Who's Going to Hell?

We have all heard pronouncements of condemnation by conservative and Religious Right Christians announcing God's judgement of an eternity in Hell on persons and minority groups whose "lifestyle" they don't agree with.  This is usually based on a cherry-picking of Old Testament Law that corresponds with their own cultural biases and used in the service of prejudice and bigotry to villify, exclude, and persecute those who don't fit the cultural and social norms of their religious denomination, sect, or movement.  I would like to take some time to explore why this is a gross misrepresentation of the "Way of Christ" given in the teachings and stories of Jesus in the Gospels.  Once I have covered this, I would then like to look at what the Gospels would tell us if we did take the metaphor of Hell literally.  What if Jesus is actually going to send some people to Hell?  If it were true that Jesus is indeed literally going to pass judgement on each of us in the next life, then, given what and who he condemns in the Gospels, who would he send to eternal punishment and suffering?

Unfortunately, the history of Christianity beginning with the Holy Roman Empire founded by Constantine is rife with the use of the literalization of Hell by those in power to control and in many cases oppress.  Both Church Authority and Christian States have used the threat of damnation to enforce compliance to their rule.  

Christian Monarchs of Europe and Britain followed the precedent of the Holy Roman Empire and reinterpreted Christianity as an ideology to reinforce their legitimacy and political control.  This is best seen in the doctrine of, "the Divine Right of Kings".  This creed held that those in power have Divine sanction and to question or oppose them is to question or oppose God Himself.  The reasoning was that if God controls and directs the activity of man, then anyone who comes to power must have been put there at the will of God and have His authority.  So, anyone who defied or questioned those in political authority were defying God and could be threatened with punishment not only in this life, but also with eternal punishment in the next.  Christianity became in many cases a gospel of control and oppression rather than transformation and life

However, the literal Hell narrative is not the point of the writings of the New Testament. I would argue that this narrative takes the scriptural texts out of context and is not faithful to the intent of the authors.  A literal interpretation points to an actual afterlife where one's identity and memories live on without a body, where one is sent to either one of two regions, one of bliss, or one of torture, depending on one's moral behaviour. This is figurative language used to discuss what is legitimate and laudable and brings "life" as opposed to what is destructive and brings a kind of "death".  Actions stemming from love, compassion, and inclusion create a circle of life where further actions in the same vein are encouraged to grow, a wholeness that continues on even after the individual is gone.  The same is true of the vicious cycle that can be produced by actions of selfishness, hatred, and exclusion.  It is these cycles of "good"or "evil" that create patterns of behavior that continue on after the individuals are gone that are a kind of afterlife, one that can be a heaven, or a hell.

So, what about all those references in the Gospels to an afterlife, you might ask.  To begin with, you have to remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi and wisdom teacher who belonged to post-exilic Rabbinical Judaism.  He and his early followers saw themselves as thoroughly part of that religion and tradition.  Wisdom teachers in that tradition frequently used the telling of popular stories, parables, and myths with their own twist in order to make a point, or bring a different perspective to light.

Epic of Gilgamesh

One of the best examples of this from the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, is the story of Noah, which is a retelling of the story of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, fragments of which have been found on tablets dated around 2,000 B.C., and which was also retold by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.  This story was never meant to portray a factual account of some literal historic event.  Its importance is in the way it was retold and interpreted by the Hebrew people.  
http://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/flood-myths-who-believes-in-noahs-ark-and-why/
Secondly, one needs to be aware that an afterlife was not a theme in the Rabbinical Jewish tradition that Jesus and his followers belonged to.  After death was only sheol, the grave.  The Hebrew tradition and the Tanakh is all about the people's Covenant and relationship with God in life.  I can only imagine that they steered clear of any suggestion of an afterlife in reaction to the prominent place the idea held in the religion of their oppressors in Egypt.  As a result, the closest thing to an afterlife in the Tanakh is where Elijah is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.  However, he didn't experience a life beyond death, he just didn't die.

There are only two references in the Old Testament that could be said to refer to an afterlife and these are Persian influenced references to a resurrection in some future time rather than an immediate transition to another conscious reality at the point of death. The first is: “Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise, awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of light, and the earth shall bring to life the shades” (Isaiah 26:19); and the second: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence” (Daniel 12:2).

