Fifth Sunday of Lent, 2023 - Follow Me

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” Mark 8:34.

With this statement, Jesus described what is involved in being one of his followers. The three phrases he used – deny themselves, take up their cross, follow me – are best understood against the backdrop of his warning, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod,” Mark 8:15.

In last week’s blog, I identified the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod as the merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking of the world. To take up one’s cross is to reject this way of thinking, living as an insurrectionist against it. To deny self is to die to the constructed, ego-centric persona we created based upon this way of thinking – what the world told us to be and do if we wanted to be accepted and valued. To follow me is to live in relationship with Jesus as our teacher-rabbi, learning from him a different way of thinking and living – thinking shaped by the character of God and the ways of God, what Jesus called the kingdom of God.

The way of thinking Jesus taught was (is) at odds with the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod – the way the world thinks and functions.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod is merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking whereas Jesus taught grace-based thinking that is expressed in forgiveness.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod emphasizes rules, laws, codes of conduct, moral and religious standards, each defining what is expected and telling us what to do whereas Jesus taught us to follow the way of mercy and compassion. “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13, Hosea 6:6).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod focuses upon behavior - the external - whereas Jesus taught us to focus on the interior – the heart, the attitudes and spirit that govern our lives (Mark 7:17-23).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod emphasizes conformity to expectations and obedience to the law (behavior) whereas Jesus focused upon spiritual growth and the transformation of the heart.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod with its focus on rules and laws fosters rigid black-and-white, either-or thinking whereas Jesus dealt compassionately with the complexities of life.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod results in us-them thinking whereas Jesus taught us to view and value, accept and embrace everyone as a beloved child of God.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod operates out of comparing and competing whereas Jesus taught the way of humility that recognizes all of life as a gift from God.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, operating out of comparing and competing, fosters better than-less than thinking whereas Jesus taught us to treat every person with dignity and respect as a beloved child of God (Mark 9:36-37).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod creates hierarchal thinking that assigns status and standing, power and privilege to those who have higher ranking in the hierarchy whereas Jesus taught that the measure of true greatness was a servant spirit (Mark 9:35).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod with its deserving-oriented thinking fosters a judging, critical spirit that traffics in condemnation, judgment, punishment, and rejection whereas Jesus taught us to respond to others with forgiveness (Luke 7:26-50; Matthew 18:21-35).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, operating out of a judging, condemning spirit, uses power over, down against others, for personal benefit at the other’s expense whereas Jesus used – and taught his disciples to use – power to serve, that is, alongside the other, on behalf of the other, for the other’s good at personal expense (Mark 10:42-45).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod creates on an underlying emotional tone of fear whereas the ways of Jesus lead to joy and peace.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod fosters shame whereas the ways Jesus taught produces freedom.

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod relies on self-effort and self-reliance whereas Jesus taught us to live in glad dependency on the Spirit, trusting the Father’s faithful provision and extravagant generosity (Luke 12:22-34).

The yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod produces a persona we present to others – what I call the constructed, ego-centric self, based on what world says we need to do and be if we want to be accepted and valued - whereas the ways of Jesus lead us to discover our true self, the person God created us to be (Mark 8:35-37).

Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God “has come near” (Mark 1:15, NRSV) or was “at hand” (NIV). The word he used meant the kingdom was here, now – in our midst. It was a reality that could be experienced now, that we could be a part of now. The way of living he embodied and taught is something we can experience in our own lives today.

As he proclaimed the reality of the kingdom, Jesus called people to repent (Mark 1:15). The word he used meant to think with a different mind. The yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod is how the world trained us to think. Like the disciples, it blocks our ability to recognize the kingdom, much less respond to it. Being a part of the kingdom requires us to learn a different way of thinking – the kind of thinking Jesus taught.

To follow Jesus is to move from the way the world trained us to think – merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking – to the grace-based way of thinking Jesus embodied and taught, i.e., kingdom-oriented thinking.

