Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’”
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,’
11 and
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’”
12 Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
I most often read this temptation and testing story from the perspective of Matthew's Gospel. Recently, in moving through Luke's Gospel, I heard the story differently, with a nuance which had not caught my eye previously.
Specifically, I paid attention to vv. 5-8 more intentionally than simply giving the text a cursory reading. Perhaps I was influenced by the current state of affairs in the world. Whatever the reason, I felt a nudge to linger and consider those verses more deeply.
First, in the entire sequence Jesus is "led by the Holy Spirit" (4:1), which comes on the back-end of Jesus' baptism.
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22)
At his baptism, Jesus' identity is confirmed. He hears down to his bones that he is the Son of God, he is pleasing to the Father, and his identity cannot be shaken nor severed. In a larger context, the three testings of Luke 4 are attempts to shake Jesus' understanding of himself, to cause him to doubt his core identity. And they come after a period of fasting alone in a wilderness where there are few external resources. In other words, at a time of weakness (H.A.L.T. = hungry, angry, lonely tired) Jesus was tempted to forsake his basic identity in God.
In the second wilderness test (4:5-8), the devil led Jesus up to where Jesus could see "in an instant" all the kingdoms of the world. By seeing in an instant, Jesus had a moment of illumination and enlightenment when he saw all the way through the kingdoms of the world. He saw how they operate, what makes them tick, how they do their business. In a moment of insight, Jesus sees into them, he sees how they work, and he sees what they are built upon.
Then Luke writes, as if to confirm what Jesus has seen in this enlightened vision, about the devil's offer to Jesus: "I will give you their power and authority, for they have all been given to me and I can give them to anyone as I please. Therefore, if you worship me, they will be yours." (This is the piece of the testing scene that I had previously overlooked.)
This is astounding . . . the kingdoms of the world, according to Luke's Gospel, have been given to the devil. They belong to this adversary, this one who stands opposed to God.
For whatever you think about the literal idea of "the devil," it is worth considering the words used in the New Testament for this being or spirit.
In Greek, satanas and satan are the words for accuser or adversary. The one called satan, then, is the one who operates by accusation, whose methodology is to accuse, accuse, accuse in an adversarial way. Pointing fingers, loudly accusing, belittling, sowing seeds of doubt, stoking the flames of fear . . . this is the work of the adversary.
In Greek, the word diabolos (from which we get "diabolical") is often translated "devil" and literally means "the one who divides or separates, the one who tears apart, the one who pits people against each other." Thus, the spirit of diabolos is to separate, to compete, to create conflict, to reduce everything in life down to winners versus losers.
So Luke 4:5-8 gives us a snapshot into how the kingdoms of this world operate, belonging as they do to the spirit of accusation and division (satanas). They accuse and belittle, they attack with barbs, they diminish the humanity of the other, they toss word-bombs from their places of power onto those who have little power.
And these kingdoms operate by dividing people out of fear (diabolos). They separate "us" from "them" They create conflict. They make enemies -- because creating enemies provides the energy of fear, which mobilizes people to act in self-protective ways.
Who are the contemporary "kingdoms of this world"? [This seems like picking low-hanging fruit, doesn't it?]
You can start with anyone or any group who has some kind of power in the world . . . whoever has built any kind of kingdom and then leans into accusation and division to solidity their power . . .
** big businesses who thrive on the competition and conflict inherent in a free-market economy . . . who create subtle and not-so-subtle trends that create a sense of "need" or "want" which competes with the needs and wants of others . . . the very notion of "haves" and "have-nots" is built on this conflict.
** politicians, for whom winning the next election no matter the cost nor the loss of integrity, is the sole objective. We hardly bat an eyelash anymore at politicians who, "Accuse! Accuse!! Accuse!!!" . . . who stoke fear . . . who belittle political opponents . . . who divide and create enemies . . . who separate persons based on religion, race, sexual orientation, nationality, political stance, and so on.
** government systems certainly are kingdoms of the world, only marginally built around compassion and mercy, and increasingly self-serving.
** religious institutions often look more like "kingdoms of the world" than the "kingdom of God" . . . fraught with competition, fomenting conflict, acting in self-interest, fearful of losing power, authority, or control . . . becoming places of judgment and exclusion rather than love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. (And this is not a recent trend, but rather, is a centuries-old hardening.)
The list could go on. The point is that if you are going to be a "successful" kingdom of this world, then you have to play by the rules and according to the spirit of the one to whom these kingdoms belong.
And this is the catch for Jesus. Jesus realizes, in his "instant" of insight, that if he is given the kingdoms of this world, he must also agree to manage or control the kingdoms by the methodology of the one giving them. To bow down and worship the devil means to take on the devil's means for operating the kingdoms of this world . . . the way of accusation and conflict, the way of division and enemy-creating.
To have the kingdoms of the world, you have to play by the rules of the accuser and the divider . . . you have to play by the rules of the kingdoms of the world . . . you have to hold power as they hold power . . . you have to deal with people as pawns the way they do . . . you have to think of soldiers as expendable commodities in order to further your purposes . . . you have to win -- or at least strive for winning -- so there is competition and fighting, wars and killing . . . you have to manipulate people to do your bidding, so you speak to the basic fears and insecurities of people, encouraging ill-will toward others . . . you demonize those whose way of life or life-orientation is different from yours.
And Jesus refuses! This is a trade he will not make! He is grounded in God. His long season of fasting in the wilderness has not weakened his connection with God, but rather has confirmed it. His resolve is stronger than ever . . . he is rooted in his identity in God, which is not founded on fear and insecurity, power and control, accusation and division. He will not accomplish his life-work using the methodology of the devil, or the kingdoms of the world.
He will not accuse; rather, he will love and he will forgive, even those who kill him for his subversive approach to life.
He will not divide and separate; rather, his life is about mercy, about union (with God, self, others, the world), about reconciliation (with God and others), and about making one that which the world has torn apart.
Showing posts with label mercy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mercy. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2018
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Stepping across the Divide
Luke 19:1-10
Jesus was going through Jericho, 2 where a man named Zacchaeus lived. He was in charge of collecting taxes and was very rich. 3-4 Jesus was heading his way, and Zacchaeus wanted to see what he was like. But Zacchaeus was a short man and could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree.
5 When Jesus got there, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down! I want to stay with you today.” 6 Zacchaeus hurried down and gladly welcomed Jesus.
7 Everyone who saw this started grumbling, “This man Zacchaeus is a sinner! And Jesus is going home to eat with him.”
8 Later that day Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
9 Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved, because you are a true son of Abraham. 10 The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.”