Outside of the Rabbinic Literature, there is a doctrine in Jewish eschatology of Resurrection, where in a future age the dead will rise from their graves to live again.  This idea was closely associated with the doctrine of the Messiah and would be a ready store of allusions for the Gospel writers who cast Jesus in the Messiah role.

Stories and myths about an afterlife in Jesus time, mainly came from other religions and traditions; the Egyptian stories of the Field of Reeds where the soul went to enjoy a continued existence without sickness or disappointment for eternity, or the Greek myths of Hades where there were different planes of existence the dead could inhabit depending on how they had lived their life on earth.  The Roman city of Sepphoris, the capital of the Galilee province, was a hotbed of Hellenistic culture.  This city was only five kilometers away from Nazareth.  Jesus and his audience would have been quite familiar with the Greek stories about an afterlife.

Like the good Jewish wisdom teacher he was, Jesus used the popular stories, myths and ideas his audience was familiar with, giving them his own twist to illustrate his ideas and perception of reality. The writers of the Gospels did the same thing using allusions to these stories in their metaphorized accounts of Jesus' life and actions.  Marcus Borg in his writing uses the example of the parable of the prodigal son to demonstrate how a story in Scripture does not have to be literal in order to illustrate truths.  No one would say that because the family in the parable were not literal historical figures and that the narrative told is not a recording of actual historical events that the point it was meant to illuminate is not "true".  Many Christians, however, do not seem able to accept metaphor and allegory in the Scriptures where the text is not clearly identified as being a parable.

So what references to these stories from other cultures and religions about an afterlife were made in the Gospels?  There is the example of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke.  In this parable, the rich man and Lazarus both die and experience an afterlife where they are judged and sent to different planes of existence dependent on how they had lived their life on earth like in the Greek myths of Hades.  This is obviously a parable and shows up in Luke among a collection of parables.  It doesn't make sense to interpret it as Jesus giving a science lesson on the actual workings of what happens when people die.  The point being illustrated is that wealth and luxury are not rewards from God to the righteous and that failure to look after the poor and suffering is worthy of punishment (or, at least, that's how I interpret it).

Part of the narrative of a non-figurative Hell includes the characterization of Jesus as having come as judge, to mete out punishment to the many, and provide salvation to the few.  In this theology, after a person has died and their personality and memories have passed into an alternate reality not observable by our own, Jesus is portrayed as sitting in judgment over the person on which level of Hades they will reside, or to decide if that person merits the Field of Reeds, Heaven.  

In modern conservative Evangelical Christianity, the deciding factor is what you have allowed yourself to be convinced is factual.  The first condition is that you be convinced intellectually that there is a literal God, an all powerful sentient being that can read your mind and presides over the alternate dimension experienced at death.  Secondly, you must be convinced that the legal system of this narrative is also true and just, and that you have transgressed against it and are deserving of punishment.  And thirdly, you must be remorseful about this transgression and wish to be pardoned.  One can then gain forgiveness by asking that Jesus' death be accepted as payment on your behalf.  However, one must refrain from a, "lifestyle", that is out of compliance with those Old Testament laws that whichever Christian denomination or sect you have joined have determined God still endorses as opposed to the others.  This is a somewhat convoluted theology which may be a helpful model for some people.  However, it is not reflective of the themes of judgment and salvation in the Gospels.

Judaism of the second Temple period thought of Salvation in more of a corporate than personal fashion.  The concept of Salvation was tied to the restoration of the state of Israel and rescue from national enemies.  This was especially relevant in Jesus' time with the conquest and occupation by Roman forces. The Jews of the first century expected to be rescued from foreign dominion. Looking to texts such Deuteronomy 4:32, Isaiah 40:1-2, and Jeremiah 31:27-40,  many believed that this would only occur after they suffered a purification process for past breaches of their covenant with God.  As such, they looked for an immediate earthly wrath and judgment by God on the people of Israel where, as John the Baptist put it, "every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" (Luke 3:9).  This was an earthly process for the living and had nothing to do with one's existence after death.  In the Gospels, John the Baptist identifies Jesus as the awaited Messiah that would carry out this process on God's behalf.

"But one who is more powerful than I will come...His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:15-18)

The people asked John what they should do (to be saved from this immediate earthly purification).  His answer did not involve any of the Evangelical narrative above.  He told them that, "Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same".  To the tax collectors he instructed that they not, "collect any more than you are required to".  To the soldiers he advised, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely". 

