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  • Jesus’ Life Offers a Model of Contentment

    by Drew Smith

     
    ContentmentWe live in a restless and discontented age. Each day we are confronted with problems and circumstances that test our peace and contentment. We worry about financial problems, health problems, and family problems. We are anxious about raising our children, succeeding at work, and maintaining a certain standard of living.
    Moreover, the pace of our daily lives, the demands of nanosecond technology, and the drive to outdo others are only a few of the factors that contribute to our anxiety and restlessness. We never have enough time or enough money to do and buy all we think we need. We are a discontented and stressed out generation.
     Why are we discontented? Why are we restless?[ene_ptp] Perhaps the most challenging obstacle to finding satisfaction in life is that we are constantly in want. We live in what someone has called the “prison of want”. We always want what is bigger, nicer, faster, and newer. We want a new job, a new car, a new house, a new gadget, and new clothes because we believe that such things will provide lasting contentment.
    We want because we live lives of comparison. We see what others have and we want something better. We see what others become and we want to become something better.  We are in a constant pace to keep up with and even out do our neighbors.
    We also want because the illusion of comfort convinces us that we will be happier with more stuff, with a new job, with a new car, and many other things we desire. We want possessions and prestige because we have the false impression that these will take away the pains and disappointments we experience in life. Yet, unhealthy wanting only leads to lust, jealousy, anger, resentment, failure, and sadly, a life that never finds contentment.
    So what is the secret of contentment?  How can we live lives free of anxiety and filled with satisfaction?  How can we overcome the desire to want?
    We find the answer in the model of living that Jesus gives to us. Never wanting or desiring that which was not given by God, Jesus, though continually living in the shadow of death, found contentment in his relationship with God and others. Three primary characteristics of Jesus’ life demonstrate this very idea.
    First Jesus found contentment through living in God’s presence. He was in constant communion with God, being led by God’s Spirit to do the will of God. Through living in the presence of God, Jesus found satisfaction and peace. The famous Psalm 23 captures the essence of what Jesus knew to be true; living in God’s presence and looking to God for the needs and blessings of life leads to a life of peace and contentment.
    Second, Jesus found contentment by living in God’s present. We are always looking past today to tomorrow, and we rush through life without appreciating the present that God has given to us. Jesus’ life, however, reflected his command, “Do not worry about tomorrow.” He embraced the present time that God had given him as an opportunity to embrace the will of God for him. In this he found peace.
    The psalmist of Psalm 118 reminds us that each day is “the day that the Lord has made” and we should “rejoice and be glad in it.” Instead of rushing through our lives of stress and strain, hoping that each day will be better than the previous one, we ought to live in the present that God has given us, finding God’s grace for today even if our circumstances are painful.
    Lastly, Jesus found contentment in relationships with others. Though spending much time alone in communion with God, Jesus was not insular. Indeed, we might say that his time alone with God resulted in his intentional act of creating relationships with others. In those relationships, though sometimes disappointing, Jesus found friendship, community, and contentment.
    To find peace and contentment, we must cherish our fellowship with others, whether they are family, friends, or even strangers. We must reject our relationships with things, and embrace the people God leads in our lives. The greatest gift we have is not the things, the possessions, the prestige, or the popularity we find in life. The greatest gifts we have in life are the relationships God has given us. Instead of replacing these relationships with busyness, superficiality, and isolation, we should ensure that we give priority to building loving relationships with the people God has placed in our lives.
    We will never find contentment in the things of this world that rust and decay. Nor will we experience peace through the things of this world that bring fleeting pleasure. True contentment is experienced through living in the presence of God, the present God has given us, and with the people God has led into our lives, even as we live in a world that is so discontented.
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  • A Journey into Understanding Other Religions for People of Faith

