Tag Archives: Resentment

Growing through Adversity

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Are you frustrated today? Dealing with some kind of a set-back? Remember, “Nothing beautiful comes without suffering” (Desmond Tutu). Countless stories, like that of Nelson Mandela, remind us that the path to deep joy and generosity of spirit, does not lead away from suffering but through it. While pain and conflict can certainly embitter us, if we don’t lose sight of God’s presence and the hope of redemption, we can find meaning in our suffering and it can ennoble us with greater wisdom and compassion. The most sure sign of this transformation is that we lose the compulsion to retaliate. Instead of returning insult for insult, we develop the capacity to put ourselves in the shoes of others long enough to ask, “What is possessing him to act this way?” While this does not mean that we abandon healthy boundaries and stop exercising wisdom when deciding whom to trust, it does help us surrender ego and exercise more empathy and wisdom when deciding how to move forward. Our kindness grows only when it is tested.

However, this transformation takes time (for most of us a long time), and this means that we not only need to cultivate compassion for others but also for ourselves as we repeatedly try to offer more mature responses in the face of difficulty.

For more on this topic: “Suffering and Adversity: Passing through Difficulties,” in The Book of Joy by Desmond Tutu & The Dalai Lama.

Preparing for Stormy Seas: The Necessity and Gift of Suffering

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Context for the Gospel of Mark: The Burning of Rome

On July 19 in the year 64 C.E., a fire broke out in Rome. It lasted several days, killing many and reducing most of the great city to embers. The emperor at the time, Nero, had previously proposed to demolish and rebuild most of the city in a classical manner, so rumors spread that he started the fire to make it easier to proceed with his plans. As a result, Nero came under attack by his senators. He needed someone to blame, so he scapegoated the Jews. His ploy was believable because most Jews lived on the outskirts of town across a river, and because of their location were untouched by the fire.

Word spread quickly among the Jews and fear spiraled out of control as they anticipated mass suffering at the hand of brutal tyrant. Desperate to avoid Nero’s wrath, some Jews went to the emperor and accused a fringe group of setting the fire, the Messianic Jews who followed Jesus. Nero’s response was horrific. He demanded that the larger Jewish community collaborate with Roman soldiers to identity Christians, and to save their own families they agreed. “A mini-genocide ensued. Roman soldiers knocked on each door of the Jewish quarter demanding to know if anyone in the house was a Christ believer. The answer determined the fate of the householder and everyone else in that house.”[i] If a believer was identified, either by admission or someone else’s testimony, everyone in the house was publicly executed. Most were led into the Circus Maximus, chained to the floor, splattered with blood, and eaten alive by starved dogs. If the soldiers came to a house and no one was identified as a Christian, then those living there were forced to name someone else, who was then seized and executed without trial. Neighbor turned against neighbor as self-preservation became the order of the day. In the end, the Christian community in Rome was destroyed.

It is hard to imagine this horror. The Messianic Jews were betrayed by their own people to mass murder. The Christians who escaped and those who lived in neighboring areas were isolated in a sea of terror, fear, persecution, and death. It must have been hard to believe in the promises of Jesus, especially since their slaughter was the result of their belief.

Most scholars date the Gospel of Mark to around 70 C.E., and while its audience is debated, it certainly fits the situation of the early Christians who were recovering from the aftermath of unimaginable cruelty. As such, it gives guidance to Jesus followers regarding how to faithfully navigate fear, resentment, hatred, persecution, and suffering.

 

The Gospel of Mark and the Second Path of the Quadratos.

As the Gospel of Mark addresses the question of how we move through suffering, thereby disclosing the second path of the Quadratos.[ii]  Those who walk the road to transformation sometimes feel like they are in a small boat on a stormy sea. “The winds and water lash at us as we are tossed about in a gray, horizon less [sic.], directionless world.”[iii] We’ve gone too far to return to the beginning, but we’re not sure how to discern the best way forward either. As we stand facing the horizon, Mark reminds us of a hard truth: sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. Suffering is to be expected and is a necessary part of our spiritual growth. But, Mark also reminds us that suffering is only for a season and that there are reliable spiritual practices that can help us along the way. We endure by praying, listening, and acting accordingly.

