bible

What Is Truth?

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John 18:33-38

   Jesus faces Pontius Pilate.  The local religious authorities have hauled Jesus before the Roman prefect because the Romans can impose the death penalty for sedition, while the local authorities cannot.  Pilate questions Jesus.  “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 

   Some bibles translate this as, “My kingdom is not of this world…” as though, somehow, we could withdraw from our world, or even to imply that Jesus isn’t concerned with this world.  But the Greek says that Jesus’ kingdom is not derived from this world – and a better translation of the phrase “this world” here might be “this system,” or “the version of reality that most people accept.”  What Jesus is saying is that were he and his followers from Pilate’s world, from that version of reality, then naturally they, too, would use violence to keep him out of Pilate’s clutches.  But at Gethsemane, Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. 

   Jesus tells Pilate he came to testify to the truth.  The lectionary leaves off verse 38, Pilate’s response: “What is truth?”  Pilate has worked his way up the loyalty ladder of an empire founded on domination, violence, and lies to become governor of Judea.  It makes sense that he doesn’t recognize truth, or perhaps even value it.  “Pax Romana,” they called it, the Roman Peace.  That “peace” was maintained through forced military occupation of people who feared and despised the Romans.  The Romans crushed revolts and imposed burdensome taxes, impoverishing the common people.  Whose “pax” was this, exactly?  Whose peace?  You can just imagine the lies: “We’ll protect you from the Goths, the Visigoths, and the Barbarians!  Your miserable little country will be great again!”  You can picture the sycophants like Herod who jumped on board and were awarded power and wealth for their loyalty.    

   We’re not told whether Jesus answered Pilate’s question, but it is Jesus himself, standing there, that is the answer: the humble, beat-up man from Nazareth, looking nothing like what the world expects from a king, in front of the governor with his guards and retinue and all the trappings of empire.  With or without words, Jesus is saying, “The truth is not what you think it is.” 

   Martin Luther King described the truth about violence this way: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.  …  Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

   Jesus tells Pilate, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  He’s not creating insiders and outsiders here; he’s inviting all those who long for genuine truth to listen to him.  Listen to what he taught throughout his ministry about a loving God who longs for shalom for all of God’s creation.  Listen to his description of the alternate reality he called “the Kingdom of God,” a reality we can choose to inhabit here and now, in this world and this life, if we love our neighbors as ourselves.  Don’t listen to those who are willing to lie and resort to violence to get and keep power and wealth.  “My kingdom is not from here,” said Jesus.  It is not from here, but it is for here.  It lives in the world and confronts the violence and lies; not with more violence and lies, but with the truth that God is love.  Could there be a more timely message? 

   This Sunday is Reign of Christ Sunday, the last Sunday in the church calendar.  Unlike the more traditional title, “Christ the King Sunday,” “Reign of Christ” points to Jesus’ kingdom as a state of being, a commitment to a particular way of seeing the world.  Those of us who are committed to living in this kingdom, however imperfectly we might do it, are called to witness to the truth.  We do not pretend to corner the market on truth or claim that any truth is pure and simple, because as someone put it, pure and simple truth is the luxury of the zealot.  But we trust the truth that God is love, and we do not abandon facts. 

   Yale historian Tim Snyder writes, “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.  If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so.  If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.  The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”

   To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.  Pilate would have been familiar with, and probably adept at, delivering the occupied Judeans “bread and circuses,” the phrase a late first century Roman poet used to describe pacifying the populace with food and entertainment.  Bread and circuses are not truth.  The truth, as Jesus said elsewhere, will set you free.   

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1967).

Kathy Gill, “Tim Snyder: On Fascism and Fear,” July 8, 2024, The Moderate Voice, https://themoderatevoice.com/timothy-snyder-on-fascism-and-fear/

Don’t Be Alarmed

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Mark 13:1-8

   It’s the Tuesday before the crucifixion, and Jesus has just watched a destitute widow put all she has in the Temple coffers, while the scribes are living the high life.  He leaves the Temple never to return.  The wealthy scribes contrasted against the desperate widow convince him the Temple is no longer serving the purpose God intended.  So when a disciple admires the large stones of the Temple, Jesus’ first response is that the Temple will be destroyed. 

   His four closest disciples ask Jesus privately: “Just when is all this going to happen?”  And perhaps even more anxiously, they ask, “Will this be a sign of the end of time?”  What follows is what’s called Mark’s “Little Apocalypse.”  It was written after Christians had been persecuted for a generation, and when the Temple had already been destroyed by the Romans in 71 A.D.

   Apocalyptic literature is born out of times when things are so bad that it seems the only possible way out is a cataclysmic intervention.  When you’re oppressed or despairing or persecuted, you think to yourself, “Surely God has a plan to even the score.”  The early church hoped that God would even the score when Jesus returned, and they expected that to happen any time.  Depending on what your life looks like right now, or how you perceive the recent election results, it may or may not be hard to put yourself into their shoes.

