each person has to do this cultivation on a personal level in order for transformation to occur.

The vineyard metaphor only gets us so far, then. We can expect certain results from our efforts in a garden, but we cannot expect results from cultivating growth in other people. Our responsibility first and foremost must be how we represent our authentic selves. We can be an influence on other people, to be sure, but we can't predict such results and shouldn't be terribly upset when our influence is less than we'd like. The vineyard owner (God) decided to let the whole place go. If he didn't see the results he wanted in the people he had tried to cultivate, he was going to let the place become a wasteland until such time as those people saw fit to be high-quality produce.

One major problem is that the population of Judah included both the people who were being unjust and the people who were the victims of injustice. In casting aside the entire country to the ravages of a foreign army, Yahweh was pronouncing a universal punishment that did nothing to achieve justice for the oppressed -- in fact, those with less resources fared worse in times of military conflict. In trying to make sense of Judah's vulnerability to Assyria, Isaiah looks for a cause in the society of Judah, and he finds the rampant injustice to be worthy of reprimand. Or perhaps, the prophet saw the injustice and considered the threat from a foreign army to be something that would catch everyone's attention. Either way, the theology of a deity that punishes the oppressed just to teach the wicked a lesson does nothing for Yahweh's public image.

Of course, one may say that Yahweh knew the hearts of everyone in Judah, and thus his judgment was just. In this case, one might also inquire as to who was being treated unjustly in the first place if everybody in Judah was wicked. Trying to exonerate God's behavior is a bit silly, though. The reality  was that Assyria was a political and military threat to Israel and Judah, and whatever the kings of Israel and Judah did to provoke the leaders of Assyria, it had little to do with injustice in Israelite society. It's understandable that a people would look around and try to figure out what they had done wrong to deserve being overwhelmed by foreign forces, but military actions are rarely about the actions of a civilian population. While the encroaching Assyrians were certainly a credible threat, the injustice within Israelite society was a relatively unrelated matter.

Since injustice and threat of war are separate issues in Isaiah 5, then, we can consider the two issues separately in our own search for meaning. Most of us have no control over military decisions, so it does us little good to try to control them. We can seek to have peaceful relationships in our own lives, and we can hope to influence others toward peaceful, thoughtful, respectful interaction. We don't control other people though, least of all people in government. The issue of justice is something that we are in a better position to address.

What kind of injustice is Isaiah 5 denouncing? Justice and righteousness are paired here, and the middle of the chapter details exactly what the problems are in ancient Judah:

Some people are accumulating more and more property, beyond what they need or what is equitable, so they can have people renting and working on their property with no hope of ownership, and thus no hope of wealth or security. This is unjust.

Some people are living only for their own appetites, enjoying their lives as much as they can while at the same time numbing themselves to the work that remains to be done in the world. Ignoring the hungry or the under-served will not make the problems go away; celebrating as if there is nothing more to be done to improve people's lives is unjust.

Some people are arrogant, believing that they are entitled to property and privileges that others are not, thinking of themselves as deserving of special treatment because of their station or wealth. When people think they are worth more and others are worth less, this attitude is unjust and it leads to unjust behavior.

Some people are doing things they know to be wrong, and they are justifying it through lies. They absolve their own greed by claiming that gaining personal wealth is a positive thing, and they consider people who aren't greedy to be foolish and irresponsible. They defend expressing hatred toward others as clear-headed discernment, and berate non-judgmental people as being spineless. They indulge their own appetites, betray trust, and relish opportunities to get away with deception, and then they explain it away with a worldview that ignores the effects of their actions in other people's lives and rationalizes away remorse.

How unfortunate that our own society is devoid of such behavior, so that we are left only to imagine what a duplicitous and treacherous place ancient Judah must have been!

In truth, we have built a society on countenancing injustice. With abundant resources, we create and accept policies that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. Sometimes those few do good, humanitarian things with their wealth, but this does not equate with a just distribution of resources. As long as there are people anywhere in the world who are sick and without the money to pay for medicine, who are hungry or thirsty and without the means to provide for their own sustenance, or who are denied adequate legal representation because they cannot pay enough to be seen as worthy of respect, our global system of distribution is unjust. Yet, we are so protective of what we have that our politicians argue like children about whether it is reasonable to provide healthcare for all the citizens of a country. We are so entrapped by our fear of scarcity that we fail to notice that there are others with even less, through no fault of their own. We are as clever in our justification as the ancient Israelites.