 

Good News in Suffering

Given all that we know about the context, audience, and theme of the Gospel of Mark, one might think that it would begin with a sobering word of caution, something like, “Buckle-up buttercup because it is about to get really bad!” But it doesn’t. In stark contrast, it reads, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1, emphasis added). I can imagine a Christian living in Rome around 70 C.E. saying, “Good news? What good news?” The Messianic Jews didn’t appear to have much to celebrate. Even though they decided to follow Jesus, their obedience to the call threatened their lives and resulted in the senseless murder of family and friends.

Nevertheless, Mark begins with the proclamation of good news. While all the evidence may seem to suggest that the teachings of Jesus are an exercise in empty wishing, we hear the voice of a cloud of witnesses: God’s promises are true. It may not look like it or feel like it, but God is faithful, and your suffering will not have the last word—that is reserved for redemption. Mark reminds us that we follow one who not only shows us the way forward but also understands our pain, because he has experienced it too. He walks with us and suffers with us, so that we will have everything we need to move through it.

An important truth revealed in Mark is that we cannot bypass suffering.  We must go through it. Suffering is a necessary part of our spiritual transformation because there are lessons that can only be learned as we wrestle with pain. But the good news is that God will see us through, and our faithfulness will be a contribution to God’s great rescue mission of this world. By beginning with the proclamation of good news, Mark is telling us to gather our strength and hope by remembering the promises of God, which help us understand our suffering as part of a larger divine process.

Although we will learn many important lessons and develop many helpful tools in our study of Mark, it is important to remember something from the very beginning. There is not only good news despite our suffering, or in the face of our suffering, or at the end of our suffering. There is also a gift in the suffering insofar as it helps us get in touch with what is most essential about our faith.

Since so many Christians in America experience a life of ease, which can function to distort the gospel message, it is often helpful to ask, for what are we willing to suffer? For what are we willing to be persecuted? For what are we willing to die?

Many of us are born, then born again, and die in comfort. As those living in a country founded on religious freedom, most of us will never face the terror of the early Christians. Indeed, the very idea of martyrdom has become unintelligible for most American Christians.[iv] This is not only the case for individual Christians, but the church has the luxury of dodging these questions too. Even though some influential Christian groups cry persecution as a political strategy, these claims smack with absurdity when considering what our brothers and sisters have endured through the ages, and even now in places like Syria.

It seems to me that we are most lax in our faith and divided in our beliefs when life is good. Individuals and churches that enjoy wealth and influence are tempted to misuse these gifts for selfish gain, squabbling over trivial matters and confusing the essentials of faith with political agendas. This can be clearly seen in our current context in which many people who profess to follow Jesus have all but completely abandoned his teachings and the value system of the Kingdom of God.

But persecution—real persecution—has a way of parsing, sifting, and separating that which is essential and non-essential in the Christian faith. When facing torture and death, you don’t have time to quibble over extraneous or peripheral issues. And while many of us will never face torture and death because of our faith, all of us will eventually suffer as a result of our decision to follow Jesus. Mark helps us to see that this suffering, understood in the right context, can be a gift insofar as it cuts to the core of what we really believe and shows us what we are made of.

Listening to the words of Jesus while enduring a season of suffering reminds us that Christianity is not a social club, a non-profit relief group, or a political action committee. It is not one collection of ancient teachings among others from which we can pick and choose to build our own philosophy of life. Rather, when Jesus says, “Follow me,” he bids us to come and die.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? (Mark 8:34-37)

Jesus is saying, I want you to base your entire life on the truths I am proclaiming and to believe it so deeply that you practice it even when it requires you to lose everything. Given the hostile environment in which these words were recorded, we can say that Jesus was not speaking metaphorically. It is no coincidence that the word for witness in the early church was the same word for martyr, because being a Christian meant staking your life on the gospel of Jesus.