   The early church had seen the Temple fall.  What more could happen?  Jesus tells them that events like wars, earthquakes, and famines, while reminding us that things are not the way they are supposed to be in this world, also serve to remind us that everything is very right because everything is happening just as Jesus said it would.  We need to be cautious with such claims.  This doesn’t mean that when war is declared we merely shrug our shoulders and go back to our crossword puzzles.  This doesn’t mean that when a hurricane wipes out Asheville and we see the horrific pictures on CNN, we say “ho-hum” and flip the channel over to “Suits.”  Just because Jesus says that such things are going to happen does not mean that we as his followers do not seek to relieve suffering and promote peace and justice.  The gospels teach us that.  

   Whenever we read apocalyptic literature in the Bible, it’s tempting to read into it that God is behind it all; that God will somehow change from the God of love we see in Jesus and start to bully us.  Jesus tells the disciples to beware of false prophets, but he doesn’t tell them to beware of God.  Our God is the God who says, “Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  I will help you.”  So when the awful things happen, Jesus says that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, are not to be alarmed.  This is why when wars and rumors of wars circle the globe, and earthquakes or wildfires or hurricanes flatten parts of the world, or a pandemic changes life as we know it, it is the disciples of Jesus who are the first to push back.  We are the ones who protest for peace and justice; we are the ones who volunteer to rebuild.  We are not the ones to insist that getting a vaccine means you don’t trust God enough.  We are not the ones to pretend that the pain of people half a world away does not matter. 

   But is it time for Jesus to return?  With all that’s going on around us – increasing income disparity, climate change causing storms and fires, inflation, a global rise in fascism – you can see why people wonder.  Every generation of believers has asked whether the end is here, or at least near, yet the answer has been “No” over and over and over again.  The danger of focusing on the end of the world is that it keeps people from responding to human need and suffering, and it leads to isolated individual survival.  People shore up their own “salvation” and forget about community.

   Winston Churchill offered this advice in the darkest days of World War II: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”  Jesus tells us simply, “Don’t be led astray; don’t be alarmed.”  And then he says, “This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”   “Birth pangs” point to joy; that wonders have not ceased; that possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen.  Hope is an authentic stance. 

   I recommend a TikTok video by Brian D. McLaren who argues that, globally, something is dying.  “A world of white supremacy is dying.  A world of dominating, angry, greedy men without empathy is dying.  A world without concern for planet earth itself – that world is dying.  … A world that measures value by wealth not health – that kind of world is dying.  … And like a dying cornered animal, that kind of world bears its teeth and its claws and it will destroy as much as it can before its done.  If you only look at what is dying, you’ll feel despair.  But something else is trying to be born. … It’s not as loud and angry as what is dying, but it’s far more important.  What is being born is beautiful, and you know because you feel it; it’s being born in you.  The pain of these moments – they might feel like death pains.  But they’re really labor pains.” 

   For the complete video: https://www.facebook.com/651042029/videos/1079652193679063/

   Don’t be alarmed.  Possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen.  Hope is an authentic stance.  These birth pangs will end in joy. 

© Joanne Whitt 2024 

Really Seeing Each Other

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Mark 12:38-44

The first thing we need to know about the Widow’s Mite, as this story in Mark’s gospel is often called, is that it is not one of those, “Wow, I need to be more like that” stories. Certainly, generosity and even sacrifice are praiseworthy, and we’re challenged by God’s abundance to be generous. But Jesus is not pointing to the widow who dropped her last two coins in the treasury so that the disciples can feel appropriately guilty that they didn’t do what she did. The lesson here is not, “God wants everybody to give away everything they have.” So take a deep breath, and relax.

This story is part of a larger set of passages that focus on Jesus’ confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees. It’s in this context that the widow comes forward with her offering. We can’t hear Jesus’ tone of voice as he watches her. Is Jesus saying the widow is an example of great faith and profound stewardship, or is he expressing his remorse that she’s given away the little she has left, and perhaps even feels compelled to do so? Notice that Jesus doesn’t commend the woman. He doesn’t applaud her self-sacrifice or tell us to “go and do likewise.” He just describes what he sees. Combined with his ongoing critique of the religious establishment, this tells us he’s more likely lamenting; maybe even accusing.

This widow has no way to support herself. The men in her life are supposed to be doing that; that’s how it was supposed to work in this ancient Middle Eastern culture. For some reason, the system isn’t working. We don’t know whether her male relatives refused to take her in, or whether they’ve all died. We do know that Torah requires that widows be cared for. Again and again, widows and orphans are lifted up as those who need society’s care because they can’t fend for themselves. And again and again, the Old Testament prophets condemn the rich and powerful for failing to do so. Jesus echoes those prophets with his warning at the beginning of the passage: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes … They devour widows’ houses” – shorthand for taking pretty much everything they own – “and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”

Something is broken. Instead of taking care of widows and orphans, the system somehow encourages these preening scribes, swishing about in their long robes. This widow has been encouraged by the tradition to donate as she does, but no one should be expected to give “all she has to live on,” particularly when she isn’t being cared for as the tradition promised her, while the religious elites grow richer. Jesus is condemning the hypocrisy and injustice that allow this woman to be poor and then keep her poor.