In the previous post, I wrote about the expectations John the Baptizer had of Jesus . . . that Jesus would replicate John's motivational methodology of fear and shame, while further dividing and separating people (the good from the bad). Jesus, the Messiah John anticipated, rejected those means of calling people to deeper life in God. Instead, Jesus' methodology was grounded in his own identity in God. By living in mercy, compassion, love, and reconciliation, he continually sought to uncover the core identity of others as sons and daughters of God.
The Gospel reading for today strikes me as an example of how Jesus refused the divisions commonly enforced by others, and instead offered compassionate generosity to persons, no matter who they were.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, even if his wealth came at the expense of others.
Even though rich, he was categorized as a "sinner" by virtue of his occupation. He was also a "sinner" by virtue of his relationship with the Roman Empire. He was in the employ of a foreign government, yet he got wealthy from collecting taxes from "his own people" (do you see the insider-outsider language which separates?). As a tax-collector, he served the occupying government, but his livelihood came at the expense of his home tribe.
To the Romans he was a lackey. To his own people he was a traitor.
In terms of the religious culture of the day, Zacchaeus was a "sinner." The word denotes a social class of people who engaged in work deemed corrupt or disreputable by the religious hierarchy. The category of "sinner" was used by conventional religion to indicate who was in and who was out, thus dividing or separating in order to keep "good" people at a distance from corrupt or unholy people.
Zacchaeus belonged to this social class of people designated by cultural standards to be corrupt or unclean.
Today, this same kind of divide is made wider by religious entities, denominations, and church leaders . . . by governments, policies, and partisan politicians . . . by corporations and marketing campaigns. Some people are in and some are out. Some are justified in their "righteousness" and others are deemed "godless."
Jesus continually crosses this line, walking back and forth across the divide, meeting people from both sides where they are. His mercy and efforts at reconciliation anger those who want to maintain separation, those who are invested in the divisions, those whose worldview depends on competition and creating real or imagined "enemies." After all, making those who have a different worldview your enemy always provides a reason to get up in the morning, always gives energy for a fight, always gives you someone to oppose, always offers you someone at whom to aim your vitriol.
Jesus' anger is never directed at those "on the other side" of the divide, those who have been excluded. If anything, his harshest words are aimed at those who try to maintain the divide, those who keep people separated -- from others and from God -- by categorizing and demonizing.
Zacchaeus is not a "tax-collector" . . . that's only what he does for a living.
Zacchaeus is not a "sinner" . . . that's what religion has labeled him for his lifestyle and his associations.
Jesus sees Zacchaeus as a son of God who has been broken by life, who may have made some questionable choices, who may have done some harmful things, but who is not ultimately to be defined by anything other than his interior connection to God (a "son of Abraham").
So Jesus steps compassionately across the divide toward this alienated man to uncover his truest self, in an effort to help Zacchaeus find this sense of himself which he had lost.
Those who want to maintain the divide hurl accusation: "He's making friendly with a sinner!" But Jesus doesn't see Zacchaeus - or anyone -- as "sinner." He only sees children who have become lost and who need to find their way home. So he says to Zacchaeus, "Come down from the tree. I'm going home with you today!"
The way of Jesus has never been, "Love your neighbor and those like you . . . hate your enemy and those you don't like." (Matt. 5:43)
The way of Jesus has always been, "Love your enemies and those you oppose . . . and then pray for those who refuse your love." (Matt. 5:44)
In that way, Jesus stepped across the divide toward Zacchaeus. And in that same way he continues to step across the divide in our own day.
Jesus was going through Jericho, 2 where a man named Zacchaeus lived. He was in charge of collecting taxes and was very rich. 3-4 Jesus was heading his way, and Zacchaeus wanted to see what he was like. But Zacchaeus was a short man and could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree.
5 When Jesus got there, he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down! I want to stay with you today.” 6 Zacchaeus hurried down and gladly welcomed Jesus.
7 Everyone who saw this started grumbling, “This man Zacchaeus is a sinner! And Jesus is going home to eat with him.”
8 Later that day Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
9 Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved, because you are a true son of Abraham. 10 The Son of Man came to look for and to save people who are lost.”
In the previous post, I wrote about the expectations John the Baptizer had of Jesus . . . that Jesus would replicate John's motivational methodology of fear and shame, while further dividing and separating people (the good from the bad). Jesus, the Messiah John anticipated, rejected those means of calling people to deeper life in God. Instead, Jesus' methodology was grounded in his own identity in God. By living in mercy, compassion, love, and reconciliation, he continually sought to uncover the core identity of others as sons and daughters of God.
The Gospel reading for today strikes me as an example of how Jesus refused the divisions commonly enforced by others, and instead offered compassionate generosity to persons, no matter who they were.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, even if his wealth came at the expense of others.
Even though rich, he was categorized as a "sinner" by virtue of his occupation. He was also a "sinner" by virtue of his relationship with the Roman Empire. He was in the employ of a foreign government, yet he got wealthy from collecting taxes from "his own people" (do you see the insider-outsider language which separates?). As a tax-collector, he served the occupying government, but his livelihood came at the expense of his home tribe.
To the Romans he was a lackey. To his own people he was a traitor.
In terms of the religious culture of the day, Zacchaeus was a "sinner." The word denotes a social class of people who engaged in work deemed corrupt or disreputable by the religious hierarchy. The category of "sinner" was used by conventional religion to indicate who was in and who was out, thus dividing or separating in order to keep "good" people at a distance from corrupt or unholy people.
Zacchaeus belonged to this social class of people designated by cultural standards to be corrupt or unclean.
Today, this same kind of divide is made wider by religious entities, denominations, and church leaders . . . by governments, policies, and partisan politicians . . . by corporations and marketing campaigns. Some people are in and some are out. Some are justified in their "righteousness" and others are deemed "godless."
Jesus continually crosses this line, walking back and forth across the divide, meeting people from both sides where they are. His mercy and efforts at reconciliation anger those who want to maintain separation, those who are invested in the divisions, those whose worldview depends on competition and creating real or imagined "enemies." After all, making those who have a different worldview your enemy always provides a reason to get up in the morning, always gives energy for a fight, always gives you someone to oppose, always offers you someone at whom to aim your vitriol.
Jesus' anger is never directed at those "on the other side" of the divide, those who have been excluded. If anything, his harshest words are aimed at those who try to maintain the divide, those who keep people separated -- from others and from God -- by categorizing and demonizing.
Zacchaeus is not a "tax-collector" . . . that's only what he does for a living.
Zacchaeus is not a "sinner" . . . that's what religion has labeled him for his lifestyle and his associations.
