Blindness and Walking By Faith: Lessons from John 9:1-7

Today, T.D. Jakes preached a message from God to me.  It was about the blind man Jesus healed by making clay from spit and telling him to wash in the pool Siloam after the disciples asked whose sin caused his blindness:

John 9:1-9 (NASB) 

As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?"  

Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world." 

When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam"(which is translated, Sent). 

So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.

As usual, the Bishop made many excellent points.  I am only recording a few that speak to me in my moment...

1. Blindness was this man's particular weakness, allowed by God, that facilitated God's glory.  My strengths and weaknesses are increasingly public and difficult for me to handle.  But they facilitate God's glory--and my humility.   There is no fault; nothing wrong with me and no punishment I am suffering.  It is just my particular set of weaknesses that facilitate my utility.

2. The disciples viewed the man as a public display of the costs of sin.  For them, the man existed as a site for casting derision--derision that extended even to his family.  This despite the disciples deserving the same consequence (i.e. if blindness always results from sin--parental or otherwise--we should all be blind).  I should be careful that I can survive the measures/condemnations I use against others.

3. Jesus covered the man's eyes with clay, then told him to go to Siloam.  This is a picture of faith (and I would argue recreation).  The man is already blind, but now Jesus has heaped more "blinders/barriers" on him.  From the looks of it, his situation is made even more difficult after a genuine encounter with God.  The man must now publicly grope his way, doubly blind, through the city to where he was "Sent/Siloam."  I, too, must publicly grope my way through this particular phase of my life--one I have long feared and feel like my life has not prepared me for much at all.  ... but there is a promise....

4. The man washed in Siloam, where he was sent, and God gave him sight.  If I grope my way, understanding this a process of practicing and developing faith, I will also be healed--of fear, troubling circumstance, ignorance.  And, like the formerly blind man, I will come to know God better.

5. The process that dramatizes my weakness and results in healing glorifies God.

Sociologizing Sin (cont)

I really appreciate the response many of you have had on the blog and in person to my new blog. I hope you keep reading and reacting. For today's entry, I want to respond to a comment "Anonymous" wrote in response to "Sociologizing Sin." I am including the full comment below and my response after it. Sorry to disappoint those of you who like fights. My response is mostly clarification and extension. --Glenn "The Professor"


Anonymous said...

Interesting. I wonder what parts of this might be different today, so I wouldn't spend a ton of time debating the topic. However, the line that strikes me is:

"And even if I could find a way to have no structural or relational exploitative power over any single other person on the globe, I would not do it. Sin has its enjoyable season."

Meaning, you've chosen the former of your 'logical conclusions'. I know you, and I know that you know that there is absolutely a way to remove yourself from the model as it is today; the questions is your motive. The alcoholic who receives the eye-opening grace of salvation but still esteems the bottle as his highest priority might rationalize his continued trips to the bar by saying "if I don't reach out to these other sinners at the bar, who will?". If he esteems Christ as superior, he understands the need to avoid sin and seek the sovereign plan of God through divine intervention.

So, if you hold your place in life and the degree you earned and the job you have and your hobbies and interests and man-made plans for changing the world as your highest priority, then I agree; you will perpetuate that which you hate and may take one of the two logical roads you mentioned. Option 3, then, would be to follow your convictions towards Christ-like change and to live more relaxed in the sovereignty of God, but not licentiously.


"The Professor" responds...
Thanks again for your comments, Anonymous. I want to be clear. When I said I would not stop exploiting people if I could, I was not minimizing the seriousness of oppression or encouraging licentiousness. I am including myself among those who would support the restoration of exploitative systems when the pain of justice touched my own life.

One of the books I mentioned in my profile is Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It is one of the 3 best books I have read in graduate school; I cannot recommend it highly enough. In the book, Friere says that oppressors (i.e. any person or class of persons who benefit from the exploitation of others) cannot recognize justice. Because oppressors normalize their everyday experiences and typically ignore the fact that others have to suffer so that oppressors enjoy what they do, oppressors think that any attempt to take away their benefits is an injustice. We see this all the time. For instance, despite the fact that whites are WAY over represented at TAMU, white students still complain that affirmative action is benefiting students of color at whites' expense. [In truth, we don't even have an affirmative action policy. Not to mention, there are nearly 2 whites enrolled for every 1 there should be if TAMU reflected the state's population.] Men constantly complain that women get everything (e.g. alimony and custody in divorce, job preferences, the right to "scream rape" or make sexual harassment accusations), the truth is men still make more money than women, even for the same work. Men still dominate the highest levels of employment, and we continue to demand and take advantage of women in sexual matters (e.g. 75% or more of sexual assaults go unreported, women's bodies are continually devalued as sex objects with no concern for women as whole people).

