Kingdom - Part 4 - Leper

 

"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give." Matthew 10:8. New American Standard.

In this series, we've been talking about what Jesus meant by the phrase "kingdom of heaven." In the first post I gave an outline about the phrase and proposed that throughout the tenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus outlined what it looked like to "participate" in the kingdom of heaven. 

In the second part, I talked about what Jesus meant (as a first century Jew) by healing the sick, and in the third part I talked about what Jesus meant by "raising the dead." 

In this part of the series, I'd like to talk about what Jesus meant by "cleansing the lepers." But first, some language difficulties. 

The Hebrew word that we derive the word "leprosy" from is tsawrah'ath. In ancient Hebrew, the word was used to describe anything that had mold or mildew, or any person who had a skin disease. And according to ancient Hebrew, skin diseases as well as mold or mildew were considered unclean by the high priests. They were not to be contacted until they were ritually cleansed and considered "clean" by the high priest. 

And there were lists and lists of rules for things and people that were unclean. 

For example, 

"When a garment has a mark of leprosy in it, whether it is a wool garment or a linen garment, ⁴⁸whether in warp or woof, of linen or of wool, whether in leather or in any article made of leather, ⁴⁹if the mark is greenish or reddish in the garment or in the leather, or in the warp or in the woof, or in any article of leather, it is a leprous mark and shall be shown to the priest. ⁵⁰"Then the priest shall look at the mark and shall quarantine the article with the mark for seven days. ⁵¹"He shall then look at the mark on the seventh day; if the mark has spread in the garment, whether in the warp or in the woof, or in the leather, whatever the purpose for which the leather is used, the mark is a leprous malignancy, it is unclean. ⁵²"So he shall burn the garment, whether the warp or the woof, in wool or in linen, or any article of leather in which the mark occurs, for it is a leprous malignancy; it shall be burned in the fire. ⁵³"But if the priest shall look, and indeed the mark has not spread in the garment, either in the warp or in the woof, or in any article of leather, ⁵⁴then the priest shall order them to wash the thing in which the mark occurs and he shall quarantine it for seven more days. ⁵⁵"After the article with the mark has been washed, the priest shall again look, and if the mark has not changed its appearance, even though the mark has not spread, it is unclean; you shall burn it in the fire, whether an eating away has produced bareness on the top or on the front of it. ⁵⁶"Then if the priest looks, and if the mark has faded after it has been washed, then he shall tear it out of the garment or out of the leather, whether from the warp or from the woof; ⁵⁷and if it appears again in the garment, whether in the warp or in the woof, or in any article of leather, it is an outbreak; the article with the mark shall be burned in the fire. ⁵⁸"The garment, whether the warp or the woof, or any article of leather from which the mark has departed when you washed it, it shall then be washed a second time and will be clean." ⁵⁹This is the law for the mark of leprosy in a garment of wool or linen, whether in the warp or in the woof, or in any article of leather, for pronouncing it clean or unclean." Leviticus 13:47-59. New American Standard.

 This is quite a set of instructions, and this is for a mark on fabric!

Now, another note. When this Bible was translated, there wasn't a word for this sort of thing. The people who met together to decide what was to go into our modern Bible got together, they decided to use the term "leper" to describe "marks, stains, or skin problems." It was a convenient way for them to go about it since leprosy was a real disease in their world and there was no cure. And lepers were society's stain. 

They decided to use real people with real medical conditions to blanket over anything in the old testament that had to do with stains, skin, or mildew. If it sounds unfair and discriminatory then you're on the right track. 

As a first century Jew living in Rome, you didn't have the word leprosy. Instead, you had rules and laws that pertained to different types of situations in real life. So, if you had a skin disease, the only word you had for it was "unclean." And here's what the rules were for skin diseases:

 "When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling or a scab or a bright spot, and it becomes an infection of leprosy on the skin of his body , then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. 3 "The priest shall look at the mark on the skin of the body , and if the hair in the infection has turned white and the infection appears to be deeper than the skin of his body , it is an infection of leprosy; when the priest has looked at him, he shall pronounce him unclean. 4 "But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body , and it does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair on it has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate him who has the infection for seven days. 5 "The priest shall look at him on the seventh day, and if in his eyes the infection has not changed and the infection has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him for seven more days. 6 "The priest shall look at him again on the seventh day, and if the infection has faded and the mark has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a scab. And he shall wash his clothes and be clean." Leviticus 13:1-6. New American Standard.

Since there wasn't a cure for skin diseases in ancient times, diseases were thought to be a sign of disdain from the gods. And the only way to make the gods happy was to go through the detailed, tedious process of making the gods happy again. And the only way to make the gods happy was through the high priest of the village. The high priest was the mouthpiece for god. 

Fast forward to modern day 2015. 

Who are the "unclean" in American society? 

It shouldn't take long to figure that one out. Homosexuals. Transgenders. Lesbians. Queers.

I have to give it up to the majority of society and the government though for moving way faster than the American church on pronouncing our LGBTQ communities as "clean." The church just doesn't get it yet, and mostly because of severe misinterpretation and literalism. 

Jesus however had a completely different objective in mind. He seemed to know that the ancient scriptures were inherently misguided on the subject. He seemed to know that stains and disease didn't keep people from connecting with the divine. He seemed to have a very postmodern view of some outdated rules and regulations that he himself would have known pretty well. And he seemed to know that a high priest didn't stand between anyone's relationship with the divine. 