Fourth Sunday of Lent, 2023 - The Yeast (Leaven) of the Pharisees

 “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod,” Mark 8:15.

It is one of Jesus’s cryptic sayings that is generally overlooked and ignored. Yet, it is full of meaning and significance.

The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus meant by it. They thought he was talking about bread (Mark 8:16). But obviously, that’s not what Jesus meant. Matthew’s gospel identifies what Jesus meant. “Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” Matthew 16:12.

Beware of what the Pharisees teach. Beware of how they train you to think.

When Jesus spoke of the yeast of the Pharisees, he was referring to the thinking that shaped their world. That thinking shaped how they viewed and treated others, particularly those who did not measure up to their expectations. It shaped their sense of identity. It shaped what they valued. It shaped how they used power.

Interestingly, Jesus said the yeast (thinking) of the Pharisees was similar to the yeast (thinking) of Herod. The religious world and the political-social world operated out of the same kind of thinking.

Jesus warned the disciples about their kind of thinking. Beware! It is dangerous thinking. It undermines human relationships and destroys community.

So what is this kind of thinking – the thinking that governs the religious world as well as the political-social world yet is so dangerous and destructive?

The yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod is merit-based thinking. It is thinking that is oriented towards deserving. It creates transactional, if . . . then relationships. What one receives is based upon what one does, that is, deserves.

Merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking is built around laws, rules, standards, codes, and expectations. It focuses upon behavior – what one does or does not do. It emphasizes conformity to the expectations expressed in the laws and rules and codes.

This law-focused thinking fosters rigid black-and-white, either-or, right-and-wrong thinking. What the law says is right. Anything that challenges or violates the law is wrong.

 Merit-based thinking naturally leads to us-them thinking – those who conform and measure up to the expectations, those who don’t. Us-them thinking is tribal thinking. We naturally segregate ourselves into groups of those like us, excluding those not like us.

The us-them, tribal thinking of merit-based functioning inevitably produces comparing and competing. Who is right? Whose way is best? Of course, “our” way is always right. Our way is always the best way to do things.

Comparing and competing leads to better than-less than thinking. Because our way is right and better, we are better than “them.” We operate out of a not-so-subtle arrogant “better than” spirit.

The culmination of this thinking – merit-based thinking, right-or-wrong thinking, us-them thinking, better than-less than thinking – is a hierarchal society made up of those who are “in” and those who are “out.” Those at the top of the hierarchy enjoy greater privilege, power, affluence, status, freedom, and opportunity than those lower in the hierarchy.

In this hierarchal world, power is used in self-serving ways – to protect or enhance one’s position (with its power, status, wealth, privilege, and freedom) in the hierarchy, to keep “those other people” “in their place” at the bottom of the hierarchy, to punish and reward. Power is used over, down against others, for personal benefit at the other’s expense.

This merit-based world is built on self-effort and self-reliance. It fosters appearances, not authenticity. It produces a persona – a false self that I call a constructed self. This so-called identity is based upon what the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod told us we needed to do and be if we wanted to be accepted and valued. This constructed self has a shadow side – those parts of ourselves that we hide from others (and sometimes ourselves) for fear they would judge us and reject us if they knew about them. This hidden self is full of shame. This merit-based way of thinking and living floats on an ocean of shame.

The emotional tone underlying this merit-based way of thinking and living is one of anxiety and fear – fear of the other, fear of not getting my share, fear of losing what I have, fear of being found out, fear of judgment and condemnation, fear of being rejected and excluded, fear of not being loved and valued.

“Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!” Jesus’s word meant to look out for the danger in this way of thinking and living. It is dangerous thinking. Nothing good comes from it. He also meant “be aware of” this kind of thinking – in the world in which we live as well as in our own lives. This way of thinking and living is how the world – our religious world, our social world, our political world, yea even our families – trained us to think. “Be aware of how it penetrates how you think and what you do.”

