Isaiah 23: The Lenses through Which We Look

Should one decide that there is little in Isaiah's "oracles against the nations" to be translated into a twenty-first century life, that conclusion would be understandable. Aside from placing these writings in a historical context, some biblical scholars don't seem to know what to do with them either, and they don't all agree on the historical context. Isaiah 23 is the last specific pronouncement against a foreign power, however, before the book of Isaiah turns to focus more on the nation of Judah. After this passage, Yahweh's destruction is reported as being global, and his devotion to humanity is focused specifically on Jerusalem (which is profoundly problematic, but we'll wait to delve into that).

Isaiah 23 contains commentary on the cities of Tyre and Sidon, both situated in present-day Lebanon, about 40 miles apart. These cities were located in a coastal area along the Mediterranean that was important for commerce, so every major empire that came along found value in claiming them. Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Ottoman Turks, Crusaders -- whoever was in power at the time controlled Tyre and Sidon. Now, the cities are more Muslim than the United States is Christian, so one might draw some interesting conclusions if one puts stock in the prophecy, "Her merchandise and her wages will be dedicated to the Lord; ...her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who live in the presence of the Lord."

It's interesting to note that people throughout history have read the words of their scriptures and interpreted them however they saw fit, and people frequently criticize interpretations and perspectives that differ from their own, even when there is not necessarily greater support for one view over the other. We often hold our own perspectives in rather high esteem. Authors can only write from their own perspective, though, and the authors of Isaiah reveal some things about their perspective. Historically, it would have been unsurprising for a growing empire to take control of Tyre and Sidon, and Assyria controlled not only Tyre and Sidon, but also Babylon for a time (which could have been the land of the Chaldeans referred to in verse 13). 

The coastal cities were too useful to simply be destroyed, however. Isaiah 23 suggests that the cities will be like prostitutes, which is an interesting pre-Capitalist view toward international trade. An honest look at "free" economy in the twenty-first century might warrant the same criticism, that people are made to prostitute themselves to those who hold the power. For the authors of this passage, Yahweh is eventually going to make use of and benefit from the prostitute Tyre. Try convincing your preacher to speak about that on Sunday morning. Interestingly, the authors throw in a reference to a folk song in verse 16, which might make one wonder how many other poetic turns of phrase in scripture are taken from unacknowledged vernacular entertainment of the day. Perhaps even more interesting is that Sanchuniathon, a Phoenecian historian, seems to have cast Sidon as a daughter of gods and the originator of melodic singing. Could this mythology have influenced the authors of this oracle?

We can't know the complete cultural or historical perspective that influenced the writing of Isaiah 23 (or any other bit of scripture). What we can see clearly is that the authors began with a particular understanding of the world and interpreted events through that lens. For the writers of Isaiah, the clear assumption is that Yahweh is in control, that their god is powerful enough to orchestrate events on a global scale, and that human actions prompt divine response. If a nation or a city is besieged, Yahweh is interpreted as the commander of the attacking forces if they win, and he is interpreted as the protector of the defending community if the attackers withdraw. In order to preserve their view of the divine, they cast a vision of the future in which all people understand the power and righteousness of their god -- in which everyone sees the world as they do.

Human beings have adopted a strange stance with regard to our beliefs. We think that other people agreeing with us somehow legitimizes our beliefs. If others see the world as we do, then our perspective must be accurate, right? Not necessarily. Yet, when our beliefs are challenged by people who disagree with us, we don't reconsider our beliefs; we don't think, "Hmmm, maybe I was wrong about this. Let me consider this other perspective carefully." Instead, we often become belligerent, insisting that other people see things as we do. We are often just afraid of being wrong about what we believe; we won't allow our perspective of reality to grow into something new. 

So, we interpret everything through a particular lens, to the point that we are often willing to dismiss or ignore those things that do not fit cleanly with our perspective. The argument of Isaiah seems to go something like: Yahweh is in control of everything. Thus, every military action is approved by him, and he uses military forces to jealously punish people who worship other gods. Thus, when our own communities are overrun by foreign powers, Yahweh is ultimately behind it. Thus, rather than looking at political or military weaknesses, we should figure out why Yahweh would want this to happen to us and fix that problem. Then, we will have success against foreign military forces, because Yahweh will protect us.

Some people today look through a similar lens, making some assumptions before considering any facts. Just as the authors of Isaiah made some assumptions about their god before interpreting events around them, many people today assume first of all that their beliefs about the world are accurate, then they look at the world and fit what they see into their assumptions. We could go into the multitude of problems that arise from the assumption that God is in control, but it might be more constructive to consider starting from a different set of assumptions. We will always have beliefs that create a lens through which we see the world, but we could embrace the possibility that our lens grows and develops as we encounter the world. In other words, we could start with the assumption that we don't know everything. When we claim that God is in control, we pretend to know something that we can't know. There is no way to grow from that perspective. The only option is to force our experience into a particular box -- and to discard or ignore whatever doesn't fit in that box. A bit of honesty about the limits of human knowledge would suggest that we can grow in our perspective. That's one really useful assumption to make: We don't yet know all that we could know.

Here's another assumption we might make, another lens through which we might choose to see the world: Human hands can solve human problems. When we recognize that our current reality doesn't match our hopes for the world, we have an opportunity to create a better world. We aren't necessarily in charge of military decisions or international politics, but when we acknowledge that human beings make those decisions, and not an omniscient supernatural, we look through a lens of human responsibility. Once we are able to acknowledge that human beings are responsible for their decisions, we can be empowered in our own lives to be personally responsible for the things we do get to decide. If a supernatural is in control of everything that will happen in the world, there isn't much for human beings to do except sit back and watch. When we accept our own role in creating a better world, we might catch a glimpse of the kind of world we most want to live in.