Skin disease back then was a threat to the established religious system. If skin disease was a sign that the gods were angry, then there had to be a way to get the gods happy again. No one wants to live in a city where the gods are angry all the time, so find a way to make people clean and cast them on the outskirts of the city in the meantime. 

Just as in ancient times with leprosy, the mainstream religious ideology holds that the LGBTQ community is a "threat" to the established, archaic, outdated, and bogus system that says the gods are angry with certain people but favor others. Everybody's vying for their position with the gods, and making sure to let the gods know who's unclean. While it has a modern look with all the technological advances we have today, the message is still the same as it was in ancient times. Whatever or whoever is not considered natural or homogenous with the mainstream religious context must be a red flag that the gods are ready to strike at any moment. 

And Jesus turns that idea upside down. He throws it out. He declares it nil and void. So why is it taking so long for the church to follow suit? 

That's a question I don't have the answer for, and it's not worth diving into here. 

Jesus says that to experience the "kingdom of heaven" is to throw out the whole system of "clean and unclean." There are no longer insiders and outsiders, saved and unsaved, clean and unclean. There is no longer a high priest (or a pastor, minister, reverend, etc.) standing in the way between us and God. We have direct access regardless of the condition of our skin or the condition of our sexuality. We are humans seeking to connect with the unspeakable and the mysterious nature of God. 

So, to "cleanse the leper" means to start pronouncing people as clean. And how does that work? It starts by pronouncing myself as "clean." If I believe the gods are angry with somebody else because of their way of life, what does that say about me? It means I still have a remnant of a decaying ideology inside of my mind, distorting the way I view the world and its people. If I can't see my own worth before the divine, then I won't see anybody else's worth before the divine. 

It starts with me. Once I pronounce myself as clean, and believe it, and start living it, I'll begin to see everybody else in a totally different light. 

I once was just as bigoted and prejudiced as the next person. I laughed at homosexuality because I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a way of attracting attention. I wrote it off as "daddy issues." I still held the remnants of "Sodom and Gemorrah" literalistic thinking and saw the world through that lens. 

But that all changed. It turned on its head. Thanks to a couple of friends, I was introduced to the reality that everyone is clean and everyone has direct access to that which they call God. 

And thanks to the teachings of Jesus, I was introduced to the notion that no high priest or religious law will ever determine where I stand with God. Ever. 

Kingdom - Part 3 - "Raise the Dead"

 

"Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously." Matthew 10:8. The Message.

Welcome back! Today's makes the second part of a multiple part series on what Jesus was talking about when he talked about "the kingdom of heaven." Some people like to call it the "kingdom of God," and I think they're interchangeable. 

In the introduction, I argued that the kingdom of heaven wasn't about Christianity, but Judaism. It wasn't about the afterlife, but the here and now. It wasn't about converting people through words, but loving on people through action. And on Tuesday, I argued that healing the sick was not this hocus-pocus way of making broken bones restructure on their own or disease automatically disappear, but simply serving the weak and powerless. 

And today, we're going to talk about raising the dead. 
 . . . Yes, I know, as soon as you read that sentence you wanted to shut down the computer and call it a day. But, lets talk about that reaction before we move on. 

What inside you caused you to want to shut down the computer and move to bigger and better things than reading some dumbass's blog on raising the dead? My next question is, what are the odds that you're the only person on this blue planet that wants to shut their computer down every time they hear some blogger talking about raising the dead? (Not very good.)

Now lets take it a step further. If you were Jesus, do you think you'd say . . . I'm just kidding. But really, isn't it odd that Jesus says some things in the 1st century that really turn people off in the 21st century. You'd think that since Jesus is God, he would've supernaturally captured the focus and attention on every human being who ever opened the Bible. You'd think he'd have wooed even the most A.D.D. of us and blown us away with his outlines for living. After all, a God who turned into a man would've been the best, most flawless, most knowledgeable teacher around. He never would've had a problem with boring his students. 

Yet, I can see the yawns happening right now. Oh wait, are you sleeping?? Wake up!

And if I were to take a survey on people's responses when they hear the phrase "raise the dead," I'm pretty sure 99% of the answers would be found in the metaphorical realm. Just a guess but I'll never know until I take a survey. Sounds fun. 

And so, I think you know where I'm heading with this phrase based on what I've said so far, and here's my reasoning:

1. I haven't seen anyone raise from the dead.
2. Although traditional Judaism believes death is not the end of human life, it has very little to say about the subject. After all, Jesus was a Jew, so why would he be so inclined to talk so much about dead people coming to life again?
3. Matthew's Gospel was written approximately thirty four years (at least) after Jesus's death, so by that time there were many non-Jewish ideas that had already entered their way into Jesus's kind of Jewishness - one of those being raising the dead.
4. Science has evolved in so many ways sine the first century, and raising people from the dead evidently isn't one of those ways.

I had an astronomy professor once who began each class with the same phrase: "Suspend your beliefs." He knew that if each of us didn't suspend our beliefs about how the universe worked, we wouldn't learn anything. He knew that he was going to show us things that didn't fit within our philosophical frameworks.  And he was right. I credit him for teaching me that simple but profound little concept. By suspending my beliefs, I was able to see something bigger, something more profound, something greater than I could've ever seen through my philosophical ways of doing things. 