When we face the prospect of acute suffering because of our decision to follow Jesus, these teachings once again dawn on our consciousness, and if we do not quickly dismiss them they create an opportunity to wrestle with the question, “Do I really believe this stuff?” Human beings have an incredible capacity for self-deception. In terms of our faith, we often say that we believe something only for the truth of that claim to be questioned by the prospect of sacrifice. Suffering has a way of cutting through self-deception and getting us in touch with what we really believe in our heart of hearts, what we are willing to sacrifice, suffer, and even die for. Suffering can function as a kind of refining fire, separating the essentials from the non-essentials and giving us a gut check regarding our commitment to the essentials.

This is the way our ego is crucified so that our true self can be resurrected. This is the path to honesty, which is the path to humility, which makes true faithfulness possible. But this path is not easy. It is the most difficult part of our journey toward transformation, and we need the wisdom of the Gospel of Mark to illuminate our way and give us the tools we need to make it through. This will be the focus of our reflection in the weeks to come.

 

Challenge

But for now, it is important to gather our strength by remembering that we live in the power of good news even when experiencing deep suffering, and that the suffering itself can help us get in touch with what is most important, true, and helpful about our faith. In this way, we gain sound footing on the difficult road that lies ahead.

 

Prayer

Gracious God, as dark, rumbling clouds approach the horizon and waves begin to beat against the boat, remind us of your faithfulness and give us the courage to trust your ability to get us to the other side.

 

(This post is the ninth in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

 

[i] This account of the burning of Rome and the scapegoating of Christians is taken from Alexander John Shaia, Heart and Mind (Journey of Quadratos: Santa Fe, 2017) 130-132.

[ii] Ibid., “Crossing Mark’s Stormy Sea.”

[iii] Ibid. 128.

[iv] See Mark Reynolds, “Take Up Your Glock and Follow Me: Whatever Happened to Martyrdom?”

Responding to Betrayal: The Ongoing Obligations of Love

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An Outlaw Pastor: Rob Bell

Rob Bell was born on August 23, 1970 to a family that was deeply committed to the evangelical movement in America. His father, a U.S. District Judge appointed to the federal bench by Ronald Regan, worked with Jerry Falwell to start the Moral Majority, a political organization that played a key role in mobilizing conservative Christians in the 1980s.

After finishing high school, Rob went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College and, after experiencing a call to ministry, a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. As a young pastor, he was mentored by Ed Dobson at Calvary Church in Grand Rapids Michigan before going on to start Mars Hills Bible Church in 1999.

While his new church started with a few hundred people, within a few years it grew to over 10,000 in Sunday morning worship. By all metrics, Rob’s ministry was wildly successful, but at the same time he wrestled with difficult questions that emerged through deep study of the Bible and critical reflection on his own experience. Through this honest struggle, he eventually realized that he could no longer accept some of the central tenants of American evangelicalism, such as the infallibility of scripture. He also felt uneasy about the cozy relationship between evangelicals and neo-conservative politicians. As the insights kept coming they had a cumulative affect that launched him on a new spiritual journey.

Authenticity became a hallmark of Rob’s ministry which impacted his preaching and teaching. He decided to be honest with his congregation regarding his spiritual questions and to only preach about things he had experienced firsthand. While some found his transparency refreshing, others found it threatening, which led to conflicts at Mars Hill. For example, in 2003 he gave a message series on the equality of women, and some of the church leaders tried to have him fired. When he decided to empower women to serve in church leadership roles, worship attendance dropped by 2,000.

While these experiences were painful, Rob didn’t turn back, and his relationship with Mars Hills reached a turning point in 2011 after publishing Love Wins, a controversial book that questioned traditional teachings on hell. He was quickly labeled a heretic in evangelical circles and within a year decided to leave his church in Michigan to pursue other avenues of ministry in Los Angeles, California.