Jesus sees Zacchaeus as a son of God who has been broken by life, who may have made some questionable choices, who may have done some harmful things, but who is not ultimately to be defined by anything other than his interior connection to God (a "son of Abraham").
So Jesus steps compassionately across the divide toward this alienated man to uncover his truest self, in an effort to help Zacchaeus find this sense of himself which he had lost.
Those who want to maintain the divide hurl accusation: "He's making friendly with a sinner!" But Jesus doesn't see Zacchaeus - or anyone -- as "sinner." He only sees children who have become lost and who need to find their way home. So he says to Zacchaeus, "Come down from the tree. I'm going home with you today!"
The way of Jesus has never been, "Love your neighbor and those like you . . . hate your enemy and those you don't like." (Matt. 5:43)
The way of Jesus has always been, "Love your enemies and those you oppose . . . and then pray for those who refuse your love." (Matt. 5:44)
In that way, Jesus stepped across the divide toward Zacchaeus. And in that same way he continues to step across the divide in our own day.
Monday, November 19, 2018
In a World of Separation and Shame, Bringing Mercy and Reconciliation
Luke 3:1-20
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
The Gospel of Luke records the entrance of John the Baptizer onto the scene as a forerunner to Jesus' public ministry (Luke 3:1-20). John's role is to prepare the people for "the One who is to come." John's aim is to bring moral change among his listeners, so that "paths would be straight, roads would be leveled, and rough ways be made smooth."
This road-work, so to speak, provides an entryway for the coming Messiah to enter the lives of the people (Lk. 3:3-6).
What are the paths, roads, and rough ways which needed to be given attention? They are within you and me, the ways we are crooked, too high or too low, and rough. We make ready the pathways within ourselves in order to make a way for the coming of the Messiah into our lives.
John knew that to receive something big, something that can change your life, you have to get ready. You have to make some space. You have to prepare yourself. For John, that space is created by moral change, by living a moral life.
John is right in some ways, you know. A growing, deepening spirituality does not drop upon us like pixie dust when we utter a few rehearsed words or respond to a religious salesperson's pitch. To give ourselves fully in living as God's people in the world, we have to make ourselves ready through practice and intention. We have to open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being in the world with God, self, others, and the world. We have to see ourselves honestly and ruthlessly name what we have seen of our interior.
But John's methodology for this preparation, for getting his listeners to moral living, is all guilt and fear. He calls the people who gathered around him, "a brood of vipers" (3:7) as if to shame the crowd into life-change. Then he warns of future punishments for those who don't get their acts together: "the ax is already laid at the root of the tree" (3:9).
He even says the Messiah will come to continue this work of division and separation (3:17), naming some good and worthy (the wheat), while others would be separated as bad and unworthy (the chaff).
Perhaps John leans too much into the Old Testament idea that to be holy means to be set apart from anything unclean or evil. Holiness separates you from that which is corrupt, the thinking went.
At any rate, John projects his own ascetic notions of morality onto the Messiah.
Moral living is a fine goal, but John seems to miss that persons almost never get to morality through shame and fear. Shame and fear act mostly as external motivators. They have no grounding center. They motivate through anxiety about some promised punishment . . . or through some imagined sense that I am a no-good human being. Both shame and fear may produce different behavior for a short-term, but almost never produce long-term, inner transformation. They simply do not have that power.
Jesus, the Messiah who was to come, refused to motivate by fear or shame. In fact, Jesus' path was just the opposite. He affirms in even the lowest of the low that they, too, are beloved sons and daughters of God. He encourages persons not to identify with their sinfulness, but to identify with the God-connection at the heart of who they are. Jesus continually invites persons to stop giving so much attention to the externals of religion, but to deal with the "inside of the cup."
Further, Jesus does not fulfill John's notion that the Messiah divides and separates. In fact, Jesus comes to do the opposite. He reconciles divisions, heals brokenness, mends separations, and brings back together that which has been torn apart. All of Jesus' life-work is about putting together people and relationships who have been broken apart.
The words that best describe Jesus are mercy . . . compassion . . . love . . . reconciling . . . liberating. He seems intent on bringing together, while rejecting separation and division both in the world and within the family of God's people.
John seems to have projected his own path onto Jesus. John made his understanding God's understanding, rather than making God's understanding his understanding.
It is a common mistake, a human mistake we all make, and sometimes find writ large in contemporary culture.
You don't have to look far to see how modern politics, religious life, and the entire social order are bent toward division and separation, pooling together the "alike" while shunning, ostracizing, and demonizing the "unlike." It happens in Christian denominations. It happens in political campaigns. It happens in government affairs at every level. We divide and separate, making enemies of those with other views, all while trying to rally support for our perspective.
This, my friends, is not the way of Jesus. And it is not the way those who truly want to follow Jesus.
Jesus does not endorse John's methodology of guilt and shame. He does not endorse life-change through fear of punishment or anxiety about the future. And he has no intention of separating or dividing, splitting nations, races, religious factions, and groups into the haves and the have-nots.
To broken humans who have been torn up by the world, Jesus brings mercy and compassion, helping all persons come back to a sense of who they are in God.
John got this fundamentally wrong about Jesus. Such basic, foundational spiritual work never happens by guilt and shame . . . nor by division and separation.
This work happens through love . . . mercy . . . compassion . . . reconciliation. And this is how Jesus still goes about his work in our world . . . denominational power plays, political rhetoric, and social divisions notwithstanding.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
6
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
The Gospel of Luke records the entrance of John the Baptizer onto the scene as a forerunner to Jesus' public ministry (Luke 3:1-20). John's role is to prepare the people for "the One who is to come." John's aim is to bring moral change among his listeners, so that "paths would be straight, roads would be leveled, and rough ways be made smooth."
This road-work, so to speak, provides an entryway for the coming Messiah to enter the lives of the people (Lk. 3:3-6).
What are the paths, roads, and rough ways which needed to be given attention? They are within you and me, the ways we are crooked, too high or too low, and rough. We make ready the pathways within ourselves in order to make a way for the coming of the Messiah into our lives.
John knew that to receive something big, something that can change your life, you have to get ready. You have to make some space. You have to prepare yourself. For John, that space is created by moral change, by living a moral life.
John is right in some ways, you know. A growing, deepening spirituality does not drop upon us like pixie dust when we utter a few rehearsed words or respond to a religious salesperson's pitch. To give ourselves fully in living as God's people in the world, we have to make ourselves ready through practice and intention. We have to open ourselves to new ways of seeing and being in the world with God, self, others, and the world. We have to see ourselves honestly and ruthlessly name what we have seen of our interior.