In many ways, I am among oppressors. I am American, male, well-educated, and God-willing will some-day have middle-class employment. If suddenly, the United States was not the dominant military and economy in the world, it would seriously hurt my lifestyle, and I would be pissed. I would mobilize to elect someone who would "improve the economy." If patriarchy suddenly vanished, I would still subconsciously demand to be heard whenever I wanted to speak, regardless of how many women wanted to speak first. I would still expect the subtle deference I enjoy as "an educated" person. I am no different from anyone else. I try to check these impulses in myself, but I am not perfect and I would be even less perfect under real pressure. We all would.

I appreciate your confidence, Anonymous, but I honestly do not believe I or anyone else can completely extract ourselves from exploitative social arrangements. I would love to get out of our white supremacist world, but I cannot. I will still be affected by a preference for "western" medicine, logic, clothing styles, language, cultural norms, etc.

I really believe that the "body of death" Apostle Paul mentions at the end of Romans 7 is more than just an individualized sin nature. It is the desire and preference to stick to what's familiar and comfortable, even when those things are systems that exploit others.

bell hooks spoke at TAMU last evening. One thing she talked about is the nearly universal tendency people have to be "split-minded." She noted that nearly every white person will claim not to be racist. But if you ask a white person what steps we should take to end racism (i.e. address the inequality of outcomes white racism has caused), the same white person will not only fail to make suggestions, he will oppose any suggestion you offer (see Bonilla-Silva's Racism Without Racists). People have split minds. They simultaneously hold conflicting beliefs. They take actions that subvert their own deeply held values and beliefs.

The same can be said of us as Christians. Being double-minded (i.e. the book of James) is about more than wavering in one's faith in God. It is about simultaneously believing in God and trying to follow Jesus Christ's example while voting against universal healthcare. It is about supporting Christ's example of loving children, while ignoring the plight of poor children in underfunded inner-city schools.

Extremism in Defense of Liberty...and Oppression

Lately, I've been reading Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion by Herbert Aptheker (1937/2006).  It's the first serious (second generally) history of the rebellion Nat Turner led in 1831.  It's an incredibly easy read, and I highly recommend it.

Needless to say, many things stick out to me from the book.  More posts may come...

For now, Aptheker's writing about "the effects" (i.e. social and legal reactions) of Turner's rebellion captures my mind.  Our best guess is that 60-80 black people joined the rebellion, yet at the time whites estimated as many as 800 armed revolutionaries actively participated and nearly every southern state legislature convened to deal with whites' mass hysteria following the revolt.  After his capture, Turner pleaded not guilty (because he had done nothing wrong) and never said he was mistaken in believing God led him to revolt.  Those facts lead me to my two initial thoughts:

1. Oppressors Live in Constant Fear

We, the people willing to act for social justice, severely underestimate our influence.  One of the false lessons of the Civil Rights Era is that "a movement" requires mass numbers.  I am convinced that movement requires little more than a few people willing to move.  People imposing injustice tend to freak out when directly confronted with resistance.  I am reminded of three biblical stories.  One where Elisha showed his chief disciple the invisible chariots and horsemen of Israel.  The second, when Gideon took a very small army (~300 men) and defeated a much larger army when the enemy soldiers turned on themselves.  And a third, when three lepers marched into the enemy camp only to find it deserted because the enemy soldiers mistook their footsteps for the sound of a large army.  My point, God seems to be suggesting the power of small numbers often in the Bible.

My larger point from Nat Turner is that all oppressors live in constant fear of resistance, even resistance from groups that cannot possibly overthrow systems by force alone.  Men live in constant fear that they will be exposed as vulnerable and not masculine.  Whites live in constant fear that the logic of white supremacy (i.e. justified domination because of superior intellect/morality/numerical majority/etc) will be exposed as a lie [thus The Bell Curve, the Minute Men, the Tea Party, etc].  The rich are petrified of labor coalitions.  The Christian Right is obsessed with "creeping Sharia law." Bush began a war against terror itself.  