Perhaps most remarkable about this exchange, and maybe the heart of the passage, is that Jesus notices the woman in the first place. He sees her. This widow is just one in the crowd, with a small, even paltry offering. Yet Jesus sees her.

Who are we not seeing as we go about our daily lives? Who is it that deserves not only our notice, but our Christ-like compassion?

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party’s paramilitary forces, Hitler Youth, and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany 86 years ago this coming weekend (November 9th and 10th, 1938). The problem was not that the Nazis didn’t notice the Jews living around them, but rather that they did not see them as genuine human beings deserving compassion and respect, let alone as kindred children of God. Rather, they saw them as opponents to be feared. “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy,” said Captain G. M. Gilbert after the Nuremberg trials. Gilbert, an American psychologist assigned to German prisoners, became a confidant to several of the Nuremburg defendants, including Hermann Göring.

When I’ve seen photos of neo-Nazis and swastikas in the news lately, I can’t help but wonder whether my father, a World War II veteran, is rolling over in his grave. He would certainly be heartbroken. World War II: Talk about sacrificial giving. Would our nation be where we are now, on Election Day 2024, if more World War II veterans who put their lives on the line, who lost friends and loved ones, were still around? If there were more people still alive today who saw the Holocaust and responded with compassion? I think not. This coming Monday is Veterans Day. Veterans are often used as patriotic tropes in our country, but how often do we see veterans with compassion? Between 2001 and 2021, more than 6,000 veterans committed suicide each year, and the rate of suicide is dramatically higher for younger vets. About a quarter of all homeless people in this country are veterans. Maybe a day off school and excessive flag-waving isn’t the best way to really see, thank, and honor our veterans.

David Lose writes, “… I think God is inviting us to look around and see each other, those in our community we know and those we don’t. And I mean really see each other – the pain of those who are discriminated against because of their ethnicity, the desolation of those who cannot find work and have been abandoned to fend for themselves, the despair of those who have given up on finding work and have lost hope, the anguish of those who have been exploited by sex traffickers. God is inviting us to see them, to care for them, and to advocate for a system that does not leave anyone behind.”

Take that into the voting booth with you today.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

As Yourself

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Mark 12:28-34  

   The exchanges at the beginning of the twelfth chapter of Mark remind me of the ongoing presidential campaign.  The authorities question Jesus, debate him, even try to trap him.  Jesus is nimble at avoiding the “gotchas.”  Then a scribe steps forward and asks a short, sharp, simple question: What is the greatest commandment?  It’s a hard fastball.  It will show who Jesus really is.  And so it does.  Jesus answers, “Love God completely, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  Everyone would have expected the first part of his answer, loving God.  It is the watchword, the touchstone, the core of the Jewish faith in Deuteronomy Chapter 6.  They may not have expected the second part, loving neighbor, but it wasn’t new; it’s in Leviticus 19.  What’s new and surprising is the way Jesus connects the second part to the first part in a way that means that these two laws can’t really be separated, that they can’t really be understood apart from each other.  You can’t love God, in other words, apart from loving each other. 

   The scribe says, “You’re right!”  Jesus tells him, “You are not far from the kingdom.”  The scribe is “not far from the kingdom of God” NOT because he gave the right answer – this isn’t about being the smartest kid in the class – but because the scribe understands this link between the two laws – that the only way truly to love God is to love other people as we love ourselves.

   We tend to gloss over that last clause – the “as yourself” part.  We might hear this from a contemporary, psychological perspective, a mandate for the kind of self-love that, in 2024, we know is important: the kind of self-esteem or self-respect that protects us from allowing others to bully or abuse us, that allows us to navigate life in a way that reflects that we are worthy of love and belonging.  It’s an intriguing question: “Can we love others more than we love ourselves?”  Many would argue that we really can’t. 

   But as interesting as that question is, that isn’t what the biblical writers have in mind.  The Greek word Jesus uses is agape.  C. S. Lewis defines this kind of love: “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”  The biblical writers begin by assuming that people want their own ultimate good and will act accordingly.  I believe this is true; even when we think of tragic examples of self-destructive behavior, behind them is a sadly broken idea about what it takes to achieve the ultimate good.

   What that phrase, “as yourself” means is that we are to seek the well-being of our neighbor – of others – with the same zeal, the same energy, the same creativity, and the same commitment that we would pursue our own well-being.  It means that your neighbor’s well-being is to have the identical priority to your well-being.  Are you hungry?  So is your neighbor.  Feed him.  Are you thirsty?  Give your thirsty neighbor a drink.  Are you lonely?  Befriend someone who is lonely.  Are you frightened, or sad?  Find someone to comfort.