But John's methodology for this preparation, for getting his listeners to moral living, is all guilt and fear. He calls the people who gathered around him, "a brood of vipers" (3:7) as if to shame the crowd into life-change. Then he warns of future punishments for those who don't get their acts together: "the ax is already laid at the root of the tree" (3:9).
He even says the Messiah will come to continue this work of division and separation (3:17), naming some good and worthy (the wheat), while others would be separated as bad and unworthy (the chaff).
Perhaps John leans too much into the Old Testament idea that to be holy means to be set apart from anything unclean or evil. Holiness separates you from that which is corrupt, the thinking went.
At any rate, John projects his own ascetic notions of morality onto the Messiah.
Moral living is a fine goal, but John seems to miss that persons almost never get to morality through shame and fear. Shame and fear act mostly as external motivators. They have no grounding center. They motivate through anxiety about some promised punishment . . . or through some imagined sense that I am a no-good human being. Both shame and fear may produce different behavior for a short-term, but almost never produce long-term, inner transformation. They simply do not have that power.
Jesus, the Messiah who was to come, refused to motivate by fear or shame. In fact, Jesus' path was just the opposite. He affirms in even the lowest of the low that they, too, are beloved sons and daughters of God. He encourages persons not to identify with their sinfulness, but to identify with the God-connection at the heart of who they are. Jesus continually invites persons to stop giving so much attention to the externals of religion, but to deal with the "inside of the cup."
Further, Jesus does not fulfill John's notion that the Messiah divides and separates. In fact, Jesus comes to do the opposite. He reconciles divisions, heals brokenness, mends separations, and brings back together that which has been torn apart. All of Jesus' life-work is about putting together people and relationships who have been broken apart.
The words that best describe Jesus are mercy . . . compassion . . . love . . . reconciling . . . liberating. He seems intent on bringing together, while rejecting separation and division both in the world and within the family of God's people.
John seems to have projected his own path onto Jesus. John made his understanding God's understanding, rather than making God's understanding his understanding.
It is a common mistake, a human mistake we all make, and sometimes find writ large in contemporary culture.
You don't have to look far to see how modern politics, religious life, and the entire social order are bent toward division and separation, pooling together the "alike" while shunning, ostracizing, and demonizing the "unlike." It happens in Christian denominations. It happens in political campaigns. It happens in government affairs at every level. We divide and separate, making enemies of those with other views, all while trying to rally support for our perspective.
This, my friends, is not the way of Jesus. And it is not the way those who truly want to follow Jesus.
Jesus does not endorse John's methodology of guilt and shame. He does not endorse life-change through fear of punishment or anxiety about the future. And he has no intention of separating or dividing, splitting nations, races, religious factions, and groups into the haves and the have-nots.
To broken humans who have been torn up by the world, Jesus brings mercy and compassion, helping all persons come back to a sense of who they are in God.
John got this fundamentally wrong about Jesus. Such basic, foundational spiritual work never happens by guilt and shame . . . nor by division and separation.
This work happens through love . . . mercy . . . compassion . . . reconciliation. And this is how Jesus still goes about his work in our world . . . denominational power plays, political rhetoric, and social divisions notwithstanding.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Spiritual Life and the Social Order
The inward spiritual journey always impacts life in the outer world.
A deepening connection with God (the inner work) always makes a difference in who we are with (and how we see) God, self, others, and the world (the outer work).
The spiritual dimension of life should always impact the social order in which we live.
In fact, the spiritual life gives you and me a different way of being in the world, a way of swimming upstream against the prevailing current of the social order, without having to adopt the means by which society plays the game.
To “play the game” by the rules of society is merely a way of granting legitimacy to those rules and to the social order that created them.
“The ‘team’ with the most votes wins . . . or the side that has the strongest argument is right . . . or this election is a referendum on _________.”
The social order acts – and throughout history, always has – as if it holds all the cards, as if it is the most powerful order in the world. The prevailing social “wisdom” assumes that because it creates the rules, passes the legislation, and determines what is important and unimportant, that it must be the most powerful aspect of life, whether that social wisdom represents “the Left” or “the Right”.
On the other hand, those given to the spiritual world and the spiritual realm of life bet their lives that there is a Spiritual Presence that undergirds all of life, a Divine Source present always and everywhere to which the prevailing social order is largely oblivious. Further, underlying the spiritual life is the conviction that the real authority and power in life is this Spiritual Presence, that all social claims to power and authority are mere pretenders.
So I’m pondering what it means to be a contemplative presence in the kind of world in which we live (and in which we have always lived). What is my life about as I seek to live in the world from the Center, tethered to the Source of all things?
I recognize that for centuries, when the Church was complicit in society’s corruption, those who carried forward the way of Jesus had to do so underground, in ways and in places that were quiet, unseen, and out of the mainstream. In fact, in those centuries, the mainstream expressions of religious faith were just as corrupt as society at large, filled more with the messages of the social order than with the Gospel. So it was up to mystics, monks, and holy women to carry – and live into – a way of being in the world that was healing and regenerative, rather than divisive, hostile, and hysteric.
In the Middle Ages, Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops were a part of royal courts, in the service of monarchs, and a part of the corruption that comes with power. In those settings, the religious authorities offered widespread blessing of the very corruption that served some well, but oppressed most. In those days, it was up to mystics to speak of an authentic connection with God that ran deeper than political influence. Monasteries became places where simplicity and poverty of spirit symbolized a stance against the power structures of the day. But that kind of resistance flowed mostly underground.
In the 1930’s, the Church in Germany so totally adopted the platform of the Nazis that Christians could no longer see what was real. Persons who carried forward an authentically Gospel message – like Dietrich Bonhoeffer – had to do so through an underground Church, so totally had the mainstream Church and clergy adopted the prevailing social order.
So today, the calling of those who would be awake, who would seek a deepening connection with God that makes a difference in the world, may take an underground, almost subversive form. That is not to say contemplatives or those who lean into the spiritual dimension of life should not be active in the social order, in political systems, government, business, and so on. Always, part of the Divine invitation is to work and pray for a more just, more merciful and compassionate world (“on earth as it is in heaven”). So we do not “sit this one out.” However, we also acknowledge that trusting in elections, legislation, capitalism, and policies to change hearts is misplaced trust.
Your spiritual journey makes a difference in the world.
Your practice of prayer impacts the circumference of your realm of influence.
Your openness to a deepening connection with God creates healing space within you and around you that touches the world with wholeness and generosity.
Your soul’s tether to the Source of Life is stronger and more real than all the power, control, and legislations of the social order.
And in your intention to live from a life-giving Center, you carry on an underground tradition that no power of the world can curb.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Expanding the Walls
Every human draws circles around himself or herself in order to determine how large his/her world will be.
