An addendum, of sorts, to the last post. I have been making collages with the text of the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price. I'm using enlarged copies of my red letter edition to the King James, with its nice old typeface. The phrase "great price" keeps popping out, and it reminds me of an ad. "Pearls at a Great Price! Get Yours Today!" There's a notion much more familiar to us, easier to get than these weird old Jesus parables - wanting stuff.
Taken to its extreme, then, how is this different from just wanting some outrageous thing, like my lust for a handbag? The one I'm willing to pay so much for, because it's soooo darned cute.
The treasure is not a handbag. It's not just something you rully, rully want. The kingdom of God is you serving the world. The treasure or the pearl is what encourages you to do it. My husband said his pearl of great price was teaching yoga. He certainly gave up everything to do it. He had had a great-paying job at DuPont, (which helped keep me in handbags, let me tell you) he had years of training, he had professional status in the field of occupational health and safety. This also gave him a high DAR - Dad Approval Rating - not to mention status among men as a Regular Guy. And he was miserable.
The very weekend after he quit his job, he became a changed person: calmer, more present and alive. In a word, happy. The night he came home from teaching his first yoga class, he looked... complete. And here's why. Teaching yoga isn't just for him. It's a gift of love he brings. It's a way of spending himself that is truly of service. That's the kingdom. That's what makes it a Pearl, and not a pearl clutch bag. Which I would love to have, by the way.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Treasures, Pearls, and Bad Business Advice
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. - Mt 13:44-46
William Brosend in his book Conversations with Parables, points out some helpful things about these "seeking and finding" parables. Both of them have some moral ambiguity, he says. Was it ethical to find something in someone's field, re-bury it and then not tell him about it when you offer to buy? Probably not. Bernard Brandon Scott says that it would involve quite a bit of dickering among rabbis as to who was the correct owner of the treasure, and we all know Jesus liked to avoid those meetings. And merchants tend to be shady characters in the Bible, when they are mentioned at all. This one probably intended to whip around and make a big profit off some shnook who didn't know what a pearl should go for. Not your high moral examples, either one. But at least we don't get off the hook thinking that the people in Jesus' stories are somehow better than we are, or more ethical, pious people.
I disagree with Brosend, though, that Jesus was giving some practical business advice - a variant on "be wise as serpents and gentle as doves" - and expecting both the field-digger and the merchant to sell their treasures. That explanation denies us one of the greatest pleasures of a Jesus parable, namely that it's a riddle, a koan, something that simply doesn't make sense on the face of it.
I like that both of them have to do with intense desire and our fears of survival, both things that money tends to stir up for us. Imagine that you are in an art gallery and you fall in love with a painting. You get lost in the vivid reds, yellows, the strong lines. The subject is a child, say, and there is something about her face that calls to you, that reminds you of your own childhood in a deeply personal way. The painting is rare, by one of your favorite artists, one you had never seen before. And you can't help yourself - you must have it. You don't care that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The feeling that it stirs in you, the beauty, the power, makes you lose your head. In a trance, you put your house up for sale, your car, your entire stock portfolio (assuming it's worth anything). Finally you reach the sum, and you buy the thing.
You dumb bunny. Where are you going to put this painting, now that you have no walls? Never mind that, where will you sleep, what will you eat? How could an act of such incredible recklessness be "like the Kingdom of God"?
I think of the Kingdom as human beings embodying God's love for one another. God's love is lavish, abundant, generous. Reckless, Cynthia Bourgeault says. Jesus embodied this as he emptied himself out, gave his entire self for humanity. It's his way of getting to the center, of expanding beyond our usual judgmental and self-interested way of looking at the world. I am strongly reminded of the first three steps in AA, in which you admit your crazy way of trying to control everything (through addiction) has gotten you into hot water and so now you're ready to turn your will and life over to the care of God. You pretty much have to have a total garage sale of the soul for this to work.