And that's where my journey of losing religion began. And, I'd like to add a disclaimer: I call myself a Christian who leans heavy on the agnostic side because I still believe in God, Jesus, and that infamous little bugger the Holy Casper, I mean Ghost. I haven't lost them. However, I'm intentionally losing the boxes that Christianity and every other religion places around them. 

One of my favorite new found authors - John Shelby Spong - puts it this way: "In order to move into a heightened state of awareness and spirituality, we have to move beyond religion and out to the great unknown." That's from his book, Eternal Life: A New Vision. 

I tend to agree. 

It's not that I'm tired of seeking God or trying to implement the practices that Jesus outlined in the scriptures, or trying to deny the "spirit" inside of me. It's just that I'm tired of letting dogma and doctrine define how they all work and how I'm supposed to interact with them. I have an unquenchable thirst for God, the teachings of Jesus, and the "still, small voice" inside of me, but religious doctrine tends to force me to take on the "gallon challenge" instead of taking it one sip at a time at my own pace. 

And so, on to raising the dead. 

I know what it's like to be spiritually dead. I know what it's like to be stuck in this never ending loop of "God hates me today, maybe he'll love me tomorrow." And part of that loop is, calling God "he." Spiritual death for me looks like having no purpose, no meaning, and a lot of depression. It looks like having a ton of fear that's driving me to do insane things. It looks like picking up a thirty-pack of Lone Star at HEB and saying "fuck it all." 

That's spiritual death for me. 

And, because I live in the 21st century, I have access to a whole lot of information, and because I'm human, I tend to look at history through a lens of my own experiences. Hence, when I talk about spiritual death today, I don't see it being much different this century as it would've looked in the first century. 

People have always searched for truth. People have always searched for meaning. People have always put labels on what they consider "God." The only difference between now and then is the circumstances that led to spiritual death. I believe spiritual death is the same for the agnostic as it is for the Christian. It's the same for the Jew as it is for the Muslim. 

It's this sensation that life has no meaning. And there were people in Jesus's days who saw life as meaningless, just as today there are people who see life as meaningless. 

And that is who I believe Jesus was aiming the instruction of "raise the dead" to. 

Try to wake up the folks who see life as meaningless and purposeless. 

And that's what I think is the main undertone of all of Jesus's messages. Wake up the dead. Show them there's more to life than what they're currently experiencing. 

So what did it look like for me to "raise from the dead?" It looked like getting dead first. It looked like drinking myself to oblivion while hoping the God of my understanding didn't smite me. It looked like making sacrifices to this God every morning in the form of prayer and memorizing scriptures in order get this God to atone for my drinking the night before. It looked like that process eventually halting and hitting a dead end. It looked like not being able to even get up in the morning to atone for my bad deeds. It looked like entering a state of complete loneliness, hopelessness, and loss. 

Dead. 

And the rising part? I don't look at it as a "one moment I'm dead and the next moment I'm alive" kind of thing. I'm still rising. I'm still losing my burial clothes. I'm still shaking off those nasty, smelly rags and washing off those pungent embalming fluids that follow me wherever I go. But, that's life right?

Life for me began (I call it my A.A. birthday) when I first got the notion that I needed to discover what it was inside of me that was off. And boy were there a lot of things inside of that were off. There still are. I'm still rising. And so, with the help of other alcoholics, I was able to begin the life-long process of shaking off those smelly rags, those burial clothes. I was also able to start shaking off those life-long misguided conceptions of the God-who-doesn't-accept-me-like-I-am. 

I had to find my own conception of God before I could get to the Jesus part. I had to re-define the Jesus part before I could get to the Holy Casper - Spirit - part. 

And so, what I believe Jesus is talking about when he tells his disciples to "raise the dead" is to go and try to wake up every spiritually dead person you come across. Talk to them. Dialogue with them. Find a common ground with them. Help them. Invite them into your life and share everything with them. Don't condemn them, but urge them to start shaking off those old burial clothes that are keeping everybody away. Tell them they have their own faith journey and don't have to let religion define who God is for them.

Kingdom - Part 2 - "Heal the Sick"

 

"Heal the sick . . ." Matthew 10:8. The New American Standard.

I'm really excited about today's post, because it's the first time I've ever done something like this. I've never actually done a series on "kingdom of heaven," so it's exhilarating to get to do this. Now, I'll tell you this: this series will probably be different than any other series you've heard on this topic, or it may be old news to you. 

This is how it works: I don't know. In my mind, I imagine a perfectly outlined flow and rhythm and a connection between each of these posts. That's my hope. Last post, I got a hunch that Jesus was about to unload a bunch of info on what it looks like to participate in "the kingdom of heaven." This phrase is so packed full of richness that it's driven people to do some pretty crazy things, right? From the first Christians to Constantine to faith healing to the Inquisition to going on mission trips to speaking in tongues to picketing abortion clinics to advocating for gay marriage, this phrase has stirred the hearts of countless truth seekers for centuries. 

And I believe we get a pretty good picture of what Jesus meant by this profound phrase if we just dig a little deeper. As I stated last post, I believe Jesus gave the outline of what this phrase means in Matthew chapter ten, and my aim is to turn it over, look at it, question it, doubt it, criticize it, and understand in the best way I can what exactly he was talking about.

But, in order to do so, I believe we have to place ourselves in the shoes of a first century Jew in order to even come close to extracting the meaning behind this oft-misquoted and misused phrase.