We don't often pay enough attention to the fact that emotion is an integral part of every social structure.  Specifically, fear is an inevitable part of every oppressive structure.  That means that one of the contradictions inherent to any system of organization is the emotional vulnerability of the dominant group.  Oppressed people thus always have a structural avenue of resistance, even in the most oppressive and closed systems.

Nat Turner demonstrated that.  For months and even years after his rebellion, whites openly claimed that they could not sleep, were filled with anxiety, and were in failing health due to fear of slave rebellions inspired by Turner.  In fact, several southern governors explicitly stated mass anxiety among whites as the reason for calling emergency legislative sessions in fall of 1831.  This mass anxiety despite there being no clear evidence that a single subsequent rebellion was directly connected to Turner or his co-conspirators.  That oppressors were convicted by their own guilt is proven by two facts: 1) Turner "passed-over" the houses of whites who "did not think themselves better than blacks."  His army only targeted open bigots and slaveowners; and 2) there is some evidence that many poor whites supported the rebellion.  Whites were not afraid they would be targeted for being white; they were afraid because they knew they were targeted for being active oppressors.


2.  Retrenchment Is Not Evidence of Failure

After the Turner Rebellion, whites reacted extremely harshly.  They not only assassinated Turner and his fellow rebels, they also mutilated and murdered innumerable black people (slave and free) with and without trials.  Whites killed at least as many innocent black people as the total number of rebells in Turner's army.  In some cases, white militias lynched black people on the mere accusation of white overseers.  Whites tortured, lynched, and murdered black people without any evidence or even reason for suspicion in states as far from Turner's rebellion (in Virginia) as Louisiana and Kentucky.  Whites tortured innocent black people to the point that whites themselves began criticizing the brutality and fearing they would lose the moral ground in the slaveholding South!  [I cannot imagine the savagery that would move slaveholders even that small step toward compassion.  Our black ancestors are beyond heroic!]  Bunches of municipalities and southern states passed a host of laws tightening restrictions on free blacks and making life even more difficult for slaves.  ... None of this is a surprise, but it leads me to my next point...

For black people, the most obvious immediate result of Turner's Rebellion was increased white oppression.  In other words, black people's lives got worse; in some cases much worse.  Turner, his fellow warriors, and potentially hundreds of uninvolved black people were tortured and killed by whites.  In addition to the rampant mass murder, black people lost [i.e. whites took] the few civil rights they had.  Black people couldn't even legally have church without whites present.  Again, biblical parallels come to mind.  The Egyptians made crazy laws against enslaved Israelites (e.g. making bricks without straw) out of fear of growing Israelite numbers and fear of slave revolt.  Moses left Egypt after reacting to Egyptian cruelty, and the Egyptians reacted harshly to subsequent Israelite resistance once the Exodus began.  ... I bring up the Bible to show that the patterns are old and unchanging.  Oppressors oppress, get scared, generate resistance, clamp down, and ultimately lose.

And here, I think, is another false lesson we have drawn from the Civil Rights Movement.  Activists hesitate too often for fear that their efforts will make life harder for the very people they are fighting for.  This fear among activists is one of the main causes of "analysis until paralysis" and splits among coalitions.  We should understand that activism never causes oppression.  Oppressors do that.  We should not assume that harsh retrenchment is a sign that we did the wrong thing.  Often retrenchment is a sign that mobilization meaningfully challenged oppressors.

Again, the immediate aftermath of Turner's rebellion was death and increased white-on-black terrorism throughout the South.  Not only so, but nearly all the southern abolitionist organizations disappeared following the rebellion.  They reformed in the North, but that meant the thousands of free blacks in the South and millions of enslaved blacks had much less local white support after 1831.  But nearly 200 years later, we see that Turner's Rebellion was a positive and critically important part of the liberation struggle.  If we judged him by the lives of black people in October and November of 1831, we would conclude his efforts a failure on every level.  Now we praise Turner and name city parks after him (e.g. in Newark, NJ).  We recognize Nat Turner, John Brown, and other antislavery rebells as national heroes--certainly heroes among people of color.

Selah.