   I suspect that when most people hear, “The well-being of your neighbor is to have the identical priority to your own well-being,” it sounds a little scary.  Maybe a lot scary. What creeps into our hearts is fear – perhaps fear of scarcity, fear that there won’t be enough for me and mine, for my family, my tribe, my country – enough resources, enough well-being, enough whatever.  Perhaps fear for safety, fear of the one we think of as “the other.”  Again and again, we see that hatred isn’t the opposite of love; it is fear.   

   Here’s the thing: God doesn’t look at anyone and see “the other.”  God is One, Deuteronomy tells us, and God includes us all in God’s oneness.  The scribe in today’s passage gets it that we can’t love God without loving our neighbors, because the life of loving others is the life that creates justice, and freedom, and peace for us all.  It is the life that is truly life, the best life, the life that the God wants for every one of us, God’s beloved children.

   The best story I’ve heard that explains this is about an anthropologist who proposed a game to children of an African tribe.  He put a basket near a tree and told the kids that the first one to reach the basket would win all the fruit.  When he said, “Go!” they all took each other’s hands and ran together, and then sat down under the tree together, enjoying the fruit.  The anthropologist asked them why they ran like that; one of them could have been the big winner.  The children said, “Ubuntu; how can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”  “Ubuntu,” as an old friend explained to me , is a Zulu or perhaps Nguni Bantu word that is best summed up, “I am, because we are.”

   We can’t achieve the life that God wants for us is by going it alone.  We were never meant to go it alone.  That is what is at the core of “love your neighbors as yourself.”  That is the reason for the two Great Commandments.  We are because our neighbors are.  Our American myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.   It is a myth that denies the reality, the truth, of the two Great Commandments, and it is a myth that drives us farther away from the Kingdom of God.  Dependence starts when we’re born and lasts until we die. Given enough resources, we can pay for help and create the mirage that we are completely self-sufficient. But the truth is that no amount of money, influence, resources, or determination will change our physical, emotional, and spiritual dependence on others. Not at the beginning of our lives, not in the messy middle, and not at the end. As Bob Dylan sang, “May you always do for others and let others do for you.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Refusing to Be Silenced

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Mark 10:46-52

“Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly.”

Bartimaeus is a blind man. He depends on the generosity of his neighbors, but they can’t do more than help him maintain his current situation as a blind beggar. Bartimaeus wants more than that, and this is central to this story, because when the people tell Bartimaeus to keep quiet, the subtext of what they’re saying is, “This is the best you can hope for.” Maybe they’re even saying, “This is just the way it is. This is normal.”

Walter Brueggemann writes that the crowd always has a stake in pretending that something that really is abnormal, in this case, blind begging, is normal. If it’s normal, it means no one needs to change. The folks around him don’t have to ask, “Why are some people forced to beg to survive, while others have more than enough? Why aren’t we taking steps to fix that? How could we fix it if we wanted to? What’s wrong with us that we are allowing this abnormal situation to continue?”

Nevertheless, Bartimaeus cries out. Jesus doesn’t hear him the first time, so Bartimaeus cries out more loudly. Eventually, Jesus does hear him, and does see him, and he heals Bartimaeus.

Silence can refer to something good: to awe before holiness, to peace amidst chaos. But in this story where the people are silencing Bartimaeus, it’s a form of coercion. This is a pattern we see throughout history and even today. Voices of dissent and voices on the margins are silenced. We see them silenced with voter suppression and gerrymandering, with smear campaigns and threats of violence, with gas lighting and mockery, with censorship and blacklisting, and with mass incarceration. It’s football season; a few years a quarterback who took a knee was silenced by teams who refused to hire him.

The Christian Church is and always has been challenged to decide whether to sign on with the silencers, or with the silence breakers. On October 31, 1517, 507 years ago this week, the story goes that Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, attacking the corruption of the Christian Church. When the Church attempted to silence him with excommunication, Luther is said to have defended himself, with, “Here I stand. I can do no other, so help me God.”

Luther’s namesake, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to the moderate white mainline Protestant pastors in Birmingham. They had tried to silence King and others in the Civil Rights Movement by labeling them extremists. This label implied that it was King and the civil rights advocates who were somehow dangerous, rather than racism that was dangerous. King wrote, “… though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ … Was not Martin Luther an extremist: ‘Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.’ … So, the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?”

In Bartimaeus and in these stories from church history, we see that silencing is a way to maintain the status quo in terms of power, wealth, and inclusion, and in terms of who is heard, who is seen, and whose stories are voiced. Silence breakers, on the other hand, are those who insist that the old patterns must be disrupted where those patterns hurt or oppress, and where those patterns allow or even encourage us to keep thinking something hurtful is just normal. Silence breakers seek transformation, and, yes, reformation.