So here's what I think: if we are to embody God's unconditional love somehow, the pearl or the treasure is whatever attracts us so wildly we are willing to give our all to it. Sometimes it's suffering, like addiction, that forces our hands. Sometimes life circumstances, like my stepmother getting Alzheimer's. My dad gives the last of his energy and strength to care for my mom. She's not the kingdom. Self-sacrificing love is the kingdom, and the treasure is the lure or the goad that gets us there.
That's just what I think. You?
William Brosend in his book Conversations with Parables, points out some helpful things about these "seeking and finding" parables. Both of them have some moral ambiguity, he says. Was it ethical to find something in someone's field, re-bury it and then not tell him about it when you offer to buy? Probably not. Bernard Brandon Scott says that it would involve quite a bit of dickering among rabbis as to who was the correct owner of the treasure, and we all know Jesus liked to avoid those meetings. And merchants tend to be shady characters in the Bible, when they are mentioned at all. This one probably intended to whip around and make a big profit off some shnook who didn't know what a pearl should go for. Not your high moral examples, either one. But at least we don't get off the hook thinking that the people in Jesus' stories are somehow better than we are, or more ethical, pious people.
I disagree with Brosend, though, that Jesus was giving some practical business advice - a variant on "be wise as serpents and gentle as doves" - and expecting both the field-digger and the merchant to sell their treasures. That explanation denies us one of the greatest pleasures of a Jesus parable, namely that it's a riddle, a koan, something that simply doesn't make sense on the face of it.
I like that both of them have to do with intense desire and our fears of survival, both things that money tends to stir up for us. Imagine that you are in an art gallery and you fall in love with a painting. You get lost in the vivid reds, yellows, the strong lines. The subject is a child, say, and there is something about her face that calls to you, that reminds you of your own childhood in a deeply personal way. The painting is rare, by one of your favorite artists, one you had never seen before. And you can't help yourself - you must have it. You don't care that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The feeling that it stirs in you, the beauty, the power, makes you lose your head. In a trance, you put your house up for sale, your car, your entire stock portfolio (assuming it's worth anything). Finally you reach the sum, and you buy the thing.
You dumb bunny. Where are you going to put this painting, now that you have no walls? Never mind that, where will you sleep, what will you eat? How could an act of such incredible recklessness be "like the Kingdom of God"?
I think of the Kingdom as human beings embodying God's love for one another. God's love is lavish, abundant, generous. Reckless, Cynthia Bourgeault says. Jesus embodied this as he emptied himself out, gave his entire self for humanity. It's his way of getting to the center, of expanding beyond our usual judgmental and self-interested way of looking at the world. I am strongly reminded of the first three steps in AA, in which you admit your crazy way of trying to control everything (through addiction) has gotten you into hot water and so now you're ready to turn your will and life over to the care of God. You pretty much have to have a total garage sale of the soul for this to work.
So here's what I think: if we are to embody God's unconditional love somehow, the pearl or the treasure is whatever attracts us so wildly we are willing to give our all to it. Sometimes it's suffering, like addiction, that forces our hands. Sometimes life circumstances, like my stepmother getting Alzheimer's. My dad gives the last of his energy and strength to care for my mom. She's not the kingdom. Self-sacrificing love is the kingdom, and the treasure is the lure or the goad that gets us there.
That's just what I think. You?
Friday, January 30, 2009
Prayer 101
I was running late for aerobics class, eyeing the needle on the gas gauge bouncing merrily on E. Enough to zip to class, I thought. As I turned onto the Marsh Road entrance to I-95, I was stopped by the line of cars backed up all the way to the foot of the ramp. It was too late to take a different route. The back end of my car was blocking traffic. As I inched my way up, I saw cars lined up for miles in both directions. The traffic report on the radio said two lanes were closed precisely where I was, but no explanation why. Now, instead of bouncing, the needle was lodged firmly on E, with that little orange oval growing unnervingly brighter and brighter. I felt equal parts stupid and petrified.