We extol the virtues of greed, we reward people who take unconscionable risks, we wake up in the morning thinking about what television we will numb ourselves with in the evening -- or even, as the wicked people in Isaiah 5, seeking after strong drink, wine, and music. We don't practice hospitality. We don't seek to understand people who are not like us. We practice playing the victim and demanding that our rights be respected while ignoring or even trampling on the rights of others. This is indoctrinated societal injustice and unrighteousness, but there is still a part of us that resists calling light "darkness" and darkness "light."

Not everyone plays by these rules of engagement. Some people seek a deeper connection with themselves, the people around them, and the world we all share. Some people stand up for the rights of others, even when they have nothing to gain by doing so. Some people reach out in compassion without worrying about the sacrifice of time and resources. Some people are willing to be vulnerable. Some people are unafraid.

We will not meet with any large scale punishment for our injustice. We will not face a conquering army sent by divine fiat to punish our unrighteousness. Our prejudice and protectiveness will most likely go unchallenged by any outside force. Even if there is a God, and even if she should decide to bring down wrath upon us all for our wickedness, why should we ever think that would change us? The behavior of the ancient Israelites never really changed after repeated disciplinary actions by Yahweh, or so the story goes. We are on our own with this matter of injustice. No one will come along and correct our behavior for us or cultivate us into pleasing, succulent grapes of justice against our will.

This is not to say that there are no consequences to injustice. The oppressed have, throughout history, risen up to overthrow their oppressors. Many of the bloody battles being fought today are the result of misguided attempts to possess property and control people -- lopsided values of an unjust system. Violence is sometimes the only response people can conceive to perceived oppression or threat. Moreover, our relationships suffer because of our willingness to condone injustice. Our own personal growth is stunted. Even the sustainability of our planet is threatened by the unjust levels of consumption that we have come to accept. The consequences are numerous and pervasive. There is a better way.

We are capable of more. We are capable of justice. We are capable of looking another person in the eyes and saying, "You are worthy." Even if that person has different skin coloration. Even if that person has a different gender or sexuality. Even if that person practices a different religion.

We are capable of justice. We are capable of recognizing our own personal responsibility for the decisions we make. We are capable of dismantling our fears of scarcity. We are capable of vulnerability. This is really the message of Isaiah 5: We are capable of justice, and because we are capable of justice, we must not be satisfied with injustice.

We are capable, and you are capable. You are capable of justice. In your workplace. In your family.
In your casual interactions with strangers. In the way you spend your time and resources.

You are capable of justice. In the lives of people that you stand up for. In the choices of practices that you stand up against. In the way that you vote. In the way that you live.

You are capable of justice.
How will you engage your capability a little more?

Mark 10: Divorce and Personal Responsibility in Human Relationships

People get married for all sorts of reasons in the twenty-first century. Considerable research has gone into the views of marriage and women in the first century, and to some extent this research has helped to make some sense of words written centuries ago. In Mark 10, some specific and absolute instructions regarding divorce are expressed through words attributed to Jesus, and it is worth considering the spirit of those words in addition to how those instructions may be of use to us.

First, it is worth noting that the author of Mark is, to a certain extent, promoting greater justice for women. Jewish society and law favored men. Since wives were largely seen as the property of husbands, married women could be stoned to death for adultery, while married men were not necessarily subject to such severe punishment. A divorced woman also had fewer options in society, since the primary role of women at the time was that of wife and mother. With priority placed on virginity, it was challenging for a divorced woman to remarry; divorced men did not face such difficulties. In fact, it was legal at the time for a man to have multiple wives, but a woman could not have multiple husbands. While some interpretations of Jewish law allowed for a husband to divorce a wife for any reason, limiting the circumstances under which divorce was acceptable meant greater security for women.

Second, rather than inventing something that could be considered heresy, Jesus is portrayed as quoting from accepted scriptures. The Pharisees, according to the story, intended to test Jesus, perhaps expecting that he would side with either Hillel or Shammai, two competing houses of rabbinic thought. Hillel taught that a man was justified in divorcing a wife if he became in any way displeased with her, even over trivial matters. Shammai taught that divorce was only permissible for serious offenses. Jesus perplexed his inquisitors by quoting from the Torah and deriving an even stricter position on divorce than the strictest school of Jewish thought. When the author of Matthew copies the story from the gospel of Mark, he adds a point of clarification, however. According to the gospel of Matthew, not only does Jesus allow for divorce on the grounds of unchastity (adultery or other sexual immorality), but he also encourages men who are willing to do so to forgo marriage altogether.