So, the, "Good News of Salvation", in this section of the Gospels, is that there is a way for the people of Israel to escape the coming earthly judgment and purification necessary before their salvation from foreign domination.  The key to this salvation is through practicing generosity, social equality, honesty and justice.

Now, let us turn to the subject of the title of this blog.  Given the teachings of Jesus and the stories about him in the Gospels, who would he, "send to Hell", or, more accurately, what behaviours did he view as meriting punishment?  To begin with, this would include those actions that are the opposite of those John the Baptist cited to the people as the path to save themselves from the Messiah's earthly purge: greed, such as not sharing ones wealth with those in need to the level of equality, corruption, such as using position to extort or take advantage of others, and dishonesty, such as giving false testimony.  

Jesus is given in the Gospels as affirming John's route to escaping the Messiah's judgment and as confirming his displeasure with those who do not follow this direction. One of my favorite sections from the Gospels comes from the 21st chapter of Matthew where, in response to the Chief Priests and Elders questioning of his authority, he tells them a parable about two sons. At the request of their father to work in the vineyard, one son says he will not go, but changes his mind and later does, while the other initially says he will go, but in the end does not. When the Chief Priests and Elders identify the first as doing what his father wanted, Jesus responds with one of my favorite verses, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did.“ 

Next, let us look at the parable that is given in the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke about the Rich Man and Lazarus.  As mentioned earlier, this is one of texts that literalists draw their narrative on Hell from.  However, it is obviously a parable using the Greek myth of Hades as a vehicle and is placed in the chapter between other stories told by Jesus that no one questions as being parable. 

In the parable, both a rich man, who lived in luxury every day, and the beggar Lazarus, who lived at his gate, die, are judged, and sent to different planes of existence dependent on how they had lived their life on earth like in the Greek myths of Hades.  The place where the rich man ends up is actually called Hades, ᾍδης, ου, ὁ, in the original Greek texts of the Gospel, the same word used in the original Greek myths.  Jesus does however give a Hebrew twist to the story by having Father Abraham the one in charge in the next realm.

Now, in the story, the rich man isn't so much presented as being punished for his greed and lack of humanity in not sharing his wealth with Lazarus, as much as being subject to a kind of cosmic Karma.  When the rich man asks Father Abraham for pity and relief from his torment he is told:

But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony." (Luke 16:25)

So it appears that Jesus is proposing that if you live in inequality where you reserve the good things in life for yourself, not sharing them equally with others, you will at some point experience bad things in proportion so that there is a balance.  Not quite the message we are used to in the popular representation of Jesus and his teaching.  However, the theme is quite a common one in Greek Myth and Tragedy.  In these stories, rising too high risks gaining the notice of the gods and being knocked off one's perch like Oedipus.  In this case, Jesus would seem to be condemning inequality and hoarding resources to live in luxury while others live in deprivation.

Aside from social inequality, the thing Jesus is least tolerant of in the Gospels is self righteous legalism.  He condems those who consider themselves to be better or set apart from others due to strict observance of moral and Religious laws and who believe by their adherence to the letter of these laws that they have reached the limits of what God, compassion and empathy, requires of them and can demand blessing and reward in return.  This way of thinking was exemplified in Jesus time by the Jewish sect of the Pharisees.  Jesus was in no way shy in his insults towards this group for this mindset and the actions it produces.

43 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.”45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” (Luke 11:43-45 NIV)

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28 NIV)

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. (Matthew 23:13 NIV)

All this condemnation aside, who might be worthy of punishment is not the point of the Gospels.  The principle aspect of Jesus' teaching is his portrayal of God, what is legitimate, as primarily compassionate, generous, merciful, and inclusive, and that we are called to emulate this nature.  The main issue Jesus has with the Religious Leaders and Authorities is that they claim to represent God while not demonstrating these qualities and for excluding others in God's name.

So, given all this, who would Jesus, "send to Hell", or see as first in line in deserving of punishment?  Ironically, it would be those of us who censure and exclude others and pronounce them as condemned to Hell for not following Religious Law, or not following it to the same degree as ourselves.  The, "kingdom of heaven", is manifest whenever we live under the authority of God, the authority of love, compassion, and mercy, and no one is excluded, not even legalists and pharisees. 

I Like Rules and Jesus Scares Me

I have to admit that I like rules.  I'm the kind of guy who comes to a full stop at intersections and uses his turn signal even when I know there is no one else around.  I like clear expectations around responsibility and being able to appeal to authority on what the limits of my obligations are and what's "right". 