When I finally got off the ramp, I pulled onto the shoulder and hit the hazard lights. I calmly pulled out my cell phone to call my husband. I was greeted with the "Recharge Battery" message, followed by Cingular's fade-out graphic and "bye". Cute, in an evil kind of way. And so I prayed. Help me. Give me strength. Wondering if this was theologically correct, actually, since I didn't believe in asking for parking spaces and well anything like that. I considered driving down the shoulder until I saw someone else do it, a cop chasing quickly behind. I sat in my cold car, hoping that the traffic would clear soon and I could make it to a gas station. After half an hour, it didn't.
So I wrote a polite, girly note to the highway patrol explaining my situation, stuck it under a windshield wiper and started walking. Immediately, people started offering to help, though I couldn't see how, since we weren't moving. I took a woman up on her offer to lend me her cell phone, though. Robert was sympathetic with only a tiny note of reproval. But he was late for his own travel plans, and could I handle this? I said y-yes. I couldn't see how he could reach me, anyhow.
The woman took back her cell phone and said, "Hop in. My name is Steph, by the way. I'm not a weirdo." Steph had no qualms about driving down the shoulder with her blinkers on. "There's only about two cops up this way anyway, and I'm sure they're both busy," she said. I liked her. She kept a five-gallon can of gas in her garage because of her 24-year-old son who drives a '98 Cadillac and tends to call her, out of gas. She said that his dad is very nice and would probably do it, but she thought kids called their moms for things like this. Dads tended to ask questions, like "How did you let this happen?" and "What were you thinking?" She said she had done plenty of dumb things herself to say anything like that.
We got off 95, reached her house in two shakes, and were miraculously back at my blinking car. She poured gas in my tank and sped off, barely giving me time to thank her.
I don't know how prayer works. I doubt it's like the scene from "It's a Wonderful Life" and that sweet, goofy angel, Clarence getting a call from Dispatch to go help George Bailey. But I do think some things are true. We have to be open to receive. I got nothing until I actually got out of my car and looked like someone who needed help. We have to accept that we deserve help, even when we are in our sweatpants with no make-up and dirty hair and had planned to brush our teeth in the locker room. Even when we put off getting gas and forget to charge our cell phones, and should know better. God loves us like a mom that doesn't judge us, just comes to get us. And we have to be the mom sometimes, for it to work.
When I finally got off the ramp, I pulled onto the shoulder and hit the hazard lights. I calmly pulled out my cell phone to call my husband. I was greeted with the "Recharge Battery" message, followed by Cingular's fade-out graphic and "bye". Cute, in an evil kind of way. And so I prayed. Help me. Give me strength. Wondering if this was theologically correct, actually, since I didn't believe in asking for parking spaces and well anything like that. I considered driving down the shoulder until I saw someone else do it, a cop chasing quickly behind. I sat in my cold car, hoping that the traffic would clear soon and I could make it to a gas station. After half an hour, it didn't.
So I wrote a polite, girly note to the highway patrol explaining my situation, stuck it under a windshield wiper and started walking. Immediately, people started offering to help, though I couldn't see how, since we weren't moving. I took a woman up on her offer to lend me her cell phone, though. Robert was sympathetic with only a tiny note of reproval. But he was late for his own travel plans, and could I handle this? I said y-yes. I couldn't see how he could reach me, anyhow.
The woman took back her cell phone and said, "Hop in. My name is Steph, by the way. I'm not a weirdo." Steph had no qualms about driving down the shoulder with her blinkers on. "There's only about two cops up this way anyway, and I'm sure they're both busy," she said. I liked her. She kept a five-gallon can of gas in her garage because of her 24-year-old son who drives a '98 Cadillac and tends to call her, out of gas. She said that his dad is very nice and would probably do it, but she thought kids called their moms for things like this. Dads tended to ask questions, like "How did you let this happen?" and "What were you thinking?" She said she had done plenty of dumb things herself to say anything like that.
We got off 95, reached her house in two shakes, and were miraculously back at my blinking car. She poured gas in my tank and sped off, barely giving me time to thank her.