While many people at Rob’s church lovingly supported his spiritual transformation, others were not as encouraging. Before leaving Mars Hills, some wealthy church members tried to leverage him with money to return to the standard evangelical message, the old “we will take our money and leave if you don’t do what we want” trick. Remembering this betrayal, he said in an interview, “It broke me, but it also gave me this nuclear engine of resolve to keep going.”[i]

Rob has certainly landed on his feet, writing numerous books, preaching and teaching in sold-out auditoriums, broadcasting a popular podcast, and making the list of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. But this didn’t happen overnight, and it certainly wasn’t easy. He was treated horribly by people who once declared him their torch bearer, launching smear campaigns on television, radio, social media, and public speaking. Some of the very people that he led to Jesus called his faith into question, accused him of being a false teacher, and publicly protested his speaking engagements.

Amid all the hostility, Rob didn’t lash-out in anger or check-out in resignation. Rather, he remained true to himself, true to his relationship with God, and true to the values of the gospel as he understood them. In this way, he serves a real-life example of someone who has walked the first path of the Quadratos; someone who has accepted the call to a new spiritual journey, struggled with fears of the unknown, navigated big change, and responded to hatred with compassion and equanimity. Regardless of what you think about the specifics of his teaching, Rob is a good example of how to follow Jesus in the face of betrayal.

 

Being Betrayed: Jesus

Most people, whether they regularly attend church or not, can tell you that Jesus was betrayed by a man named Judas, but when we dive into the details of the story as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, we discover some helpful lessons for the first path of the Quadratos.

One of these lessons is not to be surprised by betrayal. In certain ways, it’s to be expected when we embark on a new spiritual journey that subverts old ways of thinking, believing, and acting.

It certainly didn’t surprise Jesus. At the Last Supper, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” Upon hearing this, the disciples became “greatly distressed” and said one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” Jesus answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me” (Matthew 26:21-23). This is clearly a foreshadowing of Judas’ betrayal (vv. 14-16, 47-50), but Jesus knew that Judas would not be the only one. In first century Palestine, meals were typically served from a common bowl. Each person around the table would tear a piece of bread, shape it into a scoop, and reach into the bowl for food. Since everyone at the Last Supper would have dipped their hand in the bowl, Jesus was not only foreshadowing Judas’ betrayal but that of all his disciples.[ii]

We see this play out in the story of Jesus’ passion. He predicted that Peter would deny him three times (Matthew 26:33-34), and he did (vv. 69-75). He predicted that all his disciples would become deserters (v. 31), and they did. According to Matthew, none of the disciples were at the foot of the cross, only the women.

Jesus expected betrayal, and this allowed him to prepare for it. Instead of being surprised and compulsively reacting to emotional triggers, he saw it coming and prepared to respond with intentional acts of love. In this way, he navigated between two common pitfalls.

First, Jesus did not retaliate with a spirit of resentment.

When Judas appeared in Gethsemane with a large crowd to apprehend Jesus and then betrayed him with a kiss, Jesus said, “Friend, do what you are here to do.”

Did you catch that? Jesus addressed Judas as friend, the man who sold him down the river for thirty pieces of silver. As Alexander John Shaia explains, “By using this address, he completely embodies the principles he taught in the Sermon on the Mount, returning nothing but the greatest love and respect even when it [was] not offered to him.”[iii] The betrayal didn’t change who he was—he remained true to himself and faithful to God. Instead of lashing out in punitive anger, Jesus responded with wisdom, compassion, and equanimity.

Second, when experiencing the pain of betrayal, Jesus did not disconnect from himself or those who betrayed him as a way of escaping the hard work of reconciliation. How often do we do this? Someone betrays us, and we disconnect from ourselves in mindless distractions and disconnect from them by pretending they don’t exist. If we happen to encounter them after the betrayal, it’s easy to ignore them in hopes that the conflict will simply go away. Isolation, denial, hiding, pretending, ignoring, blaming—all are attempts to escape the ongoing obligations of love.

But Jesus didn’t do this. He didn’t hide from those who betrayed him. Nor did he disconnect from himself, which can be seen when he was hanging on the cross and rejected the offer of gall (a bitter substance mixed with wine to deaden pain). He chose to remain fully awake, “to face and feel every moment with an open mind, heart, and body . . .”[iv] He stayed connected to his own experience, so he could continue to practice the gospel in the presence of those who were seeking to destroy him.

