Getting Ready for Change

 We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.  Proverbs 16:9

All of us have wanted to change something in our lives.  We make plans; we get information and tools and learn what must be done.  If we are smart, we engage community support in the area of change we need.  I propose, though, that we miss the most important element in the process, which can sideline us if we don’t attend to it.  We miss being ready for and ready to accommodate the emotions of a change process.

How do you feel about the problem?

How do you feel about feeling that way?

How do you feel about problem-solving through this particular problem?

How do you feel about feeling that way?

How might you feel about achieving success?

How do you feel about feeling that way?

This is why we often fail:  we don’t honor those feelings let alone navigate them, which leads to failure as we abandon the process because we are so uncomfortable with the feelings that attend change. 

I know all have done it because I know that people know what to do … but do not do it. You have seen it; you have done it;

 What happens is that we are faced with new information that doesn’t fit our scheme at all!  The superficial facts and acts seem obvious enough, but the emotional construct needed to make change feels daunting.  We don’t know how to let our stomach hurt.  Part of the solution is to learn to stay uncomfortable when we are solutioning.

In faith practices, discovery and growth  is sometimes called “liminal” spaces, the spaces of waiting for change.  Traditionally, the liminal space is the space of transformation.  It’s a waiting area filled with anticipation, disorientation, uncomfortableness, maybe even fright.

The extreme example is the Saturday after “good” Friday.  Jesus is dead and the disciples have no idea what is happening.  They don’t know that Sunday is coming, and they are in a terrifying space of reorientation…and towards what future, they don’t know.  I can only imagine what that 48 hours was like, but I imagine the room was flooded with dark emotions of grief, fear, despair.  I imagine the sobbing and wailing.  I imagine the ferocious need to save themselves, yet their future seeming to be in complete disarray. 

Their lives had to go on, but how?  How does one solution in the midst of pain?  Could it be possible that those dark emotions could be teachers or guides?  Could the primal howl of existential suffering actually be healing or transformative?  Have you ever screamed out of sheer frustration of fear?  What if that was healing?

The disciples had to face in a larger sense than when we are in a liminal space how to navigate not just next steps, but new identity and purpose.  All they held true had collapsed (although we know Jesus would reorient that collapse).  What if, in less terrorizing moments comparatively, that is true for us as we make change?  What will we become?  Can we let Jesus reorient our path (determine our steps)? What will that liminal space teach us?

Squint ahead and see that God has determined our steps.  He knows the way.

Psalm 39: A Lament on the Brevity of Life

 (My version of Psalm 39)

I promised myself:  I'll be careful on life's journey not to sin with my words.  I'll seal my lips when wicked people are around.  I did keep my mouth shut.  I had nothing to say - not even anything good - which grieved me more and more.  I felt my heart become hot inside me as I thought on these things.  I was furious (with myself?).

Eternal One, let me understand my end and how brief my existence is.  Help me deal with myself by realizing that my life is fleeting.  Why torture myself like this?

You have determined the length of my days and my life is nothing compared to you.  Even the longest life is only a breath.

Selah

(consider this) 

In truth, all journey through life like a shadow (analyze that!)  We busy ourselves accomplishing nothing (lasting or of real value), piling up assets we cannot keep (or are fleeting).  If it is all so temporary (of light impact) , what I am really doing?

You, Lord, are my only hope (for meaning and purposeful action).

Keep me from wrong (for your sake and mine).  I am quiet.  I keep my mouth closed because it comes from you to humble me this way.  Discipline me for my sin.  I am but a moth, which you can consume.  I am only breath.

Selah

(consider this) 

Hear me, O Eternal One, listen to my pleading and don't ignore my tears.  I am estranged from you - a wanderer like my fathers before me.  Look away from me so I might have a chance to recovery my joy/my smile again before I lay this life down and am no more.

An Authentic Human - Jesus...and me?

 Who is this human?  Could Jesus have been fully human?  