Jesus used three terms to describe what it meant to be his disciple – his follower. Deny self, take up your cross, follow me. Each of these three terms plays off of his warning about the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod. To take up our cross is to reject the way the world trained us to think and live. It is to live as an insurrectionist against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod. To follow Jesus is to learn from him a different way of thinking and living – the ways of the kingdom that reflect the character of God. To deny self is to surrender the constructed self the world told us we needed to be if we wanted to be accepted and belong.

This Lent, let’s give up the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.

Third Sunday of Lent, 2023 - Deny Self

What did you give up for Lent? 

The season of Lent is commonly associated with giving up something we enjoy – caffeine (coffee), sugar, chocolate, soft drinks, alcohol, etc. The Catholic tradition of eating fish on Friday during Lent is rooted in this practice of giving up something for Lent – in their case, meat. As for me, I traditionally give up rhubarb. 😉 The thinking behind this practice is that the inevitable desire for what we give up becomes a prompt to desire God – to think about God, to turn to God, to pray.

This Lenten practice is based upon Jesus’s teaching, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves,” Mark 8:34. In my mind, the practice is based on a misunderstanding of this teaching.

The phrase “deny themselves” is one of three that Jesus used to describe what is involved in being his follower. In my last blog, I addressed the other two phrases: “take up their cross and follow me.” To be a follower of Jesus is to live as an insurrectionist (take up your cross), rejecting the way the world trained us to think and live. It is to walk in relationship with Jesus (follow me), learning the ways of God he taught so that our thinking and living are shaped by the character of God and the ways of God.

In this description of what it means to be his follower, denying self has to do with identity, not things we enjoy.

When we reject the way the world trained us to think and live, we give up the identity we created based upon what the world said we needed to be and do if we wanted to be accepted and valued. I call this identity our constructed self. We built this identity based upon what we, through self-effort, accomplished and achieved. This identity is tied to how we measured up to the expectations of the world in which we grew up – family, society, church, culture. This identity is not our authentic or true self. It is a persona we present to others.

This constructed self is an ego-centric self. It is me-focused, hence the term ego-centric. It operates out of a self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit.

Comparing and competing feed this ego-centric identity. At the core of this manufactured identity is the thought “I’m not like that. I’m better than them.” Judging and criticizing others reinforces the sense that we are better than “those other people.” An unrecognized spirit of arrogance lives at the core of our ego-centric identity.  

To be a follower of Jesus is to give up this manufactured identity – the persona we created in order to be valued and accepted by the world. It is to discover our true self – the person God created us to be – as we walk in relationship with Jesus, learning and living the ways of God he taught.

As we walk with Jesus, a servant spirit – the spirit of Jesus – grows in us (Mark 9:33-37). The servant spirit is the opposite of the self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit of the ego-centric, constructed self. As the servant spirit grows in us, we surrender comparing and competing, criticizing and judging along with the better than-less than thinking that props up the ego-centric, constructed self. As long as we cling to the identity of our constructed self, we cannot genuinely serve others. We will be caught up in protecting and propping up the identity we manufactured - our ego-centric, constructed self.

To follow Jesus is to die to the ego-centric identity we created in order to be accepted and valued by the world. This false identity is what we give up for Lent. It is what we give up as a follower of Jesus.  

Second Sunday of Lent, 2023 - Take Up Your Cross

 The Lenten journey is a six-week discipline of intentional, focused discipleship. For those who choose to practice the discipline of Lent, it is a time of consciously focusing upon God and their relationship with God. Interestingly, few people – in my experience - speak of the journey in terms of discipleship.

The Lenten journey is patterned after the final six weeks of Jesus’s life when he journeyed from Galilee to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. According to the synoptic gospels, the awareness of what he would experience in Jerusalem dominated his thinking during this timeframe. He repeatedly attempted to prepare his disciples for what he knew was coming, but they could not hear or accept what he said. In addition, he repeatedly taught them about discipleship – what it meant to be his follower. As with his teaching about what awaited him in Jerusalem, the disciples were unable to grasp what he taught about discipleship. (The gospel of Mark gives us three examples of how Jesus’s teaching about what he faced in Jerusalem was paired with his teaching about being his disciple. The gospel indicates these three pairings were examples of a recurring theme in his teaching.)