I particularly like to have well defined requirements and expectations that can be clearly and unquestionably met and finished.  This orientation is reinforced by my job.   I am employed in engineering at a chemical plant where part of my charge involves the maintenance and testing of safety interlocks and other measurement instruments involved in a protective role.  As you can imagine, the process for manufacturing chemicals has the potential for dangerous conditions with risks of toxicity, fire, or explosion if not managed properly.  To safeguard against this we use a system which is agreed upon as best practice by the chemical industry.  

First, we perform a regularly scheduled analysis of all the potential hazards at each step of the process using an accepted methodology involving a multidisciplinary team and led by an engineer trained in this practice.  In this analysis we consider every possible outcome.  "What if" the pressure, temperature, or flow were to increase or decrease at each point and would that create a dangerous condition?  The severity of the consequence and the likelihood of it occurring are ranked and the number of safeguards or "IPL's", Independent Layers of Protection, required are determined using this same practice.  Once this PHA, Process Hazard Analysis, is complete, it is reviewed and signed off by those in authority.

Some of these protective layers are instrumented, using measurement and control instruments like pressure switches and automatic valves.  This is my specialty, instrumentation.

To ensure these instrumented layers of protection function as intended when we need them, this discipline also sets testing, calibration and maintenance plans with intervals based on industry practice and the mean time between failure data for that type or model of instrument. Maintenance plans for IPL identified instruments are ranked with the highest priority in the work schedules.  If we are unable to meet the set due date, there is a rigorous deferral process where knowledgeable people (of whom I am sometimes one) assess whether we need to shut down the process or if we feel justified extending the deadline to a determined date taking into account the maintenance history of the instrument or other temporary safeguards being put in place. This evaluation then has to be reviewed and signed off by those with the proper authority.

This whole system is audited, both internally and by third parties, to keep us accountable.  So, at the end of the day, we can feel pretty good. No one can suggest that we needed to do more, or that we haven't met our obligations.  All the requirements have been carefully considered following authoritative regulations, reviewed and approved by those in charge, implemented, documented, and audited.

I would like to feel a similar security in my personal life, to know that everything has been done that I'm obligated to do, that it's all been paid, all the conditions have been made and I don't owe anyone a thing.  The most comfortable state is one with no anxiety about needing to do anything else, no slightly guilty feeling about whether I've done enough.  I've figured out the rules and even gone beyond what is required so that I can feel justified and secure with no fear of anyone calling me out or thinking me a slacker. That's why I find this Jesus guy so upsetting. 

There was a religious group in Jesus time that felt much the same way as this part of me does, the Pharisees.  The Pharisees were the most prominent sect in Judaism at the time and pretty much set the tone on what it meant to be faithful to God.  To them it meant being ever more specific and rigorous in how one met the letter of the requirements of the laws of Torah. 

Judaism at that time was primarily modeled around the idea of a legal contract, the Covenant the Hebrew people held with God.  God is basically beyond our compression as is the nature of our relationship with God, so we use concepts we are familiar with as analogies to try and get some sort of handle on the whole thing.  The model the early Hebrew people used to explain their relationship with God was a covenant of the type that some neighboring nations had with their king, or which potentially hostile parties of the time created to keep the peace and form a basis for cooperation. 


This covenant was portrayed in the Hebrew  Scriptures as originating with Abraham:

I will set up my covenant with you and your descendants after you in every generation as an enduring covenant. I will be your God and your descendants’ God after you.8 I will give you and your descendants the land in which you are immigrants, the whole land of Canaan, as an enduring possession. And I will be their God.” (Genesis 7:7-8)

The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, was written during the Babylonian Exile when the nation of Israel had been conquered by Babylon and much of the population had been taken there as captives.  In an environment of slavery and oppression, they told a story of a compassionate, loving, and just God in the exploits of Moses and their people being rescued from another enslavement in Egypt. In this story, they used the Covenant motif to offer a way of life and treating each other that was in contrast to that of their oppressors.  God was holy, loving, and fair.  The Covenant required them to emulate this God and treat each other in the same way.

As part of the renewal of the Covenant with Moses, the Law was portrayed as a concession because the people were unwilling to bear the direct presence of God in order to follow his ways in spirit. In the renewed Covenant, the Law  was seen as the terms and conditions of what was pictured as a contractual relationship with God.