Mental Audiences

It's 1:17 am.  I should take my butt to bed, no doubt.  But I want to say this briefly.

I write less often and with more difficulty that is necessary because I have not settled on a good imaginary audience.  In my mind, I alternate between three audiences: friends with who I believe will add insights I do not have; complete morons who know absolutely nothing; and my future self, who has God-like omniscience on all things "me."

Consequently, writing always seems arduous.  When I want to discuss something with friends, I feel compelled to give complete background about the topic, the origins of my question/thoughts, and my thoughts themselves.  All three parts feel necessary to enable what I want, namely informed commentary with my friends.  My assumption being that they will always provide things I simply cannot.

When I want to express myself, the writing feels even worse!  I either have to breakdown every thought, as though speaking to a moron, or anticipate the mockery of my omniscient future self.  (The arrogance of it all is palpable, even to me, but I suspect everyone struggles with internal audience problems.)  Of course, I don't really assume I am writing to morons.  That's me being overly self-critical.  What I mean is that I assume the reader is intelligent enough to understand any argument I can produce, but the reader is also completely ignorant of me as a person.  Without sufficient background, the reader cannot possibly make true meaning from the literal words.  I do not believe that anything--words, data, phenomena--speaks for itself without context.  So I busy myself, and drone needlessly, trying to provide enough context to make my words make sense so that I can feel that I actually expressed myself.  Otherwise, I would feel that I did little more that paint an unintentional Rorschach text in which readers have no choice but to see themselves thinly veiled in "Glenn-face."

On the other hand, writing for my future self feels simultaneously unnecessary--future me knows me better than present me does and future me can express me to me better too--and self-defeating.  I feel like a child telling an adult the interesting things I learned in school as if I'm the first person on the planet every to learn it.  New to me is not the same as new to everyone.  And new to me is definitely not new to future me.  Future me can only laugh at his embarrassingly ignorant, childish self.

So I guess this is as much a cry for help as it is an expression of self.  I need a new mental audience.  I'm open to suggestions.  I assume the mental audience should be different for professional writing than for personal stuff.  My professional audience is increasingly my version of a first-year graduate student--curious, intelligent, and ignorant of academic precedents like reigning theories and seminal work.  You know the debacle that is my personal audience.  Any suggestions?

Dez Bryant - Labor and the Tyranny of Capital

I am disgusted by the latest example of capital impeding on the lives of workers.  If you haven't read the latest sports news, the Dallas Cowboys announced "new rules" for their troubled star receiver Dez Bryant [the Cowboys now claim to have only offered "guidance"].  The "rules" include:

• A midnight curfew. If he's going to miss curfew, team officials must know in advance; 

• No drinking alcohol.

• He can't attend any strip clubs and can only attend nightclubs if they are approved by the team and he has a security team with him.

• He must attend counseling sessions twice a week.

• A rotating three-man security team will leave one man with Bryant at all times.

• Members of the security team will drive Bryant to practices, games and team functions.

The Dallas Cowboys may claim to be offering only "guidance," but anyone with half a brain knows these rules were imposed on Bryant with at least the implication that if he did not accept them, he would have to find another job.  As Tony Kornheiser stated on "Pardon the Interruption," Bryant is now effectively in a minimum security prison.

There is so much to be outraged about concerning this situation.  The racial undertones are obvious--why doesn't Rothlisberger have similar rules, especially since he used his private security team to help him rape women.  But this post is about the eroding boundaries between labor and capital.  Every worker in the United States should be irate that an employer would use its weight to impose these kinds of restrictions on a person's private life.  [By the way, can I get some Republican support here for respect of "private lives" and small government/capital control?]

The relationship between employers and laborers should be relatively simple.  Employers compensate laborers for output relevant to the product or service the employer provides.  That is it.  The employer's status as a worker's source of income does not entitle that employer to tell a worker how to spend her/his time, what beverages to drink, and definitely not when and whether s/he can be alone!  That's not an employer's business!  If a worker is breaking the law, we have police officers to enforce that.  It is not an employer's job to enforce the law.  An employer's power should start and end at the "shop-floor" door.