Through what lens are you looking? Is there room for that perspective to grow? Does your lens empower and inspire you to live toward a best possible version of yourself? To contribute somehow to a better world? How you look at the world determines how you are in the world, and you have some choice in the lens you look through.

Isaiah 21-22: When Judgment Hits Close to Home

I had begun to write about the historical relevance of some of the statements in the oracles in Isaiah 21-22, but it struck me that none of that really matters in our lives today. Ancient history is interesting, and it's worth noting that predictions like, "Within a year, according to the years of a hired worker, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end," simply didn't happen. Kedar isn't around anymore as a nation, but it didn't happen within the span of a year, and this prophecy is very clear that what's intended is a literal one-year-in-the-life-of-a-laborer period of time. If nothing else, a glimpse at history helps to explain what the author(s) may have meant, but it doesn't necessarily prompt us to change anything about our lives.

The gist of the whole series of oracles against the nations is that the people of Judah looked with judgment on all the other nations who were worshiping the wrong gods, engaging in unclean cultural practices, and -- most of all -- posing a military threat to Judah and Jerusalem. Words of condemnation against those nations were comfort to the Israelites, and prophecy against people who were living differently offered hope to those Israelites who were suffering while living faithfully. We all need words of comfort sometimes, and one easy way to provide an illusion of comfort is to degrade someone else. That isn't real empowerment, even though it might make us feel better in the moment.

Here's the real kicker, though: When you get to Isaiah 22, the pronouncements are no longer about other nations. Suddenly, the prophet is condemning Jerusalem and some specific leaders who were not living exemplary lives. It's all well and good to criticize the people who aren't behaving the way you want them to, but it stings a bit sometimes to be honest about how much our own actions line up with our beliefs.

We get distracted sometimes by minor things, by pettiness, by things just not going the way we want them to. Particularly, we get distracted by our fears and by the false beliefs we've developed about ourselves, other people, and the world we all share. Pronouncing judgment on others is not going to get us very far toward the kind of world we most want to create. Even pronouncing judgment on ourselves isn't going to create the lives we want. Shame is not a solid foundation for anything.

What matters is that we recognize one another as human beings capable of doing amazing things. We are capable of taking personal responsibility in our own lives and recognizing the limits of our control over other people. We are capable of setting healthy boundaries that define what we stand for and still allow for connection with other people who think or believe differently from us. It feels powerful to stand against other people, but the real power is in standing for other people. This is not always easy to do. We have to understand our own guiding principles, and we have to be willing to allow those principles to actually guide us. In our own lives, we can model what it is to live courageous lives of integrity and intentionality, not to shame or condemn anyone else, but to provide empowerment and hope. As a wise person has said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

So when we write our own oracles, let's not compose oracles against others or against ourselves. Let's cast vision for a best possible version of ourselves and live into that vision to the best of our ability. Let's look at other people as potential partners in creating a better world, even though sometimes fear presents an obstacle. People have inherent worth, and we can build some pretty incredible things on that foundation. The more we are able to stand in the face of other people's fear (and our own fear) and have a calm sense of integrity to our guiding principles, the more we are able to transform our own lives and the lives of people around us.

It may take a bit of practice, but we can nurture our lives and the places in which we work and play toward well-being in every dimension. This is what we get to practice, then: (1) Know what you stand for. (2) Stand for it. Take care not to stand for something based on fear, and be sharp about the temptation to phrase things so that your hostile stance against something or someone looks like a committed stand for something. Maybe talk through things with someone else who is committed to living intentionally and purposefully. Then, keep standing.

Mark 16: The Persistence of Belief

This is how the gospel of Mark ends in the oldest manuscripts:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Someone didn't think that was a very good ending, however, so at some later point, this was added: "And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation."

The last chapter of Mark was eventually extended to include more spectacular reports, alluding to an exorcism story about Mary Magdalene that doesn't otherwise make an appearance in the Bible, snake handling, faith healing, and the ability of believers to consume poison without being harmed. As frustrating as I find some Christians to be on occasion, I cannot advocate drinking poison or playing with cottonmouths. The absence of any credibly documented cases of faith healing and the continued deaths of pastors who dance with rattlesnakes (the most recent case being February of this year in Kentucky) should be enough to suggest that the "longer ending" of Mark may not be a helpful prescription of religious practice.

Of course, the authors who continued to add to the gospel of Mark were doing what we all tend to do. When the report seemed unsatisfactory, they "improved" it so that it matched what they wanted to believe. When reality doesn't match what we want it to be, we often attempt to explain things -- or even manipulate things -- so that what we want to believe still seems plausible. If I really want to believe that aliens visit me every night and implant cosmic secrets in my kidneys, it doesn't matter if you videotape night after night of me sleeping undisturbed. I'll embellish my belief to grant that the aliens must be invisible, or at least undetectable by video technology. When we really want to believe in something, we are often undeterred by reality.

This can be amusing if we keep to reading horoscopes, tossing salt over our shoulders, and wearing our lucky socks when we play softball. Our beliefs that ignore evidence sometimes lead us to harm ourselves and other people however. Relying on a supernatural to heal illnesses instead of relying on competent medical professionals is one way that beliefs cause harm every day in the United States. Another type of evidence-resistance belief is the prejudice that we hold toward people of different religions, ethnicities, or sexualities. Once we are committed to the belief that Muslims all hate America, no amount of evidence to the contrary (which exists in abundance, by the way) will convince us otherwise. We have to be willing for our beliefs to evolve in order for our view of the world to be brought into greater alignment with what is actually so. We have to be willing for legitimate evidence to weigh more heavily than what we imagine might well be the case. Moreover, we have to be sharp enough to be willing to distinguish legitimate evidence from propaganda.

