Two Men

Jesus was known for His parables - short stories that conveyed a powerful spiritual meaning. And in many of Jesus's parables, there appear to be two main characters, or two types of person. 

Too often, we read these parables and try to figure out which of the characters we are. If we tend toward being one, we consider ourselves righteous; more toward the other, we consider ourselves more depraved. We generally walk away inspired to be one over the other, trying to change to become more like the one we more admire, the one who seems more right. 

This feeds naturally into the comparisons we are always making between ourselves and others, comparisons where most of us come to the conclusion that we are "better" than the average other person. If we're more like the righteous-sounding character, then we're winners (and we're almost always winners); if we're more like the less-righteous-sounding character, we have some work to do. 

But there's another way to read these parables of Jesus, and I think, at least in my own experience with myself, it's the better way. 

In the parables of Jesus, when there are two men or two types of men or two groups of men to choose from, the correct reading illuminates that...I am both of them. 

For example...

Jesus tells a parable about two men who go to the Temple to pray. One is a Pharisee, the other, a tax collector. They both notice that the other is there; they've seen each other out of the corner of their eye. The tax collector lifts his hands toward the heavens and thanks God that he's not like the tax collector; the tax collector bows to the ground and says what a deplorable man he is, desperately in need of God's mercy. 

And we walk away wanting to be like the tax collector. 

But the truth is...part of us already is. And part of us is the Pharisee. 

Inside me is both a man who is looking around, comparing myself to others, trying to be righteous by being better and one who is humbled before God, troubled by my own shortcomings, knowing my own fallenness and desperate need of mercy. 

As much as we want to idolize one of these men over the other, the truth is that they both have their less-desirable traits. The Pharisee is self-righteous and caught up on his own superiority and authority. The tax collector is a sell-out, working for the state and often corrupt in his dealings with men. 

They both have their more-desirable traits, too. The Pharisee knows the statutes of the Lord and the covenant that he lives in, and he recognizes things that are displeasing to God (like being a sell-out and corrupt in your dealings with men). The tax collector knows his own corruption in the light of the Lord, even if he's not as well-versed in every single tittle of the statute. 

It's not that one of these men is righteous and the other is not. It's that both of these men are me, they are parts of myself as I wrestle with what it means to be a person of God. With what it means to be faithful. 

And here's maybe the most important thing that we can recognize about both of these men, about both sides of ourselves...they're both in the Temple. They're both seeking to worship and to pray and to connect with God. 

And if I find that that is true about both of the men in me, well, then, I suppose I am on a good road, at least.

Even as I seek to pray more like the tax collector, I must realize that the Pharisee is standing next to me in the very same Temple. And...that's something. I think. 

Changes

The truth is that no matter what changes you want to make to your life or to yourself, even the good ones, it will fundamentally change something about the way you relate to yourself...something you didn't anticipate.

None of us likes everything about ourselves. We don't. There's something that each and every one of us would change if we had the chance. Something small, something big, something deep, something cosmetic, something everyone sees, something only we see, something we are, something we feel. 

But very few understand that changing something about yourself feels like it changes the fundamental nature of who you are, too. 

Even if it's something you didn't particularly like about you. 

Because you've only ever had a chance to live in your body. You haven't gotten to try anything else out; you've always been you. That means that even the things you don't like, you've learned to live with. Whatever that means for you. You have learned to live your days with the burden of the thing you don't like about you and in doing so, it has become part of your story. 

That time it kept you from doing something you wanted to do. That moment when it became more defining than you wanted it to be. That chance meeting that suddenly became something else entirely because that part of you came out and it changed the tone of everything around you. Your story is told in moments like these, and in these moments, you have been...well...you. 

Pile enough moments like these up, and you're convinced that if you're ever given the chance, you'd jump at it - at any opportunity to change this thing about you. 

But if you actually do get that chance, you suddenly wonder...who are you without it? 

Sometimes, it's because that thing is just fundamentally us. I mean, if you don't like your nose and you want forever to change your nose and you finally change your nose, then when you look in the mirror for the first season, you're not going to recognize yourself in the same way. Something about you is different. Something about you is lost. 

Sometimes, it's because the thing we don't like about ourself consumes so much of our energy, so much of our head space, so much of our attention that once we change it, we don't know who we are without that pet project any more. Who am I if I am not obsessing about this broken-ish thing that I hate about me? Who am I if I'm not the person trying to overcome it? 