The version of this teaching in the gospel of Matthew brings up that it is preferable to become a eunuch, and the most direct definition of this word suggests that Jesus advocated willing castration. There were different sorts of eunuchs in the ancient world, however, and only certain roles required eunuchs to be castrated, primarily working in a harem. Some people in the ancient world who lived as men were not born with male genitalia. These men were also called eunuchs; they are probably included in the group Jesus refers to as eunuchs from birth. We have more precise language now than what was available in the ancient world. There were also men who abstained from sexual relations with women (even though they were physically capable) for reasons of religious conviction. This is probably what the author of Matthew is actually endorsing. There were also men who had no interest in sexual relations with women, although they were physically capable and not prohibited from doing so by any sense of religious purity. These men could also be labeled eunuchs, or natural eunuchs (to differentiate them from mutilated eunuchs); natural eunuchs may round out Jesus' category of eunuchs from birth. This was common enough in society that Josephus suggested that some people with masculine physical bodies had feminine souls. All of this suggests that we can't always know what the biblical authors were really intending by their words. It's obvious that the author of Matthew expresses through Jesus a preferred alternative to traditional heterosexual marriage relationships, and that this is very different from what the author of Mark conveys.

What is the point of going through all of this? Just to demonstrate that we can't superimpose biblical morality verbatim over twenty-first century culture. Even the Bible itself doesn't agree on how this teaching on divorce should be interpreted. Humanity has not necessarily matured all that much from two thousand years ago, though. There are places in the world in which women are still treated as property; still stoned, burned, or shot for issues of familial honor; still subjected to the whimsical abuses of the men around them. Religion has not matured with technology and knowledge and economy. Religion has, in many ways, reinforced primitive behavior. In part, this is because our religions do not necessarily challenge us to interpret truth from ancient texts, but rather allow us to project our preferences onto whatever scriptures we revere. If we look closely at the implications of Mark 10, we might find that it is a call toward greater emotional maturity in our relationships.

Through Jesus, the author conveys an absolute message that divorce is simply not justified. We know that this is not true. People get married without recognizing the long-term consequences of their decision. Sometimes people get married to people whose character turns out to be very different than what was portrayed during a courtship. Some spouses are abusive or dangerous, and it isn't reasonable to expect a person to adhere to a commitment without regard for personal safety. Breaking a vow is sometimes necessary for our own well-being. We run the risk of treating that flippantly, however, interpreting our well-being the way Hillel might -- considering the slightest offense as grounds for throwing in the towel. There are relatively few relationships that are actually restrictive, abusive, or dangerous enough to require for matters of personal safety that we break a commitment. So, what we are usually talking about is divorce as a personal preference.

There is no longer much of a societal stigma against divorce in most of the Western world. Even people who self-identify as Christians (but who are not particularly active in a faith community) are as likely as non-believers to end a marriage. "Nominal Conservative Protestants" are actually more likely to divorce than the religiously disinterested. So, even among people who worship Jesus, his words on divorce are not necessarily taken very seriously. According to the gospel of Mark, divorce was only permitted in the first place because people are hard-hearted. If we aren't going to take the strong words about the severity of divorce seriously, perhaps we can at least recognize the condition of our own hearts.

What the author of Mark calls hard-heartedness, we might call a lot of other things: selfishness, stubbornness, emotional immaturity. In all of our relationships, marriage and otherwise, we often dig our heels in and demand that the other person change if the relationship is to continue. If we aren't happy, we look for someone to blame, and we either try to fix that person or we require that they fix themselves. When that doesn't work, we might feel justified in moving on, and we might feel a strange mixture of superiority and victimhood when we do. The truth is that we have a lot to do with the quality of our relationships. The people with whom we're in relationship have a part to play, of course, but it's dishonest to suggest that someone else is responsible for our own happiness. When we allow ourselves to make demands of everyone but ourselves and to write off relationships that don't meet our standards, we limit our own growth and development as human beings. We stunt ourselves emotionally. This is the actual problem Mark 10 addresses.

If we think we can dismiss a spouse for any miniscule slight, it creates a power dynamic that requires nothing from us and dooms the other person to failure. If we create relationships characterized by equality, respect, and genuine love, those relationships stand a much better chance of being satisfying. That kind of relationship requires something of us. We have to take responsibility for our own role in creating that kind of dynamic with another person. If our relationships are to be mature and deeply satisfying, we have to be emotionally mature ourselves. We have to learn what we want and learn how to communicate that clearly to another human being. We have to learn how to listen and how to allow our guiding principles to be lived out in the messiness of human relationships. We have to be intentional about our words and actions. We have to keep growing.