Throughout this spring, I participated in a course on Christian ethics. What I concluded was that there is no such thing as explicitly "Christian" ethics. We know how people should be treated, and whether we are Atheist, Humanist, Jewish, Wiccan, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Sikh, or otherwise, our basic understanding of what constitutes ethical behavior is more or less consistent. We can and do invent plenty of reasons to justify unethical behavior, but we generally know what we ought to do even when we defiantly choose to do something else. Christians may have a special reason for choosing to be ethical, but other groups of people have equally compelling different reasons. No one has cornered the market on ethical behavior.

There is another important reason I've concluded that there is no such thing as "Christian" ethics, at least as the concept was portrayed in the course I took. Christians are not universally consistently ethical. If Christianity in and of itself was enough to make a person more ethical, the past two thousand years would be filled with evidence that Christian people were more ethical than non-Christian people. It simply isn't so. Christian people are as prone to be ethical (or unethical) as people of any other belief system. Christianity isn't the determining factor; it doesn't really impact one's ability to be ethical. From a Christian perspective, however, it would seem to be very easy to dismiss all evidence that contradicts a special claim to ethical or moral identity. Theologians invent terms like "anonymous Christian" for those people who do not accept the premises of Christianity, yet still behave in a way that is seen to be congruent with the example of Jesus. Yet, it isn't that they are "anonymous Christians;" they are simply human beings choosing to live by an ethical standard that is actually congruent with every major religion (and some minor ones, too).

Nearly every theologian studied in this Christian ethics course expressed some version of the same fallacy: "One cannot be ethical unless one is Christian." "One cannot love others without recognizing Jesus as lord." "One cannot care about the well-being of one's community without believing in the sovereignty of the Christian God." "One cannot be moral without accepting the supernatural premises of Christianity." "One cannot be fully human and also be Atheist." When these are the premises that are hammered into a Christian's brain, it's no wonder so many people are scared for the future of their country and their world if there are more and more non-believers.

The fact of the matter is that believers behave as unethically as non-believers, and that non-believers behave as ethically as believers. When we embellish our beliefs in order to stay rooted in familiar assertions despite ample evidence that we need to shift our beliefs a bit, we live apart from reality. We try to engage the world from a false premise. That's a frustrating endeavor no matter who you are. Reality doesn't change just because you believe it ought to be different. All of this effort to make the stories we want to tell seem more true actually prevents us from doing the things that could create the kind of world we most want to live in. Willfully ignoring or misinterpreting reality is not going to get us any closer to a best possible version of ourselves.

Wanting people to believe what we believe is a plea for safety. We want to be right, because being wrong feels bad. We don't want to feel shame; we don't want to be humiliated. Being right -- insisting that we are right no matter what evidence suggests -- allows us to avoid shame and humiliation. The problem is that we are always going to be wrong about something. There is no shame in that. Being wrong means we get to learn and grow into someone better than the person we were when we woke up this morning. Listening to other people's beliefs and listening to their challenges to our beliefs helps us sharpen our perspectives and be more in line with what actually is. We can't create a better world if we are imagining the world to be a completely different place than what it actually is.

And we all want to contribute to a better world. Deep down inside, beneath whatever fears and lies we have cultivated over the course of our lives, we all want pretty much the same thing. We don't have to do dangerous and stupid things to prove that we are right. We can choose to acknowledge that all the people around us are potential co-creators rather than threats. What we believe about people matters, because it determines how we're going to treat them. What we believe about ourselves matters, because it determines how we're going to engage in life. Whether there was an actual resurrection doesn't matter. Whether seven demons inhabited Mary Magdalene doesn't matter. When we try to debate those sorts of things, no one gains any ground. If we are willing to recognize that our beliefs -- precious though they may be to us -- are just one way of looking at the world, we might be open to seeing the merits of other perspectives. This helps us see more clearly, and it helps us express our own perspectives more clearly, without demanding agreement. When we can do that, we can have genuine partnership with other human beings. Isn't that worth more than insisting on something that we have no way of proving or demonstrating?

I will say one more thing about the Christian ethics course. If everyone who claimed to believe that the example of Jesus was worth following actually lived by the example of Jesus, then there might be something the theologians could point to. It would be really something if every Humanist practiced seeing the humanity in everyone, if every Christian practiced seeing Christ in everyone, if every Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Wiccan, and on down the line practiced seeing the divine in everyone. If that were how we allowed our particular belief systems to define how we engage in human relationships, the world would be a different (better) place. And we'd all actually be seeing the same thing when we look at one another: Sacred human beings. People just like us in the ways that matter most. 

Mark 15: Sifting Through the Crucifixion Narrative

Continuing for another couple of weeks with the Passion story as it is related in the gospel of Mark, we read of the crucifixion event and some connections with the Hebrew Scriptures made by the early church. It  bears repeating that there is very little evidence of a historical Jesus, but we wouldn't necessarily expect there to be. There is very little evidence from the first century of any single person who wasn't a powerful political or military figure, or a historian who wrote about important political and military figures. The Christian cult is mentioned in a couple of historical documents, but in these reports historians repeat what the early church believed about Jesus, rather than verify their story.

Even if there were more evidence of a historical Jesus, this would not necessarily validate any particular story about him. That a person names Nunzio exists is one kind of assertion; to say that Nunzio is manager of an Italian restaurant is another kind of assertion; and to say that Nunzio never buys wine for his restaurant because he can just turn water into alcohol whenever he wishes is yet another kind of assertion. To prove that Nunzio is a real person does not thereby lead to the conclusion that Nunzio can turn water into wine. Even to prove that Nunzio seemed to turn water into wine on one occasion does not necessarily conclude that he could do it again, or that he could perform any other amazing feat. With regard to Jesus, there is simply no way to prove the claims of the gospel narratives.