It truly disturbs me that more workers do not share my analysis of these events.  So many people are saying that this is Bryant's last chance and praising the NFL's increasingly Draconian disciplinary policies against players.  We need more worker solidarity!  We need to recognize that employers--i.e. big money capitalists--are claiming more and more authority over our lives.  They want to monitor our Facebook accounts, political activities, drinking habits, etc; and increasingly, they demand that we behave 24/7 according to bosses' interests.  Republicans have even offered bills giving employers control over whether female employees will have access to birth control through insurance.

ALL of the this is WAY over the line.  It's way past time we rose up as workers and demanded a stop to this madness.  Employers only have authority over workers when workers are at work!  [...and don't get me started about smart phones and how employers intrude on workers' time off.  That's a whole 'nother post.]

Free Writing On Impermanence

Free Writing on Impermanence

So I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on things that are supposed to last. Specifically, I am reading an article by Tushnet (1992) about how particularities (e.g. narratives, stories) relate to general principles as inscribed in law. And I’m reading about how science is constructed (Harding ?). What brings these together for me is my recent spiritual development, one of the lessons of which is learning to embrace impermanence, including the impermanence of “truths.” As Buddha is supposed to have said, truths are like rafts that carry us across unsteady waters. Once one reaches the other side, it senseless to continue carrying the raft forever. Likewise, it is senseless to hold to the same truths forever.

I am struck by the robustness of this particular lesson. Physical science is built around the notion of debunking firmly held assumptions and presumed laws. The same is true of social science, although we social scientists are better at debunking than building. It is odd, however, that change and flexibility are also spiritual laws. I come from a Christian tradition that constantly highlights the permanent: "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever," He never changes; our souls are eternal; one cannot add to the Word of God, which is complete and unchanging; etc. But these pronouncements obscure biblical teachings of embracing life as transitory. We are familiar with verses telling us life is short (e.g. like a vapor). But we have learned to wrap those teachings in with our fetish for the permanent (life is short therefore only be concerned about your eternal destination).

But I think the Bible, like other spiritual authorities, encourages us to embrace transition and impermanence. This is true in Jesus’ encouragement to the disciples in Matthew 6:33-34. His encouragement to take no thought of tomorrow reflects awareness that tomorrow “has enough trouble of its own.” In other words, troubles are temporary. We often preach that troubles are temporary, but we don’t preach the implication: the tools necessary for confronting today’s troubles may not apply to tomorrow’s troubles. Life is not like math. One lesson does not necessarily build directly upon the other.

We see the same in Jesus discussion of the Hebrew Law. We tend to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) as Jesus giving us the eternal truths underlying his apparent change in the interpretation of certain laws (e.g. You have read where it is written…but I tell you….). Pastors typically preach that Jesus’ interpretation is the one God always intended His people to receive and live by. In this way, Christians erase the notion that Jesus was introducing change. This is particularly odd given that Christians readily embrace the notion that Jesus changed our relationship to the Law generally. So on one hand, Jesus represents complete change (i.e. law as law for all God’s people to obey) and no change (i.e. Jesus as teacher of the law’s true meaning, eternal past and future).

But I digress. My point is that the Bible teaches transition and importance of letting go of “truths.” We can see this in the critical lesson of David eating the shewbread. Eating that bread was a capital offense, yet the priest, God, and Jesus all praise David for overlooking the law. David also entered the temple, despite having less than 10 generations of pure Jewish blood (his descent from Rehab meant that by law he could not legally enter the temple). But God overlooked the Law—before Jesus—and allowed David’s entry. The same is true of Jesus’ teaching about the Sabbath, that the Sabbath is created for man, not man for the Sabbath.

I think we have limited the teaching of the Sabbath too much. Indeed, there is nothing particular about Sabbath law. It is repeated, and thoroughly explained in the Hebrew Law and subsequent commentaries. It is one of the Ten Commandments. It claims to reflect, and be based in, the very creation process. The creation process, which grounds the argument of God’s legitimate rule over humanity (Romans 9). So, there can be no more central law than the law of the Sabbath, and yet, Jesus says it was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In other words, the law is there to help humanity. If humans’ immediate good/needs and the law conflict, then change/overlook the law. Change the law, no matter how central it is to our theology because the heart of theology is God’s goodwill relationship with humanity.

So then, my point is that law and religious teaching and the truths we learn over the course of our lives should not be used as Procrustean Beds. Truths are not fixed and permanent things we have to stretch or contort ourselves into fitting. Truths are tools God gives us to aid us along the journey of humanity. We have to have wisdom. Wisdom tells us when a truth is a useful guide and when a truth becomes a prison.