To be true to ourselves as human beings, we first have to get honest about our Lord's humanity, too. Could Jesus be more human than we previously thought?   I worry that we have turned into agnostics who spiritualize the Christ to the point that we miss the humanity of Jesus.   I don't intend to overlook Jesus' divine nature, but to integrate it with who he was on earth as a man.  That is our own struggle in reverse, trying not to overlook our human nature, but integrating it with who we are in the spiritual realm.

The real Jesus took life seriously - there were lives and souls at stake; the Father's will was being acted on; there was the seriousness of sin and the cross to bear - but there is indication that he did not take life solemnly.  Yet, he felt human emotion to its deep and demanding end.

Through his humanity, we can be drawn back to the holy, divine Jesus, who today still longs, understands and has compassion for us.  Through his humanity, we can understand the depth of our calling for community and communion with the Lord and each other.  Jesus spoke explicitly of our kinship relationship to God and of the unifying nature of that relationship.  He understands the need to feel love and belonging, relief and release.

Thus, an authentic Jesus emerges.  Part of his ministry was to be like us, to know what it felt like to be human and to demonstrate emotional wholeness.  With authority, he can lay claim to understanding our lives, our suffering and our joy.

To rest in that claim gives us a chance to claim our own humanity as the very cause for our spiritual development.  I propose that to be more like Christ might be found in being more human, not less.  Let's not live a pious and passionless existence;  Jesus didn't.

Jesus was Fun and Funny!

 

The most overlooked part of the emotions of Jesus is his sense of wit and humor, often evident in his teaching.  Western readers miss it because of cultural difference with the Near East culture of biblical times.  Especially, in Jesus' parables, his metaphors probably brought ripples of laughter down the hillside.  While, we take with seriousness "removing the log from our own eyes" and "a camel passing through the eye of a needle," the crowds of Jesus' day would have loved those sayings for their exaggeration.  The use of such humor in the ancient Near East would serve to drive home Jesus' point, just as comedians do so well today.

His favorite target, though, was the religious elite, and the common people might have howled at his sarcastic descriptions of them.  The twinkle in the eye is not recorded, but, oh so evident, when Jesus talks about the Pharisees "straining gnats and swallowing camels." (Matthew 23:24)  Matthew 23:5 is a Saturday Night Live satire waiting to  happen in Old Palestine:  "They make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long" would have brought laughter from the crowd as the obvious word-picture of the encumbrances of showy religion would be easy to ridicule. 

Jesus also used sarcasm, which is hard to capture with the written word.  An example is in Luke 5:30.  With Jesus teaching about the transformation of people so they can receive new revelation and new teaching, he used the analogy of the problem of placing new wine in old wineskins.  Only Luke records the follow-up statement, "And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says 'The old is better.'"  If we don't appreciate Jesus' use of irony and the subtle humor of sarcasm, Elton Trueblood (writer of The Humor of Christ) would surmise this sounds like he just nullified the entire parable, except that we miss the exaggerated tone of voice Jesus must have used.

The moral of Jesus' parable is acutely in the opposite meaning of his words in this statement, but we miss it if we don't understand the potential of Jesus' sarcastic wit.  It is hard to justly record Jesus' meaning, which may be the reason that only Luke has it present.  The Synoptics don't want to confuse the lesson.  Luke may have included the statement because he wanted to show Jesus' humorous way of teaching.

I relate it to the modern-day equivalent when I have said in church board meetings, "We've always done it that way" in complete (but deadpan) sarcasm and with raised eyebrow.  This is a ripple of chuckles and smiles, for the members understand my true meaning.  No one writes it down in the minutes exactly that way because words alone cannot capture my true intent.

So, Jesus was funny.  Crowds followed him not because he was dour and condemning in his lessons and outreach. He used humor to point out truth that all his listeners needed to hear. He understood that "Laughter is holy when it penetrates our pretensions and feelings of self-righteousness."  

Jesus' Emotions Inferred

Emotions and behaviors are closely related because behaviors can tell us so much about what a person is feeling.  We can look at Jesus and his reactions to infer the set of emotions he was having. Jesus did not just "have" feelings and then stuff them.  His being, his body had a response. Such a discussion of Jesus and his emotions helps us access the truth about being a whole, healthy human, too.  Let's look at the most obvious.