    by Drew Smith

    Interfaith bannerI teach a survey course on world religions each semester. In that course, we begin with discussions on defining religion and how we can approach the study of religion. The university is an academic setting and in the course we approach the study of world religions from an academic position that is mostly philosophical, historical, and comparative.
    But as a person who is a practicing Christian and a minister, I am also concerned with how people of faith might approach the study of other religions in their communities of faith. Certainly there is room to incorporate an academic approach in these settings, but because these settings mostly take place within religious congregations, there may be more at stake when believers from one tradition engage in the study of other traditions.That’s why I think it is important to set the tone for such an endeavor that hopefully engages not only the more open-minded believers, who are already receptive to other faiths, but perhaps also the more traditional believers who may not be as open minded and possibly uncomfortable with delving into understanding not only other faiths, but more importantly, those people who sincerely practice other faiths.[ene_ptp] I think a good starting point would be to deconstruct the stereotypes about other religions that are fed to us through various mediums. In this sense, we must be honest to admit that the actions of a few within a religious tradition do not speak for the many. As a Christian, I would certainly not want the evil actions of particular groups or individuals who claim to be Christian to define what it means to be a Christian. Thus, we should not allow the actions of a minority who claim to be practitioners of a certain religion to define what we accept as that religion’s core values.
    A second strategy to take is to reevaluate categories. Christians are so prone to thinking in their own categories that we also think those categories fit other religions. For example, we might think that other religions must believe in some personal deity, but many do not. Moreover, we might wrongly ask what other religions teach about salvation and heaven, when some do not even concern themselves with such questions. We cannot place the grid of our own faith categories onto other faiths hoping to come away with a clearer understanding; our grid does not always fit.
    The third action in this approach may be the most challenging for people of faith. Yet, if we are to be sincere in our desire to understand other religions, then we must open ourselves to the faith of others by crossing over into their faith. This does not mean we embrace their belief system as our own, but it does mean that we embrace them in their faith, and we seek to understand, as best we can, why they believe what they believe and practice what they practice. To do this with authenticity, however, requires that we do not judge their faith through our own, but we allow them to speak about their faith on their own terms as we listen and seek understanding.
    Such an action should lead to a fourth step in this process, which also may be difficult for many, but is perhaps necessary. We should be critical of our own religion. We live with the tenets of our faith so close to us that it may be difficult to see their weaknesses and faults. We have learned the teachings of our faith, perhaps since a young age, and we know them so well that it is hard to distance ourselves from them. But, if we are to be honest seekers of truth, we must be willing not only to admit the truths we might discover in other religions, but also the faults in our own, and that includes reading our sacred texts critically.
    Fifth, we should also embrace differences as part of being human. In a real sense, the world’s faiths are all attempts to understand what it means to be human, although there are other ways of understanding what it means to be human outside of religion. Yet, in our humanity, we are limited in our ability to flesh out this meaning fully with absolute certainty. This has lead to differences in understanding that are also fed by cultural differences in which religions are born and grow. These differences do not have to lead to seeing the other as less human; they should guide us to embrace one another.
    The final two steps in this process will hopefully also be the results of seriously engaging in the first five steps. A course of genuine truth-seeking should lead us to recognize the revelatory core of each religion as the basis on which to build common ground, despite how different we believe from others. Once we reach this step, we are deep in the process to the extent that the stereotypes we deconstructed in our first step are now replaced by a more truthful understanding, and we can honestly admit to ourselves and to others the value of other faiths.
    This should lead us to the final step, where we not only reaffirm our own faith, but we also affirm the faith of another. Anyone that I have ever spoken with who has involved themselves in interfaith understanding with sincerity has reported that such a venture has led to a deepening of their own faith. Perhaps if we can authentically affirm the validity of another person’s faith, it grounds us deeper into our own beliefs and practices but with greater humility.
    In taking these steps, people of faith can remain passionate about their own faith, but they can also encourage others to be passionate about their faith. We can also enrich our own lives by affirming the other instead of treating the other as opposition. In this way, barriers can be torn down and doors can be opened that move us beyond mere intellectual knowledge about other religions into personal relationships with those of other faiths that focus on the common good.
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  • Jesus as Crucified Messiah, Son of God