Most of us prefer to live in a world made up of people who look like us, think like us, believe like us, and talk like us. So we wall in those who are "like us" and we wall out those who are unlike us. "Good fences make good neighbors," says the man on the other side of Robert Frost's wall (the previous blog post).
You don't have to look far in contemporary culture to know this truth. In fact, you likely see it in the world before you notice it in yourself. Examples abound, and are easy enough to see . . . men or women are all stereotyped because of the actions of a few . . . entire ethnic groups are stigmatized because of the behavior of a small portion of that population . . . all persons within any identity sub-set of life are all characterized in the same way.
I tend to "profile" all persons who drive a particular brand of automobile (these persons also tend to drive the same color of that make and model!) as "entitled" and "arrogant" . . . even as they cut me off and speed on down the freeway.
Most all of us do this kind of thing in one way or another, creating insiders and outsiders . . . whether we label those outside our circle as "liberal elites" or as "a basket of deplorables." We have one set of labels for those inside the circle with us, and another set of labels -- usually much more pejorative -- for those outside the circle.
Jesus spent little time cozying up to those who would have been inside his wall or circle . . . those who looked like him, talked like him, or shared a common background. Using the vocabulary I've suggested, Jesus was mostly focused on those on the outside of culture's norms, not those inside. As I've said before in this space, while Jesus gave most of his attention to those who were on the outside of society's wall, it is doubtful Jesus ever met anyone who he considered to be an outsider. He was spacious enough, generous enough, that he had no walls, no need to create divisions.
That kind of spaciousness and generosity -- perhaps we could call it "mercy" or "compassion" -- is fundamental to the nature of God.
Expanding your walls -- or eventually letting them crumble -- is not as easy as just wishing it so. It takes an ongoing, daily intention to see the actual truth of our lives . . . to be deliberate in our self-reflection . . . to be honest with ourselves about who we are and how we are in the world. We have to be willing to see ourselves as we are, not merely as we wish to be . . . to acknowledge the truth about the walls we live within (who is included, who is excluded) . . . and to take small steps which make wider the circles in which we live.
Engage someone who is "outside" your circle in conversation, not intending to change their mind, but simply to listen to them.
Be in settings made up of people who are not "like you" (whatever you take "not like you" to mean). Be there as an observer, as a compassionate presence.
Seek to understand as honestly as possible how someone who sees life differently could be the way they are. For example, try to see life from the perspective of that family member whose politics are 180 degrees different from yours. Or try to imagine life from the perspective of that neighbor who is from a different culture, a different part of the world. Your perspective, after all, is NOT the only perspective.
Small steps . . .
I do know this . . . it takes a lot of energy to go about this more expansive inner work. It is not easy.
But as Frost's poem, "Mending Wall" suggests (in the previous post), it also takes a lot of work to keep mending the same old walls, leaving them right where they have always been.
Most of us prefer to live in a world made up of people who look like us, think like us, believe like us, and talk like us. So we wall in those who are "like us" and we wall out those who are unlike us. "Good fences make good neighbors," says the man on the other side of Robert Frost's wall (the previous blog post).
You don't have to look far in contemporary culture to know this truth. In fact, you likely see it in the world before you notice it in yourself. Examples abound, and are easy enough to see . . . men or women are all stereotyped because of the actions of a few . . . entire ethnic groups are stigmatized because of the behavior of a small portion of that population . . . all persons within any identity sub-set of life are all characterized in the same way.
I tend to "profile" all persons who drive a particular brand of automobile (these persons also tend to drive the same color of that make and model!) as "entitled" and "arrogant" . . . even as they cut me off and speed on down the freeway.
Most all of us do this kind of thing in one way or another, creating insiders and outsiders . . . whether we label those outside our circle as "liberal elites" or as "a basket of deplorables." We have one set of labels for those inside the circle with us, and another set of labels -- usually much more pejorative -- for those outside the circle.
Jesus spent little time cozying up to those who would have been inside his wall or circle . . . those who looked like him, talked like him, or shared a common background. Using the vocabulary I've suggested, Jesus was mostly focused on those on the outside of culture's norms, not those inside. As I've said before in this space, while Jesus gave most of his attention to those who were on the outside of society's wall, it is doubtful Jesus ever met anyone who he considered to be an outsider. He was spacious enough, generous enough, that he had no walls, no need to create divisions.
That kind of spaciousness and generosity -- perhaps we could call it "mercy" or "compassion" -- is fundamental to the nature of God.
Expanding your walls -- or eventually letting them crumble -- is not as easy as just wishing it so. It takes an ongoing, daily intention to see the actual truth of our lives . . . to be deliberate in our self-reflection . . . to be honest with ourselves about who we are and how we are in the world. We have to be willing to see ourselves as we are, not merely as we wish to be . . . to acknowledge the truth about the walls we live within (who is included, who is excluded) . . . and to take small steps which make wider the circles in which we live.
Engage someone who is "outside" your circle in conversation, not intending to change their mind, but simply to listen to them.
Be in settings made up of people who are not "like you" (whatever you take "not like you" to mean). Be there as an observer, as a compassionate presence.
Seek to understand as honestly as possible how someone who sees life differently could be the way they are. For example, try to see life from the perspective of that family member whose politics are 180 degrees different from yours. Or try to imagine life from the perspective of that neighbor who is from a different culture, a different part of the world. Your perspective, after all, is NOT the only perspective.
Small steps . . .
I do know this . . . it takes a lot of energy to go about this more expansive inner work. It is not easy.
But as Frost's poem, "Mending Wall" suggests (in the previous post), it also takes a lot of work to keep mending the same old walls, leaving them right where they have always been.
Friday, June 8, 2018
On Being Contemplative (part 3): "Oh, that we might see better times!"
In two previous posts, I've offered thoughts on being contemplative, reflecting on Thomas Merton's ideas about how active contemplation shapes our lives. I offer these words today as a kind of real-world-fleshing-out of those ideas.
For context, I'll begin with a psalm-prayer:
Offer sacrifices in the right spirit,
and place your trust the Lord.
Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!”
Let your face smile on us, Lord.
You have given me greater joy
than in seasons of abundant harvests of grain and new wine.
I lie down in peace and fall asleep at once,
for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
(Ps. 4:5 - 8)
If the nightly news and up-to-the-minute news feeds via smartphone are your barometer for the world's sanity, then the entire planet is going mad. Each day seems crazier than the last, and each tomorrow promises something even more outlandish that hasn't yet been imagined.
"Oh, that we might see better times!" I read that in Psalm 4 a few days ago and just stopped in my tracks. How perfectly that short line expresses what I feel. And I sense that across the borders separating nations, across political parties, across the many belief-systems to which we cling, this is the prayer -- both quiet and shouted -- that the world's people are praying.