And the first directive associated with Jesus's phrase is heal the sick.

So, are you ready? 

Shall we move on?

Ok, here we go.

First - two new words (or, really old words that are probably new to you).

Therapeuo (does this word sound familiar?) It means to serve or to do service. 

So, to therapeuo the sick means to serve or do service to the sick. Still with me? Good.

The second word is astheneo. It means to be weak, feeble, without strength, powerless. 

Therapeuo the astheneo, 

or,

Serve or do service for the weak, feeble, those without strength, and those who are powerless. 

In other words, heal the sick. 

Now, a little history lesson on sickness in the 1st century Roman world: living in first century Rome was challenging (an understatement). Life expectancy for men was around 35 years, and for women it was even less. It is known today that unless you had a lot of money (which you most likely didn't), you didn't have access to the finer things in life like clean water, private toilets, and street sewage. Things just weren't clean back then. Sanitation was a concept that just wasn't off the ground yet. 

However, there was medicine, and there were scientific breakthroughs happening in the first century. But medicine for the most part was a mix of science and religion. Medicine was more therapeutic than anything, although there were some surgical tools that had been developed and were in the process of being developed. 

So, it was common to go to the doctor and to get prescribed some kind of herb that was attributed to combating whatever illness you had, and it was also common to get prescribed a therapeutic bath. 

Now all throughout Rome, there were bathhouses, and these bathhouses served several purposes. One, people actually bathed in them (yes, together), and two, the waters of said bathhouses were claimed to have healing properties (not sure how much healing was actually involved since they were probably full of bacteria). 

And, as a Roman citizen (whether you were a Jew or not), you would've heard the name Asklepion  being thrown around. It may have been used in a sentence like, "Dude, you're sick. You'd better get to the pool so Asklepion can make you better." 

If you haven't figured it out yet, Asklepion was the Roman god of healing. 

Still with me? Good. 

Now, a story.

I was in a small group that met every Saturday night. And every Saturday night, we would come together, share a meal, and draw a piece of paper out of a hat. On these slips of paper were what everyone had written down as their favorite things to do. And one of the favorite things to do was to visit this local nursing home. 

And so, we visited this local nursing home. And, we met a sweet lady who was full of energy, love, and rebelliousness. Yes, she was rebellious. She also carried around an oxygen tank because she had severe breathing problems. When we told her about how we'd get together every Saturday night, she asked if she could join us. And so, we started picking her up every Saturday. We did all sorts of things together: played board games, went to dinner, went to the symphony . . . and she loved it. She loved it because she was normally stuck, without visitors, in the nursing home. 

Every time we took her back, she couldn't wait for the next adventure with the group. And it seemed like, every time we took her out, she turned into a new person. We got to see a side of her that we'd never see inside the nursing home. 

After about a year of taking her on our wild adventures, we got word that she'd passed away one night. While it caught all of us off guard, we couldn't help but think about all the memories that we'd created with her. She'd done so much to contribute to our outings, our fellowship, and our well-beings. The time we got so spend with her in the last year was rich, exciting, fun, and full of purpose.

It was full of Therapeuo-ing the astheneo.

Now, back to Jesus. 

I believe Jesus was directing this message to both the Jews and the Romans. As a weak and powerless person, access to the Jewish temple was pretty much cut off. And being sick and powerless had a very religious taboo associated with it. It was thought among the Jewish leaders that if you were sick, then it was your way of paying for past sins or your parents' past sins. And so, instead of getting to join with the other Jews and participating in the regular Jewish traditions, you were left to "deal" with your sins through your sickness. 

And as a sick Roman, your chances of getting well were slim to none. You had to hope that the god Asklepion would heal you, and so you'd be willing to go to any length to let the waters of Asklepion wash over your ailing body. 

So, being a sick Jew who lived in Rome was not a good time. 

You were an outcast on both fronts - religion and culture. 

And this brings us back full circle. 

Jesus - by introducing the human being as a means of healing - essentially says that neither the god Asklepion nor religion is going to make you well. 

People can help you get well. 

And so, for Jesus, the first part of participating in "the kingdom of heaven" was serving the powerless.

Therapeuo-ing the astheneo.

Healing the sick.

So, what does healing the sick look like today for those of us who aren't physicians (I'm assuming the majority of Jesus's audience weren't doctors)? It looks like noticing the weak, the feeble, those without strength, and those who are powerless. It looks like serving them. It looks like taking them out for coffee, sharing a conversation, going to the symphony, and playing board games. It looks like physically taking them out of the dark and bringing them into the world of adventure and energy. 

It's about bringing our imagined concepts of heaven to earth. For Jesus, it was about restoring a broken world, not making it more broken.

At the end of this month, my wife and I are going to participate in the Houston pride parade. I've never done it and never even thought about doing it. Until now. We'll be joining our church, marching, and she'll be driving the leading float. And I believe that we'll get a taste of what Jesus was talking about. I believe we'll get to experience what it looks like to serve those who've been cast aside for far too long by religion and culture. 

As we go out today to our jobs, our families, and our friends, may we notice the weak, the feeble, and the powerless. May we aware that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand," and that we absolutely get to take a part in healing the sick. Grace and peace.

Kingdom - Part 1

"As as you go, preach, saying 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Matthew 10:7. New American Standard.