This is not a glaring indictment for most believers. Many people would say that accepting the gospel narratives requires faith, and they believe that their lives are improved by that faith. I have suggested that believing in a historical Jesus or that such a person performed miracles is rather shallow when one considers the minimal impact such belief could have in an individual's life. To believe in unicorns or dragons matters not at all (save that one may be a target for those who would take advantage of such gullibility), until one decides to quit one's job, leave one's family, and go hunting for unicorns or dragons. Then, it matters a great deal. Belief in what Jesus symbolizes -- belief to the extent that the values represented by the Jesus archetype permeate one's life -- would seem to be more vital than belief that Jesus actually existed.

Thus, when reading the Passion story in any of the gospels, one might do well to push past the question of whether something really happened and look to the symbolism as one would look at any other mythological tale. What is the wisdom being communicated? Where does one find oneself in the story? If the story is about Hercules slaying a hydra, does one identify most with the heroic role, with the role of the nephew Iolaus, with the townsfolk who were victims of the danger until someone heroic came along, or with the naysayers after the event who minimized the accomplishment? Can one learn something from every character in the story about oneself, or about what a best possible version of oneself might look like? This would seem to be a more valuable approach than blind belief that someone accomplished something unique a long time ago, and that the intangible benefits are available to anyone who just believes the story.

For the early church, it was important to set Jesus up as a unique messianic figure connected to Hebrew Scripture. This was possibly an unfortunate misinterpretation of the intentions of the prophets, particularly Isaiah, who cast vision for every individual to live into the ideal of compassionate justice. When the words of the ancient scriptures are made to be about a single person, it rather lets everyone else off the hook for living into that ideal. Several of the quotes and details of the crucifixion story are thus attributable to attempts on the part of the early church to affirm that Jesus was a unique fulfillment of Hebrew prophecy. The mythologizing of the story can be seen in the wine mixed with myrrh which Jesus refuses, the fall of darkness over the land, the casting of lots (gambling -- rolling dice) for his clothing, the presence of criminals alongside him (although this would certainly not be unusual, since criminals were crucified in droves in the Roman empire), and the words that Jesus speaks, which are a reference to a psalm of lament.

An interesting feature of the story is the tearing of the temple curtain from top to bottom. Many have interpreted this as a symbol that the separation between God and man was no more -- that people did not have to go through priests and sacrificial rituals to connect with the divine. Others have suggested that this is a symbol that God no longer lives in houses made by human hands, which would have been a significant concept in the first century. In any case, it was certainly an indictment against the religious power structures of the time, and it was a call to a change of perspective.

The burial scene is intended to provide enough details to make the resurrection event convincing, even though that event is a bit odd as it is told in the earliest version of the gospel of Mark. The verification that Jesus is dead, the traditional appropriate Jewish treatment of the body, and the heavy stone rolled across the tomb entrance are to make resurrection reports credible and impressive. Normally, a poor man crucified as a criminal would have been tossed in a mass grave, and whether he was still there or whether he had gotten up and walked off somewhere would be very difficult to determine. Like the other seemingly historical aspects of the story, hanging one's faith on whether things happened exactly as a gospel narrative suggests is a rather shallow reading. The real value is in determining the application in one's own life, and there are more worthwhile applications that mere belief in an event.

When I say that it is unfortunate that the early church appropriated Hebrew scripture to assert that Jesus was a unique messianic figure, I mean that it is very difficult to reclaim some of the ideas of those writings if one believes that they applied specifically to one particular person. Lament psalms were meant to be available to a community and to any individual who experienced the kind of suffering and pain reflected in the poem/song. Connecting a lament psalm to Jesus takes it somewhat off the market for personal expression, because, from the perspective of believers, no one suffered or felt pain like Jesus.The lament becomes about Jesus' suffering instead of our own, and our own suffering is made insignificant by comparison.

Except that our own suffering isn't insignificant. Comparing it to someone who has suffered more might seem like our preoccupation with our own pain isn't legitimate, but that doesn't keep us from feeling the pain. It just gives us reason to feel guilty or ashamed about feeling our pain. One big lesson that we could take from understanding how the gospel writers and the early church made use of well-known Hebrew scriptures is to reclaim our experience. The original intent behind much of the prophetic writing in the Old Testament was for individuals and communities to be more intentional in their behavior and to have more integrity to their values. These ideas are not unique to the Old Testament. This has been a challenge in many cultures from many different perspectives throughout human history. Seen as such, the Hebrew scriptures become one resource among many resources to influence individuals toward living in a way that contributes to holistic well-being in their own lives and in the lives of their communities and neighborhoods. We need to experience our own suffering without being ashamed of feeling pain, and we need to recognize our own role in influencing our realities.

There are two symbolic results of the crucifixion that bear acknowledgment -- truths that the early church recognized and expressed as well as it could in the culture of the first century. First, there is that image of the curtain being torn in two. There is no separation between the divine and humanity. Since whatever we call divine is intrinsic to humanity, we can connect with those qualities within ourselves whenever we wish. We might become more skillful at introspection, but we are never denied access to our deepest, most noble self and we do not have to go through any particular ritual actions to connect with ourselves. God is a word people use to refer to a deep part of themselves, but we do not have to follow any linguistic protocol to connect with that part of ourselves that we could characterize as divinity.