Sometimes, Jesus had a measured response, like when he "sighed" before the deaf/mute.  (Mark 7:32-35) Was it a sigh of pity or, as translations show, was it reflective of the strong emotions he felt as he battled satanic power?  Jesus also sighed at the request from the Pharisees for a miraculous sign his authority. (Mark 8:11-12) This sigh was obvious distress over their obstinate unbelief and it is recorded as "sighed deeply," indicating it was a groan.  

Have you ever groaned under the weight of pressure?

Sometimes, inference can be made about emotion given the context and action in which Jesus is engaged.  It is not too hard to infer Jesus' vehement indignation with Herod and the Pharisees' threat to his work in Luke 13:32.  Jesus responds to Herod's threats by calling him a name!  His boldness comes ringing through as he offers this stinging retort:

A few minutes later some Pharisees said to him, "Get out of here if you want to live, because Herod Antipas wants to kill you!"  Jesus replied, "Go tell that fox that I will keep on casting out demons and doing miracles of healing today and tomorrow;  then the third day I will accomplish my purpose."

Jesus' expressions of anger do not end with just verbal exchanges.  The picture that John gives us of Jesus cleansing the temple is the most graphic of all the Gospels.  Jesus fashions a whip (notice the forethought) and used it forcefully to drive the merchants out of the temple.  This is a passioned Jesus, demonstrating it with a strong human response.

Take note of the passion in Jesus' weeping, too. In English, "weep" is a passive, tepid word, but it is translated from a Greek word that has connotations of "overflowing" and "sore."  That would be "wailing" in today's English.  Jesus felt such loss over Jerusalem's future destruction and the grief-state of Mary and Martha's loss of their brother that he was overly demonstrative.  Both are examples of deep and heartfelt anguish.

Yet, this Man of Sorrow was never far removed from also being the Man of Joy.  Jesus was responsive to the joy inside of himself.  When filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave thanks to God (Luke 10:21; Matthew 11:25-27).  He greatly rejoiced with the 72 when they returned with the report of their great successes over demons and sickness.  Jesus took particular note of the source of his joy and explained it to the disciples, "I saw Satan falling from heaven with a flash of lightning!"  and properly focused the disciples' joy by adding, "Don't rejoice just because evil spirits obey you; rather, rejoice because your names are registered as citizens of heaven." (Luke 10:18-21).  Then, after the resurrection, I can only begin to imagine how much joy was exchanged between Jesus and his disciples!

Past what is obvious by Jesus' emotions and his responses, we can probably presume some things about Jesus' emotional life by his associations with certain types of people.  The Bible records him eating with tax collectors and "notorious sinners" and that the Pharisees looked down on his behavior.  I assume Jesus wasn't condemning those at the table, but laughing and participating in hearty discussions, especially since the Pharisees were so quick to call Jesus and his disciples "gluttons and drunkards."

Well, it seems like Jesus knew how to have a good time.  He got along well with others (except the authorities).  Hey!  That sounds like me!  How much of that sounds like you?

We are not done exploring the emotions of Jesus, but I want us all to begin to see his human self, so you can see and honor your human self more clearly, too.  

Jesus' Emotions clearly stated

 There is a distinctive and distinguishable feature of humans over and above all other parts of God's creation:  the emotions.  I wonder if in our question to look at and follow Jesus, his emotional side has been overlooked.  In so doing, we minimize his full humanity and our ability to identify with him.

Did Jesus have emotions?  Anyone who has ever participated in Bible quizzing knows the shortest verse in the Bible:  "Jesus wept."  Okay, he shared the grief of the sisters of Lazarus and cried at Lazarus' tomb.  Who wouldn't?  But, did Jesus have a full range of emotions?  Taking into consideration that Jesus was betrayed by a disciple, rejected by his family and community, taken care of by a group of loving women, dogged by religious leaders, partied with notorious sinners, saw serious pain and suffering, how can we ever imagine that he did NOT have emotions and emotional responses?