I don't know how prayer works. I doubt it's like the scene from "It's a Wonderful Life" and that sweet, goofy angel, Clarence getting a call from Dispatch to go help George Bailey. But I do think some things are true. We have to be open to receive. I got nothing until I actually got out of my car and looked like someone who needed help. We have to accept that we deserve help, even when we are in our sweatpants with no make-up and dirty hair and had planned to brush our teeth in the locker room. Even when we put off getting gas and forget to charge our cell phones, and should know better. God loves us like a mom that doesn't judge us, just comes to get us. And we have to be the mom sometimes, for it to work.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Bright Line
I am picturing someone in Mark's community, telling the story of the Gerasene demon-possessed man. The Jesus stories were told in worship, and so I picture people gathered on the Sabbath, reciting the sh'ema, Hear Israel, The Lord your God, the Lord is one... And then it would be time for stories of their rebbe. Someone might tell this one like a ghost story, terrifying the little group with images of a moonless night, tombs, and a ferocious, filthy man. He would talk about how everyone else wanted to run away, but Jesus, Jesus was not afraid. Found love within himself for even this man. He would talk about the 2,000 pigs "running violently" to the edge of the cliff and drowning themselves, so there could be no question of a healing. He would tell of how, after the healing, the man sat on a rock, fully clothed, and ate a piece of bread and fish, drank a cup of wine. This scared the people in his town more than the way he was before, the storyteller would say, which always brought a laugh. Perhaps he would end his tale, And I begged Jesus to let me come with him, but he wouldn't. He told me instead to tell you about it.
You could say this is one person's way of sharing the healing and compassion he experienced with the rabbi. But I don't want to zap the life out of the story with plausible explanations. Jesus probably believed in demons like everyone else of his time. We do too, or we act as if we do.
In a church in Minneapolis where I was a secretary, they held a monthly activities club for people who lived in group homes, people who suffered from mental illness. It was called simply "The Third Thursday Club." It was held in the church basement, a grubby room as church basements tend to offer, led by a man named John. John was a shy young man with matted, blonde hair and a degree in social work. The staff tended to give the Third Thursday people (and sometimes John by association) a fairly wide berth. As I came to know John, I noticed that he didn't think he was being especially brave or generous for working with them. I asked him one time why people (including me) were so afraid of the mentally ill. "They're unpredictable," he said. "They don't say or do what you expect them to."
We medicate this. People with severe manic-depression tell me that they feel flattened on their medications. They can function - do what is expected in terms of job, family, caring for themselves - but feel very little joy or pain. No ability to make art or write poems, say. And, hungry for even a moment of emotional, creative life, they stop taking their medications. Horrible things happen. One man I know went missing for days, and was found sitting sunburnt in a field, unaware of who he was, or where he was, let alone the reek of piss and sweat on his clothes. I visited him in the hospital, and had whole conversations with him that he cannot remember now. He knows what danger he was in. He cannot forget the steep climb back to sanity and the community of the world. And the pain of the flatness, the hunger for vividness and truth still call to him. I will not be surprised if he tries it again.
I like a bright line separating me from folks like the "Third Thursday Club" or the man sitting in alone in that field. But there really isn't. Many people are fine until their illness strikes, much to their families' broken-hearted surprise. Alzheimer's Disease certainly works that way. It's easy to tell the story of the demon-possessed man as if he were something wholly other than myself. He is certainly an extreme case. But perhaps the extremity is once again the point. You can't help noticing how Jesus goes out and claims the worst people - all the people who are on the other side of the bright line - unclean women, adulterers, lepers, the lame, the violent and mentally ill - and loves them as his own. The man once possessed by demons can testify that love healed him, and he is one of us.
You could say this is one person's way of sharing the healing and compassion he experienced with the rabbi. But I don't want to zap the life out of the story with plausible explanations. Jesus probably believed in demons like everyone else of his time. We do too, or we act as if we do.