Over the last year, I've become infatuated with the hit HBO series, "Game of Thrones." In this fantasy fiction, multiple kings are vying to take the Iron Throne of King's Landing, and so far every attempt at overtaking the throne has failed. To me, the show opens my mind not only to the concept of kings and kingdoms, but to the diversity of philosophies that drive each king or queen to capture the main throne. 

Since I live in America and not a kingdom, it's hard to imagine the kingdom culture that the author of Matthew had Jesus talking about so much. The kingdom culture then revolved around the throne of Rome - the ever-growing, ever-expanding, and power-driven empire that sought to rule the world. If the author of Matthew was writing today in America, he might call it the "goverment of heaven" or the "rule of heaven."

No one really knows what the author of Matthew, Mark, or Luke were talking about when they coined the terms, but many have interpreted what they may have meant. And this is my interpretation of that oft confusing phrase. 

In my belief, Jesus was a Jew and he was mostly talking to Jews. While his message was intended for everybody "who has ears," his audience was mostly Jewish. So, we have to try to understand the kingdom of heaven through 1st century Jewish eyes. For the 1st century Jew, rule came in two levels - the rule of Rome and the rule of the religious leaders. In the Hebrew scriptures, the term "kingdom of heaven" is never used, so this would've been a new concept to Jesus's Jewish audience. 

Now, to talk about a "rule of heaven" or "rule of God" while living in the midst of a powerful ruling Roman presence was tricky business, but Jesus insisted nevertheless. He believed there was an alternative route to falling prey to both forms of reign. And that way was what was deemed the "kingdom of heaven." 

It's a stretch for us Americans since we live in a mostly free society, but for some people, the reign of Rome and religion translate to the American reign of government and religion. While I don't believe the context of modern political and religious culture comes anywhere close to the context of Jesus's kingdom culture, we can sort of see a glimpse of what he was talking about. To some people, the burden of high taxes represent a sort of government tyranny, and for others the marriage of religion and politics represent a sort of tyranny. Either way, there is more than one way to interpret this saying of Jesus because the truth is not known. It is a belief system as of yet.

My belief is that the idea of the "kingdom of heaven"has left its Jewish roots to evolve into a Christian version of transcendence. Since there is no comparison between American government and religious rule today with that of yesterday, the idea has evolved to take on a more eschatological appeal. Since times have changed along with the exit (for the most part) of tyrannical kingdoms and religious parties, mainstream Christianity has whittled the term down to encapsulate the afterlife and even a more conservative version of a literal reign of a heavenly God over the earth. In this version, Jesus will come back and rule in person, placing a judgment on every human being who ever lived. But I believe the ideas of "Jesus the judge" and "God the ruler" have evolved from the human experience of earthly authority. 

You reap what you sow on earth, so why not in heaven? Or, you do the crime, you do the time.

Except in this case, the time includes a trip to eternal hell which includes an added misery of conscious torment. God, being the ultimate ruler, will line everyone up at some point and stand them on trial for their life's accomplishments and misdeeds. The ledger will reveal all God needs to know in order to make the final decision.  

So, Jesus's "kingdom of heaven," I believe, has evolved into an extra-sensory and extra-physical experience that takes place somewhere else rather than right here and now. And I don't believe Jesus intended for his use of the phrase (if he even used it) to have anything to do with anything outside of the physical reality of life on planet earth among us humans. 

In that case, what did Jesus mean when he talked about such things?

First of all, I believe his message was intended for everyone whether they were devout Jews or adamant pagans (non-Jews or non-religious folks). So, it wasn't an exclusive idea for the spiritual elite. It was an idea that involved everyone who was sick and tired of being sick and tired of feeling that their lives were run by the bogus systems of this world. Those bogus systems took flesh and blood form of real government tyranny and real religious tyranny. And he offered an alternative - a path of transcendence that took one's mind off the current bogus systems and turned one's mind to the altruistic dimension of life. 

Jesus encapsulated the crux of this phrase through his infamous Sermon on the Mount. This great sermon wasn't so much a list of commands as it was a new identity for those who were seeking a way out of the systems they'd fallen so prey to. Jesus was introducing his audience to a new reality - one that turned the mind to the abundance of blessings that were found by acknowledging not the Roman way of life or the religious way of life as the ways to spiritual transcendence, but the way of altruism as the key to opening one's heart to experience the divine.

So for Jesus, the kingdom of heaven wasn't about eschatology or mysticism, but about flesh-and-blood, practical, love of neighbor. A simple concept, but easier said than done. 

Jesus, throughout chapter ten of the gospel of Matthew, seems to outline what this "kingdom of heaven" lifestyle looks like, and over the next series of posts, I'll be diving into what these different aspects look like both for the culture of his time and the culture of ours. I hope you join me on this journey, as it's my first time to take this sort of look at this often misconstrued phrase which I believe outlined the heart and soul of Jesus's message.

Conversion

"These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: 'Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.'" Matthew 10:5-6. New International Version.



I once went on a mission trip to Alamo, Texas to deliver school supplies to the very poor population of people who lived there. I remember distinctly on the way there, as we were traveling down a dusty road, passing a weird looking house. It stood alone, and had all kinds of trinkets and crosses hanging from the roof of the porch.

As we passed the house, the leader of the trip announced to everybody on the bus that "this is the house of a witch." 