The end result of an honest, loving, authentic relationship may not look like what any other two people would create. The goal is not to create a marriage or friendship or partnership that matches up with an arbitrary list of characteristics or a mold that society has created out of majority practice. Acting out what a spouse or partner or friend is "supposed to" be or do is not the goal. Sincerity, vulnerability, personal integrity, and bold authenticity are the key characteristics worth evoking. The goal might be better framed as a relationship in which you are willing and able to be completely yourself and in which the other party is able to be completely authentic as well, with no expectation that one individual is worth more than the other. Chances are that the result of such an intentional goal will look nothing like what first century Jewish marriages looked like, and that's probably a good thing. The point is that the quality of our relationships is our responsibility.

Sometimes, we will find that other people are not willing to participate in sincere, trusting, authentic relationships. Some people are not yet capable of living with intentionality and integrity. Some people aren't sure what their guiding principles are, and they aren't even sure how to figure it out. If we find ourselves in relationships with such people, we have choices. It isn't a matter of what is permissible under the law; it's a matter of what's permissible to our own deep sense of well-being. We can hopefully approach such circumstances with a deeper sense of self than just our personal preferences; we can hopefully get beyond our shallow stubbornness, selfishness, and immaturity.

Relationships are systems, though, and individuals cannot carry systems by themselves. When we have done all that there is to do -- when we have dismantled our irrational fears; deepened our sense of who we want to be in the world; confronted our lies about ourselves, other people, and relationships in general -- and we still find a relationship wanting, we can choose appropriate endings. There is no shame in doing our best, even if the end result winds up being less than we had hoped. If the time should come, we are capable of ending relationships with integrity and authenticity, too.

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.

Mark 9: Stumbling Blocks and Concrete Overcoats

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isaiah 1: Seeking Justice

We have seen that Israel and Judah were vassals of Assyria, and that rebellious actions on the part of Israel's king Hoshea led to destruction and exile at the hands of the Assyrians. King Hezekiah will court disaster at the hands of the Assyrians as well, but Isaiah's career began before then. The book of Isaiah was written by authors in the southern kingdom of Judah, and scholars generally think it was composed during three different periods. The first portion of the book may have been written by an actual prophet named Isaiah, or it may simply have been attributed to a figure that held a prominent place in the public eye as a spokesman for Yahweh. The first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah address events during the 8th century BCE, and even within this span of the book there is evidence of editorial activity. We'll make mention of that as we go.

Isaiah 1 starts off with a bang, as the author pours invective upon Judah. He describes a situation in which the wealthy and powerful practice corruption and ignore the poor and destitute. He predicts a future time of destruction, in which the land is laid to waste because of the attitudes and actions of the people. Of course, as an Israelite, the author attributes any success or failure to Yahweh, but he is especially concerned that people are ignoring the cultural expectations regarding the treatment of other human beings. These expectations are thought to have come from Yahweh, and yet certain expectations about religious activity -- sacrifices, ceremonies, and holy days -- were also thought to come from Yahweh. The religious activities seemed to be easy for the people to pay attention to, but the care for fellow human beings was a tougher thing to accomplish. The author of Isaiah thus denounces the piety of the people who think they are doing what their god wants just because they participate in required ceremonies; in the eyes of the author, Yahweh expects more of them.

Reference is made to Sodom and Gomorrah, cities that were supposedly destroyed by Yahweh because of their unwillingness to exercise hospitality and care for the strangers in their midst. Judah is no better, according to the writer, because they are trampling the orphan and widow, the poor and oppressed, for the sake of personal gain. There is still hope, however, because the people can change their behavior. If they start practicing justice -- treating people equally and humanely -- they can turn things around. The author places the illusion of power in Yahweh's hands, but it is clearly the actions of the people that will determine the outcome of their land.

Some people in the twenty-first century still believe that God is in control of all sorts of events, and they believe that the Bible indicates a certain supremacy of a supernatural divine. This is certainly the case, but it isn't the only thing the Bible says. The ultimate authority of a biblical depiction of God is balanced with ultimate responsibility of people for their own actions. If the words of this chapter of Isaiah are valid, all is not carved in stone for the people addressed. Their default future, if they maintain their current course, is destruction. By seeking justice, they can change their future. The important thing is not that they go to church more, or pray more or better, or sacrifice more or better; the important thing is that they care for people. The important thing is justice.