I feel the daily struggle within my own self to hope for and work within some movement, some uprising of people who would honor the dignity of other humans, even those different from my own tribe . . . who would value the planet which is our home more than the monetary gain we can scratch from it . . . who would put the well-being of the whole above self-interest or political gain.
And I know the temptation of looking to some political party or mass movement to gain a return to sanity. Daily, it seems, I have fallen into that trap, scanning news stories looking for some sign that better days are ahead . . . looking for hints from candidates and political parties, initiatives coming from the private sector, something or anything that would be a glimmer of light and would bring some level of sanity to a world gone mad . . . in short, hoping for some change to come by some worldly means.
At least momentarily, this psalm-prayer drew me back to reality. Trust in a political party or in a significant movement or in some legal action is really no trust at all, or at least is not a trust that can bring authentic joy and peace.
In my lifetime, I've watched evangelical and fundamentalist Christians embrace right-wing conservative politicians, parties, and policies, hoping the embrace would lead to systemic change in social/cultural mores. I've also watched moderate and mainline Christians embrace left-wing liberal politicians, parties, and policies, hoping for a systemic re-balance of some of those same social/cultural mores. In effect, Christians from across the spectrum have sought to bring their own brand of Christianity to the public realm by means of political systems. In short, they have trusted organizations, parties, and political appointments, rather than the One who is the Center of life, using cultural systems to bring about spiritual ends.
Most moments, I'm not immune from placing trust in some human institution. Because the desire "that we might see better times" is so deeply rooted within the human psyche, we'll use most any instrument at our disposal to make our notion of "better times" come to pass. In my more grounded moments, though, when I've allowed my roots to run deep and silent into the One who is beyond ideas, programs, and get-better schemes, I recognize that trust in any god that is not GOD goes by the name "idolatry." A political system or economic reality does not have the power to bring about the deep sense of God-connection which is the center of human experience. External systems, ultimately, are insufficient.
At the same time, movements, protests, and altered political landscapes are necessary in order to overturn, or at least speak to, systemic injustices, to right the wrongs which have been ignored. Thus, active engagement in the social and cultural arena may be one of the ways the contemplative person enters the world . . . . in order to serve and act from a core that is being altered by prayer and ongoing attentiveness to the Divine. Deep connection with God, after all, DOES make a difference in who we are with God, self, others, and the world.
So in the moment, some kind of involvement is called for, some kind of stepping into the world's fray. Because the contemplative cannot ignore symptoms or manifestations of societal ills, which have very real consequences for human beings who are in trouble or difficulty . . . wandering refugees, those unjustly incarcerated, abused women and children, immigrants herded across miles, and those on the lower rungs of society who are trapped beneath massive systems of oppression. Those needs are real and the contemplative cannot ignore them.
The engaged contemplative, then, does not withdraw from the world-gone-mad, but rather engages that world from a different center. He/she sees underneath the actual events, the difficulty of situations, the injustices that seem to prevail . . . and as Merton said in a previous post, the contemplative sees the real direction in which events are moving . . . sees the genuine facts in the movements that are characteristic of our times. The contemplative sees the world through a God-shaped lens, and thus is invited to engage the world from an enlarged, more expansive, more loving and merciful center. So the contemplative does not withdraw, but engages with different vision.
Movements and political parties are not the ultimate answer for the contemplative, for movements, parties, and policies can never completely speak to the complexities of the human experience, the human desire for meaning and wholeness. The contemplative, from his or her interior life, seeks a way to step into the world's pain in a way that makes a real difference, in a way that offers mercy to all, in a way that leads to healing and wholeness for the entire human family.
Back to the psalm-prayer . . . which in the end, advocates trust in God's mercy, a connection rooted in God's heart that feeds, nourishes, and sustains . . . and thus keeps a person held in peace, shalom, wholeness, and well-being, no matter what is happening in the world.
I lie down in peace
at once I fall asleep
for you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
For context, I'll begin with a psalm-prayer:
Offer sacrifices in the right spirit,
and place your trust the Lord.
Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see better times!”
Let your face smile on us, Lord.
You have given me greater joy
than in seasons of abundant harvests of grain and new wine.
I lie down in peace and fall asleep at once,
for only you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
(Ps. 4:5 - 8)
If the nightly news and up-to-the-minute news feeds via smartphone are your barometer for the world's sanity, then the entire planet is going mad. Each day seems crazier than the last, and each tomorrow promises something even more outlandish that hasn't yet been imagined.
"Oh, that we might see better times!" I read that in Psalm 4 a few days ago and just stopped in my tracks. How perfectly that short line expresses what I feel. And I sense that across the borders separating nations, across political parties, across the many belief-systems to which we cling, this is the prayer -- both quiet and shouted -- that the world's people are praying.
I feel the daily struggle within my own self to hope for and work within some movement, some uprising of people who would honor the dignity of other humans, even those different from my own tribe . . . who would value the planet which is our home more than the monetary gain we can scratch from it . . . who would put the well-being of the whole above self-interest or political gain.
And I know the temptation of looking to some political party or mass movement to gain a return to sanity. Daily, it seems, I have fallen into that trap, scanning news stories looking for some sign that better days are ahead . . . looking for hints from candidates and political parties, initiatives coming from the private sector, something or anything that would be a glimmer of light and would bring some level of sanity to a world gone mad . . . in short, hoping for some change to come by some worldly means.
At least momentarily, this psalm-prayer drew me back to reality. Trust in a political party or in a significant movement or in some legal action is really no trust at all, or at least is not a trust that can bring authentic joy and peace.
In my lifetime, I've watched evangelical and fundamentalist Christians embrace right-wing conservative politicians, parties, and policies, hoping the embrace would lead to systemic change in social/cultural mores. I've also watched moderate and mainline Christians embrace left-wing liberal politicians, parties, and policies, hoping for a systemic re-balance of some of those same social/cultural mores. In effect, Christians from across the spectrum have sought to bring their own brand of Christianity to the public realm by means of political systems. In short, they have trusted organizations, parties, and political appointments, rather than the One who is the Center of life, using cultural systems to bring about spiritual ends.
Most moments, I'm not immune from placing trust in some human institution. Because the desire "that we might see better times" is so deeply rooted within the human psyche, we'll use most any instrument at our disposal to make our notion of "better times" come to pass. In my more grounded moments, though, when I've allowed my roots to run deep and silent into the One who is beyond ideas, programs, and get-better schemes, I recognize that trust in any god that is not GOD goes by the name "idolatry." A political system or economic reality does not have the power to bring about the deep sense of God-connection which is the center of human experience. External systems, ultimately, are insufficient.