Like the disciples, many today who identify themselves as a Christen do not have a clear understanding of discipleship – what it means to be a follower of Jesus. They speak of being a Christian, not a disciple. For them, being a Christian means believing certain things about Jesus (proper belief), living a certain way (proper behavior), and church involvement (proper worship).

Jesus clearly stated what is involved in being his disciple. Yet we, like his first disciples, struggle to grasp what he said. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” Mark 8:34. In this teaching, Jesus used three phrases to describe what is involved in being his follower: deny self, take up your cross, follow me. These three phrases express the essence of discipleship.

I often hear people speaking of their “cross” as in “it’s my cross to bear.” On the surface, the term “my cross” seems to echo Jesus’s teaching about discipleship. However, the meaning of the term “cross” as used in this common phrase and what Jesus meant by it are radically different. In the statement “it’s my cross to bear,” the word “cross” refers to some kind of painful challenge we are facing, such as a chronic illness or the challenges of grief after the death of a spouse or child. These normal, difficult life experiences are not what Jesus meant by the word “cross.” It is not how the disciples would have understood the term.

In Jesus’s day, the cross was a means of execution the Roman government used to punish and make an example of those who dared to defy their power and authority. Crucifixion – death by the cross - was a torturous, painful death done in the public forum. (Jesus’s crucifixion was by one of the city gates so that all who came and went would see it.) It was Rome’s way of saying, “This is what happens to anyone who dares to defy us.” The cross was for insurrectionists.

When Jesus said discipleship involved taking up the cross, he was talking about a way of life. He meant living as an insurrectionist. To be his follower was to reject the ways of the world. It was to walk out of step with the thinking of the world and the ways of the world which Rome embodied.

Jesus paired “take up your cross” with the phrase “follow me.” This phrase was a technical term in Jesus’s day, used by rabbis to invite specific individuals to be one of their disciples, i.e., learn from them. To be a follower of Jesus – a disciple – was to learn from him a way of thinking and living that was different from the world’s way of thinking and living. It was to learn and live the ways of God that Jesus taught, i.e., the ways of the kingdom.

The heart of discipleship is walking in relationship with Jesus, learning from him a different way of thinking and living. It involves moving beyond the way the world trained us to think and live. To be a disciple is to use power, in all its forms, the way Jesus used power - to serve others. It is to view and value, accept and embrace every person as a beloved child of God - just as Jesus did. To be a disciple of Jesus is to reject the merit-based, deserving-oriented thinking of the world, choosing instead to relate out of grace and forgiveness – just as Jesus did. It is to value people more than material things – just as Jesus did. It is to trust the extravagant generosity of God, giving generously and freely of what God has given – just as Jesus did.

When the Lenten journey is about discipleship, we intentionally reflect on how we are living as a follower of Jesus. We allow the Spirit to help us recognize the teachings of Jesus that we resist. We allow the Spirit to help us recognize where we do not live the ways Jesus taught. We allow the Spirit to help us examine what is in our hearts. We allow the Spirit to help us recognize how our thinking and living mirrors the ways of the world rather than the ways of God. We allow the Spirit to show us the next step of our discipleship journey.

In other words, giving up something for Lent - chocolate or alcohol or sugar - may or may not have anything to do with being a follower of Jesus. More about that in my next post – Deny Yourself.

First Sunday of Lent, 2023 - Another Lenten Journey Begins

 Another Lenten journey is under way. The journey began with the ashes of Ash Wednesday. It will end on Holy Saturday, outside a tomb, waiting for the celebration of resurrection on Easter Sunday. In between is a six weeks journey which – for most of us – will include commitment, spiritual disciplines, struggle, failure followed by renewed commitment and trying again. In a way, the Lenten journey is a lot like the rest of life – aspiring, trying, failing, aspiring again, trying again, failing again. If nothing else, the Lenten journey teaches us about grace – our need for it, the abundance of it from the heart of God.