History is a tricky when it comes to these sorts of writings. Assyria didn't wind up conquering Judah, but a century and a half after the fall of Israel, Judah fell to the Babylonians, with prophets of the time saying a lot of the same things about the need for justice. One thing is clear from the historical record. Every time there has been a civil war or a rebellion throughout human history, it is because one group of people perceived that intolerable injustice was being perpetrated by another group of people. The people who rebel are not always victorious, but the motivation for rebellion is nearly always the perception of injustice.

Whether one believes in God or not, the need for justice is written into the fabric of our beings. Human beings throughout time have tended toward freedom in some form or another, and inequality has consistently caused strife in human communities. The admonitions of Isaiah 1 ring as true today as they did in the 8th century BCE; our religious practices don't mean a hill of beans if we aren't tending to our society. Prayer and piety is actually offensive and blasphemous if our actions don't reflect certain values. For the ancient Israelites and for many believers today, human beings are thought to have been created in the image of God. What does it mean to mistreat someone created in the image of the divine? What must one think of the divine in order to mistreat another human being?

From a perspective that doesn't recognize supernaturalism, one can perhaps even more clearly see the value of people. There aren't a lot of religious trappings to get in the way; remove the sacrifices, prayers, and ceremonies, and you are still left with a world full of people. By now, you know that my personal perspective is that whatever we call the divine is an inherent human quality, or collection of qualities. All people have a deep self that understands truth, embodies beauty, and expresses creativity, even though they often act out of irrational fear. The humanist position is not to approve of every action a person takes under the guise of acceptance; the goal is to recognize that even people who act unjustly or discompassionately or even violently are still human beings with inherent value. Their actions have consequences, but they don't have less value as people. This isn't an easy position, but in wrestling with difficult principles, we get better at living with integrity.

It's tempting to live by a set of principles in my own personal life and let other people do as they will. I can feel good about seeking justice, treating people equally, and responding with compassion to the people I encounter, even if I don't stretch beyond the borders of my own life. I can even say that I try to model behavior for others, which suggests that I am inviting a broader impact than just the confines of my own life. Yet, people will rarely know what I am modeling if I don't tell them. I shouldn't assume that any random onlooker will know why I make the choices I make or why they might get something out of emulating the behavior I'm modeling. At some point, seeking justice draws me out from the confines of my own life.

This often seems counter-cultural for a society in which people are supposed to mind their own business and avoid offending anyone. We can complain about injustice or inequality to like-minded individuals, but it's often frowned upon to make any sort of public statement regarding unjust systems or practices. When we do take a stand, it's often couched in the form of blasting one political party or the other in an angry rant that actually does nothing to help any oppressed people, even though it may make us feel righteous. Our deepest selves call us to more than that. Whether we believe that it is God's will or we just recognize our innate connection to other human beings, there is truth to Martin Luther King Jr's statement that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Isaiah was not written as a call to the poor and destitute to rise up and claim justice for themselves. It was written as an admonition for the wealthy and privileged to exercise greater awareness and love for the human beings they tended to overlook or discount. Isaiah was not talking about being kind and just only to respectable people. This chapter is about treating the oppressed and overlooked with dignity and compassion.

For us, this means ensuring that women are not treated as second class citizens, that women are respected as equal participants in the world, that girls are not sold into slavery and treated as animals or playthings. While we tolerate sex trafficking and forced underage prostitution anywhere in the world, we deny the principle that all people have inherent worth and dignity (or that they are created in the image of God).

For us, this means listening to the interests of the homosexual, bisexual, and transgender communities, not discounting their interest in marriage and families as an affront to society, and welcoming human beings with different ways of loving and being without feeling threatened in our own ways of loving and being. While we tolerate the criminalization or persecution of homosexual, bisexual, or transgender human beings anywhere in the world, we deny the principle that all people have inherent worth and dignity (or that they are created in the image of God).

For us, this means acknowledging the persistence of racism and legitimately working to see beyond skin color, language, religion, and cultural idiosyncrasies to the actual people who share our world. It means recognizing the desire for people to make a livable wage and live in safety. It means finding ways for cooperation and partnership, so that people are empowered to be personally responsible, and it means being honest about the inequities of wealth and consumption that damage the entire world for a few to maintain an illusion of entitlement and superiority. While we tolerate hostility toward the Other anywhere in the world, we deny the principle that all people have inherent worth and dignity (or that they are created in the image of God).