Returning then, to the Buddha’s analogy…we must learn when to use acquired truths and when to discard them in favor of ad hoc or new judgments. Carrying a raft (i.e. a truth) after crossing the river would make the rest of the journey that much harder, if not impossible. Learning to abide by truths and also to discard them is a common spiritual lesson. It matches with the notion that life is about the paradox of constant change. Embracing that lesson is a perfectly Christian thing to do, despite contemporary hegemonic Christians’ resistance to postmodernism, denominations’ new rules about who can be ministers, and other issues.

Recording a Lesson about Fear and Anxiety

Just recording a lesson here for myself.  After a week of unprecedented productivity, I suddenly couldn't write a single paragraph in 12 hours of trying last night.  I panicked, thinking my grace was gone and the anxiety had won out.  But, thank God, my therapist corrected me.  I am excited about the writing, and I am enjoying the process.  Thus the week of productivity.  It all stopped when I tried to finish (final edits) an article and submit it for publication.  Suddenly, no production.  My therapist said, it's because completing the project introduced my fears of having my writing rejected.  The only way to avoid the correction/rejection process is not to submit.  Of course, that is not an option for a professional academic.

So...I'm shifting my attention to recognizing a few things:

1. Academic review--even the fiercest rejection--is not that bad.  Certainly nothing to panic about.  Review is part of the profession, and it's part of joining any conversation.

2. Academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because it will reinforce God's attempts to help me walk in humility.

3. Academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because by confronting and surviving it, I will be far less likely to catastrophise the unknown the next time I finish up and submit an article.

4. Most importantly, academic review, including and especially rejection, will be a tremendous blessing to me because it is a reminder that my self concept, focus, and source for evaluation are not external.  The goal of my life is not to produce memorable and praiseworthy work.  The goal of my life is to manifest the me God created.  That means producing the best work I can as a reflection of who I am, not an attempt to impress the academy or anyone else.  

On Salvation, Spirit, and Grace

I feel compelled to write a note on God's lessons to me about salvation and grace.  (As a side note that has no clear doctrinal connection to this post, Bishop T.D. Jakes preached a great word about dimensions of grace today.  He worked from the story of Hannah, Samuel's mother [I Samuel 2:18-21].  I recommend his lesson to everyone.)

In my quiet times and through years of trials and therapy, God revealed a lesson I have never before understood.  This is my note on it.  Please feel free to comment with additions/suggestions/reactions.  This is as much a recording of the lesson for my future relearning as it is the opening of a conversation.

The lessons are in the Gospel of Matthew:

And Jesus said to them, "Watch out and beware of the [fn]leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." .... "How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the[fn]leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 6:6,11-12).  

The Pharisees and Sadducees are the teachers of the Old Testament Law.  The Pharisees are the "people's priests," whose sensitivity to the average person and avowed doctrines (e.g. resurrection from the dead, belief in active angels) resonate most closely with our own.  The Sadducees are official priests who run the temple and control Jewish government during Jesus time.  Their privileged position influenced their doctrine (e.g. no resurrection) and promoted abusive temple policies.  As Paul's experience demonstrates, the two camps were enemies.  Nevertheless, Jesus groups them together as problematic because their commitment to focussing on law rather than spirit blinded people to the gospel.  Their kind of legalism is described as "leaven" because the effects of even a little yeast seep through and affect the entire loaf of bread.  In other words, even a little legalism corrupts the gospel of Jesus.

Having warned us about the wrong perspective about the Law and means for salvation, Jesus doubles down on the point:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"  And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, [fn]Elijah; but still others, [fn]Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."  He [!] said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter answered, "You are [fn]the Christ, the Son of the living God."  And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon[fn]Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  (Matthew 16:13-17)

Jesus's question highlights the failings of legal teaching on two levels.  First, the Pharisees and Sadducees are both factually wrong.  They fail to correctly identify the Messiah.  (They also fail to identify John the Baptist as the Elijah who was to precede the Messiah. [Matt. 17:10-13])  Of course, even from a traditional Jewish perspective, failing to identify the Messiah is a HUGE problem.  Second, and most central to the lesson Jesus is teaching, is that the correct answer--that Jesus is the Christ, i.e. the Son of the living God, the Anointed One--is revealed to the disciples by Spirit (i.e. through the Father who is in heaven) and not through legal teaching.  The two failings of the teachers of the law are connected.  Failure to learn through spiritual revelation produces incorrect doctrine--even to the point of missing the single most important thing in Jewish teaching, namely the coming Messiah.  The failing of law is total.