In the time of Jesus, Israel had again been conquered, this time by Rome.  Israel was occupied by Roman forces and was ruled by a client king.  The Jewish people interpreted these events in terms of Covenant.  God wasn't following through on God's side of the agreement.  This must mean that they had not fulfilled their side.  They must not be doing it right, or meeting the requirements to the extent and precision necessary.

Following this view, the Pharisees were particularly zealous in following Torah to the letter.  They created numerous regulations and requirements on how to put Torah into practice.  Much of this legalism was based on the Mishnah, a redaction of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (536 BCE – 70 CE). The Mishnah is comprised of examples of Rabbinical judgments that were used to determine the correct way to carry out laws recorded in the Torah.  Each Rabbi would teach both the collected regulations, the "yoke", of his teacher and the line of teachers before him, as well as his own, leading to an ever increasing body of rules to clarify and break down in ever increasing levels of minutiae the proper observance of Torah. 

This way of thinking carried over to their expectations of Messiah.  The Messiah would be a figure anointed by God to show the people the proper way to observe the Law and bring them back into the right in their Covenant with God.  He would bring a punishment on the people that would settle the debt for their past transgressions and would judge and purge the land of offenders.  Once the people's side of the Covenant had been satisfied, he would, as God's Chosen, drive out the invaders and establish Israel as a powerful sovereign nation.

The drawback of this legalistic deficit mindset is that it doesn't leave much room for giving anything beyond the minimum of what is seen as required.  If you believe that you are in debt and have fallen short of the basic requirements, it is difficult to consider going beyond the letter.  How can you consider the  spirit of compassion, community, and generosity that are the principles of the Law when you feel that your survival depends on just getting what's obligated by the letter and you are already coming up short?  But, this is exactly what Jesus demands.

Jesus contends that our relationship with God extends beyond any legal contract.  There is no point at which the demands of God's spirit; love, compassion, and fairness, are satisfied, where we can opt out when the spirit calls.  The demand of the spirit can never be fully met or paid, so that anyone can claim to be fully righteous, paid in full, and beyond any further obligation.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:20

For Jesus, it is more than the minutiae of what's technically correct, it is the principles and spirit behind the Law that is most important.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.  Matthew 23:23

To make things even more challenging, Jesus also calls us to be totally unbiased, indiscriminate, and non-preferential in our practice of this boundless spirit of love, generosity, and compassion.  There is no hierarchy of priority, or anyone we should not include.  We are to love those outside our family, our religion, and our national and cultural groups the same, even those who hate us and mean us harm.

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? Matthew 5:46

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-28

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

Jesus was asked in the Gospels what the most important Commandment was.  

"On these two commandments
hang all the Law and the Prophets"
(Matthew 22:40)

When he answered that it was to love God and to love our neighbour as our self, he was asked who this neighbour we were required to love included.  In response, he told a parable about a foreigner of a despised religion, a Samaritan.  In the story, the Samaritan stops to help a Jew who had been left for dead by roadside bandits.  Even though pretending to be injured was a common trick by bandits and he could be walking into a trap, and even though knew that Jews hated and reviled Samaritans like himself and we're forbidden from even associating with them, the man tended to his injuries and even put him up in an Inn and gave him money.  He did this even though he was unlikely to ever see him again or get anything back.  This is the un-preferential and boundless love that Jesus tells us God expects.

This teaching is quite in contrast to the limitations that some Christians justify.  I recently saw a post that reported on a Religious Right activist who stated that Christians are not obligated, “to be giving money to feed those Muslims.”  He claimed the Bible tells him only, "how Christian brothers are supposed to relate to Christian brothers, not how Christian brothers are supposed to relate to the lost world.”

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/daubenmire-christians-are-not-obligated-help-muslims#sthash.1R4MZVKC.dpuf

When I was in High School, the staff advisor for our Interschool Christian Fellowship group taught us the hierarchy of Christian duty he had learned at his Church.  Our first duty and allegiance is to God, then one's spouse and family, then one's job, employer, and nation.  This would make the difficult choices between competing concerns much easier, but it is not the teaching of Jesus.  