Interestingly, the two pitfalls of lashing-out and checking-out are different ways of acting-out a victim mentality. But Jesus would have none of this. Even in the depth of betrayal, humiliation, and suffering, he refused to see himself as a victim. He not only expected betrayal, he accepted it as a natural consequence of choosing the way of love in a fallen world.

In Luke 9:51 we read, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” In other words, Jesus made a conscious decision to walk into the holy city knowing it would be the beginning of the end. Resolute in his mission, he accepted the predictable consequences of speaking truth to power: betrayal, torture, and death. Likewise, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded saying, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (10:18).

Since he refused to see himself as a victim, he had no to need to punish people with anger or disconnect in fear. By refusing victimhood, he could continue acting with intentionality according to the law of love. This is a great example to us as we too experience betrayal on the first path of the Quadratos.

Like Jesus, we should expect betrayal so that we can prepare for it. As we embark on new spiritual journeys, there will be people that will try to pull us backwards into old ways of thinking, believing, and acting.[v] This pull can be gentle or forceful, and one forceful way of pressuring someone is by betraying them or accusing them of betrayal. This is especially true of authoritarian people who are plagued by the fear of losing control. The more fearful and insecure, the more authoritarian, demanding, judgmental, and punishing. So, don’t be surprised when some people don’t celebrate your new journey and pressure you to go back to your old self. It is easier for them if you conform to the old pattern because then they don’t have to change and readjust to the new dynamic in your relationship. As you push through their resistance and continue moving forward, don’t be surprised when those same people betray you or accuse you of betraying them.

But be careful how you press forward and respond to betrayal. Remember the two pitfalls: betraying the very values of the spiritual transformation we seek by lashing out in anger and disconnecting from those who hurt us in hopes of avoiding the ongoing obligations of love. Like Christ, we are called to forsake a victim-mentality, so we can intentionally choose to act with wisdom, compassion, and equanimity. This is no small order, and we fail all the time, but we must keep pursuing the way of Jesus Christ as part of our spiritual transformation.

As a note of caution, the law of love does not require us to be a doormat for the dysfunctional or a victim of abuse. God’s love cannot be separated from God’s justice, and to love someone involves telling them the truth (Ephesians 4:15). The same principle can be found in reconciliation, which is made possible only by mutual truth telling and changed behavior. Consequently, submitting yourself to ongoing abuse is not an indication that you’re being faithful to the law of love but that you’re operating out of an unhealthy and self-destructive frame of mind. What is needed in these situations is emotional and spiritual healing, which almost always requires you to separate yourself from the abuser long enough to interrupt the dysfunctional system and gain enough health to make better choices. As many have learned the hard way, sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone hellbent on destruction and abuse is tell them goodbye.

 

Doing the Betraying: Peter and Judas

In conclusion, it’s important to offer a few words for those who have inflicted betrayal on others. Just as Jesus said of the disciples, so is true of us. At some point in life, we all betray someone (which should make us more compassionate for those who betray us). It says in Romans 3:23 that everyone falls short of what God expects, which is another way of saying that all of us succumb to the backward pull of our former life, causing us to betray Jesus, others, and ourselves. Like the disciples, we all become deserters. So how do we get back up, find our footing, and start walking the road to transformation again? Fortunately, the passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew also provides guidance for this problem, especially as we consider the examples of Peter and Judas.

As already mentioned, Peter denied Jesus three times before he was crucified. Can you imagine the pain he must have felt when the full realization of his unfaithfulness dawned on his consciousness? Can you imagine how uncomfortable Peter must have been upon seeing Jesus again after the resurrection?

Although he was deeply ashamed of himself, he was able to accept responsibility for his own failure. As he stood before the one he betrayed, he found forgiveness rather than judgement, reconciliation rather than condemnation. As with us, it was probably easier to receive forgiveness from Jesus than it was to forgive himself, but by the grace of God Peter was able to do just that—and it saved his life.