Jesus reinforces the point by immediately anointing Peter on the basis of spiritual revelation ("this is the rock upon which I will build my church" [Matthew 6:18]) and then immediately rebuking him when Peter falls back to traditional legal teaching about what the Messiah will do ("Get behind me Satan..." because Peter expects political revolution and rejects Jesus's predictions of his crucifixion [Matthew 6:22-23]).

Jesus again illustrates His points brilliantly through His transfiguration:

Six days later Jesus [!] took with Him Peter and[fn]James and John his brother, and [!] led them up on a high mountain by themselves.  And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.  And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.  Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three [fn]tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah."  While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, "This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!"  When the disciples heard this, they fell [fn]face down to the ground and were terrified.  And Jesus came to them and touched them and said,"Get up, and do not be afraid."  And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone.  (Matthew 17:1-8) 

Through His transfiguration, Jesus proves: 1) He is neither the Law (Moses) nor the Prophets (Elijah), but the Messiah.  Jesus description of Himself, revealed to the disciples spiritually though hidden from legal teachers, is factually correct; and 2) Reliance on teachings of the Law will mislead disciples.  Peter's reaction to the transfiguration, namely wanting to build a tabernacle in each figure's honor, is appropriate given the Mosaic tradition.  But, without shaming Peter's proposal of worship, God nullifies Peter's legal reasoning by ending the transfiguration and thereby eliminating the possibility of building a tabernacle.  This is because: 1) Mosaic Law and Prophetic teaching are foreshadows of the Messiah, not His equals; and 2) reliance on legal tradition, even for insight on how to worship in this instance, was not the mode Jesus wanted to teach.  Jesus was emphasizing spirit and belief, which the Father emphatically supported, "Listen to Him!"  That's why, Jesus immediately follows the transfiguration with teachings about faith the size of a mustard seed and faith that moves mountains (Matthew 17:20).  


And then Jesus gives us a beautiful and fundamentally transformative teaching about spirit and faith: 

When they came to Capernaum, those who collected the [fn]two-drachma tax came to Peter and said, "Does your teacher not pay the [fn]two-drachma tax?"  He [!] said, "Yes." And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?"  When Peter said, "From strangers," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are [fn]exempt.  "However, so that we do not [fn]offend them, go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find [fn]a shekel. Take that and give it to them for you and Me."  (Matthew 17:24-27)

"Those who collect the two-drachma tax" are empowered by the Sadducees and are connected to temple worship.  The tax was a traditional sacrifice for entering the temple for festivals, holidays, and regular worship.  Peter--still not completely understanding Jesus's spiritual, rather than legal, emphasis--is slightly intimidated by the temple officials asking him if Jesus is an irreverent Jew, breaking the Law by not paying the tax.  Peter insists that Jesus follows the law and pays the temple tax.  


Because Peter does not recognize the spirit versus law conflict into which he has waded, he does not feel compelled to bring the question to the Christ.  Jesus has to initiate the lesson.  Jesus asks, "From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?"  And receiving the obvious answer, Jesus gives the point, "Then the sons are exempt."  In other words, Jesus is saying that our judgement and behavior should no longer be determined by law but by our relationship to God.  Just as earthly children receive grace-based, not law-based, treatment from their parents, so we as God's spiritual children receive grace-based, non-legal treatment from God.  Jesus is saying to Peter and us, if we understand our relationship to God, then the questions and teachings of law-based folk are revealed to be obviously silly and irrelevant.  The law exists, yes.  It teaches a way to approach God.  But it's crazy to think God's children would be subject to law!  We approach through grace and love, just like earthly children do.  