This doesn't mean picketing or sending thousands of dollars overseas or marching on Washington (although it could, and there's nothing wrong with it if that's what you do). Sometimes justice is honestly a matter of how we treat people and how we speak up for people. Justice might mean letting our friends know that we won't participate in ethnic slurs or activities that demean women. Justice might mean educating ourselves about service organizations that could benefit from a few hours of our time every month or every week. Justice might mean doing everything in our power not to freak out when a friend or loved one or child comes out -- and it might mean finding a way to celebrate that person even when his or her identity becomes scarily unfamiliar to us -- to embrace people even when we don't quite understand them.

None of this is easy, but it seems to be the most honest interpretation of Isaiah 1 in the realities of global economics and communication. I believe in these words, and yet I still find myself judging other people or preferring not to get involved or speak out. I am learning and growing even as I continue to engage my beliefs thoughtfully and purposefully. None of this admonition is intended as a guilt trip; it's simply a point blank statement of the work that we have yet to do if it is important to us to create a just, equitable, and compassionate reality. We do not need the threat of destruction from on high to convince us that this is a good and noble thing, but in case that sort of threat is motivating, we see that in Isaiah as well. Rather than act nobly out of fear, though, we can act nobly because we are noble. We can act justly because we are just people. We show compassion because we are compassionate. When we act with integrity to our deepest principles, we state clearly that we are people of integrity. Our authentic identities are the only reason we need to seek justice, to treat all people with respect, and to see whatever we call divine in the face of every person.

Mark 9: Authentic Power

The next portion of Mark 9 is a string of short scenes with a couple of overlapping themes. As such, they are probably best approached over two weeks rather than trying to fit everything into one entry. We'll look first at the scenes, and then at how the authors of Matthew and Luke treat them, and finally we'll consider the argument about greatness. Next week, we'll look closer at what it means to "cause another person to sin," especially in a more humanist context that doesn't grant validity to the idea of sinfulness.

Both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke include a version of the first scene, in which the disciples argue about which of them will be in positions of authority when the Romans are overthrown and a new world order is established by their revolutionary leader. The response recorded indicates that they have some misconceptions about the new measure of leadership that is being established. This scene is followed by what appears to be a threat to Jesus' brand, as another miracle worker is seen performing some wondrous deeds without the direct approval of Jesus or his followers. The gospel of Matthew doesn't represent this scene, but the author of Luke included a truncated version of it. Once again, the response to the disciples' indignation is a revision to their assumptions about authority.

In the gospel of Matthew, the final scene in this grouping is dovetailed into the discussion of leadership, with the symbolic child being the bridge between the two passages. The author of Luke includes an abbreviated version of the teaching, separated from the scenes about leadership and authority. This scene suggests that the people who promote wrongdoing (or wrong thinking) in others will suffer for it, with symbolism suggesting that the author had an impression that individuals would have some kind of physical bodies in the afterlife.

This is also one of the passages that has given us a perspective of hell as a fiery place, but the actual word used here (Gehenna) refers to a specific place, also called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom in the Old Testament. It was here that Moloch and Ba'al worshipers (some of whom were Israelites) are said to have sacrificed their children to the fire. Since no mass graves of children's bones have been discovered anywhere in the area, many archaeologists and scholars have concluded that the symbolic sacrifices were something more akin to child dedications involving fire. Obviously, upstanding Jewish citizens would disapprove of parents dedicating children to a foreign god, and they would have had obvious reasons for equating such dedication as tantamount to sacrificing the child's spiritual future. The author of Mark puts clever words in Jesus' mouth, suggesting that anyone who is a negative spiritual influence on a child will be punished not just by being sacrificed to a fire, but by a fire that never quits consuming -- a darkly ironic Gehenna that is never quenched. We'll return to this passage next week, but it's obvious that the author of Matthew connects it with the earlier discussion of who deserves to be in positions of power.

We don't have to try very hard to find modern day parallels to the two earlier scenes in this passage. Sometimes we become quite preoccupied with what our position is, in the microcosms of our life as well as in a broader sense. We find ways to measure our level of power, whether in terms of the titles bestowed upon us, the amount of money we have, the number of friends (or "friends") we have in our networks, or some other scale that represents power to us. Some people are impressed by those who seem to have an air of authority, people who just exude self-confidence or seem to have an unshakably high opinion of themselves. The lesson expressed through Jesus in this passage suggests that all of this is valueless. These things are illusions that have no real bearing on what matters most. More important than how much apparent power one wields is how well one serves, particularly how well one serves those who are unable to do anything in terms of compensation.