    by Drew Smith

    Cross banner[ene_ptp]The penultimate event in each of the four canonical Gospels is the death of Jesus by crucifixion. As modern readers of these stories, particularly living in a world that celebrates violence, and especially after we swarmed theaters in 2004 to watch Mel Gibson’s depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus, we might wonder why none of the four Gospels describe the grotesque details of crucifixion. They simply say that Jesus was crucified.
    The reason for the lack of a blow by blow description of Jesus’ crucifixion may be because the people of the first century Roman World were very well aware of the practice and effects of this horrible tool of execution. The Romans used crucifixion often, and they used it well, as a deterrent against upstart rebels. Jesus was certainly not the only one to die on a Roman cross, so to include the bloody specifics of how crucifixion was carried out would probably be unnecessary.
    Yet, we also may propose that the lack of these details about the act of crucifixion itself is also due to the fact that each Gospel writer wants his audience’s attention focused on other particulars that are much more important to the story of Jesus’ death.
    As we approach Mark’s telling of Jesus’ execution during this Season of Lent, we ought to be reminded that Mark is not writing history as we would write history. Rather, Mark is interpreting history through a narrative story he tells to communicate what it means that Jesus died on a Roman cross.
    Indeed, much of the details that Mark includes other than that Jesus was crucified may not be entirely historical, at least to our modern minds. But that is not the point. Like the rest of the story he tells, the Passion of Jesus is narrated so that we might pay close attention to the events and words in this story to inform us of the importance of Jesus’ death for faith and discipleship.
    There are certainly many things happening in this scene, but of utmost importance are the things that are said to or about Jesus by those who stand around the cross. On one level, these statements are meant as scornful indictments that mock Jesus and characterize him as nothing more than a common peasant who was badly mistaken about who he thought he was. Yet, with ironic flair, Mark places these indictments on the lips of those who watch Jesus die with the intent of using them as proclamations that declare the truth about Jesus.
    Jesus is mockingly treated as a king. He is given a purple robe and a crown of thorns, and those who beat him and mock him bow down to him in sarcastic worship. The sign that is hung above him reads, “King of the Jews,” and the religious leaders contemptuously say, “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we might see and believe.”
    The irony of this is very clear. While the religious leaders mean to mock Jesus as one who cannot possibly be a king because he hangs on a criminal’s cross, Mark means to use this to show that Jesus is king precisely because he hangs on a cross.
    The kingly throne of Jesus according to Mark is not a seat of gold and jewels, but one of wood and nails. His kingly authority is not secured through power and violence. Jesus is king because he gives his life away in protest of the injustices of his world.
    Jesus is also mocked by those who stand around the cross by their taunts of, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” In their thinking, if Jesus healed others, which Mark’s story is clear that he did, then he should be able to save himself. Those who watch Jesus die challenge him to do just that.
    Again, the irony is obvious. These people were mocking Jesus because he hung on a cross in weakness and he was helpless to change his circumstances. Indeed, from the cry of Jesus accusing God of abandonment, we learn that even God could not change the course of this tragic event.
    But Mark uses their mocking to express the true mission of Jesus. It is exactly because Jesus remains on the cross, giving his life, that he saves others. Remaining true to two of his earlier statements, “Those who want to save their life must lose it” and “The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many,”
    Jesus demonstrated to those around the cross his own willingness to die to save others. According to Mark’s story, in giving his life on a scornful cross, Jesus was indeed achieving salvation for humanity.
    There is one final statement that deserves our attention and our response. This statement serves the crucifixion scene as a defining moment that expresses the truth of Jesus’ excruciating death. It is the testimonial spoken by the Roman Centurion who stood at the foot of the cross.
    As this soldier was about his daily routine of crucifying criminals, something he probably did on a regular basis, he witnesses something he had never before witnessed. He sees the death of this innocent man, and he confesses, “Truly, this man was God’s Son.”
    The title Son of God as it is used in reference to Jesus in Mark is important. No human, not even Jesus, ever uses this to refer to Jesus. Only God and the unclean spirits refer to Jesus as the Son of God. Why is this?
    Perhaps it is because the human characters of Mark’s story never recognize Jesus as the Son of God. In Mark’s narrative, it is Jesus’ death, not his miracles and not his resurrection that is the defining moment that declares him as God’s Son. It is Jesus’ death that is the ultimate expression of his true nature as God’s Son, the one sent by God to challenge the powers, both spiritual and political. In seeing Jesus die, the Roman Centurion confesses Jesus as the Son of God.
    During the remaining days of this Holy Week, each one of us stands at the foot of the cross. We look directly in the face of Jesus and we see him breathe his last breath and die. As we reflect on his death, do we dare to remember that we are not simply called to stand and watch? Do we dare to confess our own faith in Jesus as God’s Crucified Messiah? Do we dare to take the road that he took by challenging those who bring oppression and injustice? Do we dare to embrace his call to take up the scandalous cross and follow him?
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  • Mark’s Unsatisfying, but Compelling Ending