At the same time, movements, protests, and altered political landscapes are necessary in order to overturn, or at least speak to, systemic injustices, to right the wrongs which have been ignored. Thus, active engagement in the social and cultural arena may be one of the ways the contemplative person enters the world . . . . in order to serve and act from a core that is being altered by prayer and ongoing attentiveness to the Divine. Deep connection with God, after all, DOES make a difference in who we are with God, self, others, and the world.
So in the moment, some kind of involvement is called for, some kind of stepping into the world's fray. Because the contemplative cannot ignore symptoms or manifestations of societal ills, which have very real consequences for human beings who are in trouble or difficulty . . . wandering refugees, those unjustly incarcerated, abused women and children, immigrants herded across miles, and those on the lower rungs of society who are trapped beneath massive systems of oppression. Those needs are real and the contemplative cannot ignore them.
The engaged contemplative, then, does not withdraw from the world-gone-mad, but rather engages that world from a different center. He/she sees underneath the actual events, the difficulty of situations, the injustices that seem to prevail . . . and as Merton said in a previous post, the contemplative sees the real direction in which events are moving . . . sees the genuine facts in the movements that are characteristic of our times. The contemplative sees the world through a God-shaped lens, and thus is invited to engage the world from an enlarged, more expansive, more loving and merciful center. So the contemplative does not withdraw, but engages with different vision.
Movements and political parties are not the ultimate answer for the contemplative, for movements, parties, and policies can never completely speak to the complexities of the human experience, the human desire for meaning and wholeness. The contemplative, from his or her interior life, seeks a way to step into the world's pain in a way that makes a real difference, in a way that offers mercy to all, in a way that leads to healing and wholeness for the entire human family.
Back to the psalm-prayer . . . which in the end, advocates trust in God's mercy, a connection rooted in God's heart that feeds, nourishes, and sustains . . . and thus keeps a person held in peace, shalom, wholeness, and well-being, no matter what is happening in the world.
I lie down in peace
at once I fall asleep
for you, Lord, make me dwell in safety.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
All Mercy, All the Time
In his merciful way, our good Lord always leads us as long as we inhabit this impermanent life. I saw no anger other than humanity’s, and God forgives us that. . . . The ground of mercy is love, and the ministry of mercy is to preserve us in love. For mercy works in love, with generosity, compassion, and sweetness. And mercy labors within us, preserving us, and converting everything to the good. Through love, mercy allows us to fail, at least in part, and to the extent that we fail, we fall. To the extent that we fall, we die. For we die without fail when we no longer see and feel God, who is life. Our failure is frightful, our falling inglorious, our dying wretched. Yet never does love’s compassionate eye turn from us, nor does the operation of mercy cease.
(Julian of Norwich, All Will Be Well: 30 Days with a Great Spiritual Teacher, Ave Maria Press)
Last Thursday, May 8, was the Feast Day of Julian of Norwich. I’ve long been drawn to Julian for several reasons, not the least of which is my close friend, Peter of Norwich, who grew up in Julian’s English city. She is most famous – besides residing in the city of Peter of Norwich – as the recipient and conveyor of 14 visions, given to her by God, and called “shewings” (showings or revelations).
The showings are known as “revelations of Divine love.” And so they are. This year, I have been struck most by Julian’s capacity to see deep into the heart of God, and to find there all love, all the time. She writes about God’s mercy and compassion, God’s tenderness and kinship with us. In fact, she says at one point that if there is any anger or malice present, they come from humans. God is all mercy.
It is important to note that she did this in an era of plague and death, war among nations, and sharp divisions within the Church. In other words, during a season in which most people were drawing lines, labeling some as comrades and others as enemies, and attributing the devastation of the days to God’s wrathful vengeance, Julian saw that God was only mercy, tenderness, and sweetness.
Further, Julian reports these things in a way that few male mystics can, or do. Historically, male writers made magisterial pronouncements about God, drew lines to delineate the outsiders from the insiders, speaking of holiness, godliness, and righteousness as something earned, a status symbol of the moral life.
[Francis of Assisi is the notable male exception to this bias. He is more closely associated with the female mystics in his heart of tender compassion. It is evidenced, not only in his relationships with people, but also in his connection to the created world. He tenderly accepted what seemed outrageous, even vile, in the created world (the wolf at Gubbio, for example, and the leper on the road).]
Julian didn’t witness to a God who made decrees or a God who was busily angry with humans for their failings.
This is the great act intended by our Lord God from eternity, treasured and hidden in his heart, known only to himself. By this act he will make all things well. For just as the blessed Trinity made everything from nothing,
just so will the same Trinity make everything wrong to be well. And I was overcome with wonder at this: our faith is grounded in God’s word, and whoever believes in that word will be preserved completely. Now holy doctrine tells us that many creatures will be damned. And if this is true, it seemed impossible to me that everything should be well, as our Lord had shown me by revelation. And in regard to this I had no other answer but this: “What is impossible for you is not impossible for me. I shall honor my word in everything, and I shall make everything well.” So I was instructed by God’s grace to hold steadfastly to the faith, and, at the same time, to believe firmly that everything will turn out for the best. For this is the great action that our Lord will accomplish, and in this action he will keep his word entirely. And what is not well shall be made well.
(Julian of Norwich, All Will Be Well: 30 Days with a Great Spiritual Teacher, Ave Maria Press)
Remarkable! This one woman, much given to sickness, who lived in a small room at the base of the church in Norwich, stood against the official doctrine of the entire Church, speaking for a way of love, mercy, and tenderness, rather than judgment, self-vindication, and works righteousness.
In modern times, I hear echoes of Julian in someone like Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who has invested his life in inner city Los Angeles among street gangs. Boyle doesn’t carry a message of judgment to the homies who are gangbanging in the barrios of LA. He simply lives among them in tenderness and kinship, mercifully offering second, ninth, and twenty-seventh chances to those who feel like failures.
This is the kind of mercy and tenderness to which I aspire. It’s both what I want to convey from my life, and it’s what I want to experience within myself. But as my Mercy Street friend Gregg says often, “If this is what I so desperately want, why do I continually choose to live in some other reality, governed by fear and anger, judgment and worthiness?”
We are blessed through mercy and grace. . . . So Jesus is our mother. We owe him our very being for this motherhood and all the delightful protection that follows after. For as surely as God is father, so surely is God also mother. He shows this in all, but particularly in these sweet words: “I am the strength and goodness of the father, I am the wisdom of the mother, I am light, grace, and lovely love, I am Trinity and unity; I am the innate goodness of every creature, I draw you toward love, I endow you with longing; I am the endless completion of all desiring.” So Jesus is our true mother by nature because he has created us. He is also our mother by grace, for he took our created nature upon himself. All the lovely deeds and tender services of motherhood may be seen in him.