A child is used as a powerful example here of the kinds of relationships that most reflect how well any of us understand what is most important. A child cannot pay us for our actions. A child cannot award titles or promotions. A child can't even vote in the next election. A child can do very little to increase our apparent power. Yet, if we are truly aware of ourselves -- if we are adept at dismantling fears about scarcity and insignificance, if we practice living with integrity by guiding principles that reflect something deeper than titles and dollar signs -- then we will likely be paying attention more to what we can do for other people than we will what other people can do for us. It won't matter that a person will be unable to offer us anything for our efforts (including a chance to have our picture in the paper and a headline with the word "Hero"). What will matter is that we have an opportunity to act with integrity to a deeply held value.

When we start thinking in terms of our role in the pecking order, or our position in a hierarchy, we can start determining personal value (of ourselves and of others) based on superficial details. Our value as human beings is not based on apparent power. It's an inherent trait that all human beings have in common. Chains of command and hierarchies of responsibility have their usefulness, but their benefits do not include knowing a person's value based on place within a hierarchy. People who wield authority have greater responsibility (as is indicated by the discussion about diving suits fitted with millstones), but they do not have greater value as human beings.

We determine how our human capability will be expressed in our lives. If we release our need to be seen as powerful, our actual capability will have more of a chance to shine through with authenticity. Our fears about there not being enough respect or love or admiration to go around can cloud our thinking on this to some extent, but we really don't know what the world would look like if everyone stopped worrying and started living out of their deepest guiding principles. If everyone stopped being afraid and just loved, we might all look pretty powerful. The truth is that we all are powerful, and we don't need to prove it to anyone. We are all capable of incredible acts of love and creativity. We are all capable of being peacemakers. We are all capable of profound feats of connection. We are all capable of seeing the inherent worth in people who seem to be doing their very best to keep it hidden.

The disciples in the story were concerned (probably even angry) because someone else was stealing their schtick. You've probably already seen through this as more fear of scarcity being expressed. There were then, as there are now, plenty of hurting people to go around. The point behind helping people was not then, as it need not be now, a chance to make a name for oneself, or an opportunity to get appointed to a position of authority, or a way to get ahead financially. The point behind helping people was and is to help people. The point behind living with integrity and intentionality was and is to live with integrity and intentionality. Being authentic and exercising one's full capability is the reward; our relationships with other people are just the context in which we get to be authentic and capable.

There was a book a while back with a title suggesting that if we do what we are passionate about -- what "feeds our soul" some might say -- then financial well being will come automatically. The content of the book revealed something different, that if we do what we love, then the satisfaction of doing what we love will follow. That's potentially a discouraging message to people who are caught up (like the disciples were in these scenes) with concerns about apparent power, market share, and personal brand management. The message of these scenes is not intended to be discouraging at all, though. The author of Mark is conveying that if we recognize what really matters to us and we intentionally live like those things really matter to us, we will be noticed by all the people we need to be noticed by and we will have all of the things we need to be happy.

Honestly, we may not have all of the wealth or apparent power that we want, or all that will allow our every whim to be entertained. The point, though, is that we don't get any closer to living by our deepest guiding principles by prioritizing wealth or wielding power over others. In other words, we've allowed our standards to become skewed toward something artificial and superficial. Most likely, we've done this because looking inward at what really matters most to us is scary at some level. Some people are afraid that they won't find much there at all if they look within, and others are afraid that if they are honest about their deepest guiding principles, their entire life will have to change. Maybe it will. The message of these scenes in Mark is that it will be worth it: Realize what really matters. Change your standards. Change your life -- and quite possibly the lives of everyone around you. It's an image of authentic power that any of us can choose to embrace.

2 Chronicles 29-31: Appearances vs Authenticity

We'll soon be turning to the books of Isaiah and Micah, which were attributed to two "prophets" or outspoken spiritual commentators (preachers) during the time of King Hezekiah, who probably came to the throne in Judah a few years after the kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians. The authors of 2 Kings actually place the fall of Samaria six years into Hezekiah's reign, but it's difficult to make the dates work out with what is known of the dates of other rulers in the Ancient Near East. Some scholars propose that a practice of co-regency accounts for any apparent discrepancies. At the very least, we know that Hezekiah's reign (and in general the conflict between Assyria and Judah), is very well attested in extra-biblical sources. Hezekiah was a heroic ruler in the eyes of the Jewish historians, and it appears that his reign saw a surge in population, literacy, and power, potentially fed by Israelites fleeing south from Assyrian forces.

