We have been discussing paradigms, paradox, and paradox as a dominant paradigm within the Christian tradition, though not so at home in the modern world. The move from one dominant way of viewing the world to another is hard because those lenses have become so firmly lodged in our thinking we are quite sure this IS the way reality IS.

Quantum and integral understandings require a bit more breadth (quantum and integral), a bit more connectedness (quantum) and a for sure the coming together of various vantage points to help complete the picture. The hard part for all of us of course is realizing we have lenses and no one set is ever adequate… we have four gospels after all…same story different vantage points.

Every time we read the biblical text we do so with a set of lenses, and it can’t be otherwise. Of course it is to our advantage to know the lenses we are using because when we live with that awareness we then have the opportunity to change the lenses as we wish. With that in mind I am going to suggest the lens through which you read this passage. Maybe this will give you the opportunity to see some things here you haven’t seen before.

Lens: Jesus’s life, ministry and teaching are about breaking with convention. Use that lens and read this chapter – Luke 9
I have clipped in the whole chapter for your viewing…
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“When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave their town, as a testimony against them. ”So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere. Now Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was going on. And he was perplexed, because some were saying that John had been raised from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life. But Herod said, “I beheaded John. Who, then, is this I hear such things about?” And he tried to see him. When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” (About five thousand men were there.) But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each. ”The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”
Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)
While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen.
The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.” “O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.” Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at the greatness of God. While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.” “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”
As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.””
(Luke 9:1–62 NIV)
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I think the contemplative life asks for us to move against convention. And it seems that Jesus is really really big on this idea.

From the opening lines of this chapter, to the zen like koans of vv. 23-27 to the closing illustrations of what it means to be a follower there seems to be an emphasis on the need to turn things upside down and inside out and let the unexpected be the new norm and the previously assumed to be deeply questioned.

This is an alternative reality, and alternative vision, an alternative way of seeing and alternative way of understanding business as usual… This is the upside down world called Brahman by the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, the Buddhists call it samsara, it is called metaphysics by the Greek philosophers, and by Jesus, nodding to the current politics of kingdom in his world, called it “the kingdom of God.”

I would suggest that maybe this month you consider letting this text be your lectio as we head into the Lenten season. Maybe you could slowly read this passage over and over to see how the break with convention, the disruption of the expected, and the movement away from the assumed is central to the Christ-following experience.

I am not so interested in detailing all the upside down inside out, blow-up-convention things that are clear in this passage – because they are clear and obvious. But I am more interested in one big thing that will not be clear to the naked eye and the implications breaking with convention has on our lives, and the life of the church, and the way church and spirituality are “being done” these days.

Arguably the centerpiece of the passage is what appears at first glance to be a throw away statement by the author. Furthermore we know this apparent throw away phrase is important due to how the chapter is structured– it sits at the literary structural center of the passage (again not clear to the naked eye)

Notice the line “they spoke about his departure…” What is important about this line is the word “departure.” In the context they are having a discussion about Jesus’ impending crucifixion in Jerusalem. But the word departure here in verse 31 in Greek is the word –exodus. Ex-out, odus-the way. The exodus was the way out.

There is a twist, a play on words here, a break with convention that once you know that little Greek insight might give you lenses to see what he is doing in the entire chapter. This is the only time this word is used in any of the Gospels and it is only used 2 other times in the entire New Testament.

The way out, the way in, the way forward, the new world ahead, the way to get there, the way to arrive, the way to take steps, the way to depart and leave this behind, to go to the new thing is exodus…departure….death…letting go.

Is it possible that Luke structures this entire chapter (as some scholars have suggested) to highlight the usage of — the ONLY usage in the Gospels — of a word that is associated with the rescue of Israel in the OT but is being used for the death of Jesus. Is it that death and rescue are two sides to the same coin? Is it that to have something come is to first let go of something else? Is it to be first you have to be last, to gain you have to lose, grasp you have to let go, to live you have to die?

I am wondering what this means to how we do church, what we think spirituality is? How we even define God. Jesus took on, slaughtered, undermined, ignored, disobeyed, trashed, and name called the present religious system he entered into. To what degree does a passage like this put us face to face with how much exodus we are doing and how much camping?

This passage is full of paradox. is it possible this provides a paradigm in following Christ that has at the center paradox?

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I had the opportunity this week to spend time with 17 community leaders facilitating their thoughts and ideas about how they could make a mark on their community that would be memorable, artistic, meaningful and important.

I started the session with this quote from the great quantum physicist David Bohm…I have used it here before.
“the tree doesn’t come from the seed. The seed is an aperture that organizes the processes of growth through which the tree finally emerges.”