We have an important election coming up in this country. Our vote is one of the most powerful and peaceful ways for us to speak the truth, to break the silence, to cry out about all the things that we should not accept as normal; things like school shootings, white supremacy, the fact that our very planet is in jeopardy, the fact that people remain unhoused and even the middle class is struggling to afford housing. It doesn’t make any difference what political party you claim: these situations are not normal. Your vote is your voice; your vote is a way to shatter the silence.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Greatness

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Mark 10:35-45

When humorist Dave Barry landed a college internship with a magazine in Washington D.C., he wasn’t prepared for “the great Washington totem pole of status.” Barry writes, “Way up at the top of this pole is the president; way down at the bottom, below mildew, is the public. In between is an extremely complex hierarchy of government officials, journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, and other power players, holding thousands of minutely graduated status rankings differentiated by extremely subtle nuances that only Washingtonians are capable of grasping. For example, Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is ‘Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary’ is more or less important than a person whose title is ‘Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.’” Washington parties, Barry says, were serious affairs at which everybody worked hard to figure out where everybody else fit on the totem pole, and then spent the rest of the evening sucking up to whoever was higher up.

In the Mark passage, the brothers James and John approach Jesus to ask for special treatment. Interpreters disagree about what motivates them. Is this a totem pole way of looking at discipleship? Could they be so clueless about who Jesus is that they’re imagining a triumphant scene with themselves sitting in positions of honor at King Jesus’ right and left? Or is it that Jesus has just told them for the third time what lies ahead in Jerusalem and they’re starting to wonder about their own futures? Either way, their request is grounded in their love for Jesus. Maybe that’s why Jesus doesn’t reprimand them, and instead, tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. He gently brings them back to the hardships that will come first, through the images of the cup of suffering and the baptism of death.

The other disciples aren’t pleased that James and John are jockeying for position. It seems that all the disciples are stuck in a totem pole way of looking at power: who’s on top, who gets the best seat at the table. Meanwhile, Jesus is up-ending the seating arrangement. He says that what the world usually calls greatness is not great at all. He refers to the Gentiles, the Romans who occupy Judea. These Gentiles think tyrants are great. Then Jesus gives the disciples a new recipe for greatness. “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.”

To be great is to serve. I believe many of us struggle with Jesus’ words as much as the disciples did when they first heard this, even if we’ve heard it many times. Sure, we know serving is good, but if you wish to be great, you must be a servant?

In order to grasp why serving leads to greatness, and not just in some sort of irrational, Jesus-always-loves-a-paradox sort of way, we need to remember that Jesus has been steering his disciples toward transformation – and along with them, us, and the whole world. Jesus knows that what’s behind the totem pole scenario is fear: fear that we won’t have enough, be loved enough; that we are not enough. He knows that what’s behind it is a way of looking at the world that says there are only so many pieces of the pie and so I’d better get my piece; that there are winners and losers in the world, and I’ll do whatever I can to be a winner.

It’s a way of looking at the world that has caused much of the suffering, disconnection, and violence that humanity brings upon itself. It’s this way of looking at the world that Jesus turns on its head when he heals people, forgives sins, touches the untouchable, includes the outcast, and breaks the rules that drag people down and disconnect them from community. From the beginning of Mark’s gospel, he’s insisted that God is near and claims us as God’s beloveds. Jesus has modeled the compassionate life that God wants the whole world to live; this, he says, is what God’s kingdom looks like. Jesus proclaims that this is good news, not just for those at the bottom of the totem pole but for all. Now, Jesus is showing the disciples that serving is the way out of the fear of “not enough,” and even the way out of “not enough” itself. Serving changes us, and changes our world.

Serving helps others, and it helps us. It heals others, and it heals us. It connects us with others, and it connects us with ourselves and with God. Serving is how God transforms the world and transforms us. Jesus’ lesson here is summed up by Richard Rohr this way: “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” Good parents always learn this. People in recovery in Twelve Steps groups learn this. The twelfth step is about serving others who need help with recovery, and the universal experience is that it turns out to be life-changing and healing for the person who is doing the serving, as well. A woman in recovery writes, “At first, I didn’t understand when my sponsor said, ‘You’ve got to give it away to keep it’ but after being around the Program for a while, I began to feel a lot of gratitude. I wanted to give back some of what was given to me so freely. I began to be a temporary sponsor for newcomers. It was then that I realized how this helping others business revitalized and strengthened my own personal recovery. I needed to help others as much for my own recovery as for theirs.”

“Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” The predictable trio of money, power and fame cannot give you yourself or protect you from the fear of “not enough.” The drive to be at the top of the totem pole cannot give you yourself, and in fact it feeds the fear of “not enough.” The greatness promised by the totem pole is illusory, a trap that leads to more fear, and more disconnection from self, others, and God. “Unless and until you give your life away to others, you do not seem to have it yourself at any deep level.” In a very real, non-paradoxical way, that is greatness.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Dave Barry Goes to Washington,” 2002, http://www.thisisawar.com/LaughterDaveWashington.htm. 

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).

The Eye of the Needle

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Mark 10:17-31

Even people who claim to be Biblical literalists have their limits. You can practically see the skid marks when folks come to a screeching halt in front of this passage in Mark. “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me,” said Jesus. All of a sudden, reading the Bible literally isn’t so appealing. This is probably one of the scariest passages in the Bible.