The Chronicler indicates much more about Hezekiah's religious reforms than the authors of 2 Kings. He started by ordering a group of Levites (the tribe that had exclusively been assigned duties of caring for the temple) to clean up the temple and get rid of any paraphernalia that represented the encroachment of foreign religions. Then Hezekiah hosted an extravagant sacrifice and public celebration for the people in Jerusalem, followed by an invitation to all worshipers of Yahweh in the surrounding areas to celebrate Passover properly in Jerusalem. According to the biblical record, his efforts were so successful that they extended the celebration for an additional seven days. This may have been due, at least in part, to Hezekiah's contribution of eight thousand animals for the ceremonies, augmented by another eleven thousand animals from Jewish officials (who were possibly "encouraged" to do so by their king).

After all of that, Hezekiah organized task forces to go around the entire kingdom and tear apart any worship sites that would detract from the state religion, with the end result that the Temple got all of the offerings that had been dispersed among various alternative worship practices. Very clever. While Hezekiah insisted on tolerance for people with different concepts of the state religion (2 Chron 30:18-19), he oversaw profound intolerance for any other religious practices. As Micah will report, that didn't make everything perfect, but the Chronicler has only praise for Hezekiah's leadership in these efforts. By all appearances, spiritual order had been restored and the country was prospering.

Even with the controls inherent in a theocratic dictatorship, and even with a great leader like Hezekiah, there are limits to what enforced religious practice can accomplish. People can become very adept at outward appearances while still continuing to live by fear of scarcity or a sense of entitlement. In other words, changing the visible religious practices of a community does not necessarily change the inward character of the people in that community. This is a problem to which various prophets call attention. We can certainly observe the character and practices of ancient people from afar and draw some conclusions about those people. However, we get more value from looking at our own character and practices with bold honesty.

So often, we spend our time and energy on appearances. We want to appear pure, good, right, noble, strong, charitable, trustworthy, competent, lovable, or whatever package of traits it happens to be for a given individual. We want people to see admirable qualities in us. We make our temples look clean and we make our sacrifices abundant, even extravagant. Hezekiah was trying to make up for a legacy of inappropriate behavior, and he went to great lengths to make a public show that things were going to be different. For some people, things probably were different. Hezekiah certainly seems to have been acting out of sincerity. He didn't really require that people change their lives all that much, though. People could still be as ruthless in business as they were before, or as discompassionate to the alien and impoverished as they were before, as long as they worshiped the way they were "supposed to." Changing people's character would require an entirely different kind of reform.

We are often the same way. We sometimes change the outward displays without bothering to change the inward motivations. We try to hide all of the things that we are afraid of or ashamed of about ourselves and display the person we want people to see instead. It's a lot of work for some of us, and it's work that never ends, because the things we are afraid of or ashamed of about ourselves never really get addressed.

What is it for you? For me, I often do battle with the fear that I am really a selfish person at my core. On top of that, I have an "inner critic" that likes to tell me that I'm not _____ enough. I know both of those things are false, but sometimes I wind up spending energy trying to prove my own inner lies about myself wrong, instead of spending my energy proclaiming what is true about myself. It occurs to me that if I spent more time working on dismantling the lies and living out of what is true, I would have a lot less worry about what other people see when they look at me. If I live out my authentic, capable, beautiful, noble, creative self, I don't have to worry about appearances.

So, that is one challenge that emerges from this passage about Hezekiah. What are you doing just for the sake of appearances, and how does that distract you from meaningful personal development? What would be wrong with just being your authentic self? What are you afraid people are going to see if you stop worrying about appearances and just allow your own deep guiding principles to inform your actions?

I certainly don't mean that what people see in us doesn't matter. To be clear, I gain a lot of insight from what other people notice about my demeanor and behavior. The more vulnerable I am willing to be with people, the more I get from other people's observations. So, by suggesting that we worry less about appearances, I don't mean that we should abandon personal hygiene or let fly every petty judgment that pops into our brains. I mean that our outward behavior can be more authentically influenced by our own inner values than by our fear about what other people will think. I mean that our time and energy is better spent nurturing our own integrity rather than nurturing a less-than-authentic image. We have nothing to fear about how people see us if we recognize what matters most deeply to us and live out those values with authenticity and integrity. Honestly, I'd rather be an authentic person than a person with a well-rehearsed persona. Maybe you agree.