When people come together whether that is in real time and space or cyberspace, there is an invisible architecture and shape in those relationships. That invisible architecture is called the social field, and it is comprised of visible and external– “what we say and do with each”– as well as the invisible and internal origins of those actions.

I shared with them the invisible and internal is where our intention arises but where our attention rarely focuses. As a result much of what we do is download from our past programing what we think is possible. In other words we move on autopilot — hardly creative sourcing for a conversation on creating the future through collaborative knowing. A couple different times in our several hours together I would stop and say…”what do you feel right now is your chest or your stomach?” “Do you feel the shift in the field that just happened?” We are deeply connected. We create an aperture together.

While we were on one hand trying to ideate and get a creative project off the ground we, on the other hand, all came to recognize there was a quantum field, a palpable soup we were all in together. It was far deeper than ideas, it was spiritual it was originating from a deep place within us. They were learning how we act and interact, learn and unlearn, see and reveal, grow and transform is determined by how the social field is sourced by our interior life and the content of the conversation. This project for them quickly became about how their interior lives collectively were forming an aperture out of which “this thing” was going to emerge.

It was one more example in real time where I got to see, feel and in a small way facilitate (facil-to make easier) a tangible shift in space that will in the next several months impact an entire community.

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So what if we need a Christianity less certain, more mysterious, less concrete and more enfleshed? What if that amounts to a paradigm whose core is paradox?

We live at the intersection of another solid stable certain paradigm that is going all squishy. The quantum world is displacing our modern measureable-certain-cause and effect experience, and saying what you see is definitely not what you get….or more appropriately what you have “got.” Because what we have “got” is not something we can actually see of course, but more than that, what we see is not an accurate indicator of what is actually there.

The atomic world a’la Newton, only accessible to the microscope holder, was a world of tiny billard balls spinning and orbiting in predictable, elliptical and symmetrical paths. The pictures and plastic models in high school chemistry were “the way we were” to quote one of Barbara’s big hits. That WAS the paradigm AND reality.

Atoms were separate from other atoms. Electrons separate from protons and neutrons. Molecules here, totally separate and independent from molecules over there. The implications of all that orderly separate predictability was we lived in a world where what appeared to be space between atoms and molecules could easily be compared to the obvious space between you and me. Space, distance and time were not just realities they were concepts that helped us understand the world.

A paradox has entered the paradigm and threatens to re-form it. First de-form it, then re-form it. The paradox? There was something further down, something invisible to the microscope. The way we experience space is actually an illusion. That isn’t a Buddhist statement about maya. It is a quantum reality experienced as a paradox threatening the current paradigm. And the spiritual implications are enormous. In the quantum world connectedness not separateness is the more present reality. Your spontaneous sense of connection to someone miles apart, or your “gut” you should call someone you suddenly think might be in danger isn’t some bizarre sixth sense. It is actually our connectedness registering at the visceral level.

Our connectedness needs to be explored — with each other and with creation, how we experience that connectedness, what that means to intuition, gut, sensing and perceived boundaries needs exploration. What connectedness means to the how we sense reality arising around us, God’s holding it all together by the word of His power, and what that means to even how we DEFINE God all need a new examination within the emerging and displacing paradigm of quantum. This sort of examination will lead to a new paradigm in which paradox has free airspace. Some will resist, others will embrace. But the wise in our midst will transcend the old but includes it’s learnings and insights in that which is unfolding. Transcend and include, that is the way of quantum and integral.

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The para- words continue to fascinate me. Consider the difference in feel when you hear the words parachute, paragon, or paramedic when compared to parasite, paranoid or even paranormal for that matter. Para- swings back and forth doesn’t it? The word parasol in the context of a hot summer day evokes a different visceral response than the word paraplegic. The same swing I think is witnessed in the words we have been discussing. Paradigm is supposedly solid, stable and certain and paradox so spongy, squishy and shunned. It is this bias I think we have to face as we head further into 2012.

Liminal-in-between space brings us to in-between metaphors. The shores of two eras kissing brings us to new creative space where the old must yield to what is being midwifed in the new.

Para- words were just as important to the rishis seers of India (in Vedic philosophy see parama, paramatma and paramanus), as they were centuries later to Christianity where para-bles are the paradoxical stories used by Jesus to intentionally obscure. Where para-clete the “one called alongside to help” in John’s gospel is the way of conceiving the third person of the trinity. And you can’t forget the para-dise of the book of Revelation that clearly harkens back to the primal paradise of Genesis.