But what if it isn’t a scary story? What if it’s a healing story? What if the key phrase in this passage is in verse 21: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him…”? Without this phrase, we can read Jesus’ instructions to give everything away either as a test to see if this man was faithful enough, or worse, as a requirement for entrance into the Kingdom of God. When we hear that Jesus says what he says out of love, however, that changes everything. Now Jesus is not setting the bar, he’s responding to need.

“You lack one thing,” Jesus goes on to say. Jesus doesn’t mean “lack” in the sense of “you can’t get into the Kingdom without it.” Rather, it’s more like, “There is one thing keeping you from the full and abundant life that God wants for all of us.”

Jesus was a master at inviting people into transformation in exactly the terms that they needed. His response was always tailored to the individual standing in front of him, the person saying, “What must I do to live?” So, this man came asking what he could do to find the peace that has thus far eluded him, and Jesus has a specific prescription for him. “This is what will set you free. Let go of your wealth.” Now, wealth is essentially morally neutral, but it can be dangerous in these ways: It can make us believe we don’t need each other. It can cause us to believe that we are more deserving than others. We can fool ourselves into believing that we alone are responsible for our wealth, while we ignore all the factors besides our own hard work that contribute to our situation, factors like race, privilege, the GI Bill, parents who were educated or could loan us a down payment, living in safe neighborhoods with good schools, and on and on. Almost invariably, wealth insulates us from other people’s needs. In the Mark passage, this man’s wealth has formed a wall around his life and Jesus is inviting him to something better – something risky, and free, and full of the transforming power of the Spirit.

Jesus tells this man that the one thing that is keeping him from enjoying the abundant life God promises here and now is all his possessions. And this is important: he doesn’t just tell him to give away what he has. He tells him to give it to the poor. According to Jesus, our lives are inextricably bound up with the lives of others.

The man walks away, deeply troubled, because he can’t imagine that what Jesus is offering him is better than all his stuff. Jesus knows it’s hard. That’s why he says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God. And no, the eye of the needle is not a small door in a larger gate into Jerusalem where the camels would have to be unpacked before entering. That interpretation is based on a fiction invented in the nineteenth century, a fiction that comforted people who liked to think that if it isn’t actually impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, then it isn’t impossible for them to enter the Kingdom. But this gate-in-the-wall fiction misses the point because that interpretation assumed this passage is about going to heaven after we die, and it is not. The Kingdom of God, as Jesus said, is among us, within us, it is “at hand,” because the Kingdom of God is living now, now, as though we are part of God’s Kingdom, as though God is the ruler of our hearts and minds, here and now. What Jesus is saying with his eye of the needle comparison is that it’s very hard for people to let go of the belief, to be healed of the belief that living walled in by your money and possessions is better than what Jesus offers. Jesus invites this man to a life in which he is truly aware of his connectedness with God, God’s creation, and God’s people, aware that his well-being is intimately tied to the well-being of others – and that is what living in the Kingdom of God looks like.

We are left wondering: Would we walk away, too? I like the fact that we don’t really know the end of this story. We don’t know whether the rich man eventually got it. Faith is a journey, and it takes a long time to be a disciple. It is a process of transformation, being changed from the inside out and the outside in over the course of a lifetime. What this actually not-so-scary story in Mark tells us is that whatever Jesus asks of us, he will ask out of love, and in order to heal us. And as someone else once said, “A trip becomes a journey after you’ve lost your luggage.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024

No Bouncers

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Mark 9:38-50

   Just before this exchange with his disciples, Jesus catches them arguing over which one of them will be the greatest.  In this passage, the disciple named John has learned of somebody who is healing in Jesus’ name, imitating the work of Jesus.  John has problems with this healer’s credentials.  He’s not following us, John says.  How do we know he has it right?  The disciples seem to think that it’s important for those who follow Jesus to do so in one prescribed way, their way.  This healer is not following the rules.  It’s not surprising that the disciples would conclude their way is the right way; they’ve given up a great deal to follow Jesus. They’ve left their homes, families, and livelihoods.  But it looks as though they’ve also become attached to being the special ones, the insiders. 

  Jesus gives a two-part response: First, he answers the specific question.  Don’t stop him.  If he’s doing it in my name, he’s on the right track.  If he’s not against us, he’s for us.  Look at what he’s doing, not at his credentials. 

   It’s the second part of his response that’s harder to read.  These verses are often interpreted as a dire warning about temptations to sin.  But what’s interesting here is that the warning is aimed at his disciples directly in response to their challenge to the credentials of an outsider.  Jesus knows the damage that can arise from “I’m right, you’re wrong” relationships.  His ongoing conflict with the Pharisees is over their insistence that anyone who doesn’t follow their rules is a spiritual outsider.  Maybe he even had some insight into the evils that would be done in his name in the millennia to follow, when Christians encounter others, both other Christians and non-Christians, who aren’t doing things or believing things in exactly “the right way.”