Then Jesus teaches Peter and us a more excellent way.  Jesus is not interested in causing debates or fights with the teachers of the law, but He is also not going to insult His relationship with God by acting as though He is bound by legalism.  Therefore, Jesus instructs Peter to miraculously get a coin out of a fish's mouth and pay the tax with that.  The miracle of the fish containing a coin shows that God the Father confirms Jesus's teaching and the special relationship we have as sons and daughters.  And here's the part I like most, Jesus specifies that the fish will contain enough payment "for you and Me!"  Hallelujah!!!  Jesus is making clear to us that the lesson is about spirit, not law.  Jesus does not claim exemption based on his sinlessness (i.e. being law abiding), but rather He says that we all can approach God without law because of our status as His children!  And all of this is confirmed by the fact that Jesus issues this teaching and calls Peter to abide by it before He has died and paid the blood penalty for our sins (which would have classified us all as exempt based on conferred sinlessness).  The relationship with God was granted to Peter through spirit and faith, just like Abraham was justified through faith.  God is consistent and beyond generous!  [Cue the organ!  Do your praise dance!]  


And so that we don't miss the point, Jesus doubles down again with the ultimate demonstration: 

At that [fn]time the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"  And He called a child to Himself and set him[fn]before them, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you [fn]are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  "And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.... (Matthew 18:1-5)

The disciples now understand that Jesus is offering a totally new paradigm from the Law teachings they grew up with, but they don't know how the new paradigm of salvation works.  So they ask an old paradigm-based question to explore the dimensions of the new paradigm of spirit and grace, "Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"  Jesus capitalizes on the moment to reemphasize that spirit and faith are all that matter.  He does this by using a literal child as an illustration and says, "...unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven...."  The key here is that children are intellectually incapable of understanding and affirming doctrine.  If Peter, the disciples, and people generally were saved through law or doctrinal affirmation--even the affirmation that Jesus is Messiah as made by Peter in Matt. 16:16--then Jesus would have had to use an adult who had correctly identified Him as Christ for the illustration.  But the entire illustration hinges on being "converted and becom[ing] like children" and thus leaving the adult world of affirmations and doctrinal analysis.  Instead we are to take on the characteristics of children, namely the spirit-based wild-eyed character of faith and belief, that is universal to children.  As children, we are perfectly capable of believing the wildest things (e.g. Santa Claus) without the slightest hesitation or doubt.  Children are perfectly trusting (though they often have spiritual discernment about evil people).  Children are completely disinterested in doctrinal debates.  God has unfettered access to their minds and hearts.  That is the character God calls us to adopt as adults.  It is not easy, especially in a culture like ours (deriving from the Greek influence Jesus also lived under).  It requires humility and getting comfortable with uncertainty.  But it is the only way God--whose ways "are beyond our ways," whose "judgments are beyond searching out [and whose ways are] unfathomable!" (Romans 11:33)--can reveal to us the things of His Spirit.  God's thoughts and ways are "beyond searching out" and "unfathomable."  In other words, there is no amount of studying or teaching or listening or church or Bible study or even imagination that can reveal to us the ways and insights of God.  We can only begin by emptying ourselves, becoming like little children again, and letting Him introduce us to supernatural Christ-ness.  


Oh My God!  For an intellectual like me, this is a tremendously difficult teaching.  But praise God!  I'm looking forward to trying to live it out.  I can't wait for all the things God will show me and the things God will do.  I will be meditating regularly in an effort to release the old wineskins of traditionalism and legalism in favor of the new wineskin of spirit and Christ-ness.  I am as clueless as anyone else on what to do or how to do it.  


I'll end with an invitation.  As the old preachers say, "Won't you come?"  

Ambiguity and the Writing Process

Ambiguity has been my arch nemesis throughout my life.  Since the earliest phases of elementary school, I have consciously avoided the ambiguous.  Give me 100 pages to read, but please don't ask me to clean my room.  I know when a book is finished, but when, exactly is a room "clean?"  And now, I find adulthood is a series of ambiguities.  And worse, yet, that my job is to confront the ultimate embodiment of ambiguity--the blank page.  To date, I the implicit task in my mind was figuring out what is supposed to be on a blank page and trying to write that.  Consequently, I wrote from an insecure place, and it manifested in my writing.  Now, I am transitioning from asking "what is supposed to be on a page" to simply delving into myself and representing whatever thoughts I have on the topic.  And that is a far superior project because what is in my head, in my mind, in my spirit, is not ambiguous.  It is sharp, clear, and valuable...And I know when it is finished...  :)