Don't get me wrong - it can be a blessing. Absolutely. But it's also...a grief? It's a major fundamental change in the nature of the self that we're living in...a person with whom we are intimately connected, even in the things we don't like about that. And all of a sudden, we lose that part of ourselves and even if we wanted to lose it, even if we did it on purpose, something's...different. And we have to learn to deal with that. 

I think more of us need to think about that before we go on changing things. We need to honor the stories we're living now, even with our ugly bits, so that we really understand what it will mean to separate from them and move on when that opportunity comes. If, that is, we decide that we really want to. 

Sometimes, I'll tell you from experience, we find that the things we thought we hated about ourselves are the things that have created the very details in our stories that we're most fond of and you know what? Maybe we're not willing to lose that after all. Not when it really comes down to it. And...that's okay, too. 

Just something to think about. 

Living with Yourself

"You speak so quietly. You have a very soft voice." 

I laughed. Out loud. 

"What?" she asked. 

Quiet was just never something that I had considered myself. Ever. 

And yet, the more I thought about it, the more this speech therapist might have been onto something. Folks had been telling me my whole life how quiet I was, but I could never believe them. I've never felt quiet. In fact, every time I have opened my mouth, I have felt dramatically loud...which may be how I learned to be so quiet. 

Fast forward to this week, and I finally understand why. 

As it turns out, I have a medical condition that causes something called autophony - hearing your body sounds, including your voice, in your head. 

A couple of months ago, I was sitting around talking to my mom and was being driven crazy by a noise in my head that wouldn't stop, and I told her it was "like the sound you hear when you hear yourself blink" and she started laughing at me. It was the first time in my entire life that I started to think there was something abnormal about that. But I've always heard my own voice that way, too. So of course, I have always thought myself to be a loud person. 

Sometimes, to be fair, I am a little loud. Usually, that's because I'm self-conscious about being too quiet and am trying to project more. Whatever. 

Anyway, I tell you that story to tell you this: 

The condition that causes my autophony is also causing some of the other problems I'm dealing with, and after receiving a proper (though still preliminary, with more testing pending) diagnosis this week, I've been told there are options to fix it. Obviously, I got extremely excited about the opportunity to fix the other problems...problems that are frustratingly life-affecting. 

But that night, as I laid down and started to really process the hope and the fresh optimism that the day had brought me, I realized something: 

Fixing this problem would also affect my autophony. Fixing these other problems will affect how I hear my own voice. 

That realization stopped me in my tracks. 

All of a sudden, I wondered what it would be like to fundamentally change the way that I experience myself in the world. Seriously. I don't know what it's like for someone without autophony. I don't know if you can hear your own voice at all. I don't know if you only hear it coming into your ears. I don't know what it's like to live without this.

The way that this has the possibility of changing the way that I experience myself is...something to consider. 

Anyway, I tell you that story to ask you this: 

Of all the things you're fighting right now in your life, of all the things that are broken, of all the things that aren't the way you wish they would be...how would it change your experience of yourself to change them? Have you thought about the changes it would take in your own being to process something totally different about the human you know best in this world - yourself? How do you deal with that?  

Seducement

We're talking about Joanna, a disciple of Jesus who is mentioned by name in Luke 8 and 24. He identifies her as being the wife of Chuza, the chief steward for Herod. And, as we talked about yesterday, a lot of feminist theologians have jumped all over this, claiming she must be named so that we can understand how Herod knew so much about Jesus, as if the king wasn't paying attention to what was happening in his own realm. 

But I told you there's an easier, better way to interpret Joanna's presence in the Gospels. And here it is: 

She is the seduced. 

Let's back up here for a minute and start from the beginning. Or, the beginning-ish. Joanna is the wife of the king's chief steward. But if you go back through the Scriptures, there is another such woman named in the Bible. 

Or not named. 

She was the wife of Potiphar, Pharoah's chief steward way back in Egypt. Remember this? 

Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery after revealing a couple of dreams that he had about how his brothers, the other 11 tribes of Israel, would bow down to him, while he was wearing his special coat of many colors that demonstrated his father's special love for him. When Joseph arrived in Egypt, he was sold into Potiphar's house as a slave. Potiphar was the chief steward for Pharoah. 

After he had been there awhile, and we don't know exactly how long, Potiphar's wife found herself alone with the rugged Hebrew, and she attempted to seduce him. When that didn't work, she grabbed his coat as he ran away, made false accusations against him when her husband came home, and got him thrown into prison, where he should have rotted and died, except for the fact that God gave him a special ability and a hedge of protection so that he could save the entire world, and especially his brothers, from certain death, fulfilling several prophecies while doing so. 