As I stared at the house, I was fascinated with the idea of seeing the house of a witch. From all the movies I'd seen, the only thing I knew about witches was they flew around on broomsticks and were only out at night. But later that view was changed when I watched Robin Hood. That movie showed me that witches didn't really fly around on broomsticks, but sat around and made potions with eggs, blood, and hair. 

So as we passed by the witch's house, I imagined there was an old, decrepid lady inside swirling her finger around in a pot of eggs, blood, and hair, placing a curse on the passing van of missionaries. 

As a young teen, I had no experience with witches in real life, so the announcement about the witch was surely a way to keep it that way. The leader might as well have said, "Stay away from the witch's house, because bad things will happen to those who go near it."

According to the author of the scripture above, the Jewish people had their own version of witches - Gentiles (people who didn't follow Judaism) and Samaritans (Jewish people who claimed the sanctuary of God was at Mount Gerizim and not Jerusalem). 

If I were to translate this passage into modern, Christianese terms, it would sound something like this: "Do not go among the atheists or enter any town of the Mormons. Go rather to the lost sheep of Christianity." And not surprisingly, this is a pretty fair account of how things really have played out.

I will say one thing that strikes me as odd, even though it doesn't really fit in with what I'm trying to write. After all the writing we have about what Jesus said and did, why don't we have anything written by Jesus himself? Is there some lost memoir hidden beneath the sand dunes in the Middle East, waiting to be unearthed? In a way, I hope to never find anything written by Jesus, because I'd hate to find out that he really said some of the things that have been written. And this passage is one of those things. 

Why would the author of Matthew 10:5-6 want to have Jesus telling Israel to only carry his message to Israelites? Why not non-Jews? Why not people who believed a hair differently than the "one true clan?"

Judging from the passage, there must have been a less than harmonious relationship between Jesus' Jews and the surrounding territories. Possibly, there's a hint by the author of exclusivity or racism. Maybe the outsiders wouldn't understand the message of Jesus, or maybe they'd be offended, and Jesus didn't want to stir up controversy with the neighbors. 

Regardless of why this passage was written, it's plain to the reader that the Jews were to keep it in the family. No venturing outside the familial lines to "the witch's house." Bad things happen to those who go there. 

If this were to be taken literally (which as a Christian it can't be taken literally since Christians weren't who Jesus was talking to), then it would obviously mean that people outside the Christian tradition weren't to be bothered with, right? 

But it's so contradictory to Jesus' overall theme of carrying the good news to the ends of the earth. 

Just like in one of my previous posts, I deem this passage as an example of 1st century prejudice. If it was written by Matthew, it was written at least sixty years after Jesus died. Streams of reformed Judaism (or Christianity) would've been sprouting up throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. And no doubt, the author was one of the ringleaders of the Christian tradition. So, when he (or she) wrote "the lost sheep of Israel," he must have meant "those Jews who have yet to become Christian." 

The roof of Israel kept housed two siblings who didn't get along - the Jews and the reformed Jews. To the author, Jesus wanted the reformed Jews to work on converting all the traditional Jews before they ventured out to the outsider nations. 

But I have such a hard time believing that Jesus's program was about conversions. I have an equally hard time picturing Jesus even caring about religious beliefs. I, however, don't find it surprising to find early Christians painting a picture of "one true religion," that excludes those outside of the tradition. 

Jesus was known for going into the darkest, most sordid places to bring light and hope and love where it didn't previously exist. He was famous for congregating with the sick, the poor, and the despised, which usually meant venturing way outside the normal Jewish social boundaries. Jesus single-handedly abolished social norms everywhere he went. So why was the author of Matthew so intent on keeping Christianity inside of social norms that Jesus worked so hard to eradicate?

I think it's because at some point after Jesus died, the message transformed into a tool for conversion, but the conversion wasn't about showing compassion to the world as much as it was about getting people to believe in the right things. Get as many people as you can to join the clan, and you'll have yourself an empire in no time. You'll have an unshakeable, unwavering, powerful hold on religion, society, and politics. Onward Christian soldiers. 

From what I see, the powerful, unshakeable, unwavering force we call the Christian church is still alive and strong in the conversion arena. There's no doubt about it. But I wonder, will it ever transform back into the way of Jesus? Will it ever get back to the point where the message is less about believing the right things and more about sharing a common humanity and bringing string-less love and compassion to the Gentiles and Samaritans or the atheists and Mormons. 

I think only time will tell, but it's not gonna happen within the powerful, unwavering streams of mainline Christianity. It'll happen on the outskirts. It'll happen on the margins. It'll happen where beliefs aren't so rigid and headstrong that they exclusivise Jesus's message. It'll happen where Christians are meeting atheists and actually dialoguing about what the future looks like and how they can together make the dreams of Jesus and Ghandi come to fruition. It'll happen where Christians and Muslims are sharing dinner together, talking about how they can finally bring peace to each others lands. It'll happen where Christians start sharing stories with Mormons and start finding that they share more in common than previously thought. It'll happen where the doctrines of eschatology are being replaced with doctrines of hospitality, and doctrines of original sin are being replaced with doctrines of everyone's in. It'll happen where doctrines of just war and being replaced with doctrines of just peace. 

No, I won't buy into the ideology that Jesus had bones to pick with the outsiders or conversion programs outlined for the unbelievers. That's just not the Jesus I see and envision.

Harvest

"Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. 'What a huge harvest!' he said to his disciples. 'How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands!'" Matthew 9:35-38. The Message.