    by Drew Smith

    [ene_ptp]While all four canonical Gospels narrate women (In John it’s just one woman, Mary Magdalene) going to the tomb of Jesus, the scene in Mark is a bit remarkable to say the least.
    To understand the distinctive nature of Mark’s resurrection story, or, as some have suggested, an empty tomb story, we have to deal first with where exactly this Gospel ends. Anyone picking up a good English translation of the Bible can turn to the 16th chapter of Mark and find that verses 9-20 are bracketed off and the reader is directed to a note that generally reads, “Some of the most ancient authorities end the book at 16:8.” This means that the best textual sources available to us have the Gospel of Mark ending in 16:8, while other sources include verse 9, and still others go all the way to verse 20.
    This is all too complicated to discuss here, so I will simply state what has become the majority consensus on this issue. Although there are still some very reputable scholars who think differently, the overwhelming number of scholars of Mark believe that the Gospel ends at 16:8. Of course, there is the very slim chance that there was an ending that has been lost, but we have no evidence of this.[1]
    It is easy to see why the precarious verses that follow 16:8 would have been added later. All we have to do is read 16:8, where we discover that the women who go to the tomb, where they are told to go tell his disciples to go to Galilee, actually leave the tomb in great fear and they tell no one. Moreover, and perhaps even more troubling, the resurrected Jesus does not appear again in Mark’s story. And so, perhaps it is better to call this an empty tomb story.
    This ending must have been very unsatisfying to someone who felt the need to add a more interesting ending, one in which the disciples are told of Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrected Jesus does appear. In fact, Matthew and Luke, who write after Mark, but who generally follow Mark’s outline, were both unsatisfied with Mark’s ending, and thus they included appearances of Jesus after his resurrection.
    But if the ending of Mark is at 16:8, why would the author end the story here without including something other writers felt was needed?
    Of course, we cannot travel back in time to talk to the author of this narrative we call the Gospel of Mark. Indeed, Mark may not even be the author’s name. Church tradition ties Mark to this Gospel, but the story never mentions that he is the writer. But we can read what is there in the last chapter of the story and propose some reasons why the narrative ends at 16:8 and what this might mean for our own faith and discipleship.
    While having the women leave in fear and tell no one is problematic for us, and while not having the resurrected Jesus appear in the story is even more difficult for us, these may really be the best clues we need to solve the problem of why Mark’s Gospel ends at 16:8 as it is understood within the framework of Mark’s overall narrative.
    First, although Mark does say that the women were afraid and told no one, we must assume that the message of the young man in the tomb did get out somehow. After all, we are readers of Mark’s story, and thus the message was passed on. Since only the women go to the empty tomb and none of the male disciples receive the message directly from the young man at the tomb, we can be fairly certain that these women told someone, even if this is not included in the story itself.
    As to their fear, we should take a close look at similar responses to numinous experiences throughout Mark’s story. Responses of awe, wonderment, and fear characterize the way many characters react to Jesus’ miracles in the narrative. The women’s fear is not a fear as if they are scared from a threat, although that is possible. Rather, they have experienced something from beyond the realm of creation; the in-breaking of God.
    Concerning the missing Jesus, while Matthew and Luke, as well as John, were concerned with this problem, Mark is not worried the least about this. In fact, the absent Jesus works well for his story.
    What we should understand is that Mark’s story is not about believing in Jesus’ resurrection. It is about how one follows Jesus. It is a story about following Jesus in discipleship; perhaps even a manual on discipleship.[2]
    Indeed, we should notice that this Gospel does not begin with a birth narrative, as do Matthew and Luke. Instead, Mark begins with the baptism of Jesus. Thus, Mark’s story begins at the place where Christian discipleship begins, baptism, and takes us through the life of Jesus, a life defined by challenging the religious and political powers. In this way, Mark’s Jesus is the paradigmatic disciple, who proclaims God’s rule of justice, and who, in doing so, takes up his cross unto death.
    The message the young man tells the women, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee,” is a commission to return to the road of discipleship, where one continually follows Jesus to the cross. Thus, Mark’s resurrection story is not so much a promise of what is to come, nor does believing the story require us to believe that Jesus was actually physically raised; again, he never appears again in Mark. Rather, the resurrection or empty tomb story is a story that empowers us to perpetually return to the road of discipleship to follow Jesus.
    It’s not the ending; it is the beginning.
     