Second, there is the idea of forgiveness. In the context of a covenant relationship between a supernatural and humanity, human beings had to somehow account for the things they did that were out of alignment with what their supernatural wanted. This is what the Jewish sacrificial system was largely about: staying in alignment with the values of their supernatural. It became something of an obsession in Jewish society. Keeping oneself pure, remaining personally in step with religious law, became more important than risky acts of justice or compassion. People were perhaps apt to disconnect from real, deep community because they didn't want to be scrutinized. Even today, a lot of people are more concerned about what they have done wrong, what other people have done wrong, what people might be thinking about doing wrong, or what wrong motives they may have had for doing something that seems quite good on the outside. It is also much easier to stay in a judgmental frame of mind when you're focused on how people are failing.

The early Christian church solved this issue, but most of them didn't seem to realize it. By inventing a dying and rising messiah figure who eliminated the need for ritual animal sacrifice, the early church essentially said, "We don't have to worry about sin anymore." This is not to imply licentiousness (although some people in the early church apparently did take it that way), but rather to say that the best thing to do when you fall short of your ideal is to get up -- hopefully with the help and embrace of a loving community of people -- and take another run at it. The idea of sinfulness is laced with shame, and it winds up not being incredibly helpful. If we were to accept that we have nothing to fear from getting something wrong, we might get past the self-obsession with where we might spend an imaginary afterlife and focus on things that matter right now -- like how we are in our relationships with the people we encounter every day.

Even for people who want to believe in the historical validity of the Passion story, then, there are these two big things that can transform the way we do life. We are not separated from whatever it is we call divine, and we are capable of making mistakes and moving on. There are often consequences when we fall out of alignment with our deep guiding principles, but those consequences don't have to come with shame or insurmountable guilt. We are human beings. We are not perfect. We will disappoint one another because we will have expectations of one another that go unmet. That's life. Our real work is not to try not to do anything wrong and to do whatever we can to make up for all of the mistakes we make. Our real work is to bring our capability into full engagement in the communities where we live.

This doesn't mean permissiveness with regard to harmful behavior. It means focusing on what will create greater well-being rather than what someone has done wrong. We never just do harm to one person; our harmful acts always affect ourselves and a whole network of people -- often even people that we will never meet. The idea behind grace is not that we shrug our shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I'll do better next time," but instead to direct our focus away from our own "eternal destinies" and toward how we can positively influence the world around us right now, in this moment. This is how we move beyond our fears of scarcity, fears of embarrassment, fears of insignificance, and fears of powerlessness and move into transformational relationships with the people around us. Whether the Passion story sources that kind of focus for you or whether you draw inspiration from somewhere else, we are capable of building incredible powerful connections with other people when we are willing to set shame aside and bring our authentic selves forward.

Mark 14-15: Personal Authenticity and What Happens When We Don't Have It.

I had hoped to get to the remainder of Mark before Easter, but that just didn't happen. Being a little behind the Christian holiday, though, has the advantage of not seeming like it is intended to be some sort of odd Lenten devotional reading. As we have observed, the Passion story in Mark is the earliest of the biblical Passion narratives, save perhaps for a few vague mentions in Pauline letters. Since the narratives are very different (the version in Matthew is based on the book of Isaiah and a couple of psalms), we will stick with just what appears in the gospel of Mark. This part of the story is after Jesus has been arrested, up until he is taken to be executed, so Mark 14:53-15:20.

First of all, we must recognize that this is a story that cannot be narrated by a firsthand witness. One disciple (Peter) tries to follow Jesus as far as he can, but no one follows Jesus into the assembly of Jewish priests, and the priests certainly would not have recounted the story as it appears here. It's a dramatic story, with some great stock characters, but someone is filling in a few gaps here. Likewise with the subplot involving Peter denying his association with Jesus. Very dramatic. 

Second, it is important to acknowledge that there are some cultural implications and some narrative implications. Culturally, the Jewish people could not execute anyone; only the Roman government had that authority. This is what prompts the involvement of the local Roman official, Pontius Pilate (who was an actual historical figure, although that does not mean that he did any of the things attributed to him in the biblical narrative). Also culturally, certain sects of Jewish people, namely Zealots, launched frequent rebellions against Roman rule. Every charismatic Zealot leader who could effectively organize a militia was heralded as the messiah who would free Israel from the tyranny of Rome and establish a new Jewish kingdom. This is the kind of insurrection in which Barabbas would have potentially participated. It was this sort of constant rebellion that eventually provoked the Roman military to tear down the temple in Jerusalem and scatter the Jewish people across the empire.

Narratively, however, it was important that the Roman government think favorably of the new Christian cult that was emerging in the empire. It was bad enough that Christians refused to pay homage to the emperor and allegedly had secret love feasts at which they ate flesh and drank blood (of babies, by some reports). The story of their founder had to paint the Roman official involved in the execution as blamelessly as possible. The Jewish people (who were antagonistic toward the upstart sect) needed to be the real villains of the story. It is worth mentioning that the antisemitism inherent in the Christian passion narrative contributed to oppression, violence, and genocidal acts against Jewish people through the twentieth century, and perhaps still in some places today. Historically, Roman officials didn't customarily release a murderer once a year. They didn't have to; they were very much in control with no real need to appease the populace.

Also, it was important for the early Christian church to create a dramatic and ironic contrast between the violent authoritarian leadership exhibited by Zealot militia leaders and Roman authorities and a more humble relational leadership style that sought to change external circumstances by changing internal realities of human perceptions and expectations. The abuse by the soldiers may have been a historical reality in terms of how criminals slated for crucifixion were treated, but even more importantly for the early church, it reflected something about the character of Jesus -- a character that they were supposed to emulate.