Okay. That's the back story. Now, fast forward back to Joanna. 

Joanna is the wife of the chief steward, but this time, she's not the seducer. This time, Joanna is the seduced. She is captivated by the Bridegroom, by the Lover of her soul. She's not creating stories; she's swept up in them. 

In the story of this special son whose Father has a special love for Him. In the story of this son of Abraham, son of Isaac, son of Jacob, Son of God whose brothers will all bow down before Him. In the story of this Hebrew given special ability and a hedge of protection so that He could save the entire world, and especially His brothers, from certain death...fulfilling several prophecies while doing so. 

Do you see it? 

Joanna in the Gospel of Luke is the echo of Potiphar's wife from Genesis. She is the redemption story of the seducer, who has become the seduced. The one so desperate to be loved has discovered that she is loved...and becomes a lover herself in return. A follower. A disciple. 

She doesn't grab onto the edge of His coat; she wraps Him tenderly in grave clothes. 

Do you see it? 

Joanna is one more story that God is re-telling in the New Story. One more scene that gets rewritten when Jesus gets on the scene. One more woman who becomes a symbol of redemption because yes, Jesus loves her. 

The Bible tells us so.

Maybe she had Chuza's ear and he had Herod's and she played some kind of behind-the-scenes role in everything that unfolded in Jerusalem for a few years. We can't rule that out. But given everything we know about the Bible, about the way God tells His story, about what is written right there for us, is this: we've seen Joanna before...and now, we see her with Jesus, transformed. 

And isn't that what Jesus does best? 

Joanna

Let's talk about Joanna for a minute. 

If you're wondering who Joanna is, you can find her mentioned by name only twice - in Luke 8 and 24. Joanna was the wife of Chuza, who was King Herod's chief steward. She also happened to be a follower of Jesus. 

Most of the time when you hear Joanna mentioned, it's in the context of the crucifixion of Jesus. That is, someone has done some deep digging through their Bible and discovered aha! Joanna was a disciple of Jesus, and Joanna's husband was King Herod's chief deputy, so obviously, Herod had heard a lot about Jesus "through the grapevine," as it were, because Joanna obviously had her husband's ear, and he might even have been closet follower of Jesus when, you know, it was socially appropriate for him to do so, and he in turn had Herod's ear, so he probably told Herod a lot of stuff about Jesus and voila! Jesus is known by the king. 

This is an interesting take. And it's not one I think we can outright dismiss. But I think it's lazy...and I think it makes a lot of character assumptions that change the way we read the story. 

For example, if Herod is getting his information about Jesus from Chuza, what kind of king is he? Jesus is a big thing happening in the region. Everybody's talking about Jesus. Everybody's coming out into the streets to follow Jesus around. It's not like Herod looks out his window and see a single guy walking around who seems kind of different; there's always a crowd around Jesus. Any king worth his weight would take notice of this. 

Not only that, but there's talk among some of Jesus's followers (and some who are not His followers), that He's the rightful "King of the Jews." Pilate will even write this on a proclamation above the Cross and hang it for all to see. In three languages, so that everyone can read it. Now, if you're the actual appointed king at the moment, don't you think you'd already know something about this guy walking around that some are claiming to be king? Don't you think you'd want to know everything about Him? He's a threat to your position, potentially. 

So there's a Guy in the kingdom of Herod who draws crowds wherever He goes and who is proclaimed by many to be some kind of King, and the feminist theologians, who want Joanna to have some grand, big role in the story of Jesus, tell you that she's the one who...maybe indirectly...told Herod everything he knew about Jesus. So that when it gets down to it and Jesus stands trial, the leadership of the region already knows something about Him. 

See, Luke is also the only Gospel writer who tells us that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod first, then Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate. Is it because Joanna had told Herod so much about Jesus that he was willing to let Him go? Had Joanna told Herod so much that Herod has talked with Pilate already, maybe numerous times, about the Man? 

When Jesus stands in the royal courts of the region, there's a certain interpretation of the Scripture that wants you to believe that Joanna's voice was somewhere in the room. 

Maybe it was. 

But that requires a lot of conjecture, a lot of interjection of our own cultural norms and maybe even our desires, and a lot of sanctified imagination. 

I think there's an easier way to interpret something meaningful from Joanna that doesn't require all that.... (I'll tell you tomorrow.)