Many of us participated in an Ash Wednesday service to begin our journey. The ashes of Ash Wednesday are a reminder of our humanness. We received the ashes in the form of a cross, reminding us of the grace we need in our humanness.

Truth be told, most of us are uncomfortable with our humanness. Being human means we are not yet full grown. We are still in process, learning and growing. Being human means we live with limitations. We do not have an endless supply of anything – energy, strength, endurance, patience, love. You name it, at some point, we run out of it. When we run short, we need to rest, recharge, refill, renew. In other words, being human means living with recurring needs. Again, truth be told, most of us don’t like to feel like we are needy much less in any way dependent. Being human also means we make mistakes. We stumble and fall. We don’t always get it right the first time. We don’t always make straight A’s. Whatever way you say it, being human means we are not perfect. We aspire to do more than we can live up to. There is always a gap between what we know to do and what we can do. The biblical term that means “falling short” is sin. Being human means we live with the reality of dealing with falling short, i.e., sin.

And that’s where the Lenten journey comes in.

Historically, Lent is a season of repentance. It is focused on how we fall short. It is a season of resolve, expressing our desire to do/be better. It is a time when we choose to give up something as an expression of this desire. (The practice of giving up something for Lent is tied to Jesus’s statement, “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me,” Mark 8:34. More about that in my next blog.) The Lenten season is a time of renewed focus on spiritual practices – what is commonly called spiritual disciplines because they require self-discipline to practice them.

Ironically, the Lenten journey as we traditionally practice it sets up the resolving-trying-failing-resolving again-trying again-failing again-repeat-it-until-you’re-blue-in-the-face cycle that is a normal part of our human condition. Therein is the downside of Lent. Therein is also the potential gift of Lent.

The downside of Lent is its focus on our humanness with its falling short. It’s the wrong focus (in my opinion). It keeps us focused on ourselves, on our failure (sin), on our behavior – what we do or fail to do. It makes the journey about me. (Shaming ourselves for our sinfulness is one of the ingenious ways the ego-centric self keeps the focus on “me.”)

The upside of Lent is our struggle with our resolving-trying-failing-resolving again cycle can lead us to a better focus – or should I say, better foci (as in two).

Hopefully, this behavior-focused cycle will eventually lead us beyond our obsession with our behavior and with how we fail to measure up, i.e., sin. Hopefully, repeated failure will eventually lead us to ask “Why?” Why do I do what I do not want to do? Why can’t I do what I aspire to do? (Check out Paul’s lament about this struggle in Romans 7:15-24.) When we stop fighting our struggle and seek to understand our struggle, we are in a position to move beyond the struggle. We are in a position to make actual progress.

We move beyond our struggle when our focus shifts from our behavior to our heart, from the external to the internal, from the symptom to the source. Jesus, following Jeremiah, identified the heart rather than our behavior as the problem. “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within,” (Mark 7:21-22a).

We like to focus on our behavior because we have some degree of control over it. We, on the other hand, have no control over what lies in our hearts. We are powerless to control it. Paul spoke of this powerlessness as being a slave or captive to sin, Romans 7:6, 17, 20, 23. The good news is that God can change what is in the heart!

The heart is the first proper focus of the Lenten journey. The heart is where the battle is won. The second proper focus of the Lenten journey is God, specifically, the grace of God.

Our struggle with our humanness points us to God. It calls us to open our hearts anew to God and to the Spirit’s work of transforming them. It calls us to reclaim the grace and forgiveness which God freely lavishly on us. It calls us beyond guilt and shame, self-condemnation and self-hate. It invites us to join Paul in his conclusion: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Jesus Christ our Lord! … There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” Romans 7:24-24a; 8:1. It calls us to live in the power of the Spirit rather than out of self-effort and self-reliance, Romans 8:3-4, 12-17.