These three biblical/theological para-s sit as paradox deeply embedded within the paradigm of Christianity. When then will we embrace mystery as fundamental? When will uncertainty, because of God’s immensity, be acknowledged as humility instead of lack of faith? The invitation before us is to dance. Dance with the new emerging metaphors. Dance with paradox that IS the new paradigm.

It seems to me the early church started with paradox and moved to entrenched paradigm maybe there is something there we need to explore as we think about how we move from liquid and fluid to supposedly solid but potentially stuck.

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The status quo is attracted to and driven by paradigm; emerging vision is attracted to paradox, the not yet acceptable possibility. A couple days ago I sent a text the next morning to the group of people that had invited me to their new year’s eve soirée. I did so not only because of my thinking about para- words that had started long before my last post, but because it Is possible I have not been in the presence of such visionary folks in along time.

Dude #1 — A guy that has established paradigm busting call centers for companies all over the world amounting to literally tens of thousands of people he has employed in tough economic contexts . Just one of those companies is named for some fruit where he has helped them revolutionize customer service all over the world and set the bar for call centers. But the way he combines this with social entrepreneurship and helping the people around him in need made me tear up a couple times. His dream right now? Can’t divulge it. But imagine a guy that has done all this. Yea, he is bold audacious and moves with a confidence and humility that you can only say is bestowed from above.

Dude #2 — at 23 yrs old was making decisions for 14 million constituents as chief of staff for arguably the most prestigious AND influential govern-ship in the USA, all while still connected to politics enough to have had dinner with a former president a couple weeks ago is actually overseeing a division of a company influencing and creating a new paradigm of telecommunications globally and responsible for b-billions. His next dream? The magnitude of what it could do to help others? Unbelievable! I will have to keep you posted.

Gal #1– renovates downtown burned out, washed up districts. Acquires buildings, visions their future, ruthlessly executes and brings beauty, jobs, and quite honestly abundant life to what she touches. Compassionate, visioned, gracious and a lover of others. Her next desire? Using her influence to bring jobs to an economically depressed area to give people back their dignity.

Dude #3 saw a gap in the world of pharmaceuticals and thought there has to be a better way. He dreamed a way to help people get the meds they need all the while relieving doctors of the paperwork headache. His dent is a brand new one and it is practically and financially significant….uh… really significant.

Gal 2,3 dude 4-6 could also be profiled with similar summary resumes. But my point is already illustrated. They all believe they can make a difference…a huge difference. And they don’t just believe it, they are. They all saw a new way, a long shot new way…and acted.

The point? We live in a time of transition. That is not news. What is news to the holders of the current paradigm is that the smell of the death around the old, is a harbinger of death. Business, ministry models, and biblical message are always a product of a particular era, and all the signs point to them being on life support because this era is winding down.

The challenge of course is the current paradigm ALWAYS thinks they have the pure version. THE right way. But like all paradigms, business or religious, they are always couched in culture…always. Jesus came couched in culture…the bible calls it flesh. Christmas is the celebration of that cultural “fleshed-ness,”

So will it be current paradigms or emerging visions that come with the fuzziness of paradox.

For 2012 I am opting for the latter.

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In 2012 I have two words I feel need my personal exploration and deeper engagement; the words quantum and integral. The whole world of experience behind these two words sit at the forefront of a new frontier many of us are just starting to engage as readily as we have the world of cause and effect we have grown up with since we were kids.

I grew up in the Newtonian world and was trained to see the world it that way. Now saying something like that might make you think I was some ridiculous and outlandish thing like a physics nut (sorry physics teachers). Well you would be wrong. I was not, though my Dad made sure we all took advanced science and math because “though you may never use it, it helps you learn to think in new ways!” What I mean is the way the world was presented to me, and therefore the way I experienced it, was very predictable because the world was built on cause and effect. It is the old billiard ball illustration. The cue ball hits the 4 ball and at that angle of contact it will hit the 6 ball go into that bumper on the table and will go in the right corner pocket. There is no mystery to that, if you calculate the angle rightly the outcome is totally waxed. It is predictable, assumed, and certain.

I am not sure about you but that illustration typifies the world I grew up in and the view of the world I had. It wasn’t just the world though it was deeper than that. Newton’s cause and effect and “laws of gravity” even extended to the spirituality and Christianity that I experienced and the way the Bible was “used.” There were laws and principles in the Bible and when rightly applied the outcomes were certain. And since I was in a charismatic context the outcomes were VERY VERY certain. You still find much of this thinking in large segments of Christianity. Faith leads to… real faith will certify these outcomes, and even if you don’t see those outcomes right now, they will come.