In a church in Minneapolis where I was a secretary, they held a monthly activities club for people who lived in group homes, people who suffered from mental illness. It was called simply "The Third Thursday Club." It was held in the church basement, a grubby room as church basements tend to offer, led by a man named John. John was a shy young man with matted, blonde hair and a degree in social work. The staff tended to give the Third Thursday people (and sometimes John by association) a fairly wide berth. As I came to know John, I noticed that he didn't think he was being especially brave or generous for working with them. I asked him one time why people (including me) were so afraid of the mentally ill. "They're unpredictable," he said. "They don't say or do what you expect them to."
We medicate this. People with severe manic-depression tell me that they feel flattened on their medications. They can function - do what is expected in terms of job, family, caring for themselves - but feel very little joy or pain. No ability to make art or write poems, say. And, hungry for even a moment of emotional, creative life, they stop taking their medications. Horrible things happen. One man I know went missing for days, and was found sitting sunburnt in a field, unaware of who he was, or where he was, let alone the reek of piss and sweat on his clothes. I visited him in the hospital, and had whole conversations with him that he cannot remember now. He knows what danger he was in. He cannot forget the steep climb back to sanity and the community of the world. And the pain of the flatness, the hunger for vividness and truth still call to him. I will not be surprised if he tries it again.
I like a bright line separating me from folks like the "Third Thursday Club" or the man sitting in alone in that field. But there really isn't. Many people are fine until their illness strikes, much to their families' broken-hearted surprise. Alzheimer's Disease certainly works that way. It's easy to tell the story of the demon-possessed man as if he were something wholly other than myself. He is certainly an extreme case. But perhaps the extremity is once again the point. You can't help noticing how Jesus goes out and claims the worst people - all the people who are on the other side of the bright line - unclean women, adulterers, lepers, the lame, the violent and mentally ill - and loves them as his own. The man once possessed by demons can testify that love healed him, and he is one of us.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Demon-Possessed
"Bill" was a large man, tall with a great gut and dark, deeply shadowed, burning eyes. I had looked away instinctively as he stood in our copy room and stopped me for conversation. He was copying sheets of math problems, by the hundreds it seemed. The secretary told him he could, he explained. Your sermon was great, he said. I watched it over and over on video. He clearly had - he could quote whole lines. All with a stare that looked like I was his last meal.
People reassured me about him without being asked. He was harmless, they said. I heard that he had grown up in the church, that he was schizophrenic. Medicated. He was too anxious to sit through worship in the sanctuary and watched it on TV from the parlor with the moms and fussy babies. Some of the mothers cruelly dubbed this room "Bellevue" because of him and our other "misfits". There was John, who giggled nervously, interrupted conversation and killed half the coffee by continuously refilling a giant thermos, and Alan, a sweet young man with Downs Syndrome. John and Alan looked hurt by the rejection sometimes, and left for periods of time. Bill just stared the mothers down, and told them to keep their kids quiet.
Word was getting around that he had a crush on me. He was telling anyone who would listen. Bill tended to develop crushes on women in the church, pursuing them, watching for signs. If you didn't nip it in the bud, people said, it would intensify. I asked him to come in and told him in the presence of the senior minister that he had better cut it out. He left with great insult, complained about having had to take two buses for a special trip in here. And the romance stopped.
He next chose another woman on our staff. Either she was kinder than I was to him, or his ardor for her was stronger, because he courted her with all his being. He copied interesting articles for her from the newspaper. He left bags of day-old bread from the free food pantry in front of her office door. He telephoned her at home. He sent her letters calling her his soul mate, and the only one who understood him. She was afraid to come to work.
People who spoke to him, telling him to stop, simply didn't understand, the letters said. When she showed them to a psychologist in the congregation, he became alarmed for her. So she got a court order, banning him from church, her place of employment. All of us who had been swept up in the fear and the wondering what to do, exhaled for a moment.
A few days after he received the order, his father telephoned me. I was acting as senior minister for six months of sabbatical, and Bill's father clearly saw me as deciding between the staff member and his son. You've got to let him come back, he pleaded with me. He has no place else to go. I thought this was a church. I thought you cared about people. I felt horrible. I did not try to lift the ban.