There can be no doubt that the story of Jesus' arrest and torture is emotionally charged, especially for people who think that he was a historical divine figure. Setting aside torture porn like The Passion of the Christ, however, we can draw forth something of potentially greater personal value than the unwarranted feelings of guilt or shame that some religious figures seem to want this story to evoke. Specifically, I think we can learn something from the Jesus character, from the Pilate character, something from the Jewish leaders, and something from the mob and soldiers.

Should any of us decide to engage in non-violent protest, this story demonstrates a rather extreme case. Jesus is willing to state his identity as he sees it, but he doesn't resort to defending himself or arguing with anyone about his guilt. One might say he takes things a little too passively, but we might think of the character as an archetype. The early church had a few decades to develop their origin story, and the way they tell it, Jesus knew all along that he was going to get himself killed if he tried to challenge the status quo. Understanding that danger, he challenged the status quo. He spoke out against injustice, and he promoted what he believed to be a better way of building community, based on love and respect for one another rather than coveting power and hoarding wealth. He believed in his principles strongly enough that he was willing to die for them, and he was centered and grounded enough that he could stand in the face of obviously fabricated accusations and remain calm and unprovoked. How well do you know yourself and your guiding principles? 

When you don't know yourself or your guiding principles, you might wind up behaving like the Jewish mob and the soldiers, who abdicated control of their decisions to other people. If you aren't willing to be personally responsible for your actions, there will usually be someone else who will happily direct you toward their ends. We have authority in our own lives; we have responsibility for our actions and beliefs. When people give that power over to other people, we sometimes wind up with violent mobs. Granted, sometimes revolution might be necessary, and sometimes oppressed people feel so disenfranchised and powerless that violence seems like the only option available. When we know ourselves and our guiding principles well, we might just be able to see other alternatives.

The Jewish leaders were, of course, afraid. Their way of doing things was being called into question, and change terrifies us like little else. They were attached to a certain identity of power and authority, and to give up that identity was a big threat. Eventually, they had to give it up anyway, in 70 CE when the Romans destroyed the temple. They had to learn a new identity, based on something other than the potentially superficial things on which they had based their previous identity. We're talking about characters in a story in which the Jewish leaders were the bad guys, of course, so it would be a mistake to think that every historical Jewish leader behaved in the way depicted by the early Christians. Still, if we are going to derive some value from the example of these characters in the story, it might be that we not only need to know ourselves and our guiding principles, but we also need to know what we are afraid of. 

When we know what makes us anxious, when we know what that anxiety feels like, we can better manage ourselves. We can calm ourselves down and get back to the guiding principles that we care about most. When we let our anxiety determine our behavior, we stop thinking and just react, which means that we probably are not acting with our guiding principles in mind. If we want to be people of integrity, we must manage our anxiety. Had the Jewish leaders in the story managed their anxiety, they may have realized that what they most wanted was not all that different from what Jesus most wanted. They got anxious about some superficial things and missed the opportunity for connection and growth. 

Pilate had a different sort of identity problem. Again, we are looking just at the character as he was portrayed by the author(s) of Mark, and not considering the historical Pilate. Here we see a man in a very lonely leadership role, faced with a decision that he didn't want to make. More than the mob of people who were unwilling to be personally responsible for their behavior, more than the Jewish religious leaders who were so wrapped up in their anxiety that they had forgotten themselves, Pilate was in a position to decisively act on what he knew to be right. He had the political authority to make a decision and the military power to back it up. He knew that Jesus was innocent of any crime worthy of execution, and he recognized that ordering his death would be unjust. Yet, unlike Jesus, he was intimidated by a willful mob and abdicated authority to the loudest voices rather than what he knew to be right. Knowing his principles, and knowing his role in the situation, Pilate betrayed himself because of some unidentified fear. He felt helpless, even though he wasn't.

We only have some unreliable and biased stories to go on, so we aren't really trying to derive any lessons from history. We're looking at the representations of human tendencies and finding connections with our own behavior so that we might do things better in our own lives. Even if there was a historical Jesus, and even if he was actually crucified, we still don't have any guarantees that it happened as the gospel of Mark conveys. What we do know is that only one person in the story reflected the kind of personal authenticity we hold in high regard, and everybody else was being something other than the best possible version of themselves. What we do know is that when we don't know what matters most to us, and when we don't manage our anxiety, we wind up with less than satisfactory results in our lives. Introspection is the key to all of these issues, and introspection is a skill. We must get to know ourselves deeply -- what we care about, what we fear, and what we can do to support one and dismantle the other. When we know what to be intentional about, we stand a better change of creating the lives and the world we most deeply want.  

Imagine All the People Living Life in Peace

While I had hoped to continue with the Passion story as it is told in the gospel of Mark this week, I have (of my own volition) bitten off just as much as I can possibly chew this spring. Thus, just to keep the momentum going and to stay in the habit of posting something weekly, here is a short essay I wrote for a global religions course in response to an article promoting a greater appreciation for religious pluralism. 

It is perhaps dishonest to speak about "Christianity" or "Islam" and perhaps even "Judaism" as cohesive specific belief systems. The plural "Christianities" or "Islams" may be more appropriate representations of reality. There are some Christians, for instance, who are very intolerant of anything that smacks of pluralism and who base their understanding of doctrine more on fear than hope. Christianity, as they see it, is very exclusivist. There are other Christians who would be eagerly on board with a pluralistic, universalist view of people and religion. I regularly engage with people on both sides of that spectrum and many points in between. 