Often our most difficult moral choices involve two legitimate demands from different people or groups that are mutually exclusive.  To show your love and give your assistance to one means withholding them to the other.  Whichever side you pick, someone is going to get hurt or neglected.  A system like the one above allows you to make some of these choices in a way that absolves you from responsibility and guilt for your harm or neglect of the side not chosen and see yourself as "in the right".  One can appeal to the authority of, "family comes first", to justify a decision and still appear righteous.  Again, this does not follow Jesus' teaching.

As a young man, I was concerned that these teachings of Jesus were extreme, unbalanced and seemingly fanatical.  They scared me.  I looked at the life of Jesus in the Gospels and asked myself what it might mean to really follow this man and take up his call to emulate him and live like he did.  I saw a man who lived in poverty, had no job, no home, and little possessions beyond the clothes on his back, and living off the charity of others.  He was never married or had children.  He was constantly giving his self to others to the point of ultimately giving up his own life and travelling a path that led to his execution.

When younger, I also heard a story about a Holy Hermit that I found disturbing.  Holy Hermits were persons in the Middle Ages who, "turned their back to the world", in their desire to follow Jesus.  They would travel the country, homeless, jobless, and with little in the way of possessions, giving sermons on street corners and depending on the charity of others for food and shelter.  The story went that one particular Holy Hermit, who had no possessions other than the clothes on his back and a tin cup for drinking, one day spied a man drinking water using cupped hands.  Once he saw this, he threw his cup away.

So, what does it mean to follow the way of Jesus.  Is it a path of total martyrdom where you constantly give of yourself without reserve or boundary until there is nothing left, up to and including death? Does it mean limitless and unbiased giving where no preference can be allowed for those who might support you in return?  Is it a totally self destructive road of self sacrifice?

 “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."

(Matthew 16:24-25)

I do not think this is the point of Jesus' teaching.  I think what Jesus is calling us to is an acceptance that we will always be, "in the wrong", at some point and that debt and obligation is not something that can ever be paid in full by us. We can't earn or perform our way into a position where our part of an agreement with God is complete and we have some kind of right or power to demand things of God.  We can never consider ourselves as set apart and special as compared to others.  But, these things are not what the, "life more abundant" that he offers are about.

What Jesus is telling us is that being, "in the right", is not the priority or goal that we should be setting.  People who set their priority on petty legalism and always being, "technically correct", usually have little grace and forgiveness for those who don't make the grade.  And grace, mercy, forgiveness and inclusion are the major tenants of Jesus' teaching.  The vision he shared of God that he calls us to imitate includes not only limitless love, compassion, and generosity, but also limitless grace, mercy, and forgiveness.  God not only has boundless grace for us, God also calls us to have infinite grace for ourselves.  We are included through grace no matter what, and we are called to practice that same inclusion to all around us with the same lack of stipulation.

  

I have been writing a blog series called, "A Literary Look at the Gospels".  In this blog, I am working my way through the Gospels passage by passage in an effort to better understand what these teachings and stories meant to the authors and their faith communities. In the course of this study I have been quite excited by the themes of acceptance and inclusion I have been discovering in the second chapter of Mark.

The second chapter of Mark gives three stories in a row centered on Jesus' inclusion of those considered outsiders in the society of his time. In all three, inclusion is independent of performance and is a statement on the unrestricted compassion of God.  A cripple, blocked from Temple sacrifice due to his deformity and therefore ostracized by the community, is pronounced forgiven by Jesus and brought back into the community.  Similarly, a leper, also expelled, is made clean and returned the community. The third story involves a tax collector, a collaborator with the enemy, making profit through oppression and in competition with the collection of the Temple taxes and the tithes seen as necessary to regain God's favour. Jesus not only elevates him to the same social level as himself and other Teachers of the Law, by eating with him in his home, he honours him by calling him to be one of his disciples.

In these stories, Jesus deliberately picks three people who were excluded and reviled by the community that considered themselves as God's special chosen people, three people rejected because they were unable or unwilling to meet the requirements of the Law.  He makes a point of including them, no strings attached.  He requires no prerequisites, he does not condemn them or demand any change.  In fact the only people he ever condemns or demands change from in the Gospels are the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law who consider themselves as righteous and having earned special favour with God, those who exclude and persecute others who they don't feel have matched their purity.  He makes the point that all are welcome in the fellowship and community of God, God's kingdom, no payment necessary.