A year later, the staff member quit her job. Someone had told Bill. He sought an audience with the senior minister, who had returned, and he agreed Bill could come back. He tells a few people that it was she who loved him. No one believes him, but he has not bothered anyone since.
Some feel that people possessed by demons in the gospels were mentally ill. What would Jesus have done with Bill? Would I do it? Would you?
People reassured me about him without being asked. He was harmless, they said. I heard that he had grown up in the church, that he was schizophrenic. Medicated. He was too anxious to sit through worship in the sanctuary and watched it on TV from the parlor with the moms and fussy babies. Some of the mothers cruelly dubbed this room "Bellevue" because of him and our other "misfits". There was John, who giggled nervously, interrupted conversation and killed half the coffee by continuously refilling a giant thermos, and Alan, a sweet young man with Downs Syndrome. John and Alan looked hurt by the rejection sometimes, and left for periods of time. Bill just stared the mothers down, and told them to keep their kids quiet.
Word was getting around that he had a crush on me. He was telling anyone who would listen. Bill tended to develop crushes on women in the church, pursuing them, watching for signs. If you didn't nip it in the bud, people said, it would intensify. I asked him to come in and told him in the presence of the senior minister that he had better cut it out. He left with great insult, complained about having had to take two buses for a special trip in here. And the romance stopped.
He next chose another woman on our staff. Either she was kinder than I was to him, or his ardor for her was stronger, because he courted her with all his being. He copied interesting articles for her from the newspaper. He left bags of day-old bread from the free food pantry in front of her office door. He telephoned her at home. He sent her letters calling her his soul mate, and the only one who understood him. She was afraid to come to work.
People who spoke to him, telling him to stop, simply didn't understand, the letters said. When she showed them to a psychologist in the congregation, he became alarmed for her. So she got a court order, banning him from church, her place of employment. All of us who had been swept up in the fear and the wondering what to do, exhaled for a moment.
A few days after he received the order, his father telephoned me. I was acting as senior minister for six months of sabbatical, and Bill's father clearly saw me as deciding between the staff member and his son. You've got to let him come back, he pleaded with me. He has no place else to go. I thought this was a church. I thought you cared about people. I felt horrible. I did not try to lift the ban.
A year later, the staff member quit her job. Someone had told Bill. He sought an audience with the senior minister, who had returned, and he agreed Bill could come back. He tells a few people that it was she who loved him. No one believes him, but he has not bothered anyone since.
Some feel that people possessed by demons in the gospels were mentally ill. What would Jesus have done with Bill? Would I do it? Would you?
Bay of Pigs
They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.
This story has so much going on! Demons, healing, scary tombs and spirits. And pigs, poor things. Jesus and his guys have just gotten off the boat, which they seem to do a lot. Jesus has stilled the storm, reminiscent of the Psalms where people praise God for stilling the storm for them. He rebukes it (or bukes it, as the old Gospel songs say), and the same word is used for the way he responds to the demons inside this man. Rebuke. Sure, it's easy to dismiss as propaganda. This seems to be about establishing Jesus as superhero, master of storms, demons and all manner of frights.
But it's also clearly a story about fear. William Barclay tells us how frightening this story would have been in ancient times. It has to happen at night, given the events before it, and going out at night is always a dangerous idea. They land where there are limestone burial caves, a place that would have been considered unclean for its association with the dead. They are also where demons were most likely to be. The ancient Jewish world believed that there were thousands of 'hurtful spirits' all around us, ready to strike. The air here would have hummed, buzzed, and swam with them. Then out comes this naked guy, right up to the boat! He seems to know Jesus. He comes to meet him - and then tells him to leave him alone. His mind is gone. Sometimes he speaks of himself in the plural, sometimes in the singular. He is full of cuts and gashes. A broken shackle trails from each wrist. Containing him has not worked. Nothing separates him from us.
If I were one of the disciples on that boat, I would have been lobbying for a different landing, or perhaps even thinking about a graceful exit. Jesus makes several attempts to heal this man, assuming that it is healing that he needs. Simply telling the demon to come out doesn't work. Getting the name of a supernatural being is supposed to give you an advantage, and this doesn't work, either. What if nothing works?