With such scattered identities within religious traditions, it's difficult to imagine religious people from exclusivist iterations of those traditions finding value in interfaith dialogue of any kind. We discussed in our chavruta call the arrogance of some expressions of religion that prohibit meaningful engagement with anything that seems like Other. We also discussed the matter of religious privilege. In America, being Christian is a position of privilege, but it is never addressed in the same way that privilege of ethnicity, gender, or sexuality is addressed.

Thinking in terms of privilege, religious people are in a historical and cultural context, yet often wish to distance themselves from those contexts. People who claim the label of a particular religion must acknowledge the harm done by others with that religious identity if there is to be any hope of entering into others' universes peacefully. Twenty-first century people who claim to desire to enter into the mental and spiritual universe of another, yet dismiss the influence of religion in terms of injustice, oppression, terrorism, and genocide cannot be taken seriously. Even though a particular expression of a religious tradition is against any harmful practice, these traditions exist as parts of historical and cultural trajectories.

Thus, while it is possible to "imagine all the people living life in peace," it is easier to imagine that happening in the absence of religion than it is to imagine religious fundamentalism promoting peaceful coexistence. Perhaps the greatest hope would be for the pluralistic-minded religious people to increase in number and the fundamentalist religious people to die out (of natural causes, of course), rather than hoping for an end to any particular religious tradition. A sort of evolution of religious ideology rather than an extinction level event. This hasn't happened with racism as of yet, so this may be a long shot at best.

In any cultural change, there are innovators and early adopters, then there are the early and late majorities, and last there are the laggards. In terms of technology, early adopters already have their Google glasses and laggards are still using their land-line telephone exclusively. In terms of religious pluralism, we are perhaps in the phase of transitioning within a majority view. In the American South, is sometimes seems as though pluralism is still something of an innovation, but globally I'm not sure where things stand. The point is that there will be laggards -- people who cling to their religious exclusivism until they die or until they are forced along with an irresistible cultural tide.  

It's both challenging and easy for me to enter into the mental and spiritual universes of the Christians with whom I have seminary classes. Easy, because I am familiar with the language game, having grown up in the church, and because I enter into such engagements with an eye toward common ground. With more liberal Christians (who are usually much more open to pluralism), that common ground is often very easy to find. We can use one another's language and trust that we understand one another's meaning.

This is still a challenge for me, because I feel like an outsider to the Christian language game now. I understand the concepts, but I have rejected the idea that human beings are broken and in need of salvation from an external deity in favor of a more Humanist paradigm. Even though I can understand deeply and be close friends with Christians, I am not a Christian. They are no longer my tribe, and their language is no longer my language. Moreover, I was hurt by that tribe once upon a time, and those scars still inform my opinion of Christianities to some extent.

All that considered, I am optimistic enough to believe that the concept of God can evolve. People used to believe that supernaturals were responsible for weather events and cosmological events like the fantastic and beautiful lunar eclipse some of us had the opportunity to witness this week. Most people know better now. They better understand scientific explanations for their world and can still be filled with wonder without being filled with dread that their supernatural is trying to send them a message that they don't quite understand. The cultural role of gods has shifted. 

I would suggest that the only god that an individual can worship is a god that the individual can understand. Even monotheistic religions do not really worship a single god; every worshiper brings to the table personal ideas about the object of worship. Thus, the concept of God changes subtly with every believer and evolves as a result of cultural evolutions. For some time, I sought different language to use in the place of the word "God," settling on "deepest, most noble self." Recently, I began to reclaim the word "God" for the sake of convenience, acknowledging that "God" is a word that people use to speak about a part of themselves. So, personally, as I continue to grow in connection to myself and others, God evolves I suppose.

Mr Lennon dreamed that there might be "nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too." My dream, only slightly less ambitious, would simply be that people recognize that human beings invented their gods and their religions. They did so for very good reasons, and although those useful tools have sometimes been used as weapons, there is a place for religious practice in human culture. Perhaps it would be emotionally traumatic for some people to admit that the object of their worship was something they invented rather than the other way around, but I have confidence that -- in community -- people can adjust to the idea. This awareness could certainly contribute to a more pluralistic curiosity. After all, it is intriguing and enlightening to step into other mental and spiritual universes, and recognition that religion is a human invention can deflate some of the fear around exposure to Other. I honestly trust that people can still make use of religious ideas and practices while recognizing their own role in imagining their gods, but I doubt that many people in my lifetime will be ready for that shift.

Mark 14: How to Build (and how not to build) Friendships

Every gospel that was approved for inclusion in the Bible has a version of Jesus' arrest in a garden. The gospel of Matthew copies Mark in specifying the garden as a place called Gethsemane. The gospel of Luke indicates the Mount of Olives, and it is believed that the garden Gethsemane was at the foot of the Mount of Olives. The legend of Jesus' arrest is varied in a few details from one telling to the next, but the event is obviously an important piece of the Passion narrative. The version in the gospel of Mark is the one we'll focus on here.

The second half of this passage is narrative. Judas, one of the inner circle of disciples and a member of a Jewish Zealot sect, betrays Jesus to Jewish authorities, who show up with a lynch mob. One of the disciples draws steel and cuts off the ear of a high priest's slave (a story that becomes elaborated as it is retold in other gospels), and Jesus is arrested. Jesus reprimands the authorities for their cowardice, but he does not resist them. His disciples scatter, one of them fleeing naked into the night. (This story, incidentally, does not make it into other gospel accounts.) One can draw personal meaning from this narrative, but frankly it is easier to find value in the elaborations of this story as it appears in Matthew and Luke. What value there is in the tale about accepting reality, experiencing abandonment (or being the one who abandons another), and personal integrity we can also draw from the first half of this passage, the time in the garden before Judas and the authorities arrive.