When I was in my teens, I went on several mission trips to Mexico. I think I've been there at least ten times in fact, doing everything from handing out tracts to shingling roofs. And I'll never forget this one trip. From what I remember, we'd brought with us a huge trailer fully equipped with stadium style sound equipment. Evidently, since the translators were few, speaking louder English would help the poor Mexicans understand what was being said. 

And so, the first task was to get as many pounds of rice and beans to the villagers as possible. And while doing that, hand out Spanish invitations to the middle-class white American version of Vacation Bible School. 

Looking back, the logistical nightmare of herding hundreds of people into one centralized spot was simplified through many years of practice. If you could get them all to take their kids to VBS, you could plant the sound equipment with a loud and obnoxious man preaching right in the middle of the crowd. And so the process was flawless. There was a harvest and we had the workers, so there was no better way than to lure in the fruits of the harvest with brightly wrapped pieces of candy. Never mind that the loud and obnoxious man yelling into the microphone wasn't speaking English. As long as people heard the message, the spirit would translate for them. And after the spirit would translate for them, they would willingly oblige to walk down the aisle and get saved. 

Saved from what?

Saved from the inevitable fiery and tormenting destination they were all headed to if they didn't let the words of the loud and obnoxious man ring their eardrums and awaken them to the reality that heaven was waiting. 

The harvest was plentiful that day. The gum and the candy and the tracts and the loudspeaker all worked just as planned, and many hearts accepted a Jesus whose soul responsibility was to save souls from hell and damnation and guarantee them a place in paradise. 

It usually shouldn't take more than five days to make all this happen, and the people should be set up to start doing the good work of gathering their own harvests after the white Americans leave. 

That's the mission trip I grew up with. Lure 'em in, save some souls, and get the heck outta dodge so you can get home and tell the church about it. 

From what I understand, this is still the basic outline of how mission trips work today, with the exception of some additional humanitarian work thrown in as part of the bait and switch. But my question is, "Is this really what Jesus meant by 'the harvest is plentiful but workers are few'"?

 You've probably guessed that I don't think this is what Jesus meant. 

As far as I know, Jesus didn't need to lure anybody in to hear the message he was preaching. He didn't need to throw tricks to catch people's attention. He was almost a lone wolf save the hesitant disciples who I think were more confused by his antics than anything else. 

Jesus looked upon a city that needed a shepherd, not an authority figure. He saw a population of people who were convinced they needed the religious elites and government authorities to tell them how to live in order to find the good life. But Jesus saw underneath the surface. He saw what the religious elites and Roman authorities were doing to the people. They were manipulating them to the point of getting something in return. The lure of the manipulation was so sweet and so promising that the people didn't even know they were following a dead end road. 

The taxes - both temple and state - were bearing down on the lower classes. The religion of the times told them to give, give, give, and in the process they'd be smiled upon by both God and government. Caesar was Lord and so was the temple sacrifice. The business of saving souls was already a staple when Jesus arrived on the scene. And the religious leaders had found a way to convince the people that if they could just hope in a better place after death, they wouldn't be so concerned about the horrible place they were living in currently. 

And Jesus knew this. He knew it because he'd grown up with it. He knew the peasant life. He knew the religious life. He knew the political life. He'd seen how the temple authorities demanded much but offered little. He'd seen how the government demanded higher and higher taxes in exchange for "peace." He'd seen the torment involved in having to choose between paying the temple tax or eating dinner that night. 

So was Jesus really about joining in with the same crowd of people, preaching the same message of theological escapism, or was he about digging into this life so fully that once you got around the facade of status quo, you stepped into a completely different "dimension" of existence that welcomed in qualities like peace, trust, compassion, and love?

I go with the latter. Jesus wasn't about saving souls and gathering as many people as he could find to save more souls. 

He was about teaching people how to become fully human. He wasn't about going to other neighborhoods and telling people they needed to change their lifestyles, or telling people they needed to pray a prayer, or getting people to walk down the aisle and ask him into their hearts. 

He was about teaching people how to go deeper right where they were. And to go deeper for him meant to acknowledge that real oppression existed throughout their daily lives, but also real beauty. Real manipulation was happening all around them, but also truth. 

Jesus had a message for the peasant, the tax collector, and the Roman soldier. It didn't matter how deep into the bogus world system the person was. He had a message that transcended all of that. And he pointed to a God who lived within and not without. He pointed to a God that could be discovered by digging deeply into one's own heart. He pointed to a God that didn't demand taxes or sacrifices, but that resonated with the heartbeat of a common humanity. 

He pointed people to the God that they'd already experienced glimpses of - the still, small voice inside that most of the time got blotted out by the loudspeakers of religion and state, sacrifice and taxes. 

So, as a follower of Jesus, how do I interpret his message of gathering harvesters in today's world?

Help people awaken to the presence that's already within - the ultimate reality that's already dwelling within their own hearts and minds. Help people lose their fear of death, and gain courage to embrace this life fully to the point that life is made of millions of loosely strung moments in which the divine intersects the humane. 

The harvest is plentiful but I'm afraid the workers are few. You see, Jesus wasn't so caught up in the religious game that he saw people as unsaved or saved, lost or found, Jew or non-Jew, heaven or hell bound. He saw people as deeply emotional, profoundly spiritual, and truth seeking human beings. He didn't have a dogma to pour down peoples' throats, but had a message of a God who loved and cared deeply and that already resided in the hearts of each. 