There are several places in the Gospels where Jesus' emotions are mentioned by name.  Jesus felt "compassion" several times for those in need.  The word in Greek and Aramaic (Jesus' spoken language) means "from the gut."  For anyone emotionally stirred and wrenched by someone else's suffering, you know this is not a trivial emotion.  He felt it physically and it always moved him to action, igniting and fueling his mission. Jesus was also moved to compassion after spending time with God (Mk 1:35-42).  Compassion was a significant and frequent emotion for Jesus.

Jesus also experienced great sorrow, even to the point of depression ("sorrowful unto death") (Matt 26:38)  He seemed to grieve most over things that separated people from him.  He was grieved over the Pharisees' hardness of heart, over the future desolation of Jerusalem and over the grief at Lazarus' grave.

Jesus seemed to take in the full measure of many emotions.  He was indignant when the disciples kept the children from him (Mk 10:14)  "He took it very ill that his disciples should keep the children away.  When he saw it, he was very displeased (or angry or indignant, depending on the translation)...and had a few pointed words for the disciples:  "What do you mean?  Will you hinder me from doing good to the rising generation, to the lambs of the flock?"  Christ is very angry with his disciples and probably isn't using a gentle voice with them.  

Even though Jesus knew and expected the suffering required as part of the redemption plan, that foreknowledge did not keep him from experiencing emotional angst.  He was troubled over the coming betrayal of Judas (John 13:21) and experienced "great anguish of spirit."  Later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, with the betrayal imminent, Jesus was "terror struck and in terrible anguish."  (Mk 14:33)

Jesus didn't just observe pain, he felt it deeply.

While Jesus obviously bore well the title of the "Man of Sorrow," do not let that foreboding title lead us to forget that he was also the "Man of Joy."  John says that Jesus was full of joy that he wanted to give the disciples so that their own joy would be "full." (John 15:11).  This expression of joy has a quality of being more than a felt-emotion but a sure-experience, grounded upon God himself and indeed derived from Him.  Jesus would go on to teach much about this kind of joy.

Surely, not the least of Jesus' emotions was his ability to love.  Jesus loved sacrificially and he also loved people as his friends.  He loved Lazarus, Mary and Martha.  He loved the rich, young man who, in his own way, was truly seeking the kingdom.  Jesus' love for his disciples made his moments with them treasurable.  In Luke 22:15, Jesus "greatly desired" to spend the Passover, a last meal with them.  The Greek form gives it a double intensity such that the New Translation says, "I have looked forward to this hour with deep longing, anxious to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins."  

This description reminds me of our own family dinners that have been the setting before a member leaves for college, overseas duty or extended vacations.  No one wants to miss the event.  We long to spend any time together before the impending separation, however short in length it may be.

So, the Gospels, in their overtly stated presentation of emotions of the human Jesus says more about him and us than we might have previous focused.  It seems intense to think of him this way to me.  I was hoping a peaceful detachment from life.  Since it was not so for Jesus, it won't be so for me.

Reflect the Glory of the Humanity of Jesus

In light of the hope that we have, we act with great confidence and speak with great courage. [not like Moses and the Israelites who could not face the truth of God's glory presented...] Now all of us, with our faces unveiled, reflect the glory of the Lord as if we are mirrors.  We are being transformed into his same image from one radiance of glory to another, just as the Spirit of the Lord reveals it. 2 Corinthians 3:12, 18

Oh, to reflect the glory of the Lord!  That is what we are called to do now that the "veil is lifted."  What is the image of the Lord we will reflect?  Paul says in verse 16, that this veil is lifted by the Spirit, which becomes present in such a way that there is liberty:  freedom to be.  Maybe freedom to be fully human and divine?

How often Christians have been challenged to be like Jesus, to seek his way! While we have looked intently at Jesus' divinity in that call, we sometimes fail to look at the breadth (fullness) of his humanity.  It is hard to reconcile the divine Jesus with the human Jesus, who spent time with children, women and notorious sinners. We forget to look at him as a person with daily, physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  We forget to look at his relationships with others.  Our Jesus - as the suffering servant, facing accusers or praying into the night - can seem far from our human capability and experience, such that we don't even try.  