    [1] For arguments for the different views on Mark’s ending, see David Alan Black, ed., Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2008).
    [2] See Philip G. Davis, “Christology, Discipleship, and Self-Understanding in the Gospel of Mark,” in Self-Definition and Self-Discovery in Early Christianity:  A Study in Shifting Horizons, Essays in Appreciation of Ben F. Meyer From His Former Students, ed. David J. Hawkin and Tom Robinson (”Studies in Bible and Early Christianity,” 26; Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 101-19.
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  • Why Did Jesus Speak in Parables?

    by Drew Smith

     
    Reframing coverThose of us who have read the Gospels, or who are even remotely familiar with the teachings of Jesus, know that he often spoke in parables. Indeed, Jesus tells over 40 parables, some which are very familiar even among many non-Christians.
    But why did Jesus speak in parables? This is the question that his closest followers asked him, trying to get a sense of the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ parables, and it is a question that many of us have when looking back at Jesus’ life and ministry. Indeed, when considering the importance Jesus seems to place on his authority as the teacher of God’s will, one wonders why he talked in stories that are riddles that are hard to understand and interpret.
    Would it not have been easier, and much clearer to his audience, and certainly to us living two millennium in the future, if Jesus would have been more forthright and straightforward in his speech, offering to his listeners lists of commands that are not difficult to comprehend?
    Could Jesus have not done a better job of teaching his followers exactly what he wanted them to learn if he had not been so mysterious by using parables? For sure, Jesus is clear at times (?), but when he communicates in parables, his meaning is very often unclear.[ene_ptp] It is true that there is a sense that Jesus understood his own surroundings and his own culture and people, who lived in an agrarian Palestine, and who understood the cultural norms of the society in which they lived from day to day. The parables, then, were connections to the hearers through relevant allegory. Thus, the parables Jesus tells utilize images and ideas his contemporaries would have understood, and if we look at the parables, we quickly see how earthy many of them are.
    So, in a real sense, Jesus was using everyday images and practices to speak about deeper theological and ethical issues. Some have said Jesus did this to make these ideas easier for his listeners to understand.
    But is this correct?
    Yes, Jesus does use everyday images and practices in the stories he tells, but his parables do not necessarily make theological and ethical issues easier to understand. In fact, several of Jesus’ parables are confusing.  For example, the one he tells in Mark 4 about the sower who goes out to sow seed is very confusing.
    Who is the sower? What is the seed? What do the different types of soil mean, if anything? Sure, Jesus explains his parable to the disciples, the only time he ever explains one of his parables, but even his explanation is confusing. We still do not know what the meaning of the parable is. Is it a call for us to be better soil so that we can receive the seed that will grow? If this is so, do we have any control over this? Can soil actually change its own capacity to be more or less fruitful?
    But in an interesting answer to the disciples’ question about the meaning of the parables, Jesus seems to imply, or perhaps is very straightforward as to why he speaks in parables. He says in Mark 4:11-12,
    “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that
    ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
    and may indeed listen, but not understand;