And so another Lenten journey begins. May it lead us into personal transformation – by leading us to focus on the interior realm of the heart, by leading us to focus on God, not self, by leading us once again to open our hearts to the transforming grace of God, by leading us to live in glad dependency upon the Spirit. 

Transfiguration Sunday, 2023 - Listen to Him!

The challenge is one we all encounter on our spiritual journey. We cannot avoid it because it is a normal, inherent part of the spiritual journey. How we navigate this challenge determines the progress we make – or don’t make – on our spiritual journey. How we navigate this challenge determines whether we grow or become stuck, trapped in stagnant spiritual immaturity.

This challenge is reflected in the transfiguration experience of Jesus. The account in the gospel of Matthew - Mathew 17:1-8 – suggests the experience was for the three disciples Jesus took with him on the mountain retreat: Peter, James, and John. What the three disciples experienced on the mountain falls into three parts.

First, Jesus was transfigured before them. “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white,” Matthew 17:2. It was as though the veil that separates the physical realm from the spiritual realm was briefly pulled aside, allowing them to see Jesus in the glory he would experience beyond death. Then they saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah – the lawgiver and the first of the Hebrew prophets recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. As though these two visions were not enough, the three disciples were overshadowed by a cloud, representing the presence of God. A voice spoke to them out of the cloud. God spoke to them.

The background to their experience is what helps us understand what God said to the three. Six days before the transfiguration experience (Matthew 17:1), Jesus had engaged the three, along with the other disciples, in a conversation about his identity. In that conversation, which took place at Caesarea Philippi, they said what they had been thinking and whispering among themselves. It was the first time they said it out loud. Peter was the one who spoke for the group. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Matthew 16:16. They recognized that Jesus was indeed the long-awaited messiah.

Jesus affirmed Peter for his insight, saying it was from God. Jesus then began to build on that understanding. Now that they recognized Jesus as the Messiah, he began to teach them what being the Messiah involved. He began to teach them of the suffering and death he would experience in Jerusalem, Matthew 16:21. Jesus understood that the Messiah was the Suffering Servant spoken of by the unidentified prophet of the exile, Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12. The vision Jesus had at his baptism confirmed this understanding, Matthew 3:13-17.

Suffering and death were the farthest things from the mind of the disciples when they thought of Jesus as the Messiah. Their thinking about the Messiah was shaped by the world’s view of greatness. Their thinking revolved around how the world uses power. They assumed the Messiah would be a warrior king like David – one who would defeat their enemies and restore the nation to a place of dominance among the nations. Acting out of this kind of thinking, Peter rebuked Jesus for talking about suffering and death.

In Peter’s rebuke of Jesus, we see the challenge we all inevitably face on our spiritual journeys: hearing what we don’t want to hear, embracing what we don’t want to accept.

The spiritual journey involves moving from how the world trained us to think and live to accepting and embracing how Jesus taught us to think and live. The ways of God Jesus taught and lived challenge how we inherently think and live. Like Peter and the other disciples, we naturally hold onto what we already think, resisting what Jesus teaches us. We struggle to hear what we don’t want to hear.

That’s where the transfiguration experience comes in. In the transfiguration, the three disciples saw Jesus in a glory that far exceeded what they had envisioned. They envisioned Jesus as the messianic king ruling an earthly empire – much like the Roman emperor. In the transfiguration, they saw Jesus exalted in a spiritual realm. They saw a glory that exceeded anything they could imagine. They saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus about what he faced in Jerusalem (Luke 9:31). In other words, they heard the Hebrew Scriptures confirm what Jesus was saying to them about his suffering. (“The law and the prophets” was how the Hebrew people spoke of their scriptures.) Then, to drive the point home, they heard the voice of God speaking to them.