We, also, forget to look at the passion which drove him.  Yet, to properly understand ourselves, it seems necessary to look more closely at Jesus' humanity, for, like him, we are a reconciliation of the spiritual and the human, especially now that the "veil is lifted."  We may be surprised to find that in our search to relate and identify with our Lord, the solution may be found at our own fingertips:  our humanity.  What if to be more like Jesus might be for us to be more fully human:  a Spirit-revealed and Jesus-modeled human?

Was Jesus Real(ly human)?

This begins a series on the humanity of Christ.  Christians have long sought the divinity of Christ, often to the neglect of his humanity.  Even worse, we have done it to the point of misrepresenting what it means to our own humanity:  we neglect it, too.

Jesus' teachings were great, but my childhood picture of the pious, passionless Jesus was just too hard to identify with.  The image of Christ, on a picture on the Sunday School wall holding a sheep, was far too restrained for me. As a result, I once avoided looking at Jesus too hard, especially in contrast with my own energetic and enthusiastic humanity. 

I preferred Pauls' style:  raw and reckless.  Like the bumper sticker my friend said described me, "I tried to contain myself, but I escaped," Paul could not be contained.  He was bold and brazen.

This distorted view of Jesus' humanity I also heard spoken by a man in my Sunday School class, "Didn't Jesus ever have fun?"  He, too, was looking for a Jesus with whom he could identify.

Then I discovered the retort Jesus had given the Pharisees in Luke 13:32.  He called Herod a name!  And he called him a bad name, for his era.  I checked several translations and the original Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic.  It doesn't mean "sly or cunning," but rather is an idiom for being a "lowlife."  It was an intense slur.

This was not my childhood, passionless Jesus.  Here was a man calling Herod "out."  I became determined to find out who this Jesus, this man really was.  I knew him as the Messiah, the Holy One, the Son of God, the Savior, but I wanted to know the man, because I knew that in finding him, I might understand myself and my place with him better.

In the likeness of God.

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" ... so God created them  - male and female. Gnesis 1:26a, 27 

Much debate has arisen through the ages of what it means to be "created in the image of God."  Even Adam and Eve struggled with their creatureliness being so likened to God that they desired to actually be "like" him.  People at the time of Babel wanted to reach heaven of their own accord.  Many rulers of modern times claimed that kingship gave them god-status.  Even today, people struggle with the same concept, idolizing themselves.  Yet, I have made a discovery:  There is a God and I am not him.

People have a dangerously limited understanding of themselves.  Embedded in us are disturbing contradictions of good and evil.  We can get hung up on seeing our fallen nature, giving up on the original intent of the image we bear.  What is the inherent nature of humanity given these dichotomies?

The thing that God gave us was free will, which is actually one of the features of His image that we hold.  The problem is that we often forget with freedom comes responsibility, and responsibility to act comes with consequences.  We cannot get rid of the consequences no matter how hard we try.  God will not let us.  

Free will is what has plundered nature and humanity into a spiraling degeneration that is disturbing and incomprehensible.  We even fail to see its criticalness to the salvation process.  Let's cut the crap.  Sin, free will leading away from God, is bad.  People have struggled against and danced with sin for all of human history.  Yet, God's intent was for us to participate and have responsibility to participate, changing the consequences of our lives and the world.

We are equipped and empowered to join with God in order to participate in his work.  It is not a passive, introspective relationship we have with Him, but an active and consequential relationship.  Like Jesus, who was Word and work, so we are called to blend truth and action.  Free will can cause us to do so enthusiastically.

We are called to preserve and care for nature (Genesis 1: 28, 29); to do justice and show compassion (Isaiah 56: 1, 2); to share in the suffering of others (Galatians 6:2); to use personal and divine power to fee the enslaved and oppressed (Isaiah 1:17) and to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).  There is no confusion on these themes, strewn throughout both testaments.

We have a chance to be "like" God when we embed ourselves in his truths about us.  When we finally realize that we can use our endowed characteristic of free will for good and not for evil.