He tells Jesus his name - sort of - Legion, for there are so many of us. "Legion" is actually the term used for a Roman military unit, 6,000 men. Now the "ghost story" has some real world dangers in it. If Mark's audience wasn't scared of demons, they were certainly afraid of the Romans that swept through their land, raping and murdering. Some have suggested that the demon-possessed man named his affliction after them because of the horrors he had witnessed at their hands. Today he may have said 'Al-Qaeda'. The story works well on a purely political level. Jesus was a prophet, as well as a healer, and the early Christians as well as the Jews suffered mightily under the Romans. The image of pigs hurtling into the water would echo Pharoah's army drowning in the Red Sea; it would have carried a nice sense of "once and for all".
But suppose the man simply meant to convey the sheer force of these demons, so many he can't count them? I think of mental institutions and prisons where violent souls are locked away from us. They were horrific places until very recently; some still are. I think about what police and those working in prisons have said, that they 'deal with them' in our names, they allow the rest of us to have our good impression of humanity intact.
I don't know how much, if anything, in this story really happened. I believe that Jesus showed remarkable courage and healed all sorts of losers. Wasn't afraid to be around them, to suffer with them. I'm not stupid, though. I think people need protection. I don't think "a little love" will transform violent criminals. I'm just trying to stay in the boat, to still believe that it's right to try to heal - everyone - no exceptions, even and especially in the midst of fear.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Bread Temptation
Jesus is famished, and Satan offers a friendly suggestion. "Why don't you use your Super God Powers to make yourself a snack?" Jesus' answers to the Devil sound so lofty to me. Helpful quotations. Jesus says, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, ("but by the word of God", adds Matthew).'" And to the other temptations - to have power over whole cities if you worship Satan and to prove that you can do anything you want and God will protect you, he is equally prim: "You shall worship only God" and "Don't put God to the test." When I am hungry, or feeling powerless and afraid, and I have to think Jesus was, abstract principles do not help. Picking up my Bible and finding the appropriate passage wouldn't do it.
Every addict knows the temptation to make bread from stones, to think we can rule over cities, to risk ruin to our bodies and think that nothing can touch us. We can control everything in our path, and if there is nothing life-giving in sight, we can create it from booze. Or drugs. Or sex. (For some it may be logic, or ambition or another person, though these have the disadvantage of being slower cooking in their misery.) In my case it's food. I think I can find comfort, companionship, and freedom from feeling there, bread from stone if there ever was. And many of us have to feel the misery of saying yes to Satan and be desperate and ashamed enough to grab someone's offer for help. I have known the demon of compulsive eating for years, and am grateful every day for the fellowship of addicts who have been the voice of God's love to me. These humble people, the most spiritually mature people I've ever run into, know they need God. That we control nothing.
We all have something that calls to us, and tries to lure us into throwing ourselves away. God's countering word has to come through human beings, I think. Jesus must have had it so deeply infused in him - through his family, through his community with John the Baptist - that when he went into the desert it came with him.
Every addict knows the temptation to make bread from stones, to think we can rule over cities, to risk ruin to our bodies and think that nothing can touch us. We can control everything in our path, and if there is nothing life-giving in sight, we can create it from booze. Or drugs. Or sex. (For some it may be logic, or ambition or another person, though these have the disadvantage of being slower cooking in their misery.) In my case it's food. I think I can find comfort, companionship, and freedom from feeling there, bread from stone if there ever was. And many of us have to feel the misery of saying yes to Satan and be desperate and ashamed enough to grab someone's offer for help. I have known the demon of compulsive eating for years, and am grateful every day for the fellowship of addicts who have been the voice of God's love to me. These humble people, the most spiritually mature people I've ever run into, know they need God. That we control nothing.
We all have something that calls to us, and tries to lure us into throwing ourselves away. God's countering word has to come through human beings, I think. Jesus must have had it so deeply infused in him - through his family, through his community with John the Baptist - that when he went into the desert it came with him.
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