   Jesus is clearly exasperated.  “Don’t get in the way of those who believe in me,” says Jesus.  Don’t put obstacles, stumbling blocks, in the path of those who are not yet strong in faith.  If you do, says Jesus, then you, the disciples, have stumbled; you’ve messed up big time.  His harsh tone tells us how important it is that the disciples understand it’s their job to take the wide view of faith, not the narrow one.  The followers of Jesus aren’t supposed to be a little clique off in the corner.  One writer put it like this: “If, to use one of Jesus’ own analogies, the coming of the kingdom is like the start of a grand dinner party, then Jesus wants his followers to be like gracious hosts welcoming the guests…. Jesus neither needs nor wants bouncers guarding the door to the grand feast he is initiating.”

   We are to welcome, wherever we find them, the allies of the Christian faith.  When we see people doing those things that Jesus taught and in which Jesus rejoiced in others – mercy, justice, integrity, reverence, faith, love – welcome them.  Make room for them.    

   Then Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”  In the ancient world, salt was used to cleanse and preserve as well as to season.  Jesus seems to be referring to both uses.  The cleansing/preserving aspect is that the disciples are to be harder on themselves than they are on others; they are to hold themselves to high standards of service and compassion while at the same time making room for others on the journey of faith.  If they do this, they will bring good flavor – saltiness – to their ministry, and to the world.  They will be at peace with each other because they won’t be competing to be the greatest or scrambling to maintain discipleship as an exclusive, private club.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources: “A Season of Discernment: The Final Report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church,” approved by the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (2006).

Bread of Life

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John 6:24-35

I confess I often find John’s Jesus annoying.  He speaks in code and then seems to scold people for not getting it.  In this passage, he declares, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  He is offering himself as metaphorical bread.  But what does that even mean?  What does it mean when so many people need real bread, real water; when way too many people would dearly love never to be literally hungry or thirsty again?  Just last week, the United Nations reported that progress in fighting global hunger has been set back 15 years, leaving around 733 million people going hungry in 2023, equivalent to one in 11 people globally and one in five in Africa. 

I agree with biblical commentators that by equating himself with bread, Jesus is saying he is essential for life.  Some commentators explain that Jesus is not referring to physical life, but “eternal life,” a phrase Jesus uses in this passage.  Many if not most Christians have been taught that “eternal life” begins when we die.  Brian D. McLaren posits that what Jesus actually meant by “eternal life” might better be translated “life of the ages,” or “life to the full.” Jesus was not proclaiming what Diana Butler Bass refers to as an “elevator religion,” focused on getting people up and away from a troubled earth to heaven.  Rather, Jesus came to be the savior of the world, this world, the world that God so loves (John 3:16).  God’s primary mission, embodied in Jesus, is saving the earth and its inhabitants from human evil and folly.  Thus, “I am the bread of life” must mean something more important, more earthly and more urgent than, “Believe in me and you’ll go to heaven.”

This passage follows John’s version of the feeding of the five thousand.  In John 6:1-24, a crowd is following Jesus to hear and be healed by him.  They grow hungry, but Jesus’ disciple Philip says, “‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’”  They learn that a boy in the crowd has five barley loaves and two fish, clearly not enough.  Yet after giving thanks to God, Jesus distributes the boy’s meager contribution, and everyone has enough to eat.  As McLaren writes, “When I was a child, these stories were explained to me as evidence of Jesus’ supernatural power … But now … I see that Jesus is engaging in powerful prophetic drama, demonstrating through sign and wonder a radically different economy, one that doesn’t depend on spending more and buying more, but on discovering what you already have and sharing. … This is a different economy, indeed – one based on contemplative gratitude and neighborly sharing, not consuming more and more, faster and faster.”

So, what makes Jesus “bread” – what makes him essential to our survival?  I’m borrowing liberally from Brian D. McLaren:   

  • Jesus reveals a God who loves us not because we are so deserving and loveable, but because God is so loving, without limit or discrimination.
  • In case after case, Jesus calls people to repent from the goal of growing their personal wealth portfolios, and instead he calls them to grow their good deeds portfolios for the common good, especially the good of the poor and marginalized.
  • He challenges people to believe there could be a better, more human, more satisfying alternative to the economy of the Roman Empire, and to our own economy of unsustainable consumer capitalism.
  • In story after story, we see that the driving motivation in Jesus’ life is love.

It comes down to this: What is it that will save this world?  Hate, or love?  Fear, or love?  Indifference, or love?  Violence, or love? Greed, or love? 

Jesus as “bread” also reminds us of the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist.  Doug Gay and Werner Jeanrond write in the introduction to their treatise on theology and economics: “The central Christian practice of sharing in the Lord’s Supper is a definitive sign of how all that comes from God is to be offered back to God and shared with our neighbors.” They quote Chris Wigglesworth: “The economy is for God which means it is for my neighbor; it is for my neighbor which means it is for God.”

Sometimes poetry helps these images clunk into place.  This communion prayer comes from a Christian base community in Lima, Peru:

God, food of the poor,
Christ, our bread,
give us a taste of the tender bread
from your creation’s table;
bread newly taken from your heart’s oven,
food that comforts and nourishes us.
A fraternal loaf that makes us human;
joined hand in hand, working and sharing.
A warm loaf that makes us family;
Sacrament of your body,
your wounded people.