When Jesus takes three of his closest disciples and spends some moments in solitude at the olive press (this is what gethsemane means), he seems to realize that things are coming to a head. He has said and done too much to be ignored by the Jewish temple authorities, who are relatively comfortable with their arrangements in the Roman empire and are not keen on upstart messiahs (of which there were many in the first century). In the story, Jesus is agitated and restless, but his companions seem unconcerned. Jesus is having a hard time accepting reality at the moment; his disciples are just oblivious.

Asking for a cup to pass or to be removed is essentially asking to be spared from one's fate, or to be spared the consequences of one's actions. Although prayer is often thought of as a way of communicating with an external supernatural, prayer is actually a way of communicating with oneself. This understanding of prayer holds despite the fact that it isn't reflected in the way some people pray or the expectations some people have of their prayers. Jesus is thus connecting with a deep part of himself, and inquiring (with great emotion) whether there is any way out of the trajectory he has set in motion.

How often do we resist reality, either by rejecting our own circumstances or trying to control other people? We are (fortunately) only able to control our own actions, beliefs, and decisions. Yet, all of us experience situations that we dread or just don't like, and in those times, we often become anxious and upset. We make demands that reality shift to something we would prefer. We insist that other people change what they are doing, in order to alleviate our anxiety. We insist that someone change our circumstances, and when it seems humanly impossible, we plead with or yell at a supernatural. Despite all the energy and passion we pour into this anxiety, our forward motion can only resume when we accept reality for what it is and determine to work with our circumstances rather than against our circumstances. This doesn't mean we can't change our circumstances; it does mean that we have to be honest about where we are starting if we want to make meaningful changes.

Ultimately, Jesus determines that there is no way to reject reality, and that his deepest, most noble self requires him to maintain integrity to the same principles he has held throughout the story. He cannot escape into the darkness and become a fugitive, and still remain faithful to himself. Meanwhile, his best friends are falling asleep. In his time of greatest anxiety and agitation, his closest companions can't keep their eyes open. After waking them up a few times, the story suggests that Jesus gets fed up and acquiesces to his impending arrest. The disciples are not intentionally insensitive to their teacher and mentor; they just don't seem to understand the magnitude of the moment. And why should they? They are characters in a story that is unfolding. We don't know what major events will wind up being important turning points in our lives until after the fact. The disciples in the story are no different.

Still, it's hard to feel cared for when people seem unimpressed with your agitation, and it's frustrating for someone to be agitated when you can't quite understand the problem. Once the mob shows up, we see that the disciples haven't really learned all that much from following Jesus around. One of them cuts off a slave's ear, and all of them run from the scene instead of sticking with their leader. Self preservation is a powerful motivator in times of high anxiety.

For people who hold Jesus up as a superhuman, nearly omniscient savior, it would be difficult to ask what he could have done differently. As people who can accept that the Jesus myth is a story from which we might learn something about the way we relate to ourselves and others, we can potentially see room for improvement in Jesus' behavior. This is not to critique the story, but to see how we might correct some possible missteps in our relationships with others.

First of all, Jesus has never asked for care from his disciples, and now suddenly he wants them to care for him by staying up with him in his agitation. We also might expect people to read our minds and know what we want and how they can provide it, even though many of us are not really good at asking for what we need or want in our relationships. If we want to cultivate mutually meaningful relationships, we have to be vulnerable enough to let people know what we want and need, and we have to be willing to listen when other people express what they want and need. It's obvious that the disciples were unaccustomed to Jesus really needing or wanting anything personally, and when he finally needed them to come through as friends, they were completely unprepared.

So, secondly, we cannot exist as islands. Even if we are highly skilled and capable individuals, none of us can experience holistic well-being without meaningful relationships with other people. We need community. We need connection. Sometimes, it might be more important to let other people do things that we could do for ourselves, just to establish and reinforce the human connection we need.

Third, it never pays to keep things from people who are important to us. We might think that we are strong enough to carry the burden of our secret fears and anxieties, but we only set ourselves up for frustration when we keep to ourselves the things that most concern us. Based on the reactions that he was getting from certain powerful people, and given that he knew Judas' intentions, Jesus had quite a bit to be concerned about. That his closest friends didn't really get it suggests that they were either dumber than dirt, or that Jesus hadn't really allowed them to share his burden. When we are most fearful and anxious is when we most need other people -- not so that they can become anxious with us, but so they can help us gain perspective, so they can communicate that we are not alone. Sometimes all we really need is for someone to stay up with us and remind us that they care about us.

Which leads to a fourth lesson: We need equality in our relationships. If one person is always staying up late and comforting the other, there is an imbalance in the relationship that might not be able to withstand the test of time. Although the gospel narratives never depict Jesus staying up late to comfort the disciples when they are anxious, it's fair to say that there is a certain imbalance to the relationship dynamics as they are presented. When we ask other people to meet some of our needs, it's important that we are willing to hear what they need from the relationship as well. This means that we have to be committed to growing in our emotional maturity, becoming (as much as we are able) a non-anxious presence in the midst of stressful circumstances. The point of relying on other people is not that we give ourselves permission to be immature and anxious all the time, but that we recognize that, even as we grow and develop toward the best possible versions of ourselves, we can't do everything alone.

In this story, Jesus is an exemplar of making a difficult adjustment into alignment with reality and acting with integrity to one's deepest most noble self. He also provides an example of what not to do in terms of the friendships we cultivate. We have to trust others and foster mutual vulnerability if we want meaningful relationships. As we build meaningful, balanced relationships, we learn that it is in community with other people that we truly understand our values and guiding principles. It is in relationship with others that we come to envision the best possible version of ourselves.