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Galatians 2:19)

The Apostle Paul, in his Epistles, continues the metaphor of Covenant in order to explain Jesus' teaching in a way that it can be seen as a continuation and culmination of the Hebrew tradition.  He portrays Jesus death in terms of a sacrificial payment that has met all the demands and requirements of the Law for us.  For him, Jesus represents a New Covenant, with the Old Covenant fulfilled and completed and therefore no longer binding.  The Law now no longer applies. He criticized those in the Christian movement who, by continuing to call for strict adherence to the purity laws, were rejecting the freedom of Christ to remain "slaves to the law" (Galatians 5:1).

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4 KJV) 

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. (1 Corinth. 10:23 KJV) 

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

Like the original Covenant metaphor, some people literalize this New Covenant or stretch it too far until it is not only no longer useful, but in fact harmful.  A legal contract is not a love relationship. It is a power relationship where one party tries to control the actions of the other based on the terms set out.  Legalism is an attempt to control God.  Legalism is not love, and God is love.  A legalistic mindset requires there to be terms on our side so that in meeting them we can force God to fulfill His/Her side.  There needs to be a level of performance to meet so that we can consider ourselves as having merited special favour and set apart from others who fail to make the grade.

Legalism is an attempt to control God.

Legalism is not love, and God is love.

But, the beauty of this New Covenant in Paul's theology, is that it not only completely negates the requirements of the Old Covenant, but has no requirements of it's own.  It is totally unmerited and totally without stipulation or condition.  Yet this is beyond the grasp of many Christians who need a performance hurdle to feel like they have some control or claim over God and can perceive themselves as better and entitled beyond others.  

Some Christian theology claims that the law was never fulfilled and negated, but is still in play.  They believe that each transgression requires a separate act of forgiveness to be granted by God after it has occurred.  This forgiveness is only granted if after each transgression we ask it of God in Jesus name, accepting Jesus sacrifice as payment for the punishment they believe we deserve.  It also requires that we accept that the laws arbitrarily identified as being still in play (unlike others like eating shellfish or wearing clothing woven from two different types of material) are valid and deserving of punishment and death by a "just" God.  And it requires an attitude of repentance, a decision and conviction not to engage in the unlawful behavior or lifestyle in the future.  It is a well thought out, systemized and popularized theology cobbled together with a string of proof verses removed from context and a twisting and convoluted logic.  But, it is not reflective of the spirit of the stories and teachings of the Gospels, or the writings of Paul and other writers of the Epistles.

So, given all this, how does Jesus call us to live?  How do we know how to act or make value decisions if there is no ultimate set of binding rules or human authority to dictate how to implement them to allow us to be in the right in each circumstance?  First, I think we need to give up the illusion that it is possible to be right and "justified" in every situation life brings us.  We need to humbly accept that living means that we sometimes do the wrong, we harm or neglect the needs of others.  We eat while others go hungry, we clothe and shelter ourselves and our loved ones while others go naked and homeless.  We should no longer try to justify and enoble these choices, but humbly recognize our debt to those we share the world with.  At the same time, we need to offer ourselves the same grace that God does and in accepting that grace extend it to those around us.

We can't walk through the field of life without bruising the grass, but we can be mindful, humble, and grateful.  I think we need to adopt the mindset I have been told that some indigenous American people take towards hunting.  They do not consider the animals they hunt and kill their possessions, or the animal's life their due.  They do not see an animal's purpose as only to serve their needs, but as a creature that has the same right to life as themselves.  When they kill an animal, it is never for sport, but to meet their own needs for survival.  After taking an animal's life, they address the animals's spirit.  They express gratitude to the animal for their sacrifice and tell them how their body will feed their family and tribe, and how all their body will be put to use with respect with nothing wasted.  The point is that they do not deny they have taken what they have no inherent right to and treat the taking with humility and gratitude. 

Without absolute law and authority to make our decisions for us, how do we decide when to put the interest and needs of ourselves over others and to what extent?  The Gospels tells us that Jesus has sent us his spirit to guide us.  This is the spirit behind the principles of the Law, "justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Matt. 23:23).  It is also the spirit of love, compassion, and inclusion demonstrated in the Gospel stories of Jesus and his parables.  We are called to make the best and most balanced decisions we can by the prompting of this spirit with grace both for others and ourselves. It is messy and filled with uncertainty and lacks the assurance, self justification and lack of moral responsibility one can find in Law and authoritative directives.  However, it is a path of maturity, of accountability, of truth and integrity, the path of the Way of Jesus.