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

“Fight against global hunger set back 15 years, warns UN report,” July 24, 2024, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1152451

“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024,” published by UNICEF, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Cultural Development, World Health Organization, World Food Programme, https://data.unicef.org › wp-content › uploads › 2024 › 07 › SOFI2024_Report_EN_web.pdf

Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration: How the World’s Largest Religion Is Seeking a Better Way to Be Christian (New York: Convergent, 2016)

Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007)

Calum I. MacLeod, “A Place at the Table,” August 5, 2012, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, https://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/2012/080512.html

Does Power Corrupt?

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2 Samuel 11:1-15

   Let’s get one thing out of the way: This passage about David and Bathsheba is not about sex, and it isn’t even about adultery in any way we would define it today.  You can’t call it cheating on your husband if you don’t have a choice, and you can’t call it cheating on your wife if you have multiple wives and concubines in your harem.  The only way this is adultery is in the 1,000 B.C.E. context that David violated Uriah’s property rights in his wife.     

   Older interpretations of this passage like to implicate Bathsheba.  She was just so alluring that David couldn’t help himself.  In 2024, we understand that it doesn’t matter what a woman wears, where she walks alone at night, or whether she bathes naked on the roof.  She is not “asking for it.”  When the king orders his messengers to go get a woman and bring her to his bedroom, this is not a seduction; it’s certainly not a love scene.  The power difference between David and Bathsheba means there is no way there could be anything approaching mutual consent.

   This story is about abuse of power. 

   Some details of this story might be lost in the formal biblical language.  The timing of Bathsheba’s ritual purification is mentioned because it means only David could be the father of her child.  That’s why David panics.  After trying unsuccessfully to get Uriah to sleep with his wife, David sends him to the battlefront, specifically instructing his commander to make sure Uriah is left unprotected, “so that he may be struck down and die.”  Which is what happens. 

   David saw something he wanted, and he took it.  When it looked as though there might be repercussions, he ruthlessly arranged a cover-up.  Bathsheba didn’t matter; Uriah didn’t matter.  That is the definition of abuse of power: When someone – an individual, nation, corporation, religious or ethnic or any other group – says, “I’m going to get what I want, and I don’t care about you.”  There is no aspect of life untouched by the abuse of power: business, the workplace, the schoolyard, politics, international relationships, personal relationships, parenting, policing, the church – you name it.  We all have seen power go to people’s heads.  One word for these people is bullies. 

   In the 19th century, John Dalberg-Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Some studies seem to support a theory that we all try to get away with as much as we can, and that the only thing that keeps us in check are rules and punishments.  But there is other research that supports something Abraham Lincoln said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

   When people become truly powerful, they often start believing they got there on their own.  But no one gets where they are alone.  Parents, education, a mentor or a team, privilege, advantages of all kinds, even luck land people in power.  Power is given as much as taken, and if power is to continue, the people underneath you have to be willing to allow you to remain in power.  So as it turns out in these other studies, people who recognize that their achievements are due not only to their own talent, hard work, or cleverness, but also to the help and support of other people, don’t participate in corruption.  Corruption is a byproduct when a person in power is arrogant instead of grateful.

   David forgot who he was and how he got there.  He forgot whose he was – God’s own man.  Would this troubling story even be in our Scripture if David had been grateful to God and to the people who were counting on him, rather than arrogant?

   There’s also research showing that power brings out the best in some people.  These experiments reveal that power doesn’t corrupt, after all; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies.  If people are inclined to dirty tricks, shady dealings, or grabbing whatever they want, more power makes that more apparent. Which makes you wonder whether, as someone put it, power doesn’t corrupt; it’s just that power attracts the corruptible. 

   The grace in this story is that we aren’t stuck with it.  God transforms this story; that’s next week’s passage.  Until then, there is grace in knowing that this narrative of abuse of power and of the inevitability that power corrupts is not the narrative we inherit as God’s people.  In Jesus, we are given a powerful contradiction to this story.  Jesus teaches and lives so clearly the power of love, the one power that consistently changes people for the better.

   David’s story sheds light on an important truth that applies as much to us as to any king, or, as we barrel toward the November elections, to any president.  Stan Lee, author and artist of the Spider-Man comic book superhero series, wrote, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  Jesus said the same thing: “From the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Brian Resnick, “How Power Corrupts the Mind,” July 9, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/how-power-corrupts-the-mind/277638/;

David Berreby, “Study: To Prevent Abuse of Power, Focus on Procedure, Not Results,” http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/study-to-prevent-abuse-of-power-focus-on-procedure-not-results;

David Bergstein, “Why Power Corrupts,” January 17, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bergstein/why-power-corrupts_b_4611433.html.

Romesh Ratnesar “The Menace Within,” July/August 2011, https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=40741. 

Christopher Shea, “Why Power Corrupts,” October 2012, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-power-corrupts-37165345/?no-ist. 

Luke 12:48 (NIV)