What God said to them has two parts to it. The first part of what God said echoed the voice Jesus heard at his baptism. “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased,” Matthew 17:5. “This is my son, the Beloved” came from Psalm 2, the coronation psalm that was used whenever a new king was crowned. This phrased affirmed the disciples’ understanding of Jesus as the Messiah. It was as though God said to Peter, James, and John, “You’ve got it right … up to a point.” The second phrase – “with whom I am well pleased” – came from Isaiah 42:1, the first Servant Song. This phrased affirmed what Jesus was teaching them about the nature of the Messiah. Jesus, as the Messiah, was the Suffering Servant of the Lord.

The second part of what God said to the three disciples was pointed. “Listen to him!” Matthew 17:5. In essence, God said, “Quit resisting!”

Being a follower of Jesus calls for a teachable spirit – a willingness to learn what Jesus taught. When we live out of a teachable spirit, we recognize the resistance that rises from deep within when what Jesus teaches challenges what we think. When we live out of a teachable spirit, we are willing to acknowledge the resistance without clinging to it. A teachable spirit leads us to sit with that which goes against what we think and how we live, open to the Spirit’s guidance. (Remember: insight comes from God, through the Spirit’s work.) When we live out of a teachable spirit, we are open to new understanding and insight – understanding and insight shaped by the ways of God. A teachable spirit is evident in the willing to move beyond how the world trained us to think and live, embracing the ways of God Jesus taught. A teachable spirit is the pathway to progress – spiritual growth into the likeness of Christ. We can never grow spiritually as long as we cling to the ways the world trained us to think and live.

The challenge – hearing what we don’t want to hear, embracing what we don’t want to accept – is a normal part of our spiritual journey. It offers us the opportunity to take the next step on our spiritual journey to becoming like Christ.

Listen to him!

You Have Heard It Said

“You have heard it said . . . but I say to you,” Matthew 5:21-22.

I wonder if any of us realize the significance of what Jesus said. Six different times he said, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you.” Each time he challenged the traditional understanding of the Law of Moses – about murder, about adultery, about divorce, about oaths, about retaliation, about relating to an enemy. He challenged the foundational teachings of his religious tradition.

Let’s be clear. Jesus didn’t discount those teachings. In fact, he did just the opposite. He came to fulfill the law, Matthew 5:17. That is, he came to reveal what the law meant and to live the life that the law pointed to. When Jesus said, “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you,” he reinterpreted the six laws, giving them new and deeper meaning. He went beyond the law’s focus upon behavior – what not to do – to the underlying principle embodied in the law – what to do. He said to a people who built their lives around the law that the law was not fulfilled when they conformed their behavior to its demands. The law was fulfilled when they followed the principle embedded in it.

For example, the underlying principle of “You shall not murder” is recognize and respect the dignity and worth of every person, without exception. Jesus said every time we are angry with another or judge another or insult another, we discount them, robbing them of their dignity and worth. Every time we function out of us-them thinking we discount and devalue the other as less than. According to Jesus, we are guilty of murder.

This shift in focus – from the prescribed behavior to the underlying principle – is life changing. It reorients our thinking. It refocuses our religious life. It moves us beyond our natural focus on behavior to focus on the attitude and spirit residing in our hearts. It moves our emphasis from the external to the internal. It calls us to recognize, name, and address what lies in our hearts so our hearts can be cleansed and our lives transformed. It calls us beyond self-effort with its trying-harder-to-do-better resolve to an openness to God’s grace and the transforming work of the Spirit. Only God can transform our hearts.

Jesus’s statement “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you” was radically significant.

His statement “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you” has an added bonus in today’s religious climate. His words offer guidance in how to read the Bible. We are to read the Bible in the light of the life and teachings of Jesus. Our religious beliefs and understandings are to be shaped by the character of God and the ways of God that we see in Jesus’ life and teachings. Sometimes what Jesus taught calls us to surrender what our religious training taught us to believe - just as Jesus’s statement “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you” called his followers to a different, deeper understanding of their religious tradition. (See Peter’s experience in Acts 10 for an example.) 

“You have heard it said . . . but I say to you.”