This part of the story reminds us that even in the worst kinds of betrayal there is still the possibility of forgiveness and redemption for those who stay close to God and are willing to do the difficult work of reconciliation. We see this played out not only in the life of Peter but all the disciples, except Judas. All betrayed Jesus and all were forgiven and restored.

Just as all the disciples became deserters, all of us become deserters too. It’s almost like failure is built into the first path of the Quadratos. When embarking on a new spiritual journey, we all start in weakness, confusion, and fear, and we must all learn the lessons that our unfaithfulness teaches. After all, how can we proclaim the good news of forgiveness unless we have been recipients of this gift ourselves?

It’s important to keep all these gospel truths in mind because if we don’t it can kill us.

Like Peter and the other disciples, Judas betrayed Jesus too. We sometimes think of Judas as the only one, or assume his betrayal was worse than that of the others. But I don’t think so. Betrayal is betrayal, and if Judas had come back to Jesus after the resurrection and asked for forgiveness, I think Jesus would have embraced and restored him, just as he did with the others. So why did it turn out so differently for him?

I think it has to do with self-hatred. After betraying Jesus, Judas became the victim of his own despair. For whatever reason, he didn’t believe in Jesus, and I’m not talking about the kind of believing in which you receive Jesus as your personal savior. I mean he literally didn’t believe Jesus’ message about God’s love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It’s true that Judas felt horrible after coming to terms with what he had done, leading him to repent and return the blood money to the religious leaders. However, when he realized that this act of contrition could not stop the destruction he had set in motion, he descended into a dark pit of self-loathing. He could not imagine Jesus forgiving him. He could not imagine forgiving himself. So, he went into the woods and killed himself (Matthew 27:3-5).

Like Judas, we too can descend into a pit of despair after betraying someone we love. Self-hatred can blind us to the possibility of forgiveness and steal the hope of the gospel. As Dante knew, this is the definition of hell, a place devoid of hope, because once we lose hope we experience death—spiritually, emotionally, and, sometimes even physically. This is why believing in Jesus is a matter of life and death for many people.

 

Challenge

As we navigate change on the path to transformation, we experience resistance. Will we choose to keep walking even when others around us do not? Even when they pressure us to return to old ways of thinking and betray us when we do conform? Will we choose to stay awake to our own experience and remain connected to others, even as we confront our fears and the death of ego? Will we let go of resentment and choose love, acting with wisdom, compassion, and equanimity? Will we forgive others, remain open to reconciliation, and attend to the ongoing obligations of love? Will we believe the promises of Jesus, accept God’s forgiveness, and learn to forgive ourselves when we are the ones who have failed?

 

Prayer

Gracious God, when I experience betrayal, help me to respond in love with a wise mind, a compassionate heart, and a calm spirit. When I betray others, help me to honestly see the wrong I’ve done, repent, forgive myself, and move forward in ways that increase the possibility for reconciliation. Amen.

 

(This post is the seventh in a series of thirty-seven in conversation with the book Heart and Mind by Alexander John Shaia. Each post is a revised version of a sermon, which can be accessed on YouTube and iTunes.)

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[i] The Hell-Raiser, video uploaded on The New Yorker, “A Megachurch Pastor’s Search for a More Forgiving Faith,” December 16, 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-megachurch-pastors-search-for-a-more-forgiving-faith. See also the documentary, “The Heretic.”

[ii] Alexander John Shaia, Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation, Second Edition, Journey of Quadratos, LLC: Santa Fe, New Mexico 2017, pp. 103-104.  

[iii] Heart and Mind 107.

[iv] Heart and Mind 113. Matthew 27:34.

[v] One way of illustrating this can be found in family systems theory. In all groups, individuals assume different roles and then relate to each other in ways that aim at homeostasis, a stable equilibrium between the various roles. Since homeostasis is determined by the predictable interactions of all the various roles people play, when one person decides to change, it not only affects that individual but throws the whole system out of whack. Great pressure is exerted on the individual to go back to their previous role so that the system can be restored to balance. Whether it’s your family, church, or small group, if someone decides to deviate from their role, then people in that group will almost inevitably make efforts to pull that person backwards.