Today, I want to participate in the movement that Jesus initiated. I want to be a part of embracing my own journey of becoming fully human, but also to help other people embrace what that means as well.

Kashrut

 

"But go and learn what this means: 'I desire compassion and not sacrifice,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:13. New American Standard.

"We are not saints." page 60. Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have a fried who loves going to drag shows. It's something that brings him life, helps him to breathe, and I imagine drag shows do for him what a binge watching of Game of Thrones does for me.

And one night, a group of friends and I got to join him at one of these drag shows. I had never been to one, but my preconceived notions told me they were to be avoided at all costs. I imagined a room full of people having a gay orgy. I had all the mental stereotypes that a recovering Baptist should have. Drag shows were nothing but a bunch of sin happening in a confined area.

But, there were two reasons why I wanted to join my friend in this endeavor. First, I wanted to be concerned about what he was concerned about, so he would know that I didn't think whatever he did was wrong. And second, I wanted to find out for myself what exactly happened at drag shows so I could have my preconceived notions smashed and replaced with first-hand experience.

The thing about the preconceived notions was, they were a bunch of rules engrained in my head since the day I was a child. And this set of rules happened to be about gay people and sexual immorality. I had a choice to make. I could either uphold my preconceived notions and sacrifice the drag show, dishonoring the commitment I'd made to my friend, or I could suspend my preconceived notions and attend the drag show, letting my friend know I was in solidarity with him.

Obviously, I chose the latter, and I'm glad I did. I saw a side of my friend that I'd never seen before. He came alive. He was happy. He didn't have a care in the world. And, it changed our friendship for the better. Besides that, I got to see some hairy men put on girl clothes and do some pretty amazing dances! Now that's entertainment!

In the passage above, Jesus is found eating dinner with tax collectors and prostitutes. That's a no-no if you're a good Jew, and there are consequences.

When the religious leaders find out about Jesus' heretical behaviors, they threaten him. 

Jesus responds with, "Who did I come to call? The righteous or the sinner? It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."  

As usual, Jesus puts some spin on a passage from the Torah that everyone would've been pretty black and white about. 

Jesus has figured out that if he's to live out his beliefs, then he's gonna be hanging out with some pretty unusual people. And in his belief, God desired compassion over sacrifice. Now, there could be some arguments about what kind of sacrifice this entails, but I'm gonna define it as conviction.

Compassion over conviction.

And sharing dinner with someone had all sorts of religious rules surrounding it. But, while there were all sorts of rules about what kind of food should be eaten and how that food should be prepared, there weren't any rules about who got to come over for dinner. It was open to everybody, Jewish or not.

And the religious leaders who caught Jesus in the act of Kashrut with non-Jewish sinners, assumed that Jesus must have been breaking every rule in the book. But Jesus was a good Jew. It was the fallacy of "guilt by association."

Jesus made a very important statement when the Jewish leaders confronted him. He basically told them, "There are gonna be times when your convictions and your compassion enter into conflict. Choose compassion always."

While I'm not suggesting that everybody needs to go check out a drag show when they get the chance, I am saying that more times than not, our convictions conflict with our compassion.

There are times when I have to make a decision that compromises one or the other. And Jesus would say to err on the side of compassion. My beliefs are good up to the point that they start hurting or dishonoring somebody else. After that, they're invalid and useless. They hold no bearing except an intense need for self-preservation at all costs.

And I will say that I struggle with this concept more than any other. I can't understand why people believe certain things. I can't understand why some people believe women shouldn't be in leadership. I can't understand why some people believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead. I can't understand why some people believe that they're going to a mansion in the sky after they die. And so, in an effort to make myself feel better about how I believe, I'll use my beliefs as ammunition and self-defense. Sometimes, I'll go into attack mode without any provocation besides what's in my head.

It goes both ways. It's easy for me to go to show solidarity with gay people but it's not easy for me to show solidarity with biblical literalists and republicans. Why? Because the latter doesn't fit into my ideology box. In order to find solidarity, I would need to choose compassion over conviction.

If I want to put the teachings of Jesus on display in my own life, yes, I should be open to hanging with the folks society deems worthless. But, I also need to be open to hanging with the folks who are in the mainstream, and believe differently than I do about social issues, politics, and theology.

The the religion that I'm most familiar with, which is Christianity, there have been tons of rules created - much like Jewish traditions - that tell us where to go, who to hang out with, and how to do so. But, most of these rules are divisive and create wholesale segregation within our society (and that includes church society). The rules naturally separate one group from another group prevent the groups from becoming intertwined.

The one that comes to mind is, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers."

Without getting into hermeneutics (which no one does anyways), this is a rule that pervades our society. Taken literally, it is used as an attempt to separate Christians and non-Christians in the realm of marriage. But, this rule (if taken out of context) has the potential of being not only divisive but destructive when it comes to relationships. In this case like many others, conviction wins out over compassion, and no one benefits except the convicted party who's caught in the trap of unquenchable self-preservation.

What kind of rules am I following that place conviction over compassion? If I pay attention throughout the day, I'm sure I'll find some of them because they have to do with people. They have to do with being human, and I'm about as human as they come.

And maybe I'll find that the only way to grow spiritually is to let go of some of these rules that I've been following unconsciously. Maybe I need to have some coffee with someone I would normally not associate with. Maybe I need to strike up a conversation with someone I normally don't want to talk with.