    so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”
    In his allusion to Isaiah 6:9, Jesus is clearly stating that his parables are difficult to understand, and they are intended to be difficult to understand. Although he uses images and practices that the people of first century Palestine would have understood, the use of these familiar images does not translate into his audience actually understanding what he is saying.
    So, again, why did Jesus use these parables, which he himself admits are difficult to understand?
    Perhaps the answer as to why Jesus used these stories is that he himself was struggling to understand the mystery of God in the world. And, if it is true that Jesus was himself struggling to understand God’s purposes in the world, and was therefore struggling to make his understanding known to those around him who came to hear what he had to say about God, then we might say that the parables connect us with Jesus’ own imagination as he thought about God and God’s rule in the world.
    If this is plausible, then the parables are not declarations of fixed truths, but are rather journeys of the mind that Jesus invites us to take both as a community of faith, but also as individual pilgrims seeking God. These journeys of the mind, and indeed of the heart, are never ending quests for God. Perhaps this is why the parables have many various meanings, and why they, for the most part, are open-ended and ambiguous.
    And this also may be why Jesus tells his disciples that he speaks in parables so that those who hear might think they understand, but they do not. He wants his hearers to struggle with the images and the actions within a parable, not to find an easy answer so that they can go on their way. No, Jesus’ use of the parable is to invite those willing to invest in the struggle to take the journey with him, and to struggle to seek God.
    But, in their elusiveness, Jesus’ parables describe the kingdom of God itself as elusive. If the parables about the kingdom are difficult to comprehend, how much more so is the kingdom difficult to comprehend?
    Just when we might think we have it all figured out, we are confronted with a new understanding of the kingdom of God that we never expected. This is why Jesus commands us to “Seek first the kingdom of God.” This is no one-time seeking as if searching for an object we can see and touch, and once we find it we can stop seeking.  No, seeking the kingdom of God is a continual seeking, an eternal searching for God’s kingdom that cannot be measured or adequately described by human language.
    So, Jesus uses parables to speak about the kingdom of God because these stories lend themselves to open-ended elusiveness that lead us to more seeking, more searching, and more questioning. And, because these stories lead us to further seeking, searching, and questioning, they draw us slowly out of our lives of safety, security, and comfort, to imagine the reality of God.
    The parables lead us from the world we know, where we feel safe and comfortable, to imagine a world we do not know, one in which God’s kingdom has come and God’s will is done, just as Jesus taught his followers to pray.
    Jesus tells parables to draw his listeners into the stories, not as observers, but as participants. We are meant to find ourselves in these stories as part of our journey to discover who we are in light of God’s rule and how we respond to that rule.
    In this sense, Jesus’ parables invite us to imagine a God beyond our descriptions and our qualifications, to contemplate our own lives in God’s rule, and to imagine a world different from our own. And, if we are willing to participate in the journey of the parables, wrestling with hearing and understanding, we may experience more deeply the God about whom Jesus spoke through these little stories called parables.

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