(Julian of Norwich, All Will Be Well: 30 Days with a Great Spiritual Teacher, Ave Maria Press)
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Honor the Interior . . . Do Not Judge
Sometimes I scratch my head at the behavior of people. I just don’t get it. Why do folks act like they do? Of course, the other part of my head-scratching is the thought, “Why can’t people act sane and reasonable . . . like me!” And then, there is the realization that I, too, do stupid things day after day after day.
I may fool myself into thinking that I have insight into someone else’s motivations, or that I can read another’s life, or that crazy behavior ought to be dismissed out of hand. But for all the information available to me, I am not privy to the interior landscape of another person’s life . . . to all the life experiences that have shaped her . . . to the numerous wounds and betrayals that lead him to act as he does . . . to the intricate, interior web of motivations that move her to act the way she does. I may see what appears on the surface of his life, but I cannot see the inner workings that are behind the behavior.
That is why Jesus said this:
"Do not judge others. Then you will not be judged. You will be judged in the same way you judge others. You will be measured in the same way you measure others.
"You look at the bit of sawdust in your friend's eye. But you pay no attention to the piece of wood in your own eye. How can you say to your friend, 'Let me take the bit of sawdust out of your eye'? How can you say this while there is a piece of wood in your own eye?
"You pretender! First take the piece of wood out of your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to take the bit of sawdust out of your friend's eye.” (Matt. 7:1 – 5)
Within each of us are hidden patterns not visible from the outside. The human interior is infinitely intricate, woven mysteriously of our life experiences, our personalities and giftedness, as well as our brokenness and wounds. Thus, what we observe in others (and in ourselves) at the surface of life is a very small part of our stories.
I cannot see or know the motivations of another person, the interior landscape that leads them to certain behaviors and ways of being in the world. And those other persons don’t fully know their own interior motivations, either. It is all a part of our labyrinthine interior, the tangled rootage which becomes the source of our lived experience, the source of our attitudes, ideas, beliefs and behaviors.
This interior is the part of me most in need of transformation and reorientation. It is this more interior place within me that needs “conversion” and “salvation” – if we use traditional language.
Christian “salvation” is not some temporary behavior adjustment or behavior modification technique. Behavior adjustment is generally surface change which may evaporate when will-power subsides. Inner change that lasts must happen within me at the level of the roots of my behaviors, at the source of my motivations.
As we grow in Christ, we recognize that the actions of others arise from interior places we cannot see, and they are not subject to easy projections about motive and cause/effect. Each human is too complex for that kind of simple judgment. So Jesus said, “Do not judge others. . . .”
And growth comes in seeing my own interior landscape more and more clearly . . . not deceiving myself, but facing who I am and the truth of my life.
So I refrain from judging others, because I cannot fully see the wounds and brokenness from which their behaviors arise.
And I refrain from judging myself, because my behaviors come from my own intricate history.
The response of Christ to this, both in others and within myself, is compassion and mercy, not judgment. . . . And an ongoing invitation to see more truthfully, both my own life and the lives of others.
For Prayer: I ask God to soak me in love and compassion. Then I ask the same for others.
I think of a particular person in my life-world, and consider the complexity of who that person is, a complexity that I cannot fully see. I pray for her/him with compassion, both for their actions and for their motivations.
Then I pray for others who are judged hastily or harshly.
Finally, I pray with compassion for all – including myself – who judge others hastily or harshly, based on what we see at life’s surface.
I may fool myself into thinking that I have insight into someone else’s motivations, or that I can read another’s life, or that crazy behavior ought to be dismissed out of hand. But for all the information available to me, I am not privy to the interior landscape of another person’s life . . . to all the life experiences that have shaped her . . . to the numerous wounds and betrayals that lead him to act as he does . . . to the intricate, interior web of motivations that move her to act the way she does. I may see what appears on the surface of his life, but I cannot see the inner workings that are behind the behavior.
That is why Jesus said this:
"Do not judge others. Then you will not be judged. You will be judged in the same way you judge others. You will be measured in the same way you measure others.
"You look at the bit of sawdust in your friend's eye. But you pay no attention to the piece of wood in your own eye. How can you say to your friend, 'Let me take the bit of sawdust out of your eye'? How can you say this while there is a piece of wood in your own eye?
"You pretender! First take the piece of wood out of your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to take the bit of sawdust out of your friend's eye.” (Matt. 7:1 – 5)
Within each of us are hidden patterns not visible from the outside. The human interior is infinitely intricate, woven mysteriously of our life experiences, our personalities and giftedness, as well as our brokenness and wounds. Thus, what we observe in others (and in ourselves) at the surface of life is a very small part of our stories.
I cannot see or know the motivations of another person, the interior landscape that leads them to certain behaviors and ways of being in the world. And those other persons don’t fully know their own interior motivations, either. It is all a part of our labyrinthine interior, the tangled rootage which becomes the source of our lived experience, the source of our attitudes, ideas, beliefs and behaviors.
This interior is the part of me most in need of transformation and reorientation. It is this more interior place within me that needs “conversion” and “salvation” – if we use traditional language.
Christian “salvation” is not some temporary behavior adjustment or behavior modification technique. Behavior adjustment is generally surface change which may evaporate when will-power subsides. Inner change that lasts must happen within me at the level of the roots of my behaviors, at the source of my motivations.
As we grow in Christ, we recognize that the actions of others arise from interior places we cannot see, and they are not subject to easy projections about motive and cause/effect. Each human is too complex for that kind of simple judgment. So Jesus said, “Do not judge others. . . .”
And growth comes in seeing my own interior landscape more and more clearly . . . not deceiving myself, but facing who I am and the truth of my life.
So I refrain from judging others, because I cannot fully see the wounds and brokenness from which their behaviors arise.
And I refrain from judging myself, because my behaviors come from my own intricate history.
The response of Christ to this, both in others and within myself, is compassion and mercy, not judgment. . . . And an ongoing invitation to see more truthfully, both my own life and the lives of others.
For Prayer: I ask God to soak me in love and compassion. Then I ask the same for others.
I think of a particular person in my life-world, and consider the complexity of who that person is, a complexity that I cannot fully see. I pray for her/him with compassion, both for their actions and for their motivations.
Then I pray for others who are judged hastily or harshly.
Finally, I pray with compassion for all – including myself – who judge others hastily or harshly, based on what we see at life’s surface.
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