Newton’s way of viewing the world is a particular lens. Lens, or as we call them more accurately, paradigms. Paradigms are appropriate to the historical contexts in which they arise. But when a paradigm instead of being a lens through which we view the world becomes in our thinking the “way the world actually is” you leave no room for another para- word….paradox. In fact the history and way that para- is used might be an instructive jump point for this series of posts as we head into the new year.

Para- is a prefix appearing in loanwords from Greek, most often attached to verbs and verbal derivatives, it means “at or to one side of, beside, side by side” (parabola; paragraph; parallel; paralysis, thinking of Jesus – parable ), “beyond, past, by” ( paradox; paragogue ); by extension from these senses, this prefix came to designate objects or activities auxiliary to or derivative of that denoted by the base word ( parody; paronomasia ), and hence abnormal or defective ( paranoia ), a sense now common in modern scientific coinages ( parageusia; paralexia ). As an English prefix, para- may have any of these senses; it is also productive in the naming of occupational roles considered ancillary or subsidiary to roles requiring more training, or of a higher status, on such models as paramedical and paraprofessional: paralegal; paralibrarian; parapolice . (adopted from Online Dictionary.com entry)

In other words para- is either “comparing” by standing to the side or a model done for that comparing or is a prefix for a subsidiary designation, paralegal, one very common in our culture.

The word para-dox is then a subsidiary idea or idea/opinion “off to the side” of “the accepted” or what would be called the “ortho-dox” view. The word paradox as it is often used is a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.

What’s my point with the little lexical lesson?

A paradigm (a model to compare things) that leaves no room for a paradox (opinions and new emerging paradigms – to set side by side for comparison) is a paradigm destined to lead it’s adherents to the intellectual junkyard of rusted out, tired out, burned out, used up ideas and ways of viewing the world.

I am still quite influenced by the Newtonian paradigm I was brought up under. But I am under no impression that it IS how the world is. It is simply a lens. But there is a problem. I have worked in the church world my whole life, and I realize that the Newtonian para-digm for many in the world I work in isn’t just a paradigm — a way of viewing the world — it IS the way the world is in their mind.

I want to invite those that are interested into a conversation that can only be hosted at the ecotonic edge of two ecosystems coming together. As the Newtonian world gives way to the Quantum world we will take what we have learned and incorporate it into the new world. And this we will find is one of the earmarks of real human development, when you transcend a previous state you also include it in the new. You don’t always remain an adolescent but when you become a young adult you are transcending but also including the changed voice, body growth and learnings from that stage into the next.

The Quantum world is the next iteration, the next evolutionary click in understanding how our world is. How we do the work of integration and synthesis is critically important to whether the church has a voice, a changed maturing voice, in the future and whether that voice can converse or remains shrill and adolescent.

For at this stage, the church has been moved from the center of the cultural conversation to the edge of the conversation and in some — well many places in the world — isn’t anywhere to be found in the conversation. We can’t hold on to the Newtonian lens all the while telling the world “but this really is how it is.” They have taken off their glasses fashioned by Newton. They see the Emperor is naked, they are just waiting for us in the church to join them.

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Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 4.8-10

After what appears to be Jesus’ ah-ha moment at his baptism, he finds himself in a place of personal eremos; the lonely, desert place of self questioning, self evaluation, and self motivation. The dialogue he is in brings three tests to establishing a false sense of self.

The first test to Jesus’ manufacturing a false-self sense of identity was through him acting to meet his own needs. Will personal agency be the main medium through which felt need it met?

The second test was whether or not Jesus would manufacture a false sense of self and worth through the exercise of power in front of others. Will personal power be a vehicle of identity building?

We now come to the third test. Jesus is invited to personal acquisition of global proportion as a means of creating a sense of identity and worth. To head down this path is to obviously “worship/give allegiance” to something other than the deepest knowing we have–that God alone is worthy of our allegiance. If this is one of the big three temptations faced by Jesus, allowing identity to be built around “things,” we can almost certainly expect it will be one of the three big challenges we all face too.

Advertisers know this temptation well don’t they? And during this time of year advertisers spare no expense in make you feel the need to build a little identity. The entire industry is built on convincing you of a need you probably most of the time don’t have…and convincing you further that that “real, deepest, most satisfied you” really, really needs this to maintain your satisfaction. Will the temptation to acquisition be the basis of us building a false sense of identity?

It doesn’t take most of us very long to create a false self around the big three 1. what we do to satisfy our own needs, 2. how we exercise power to impress others, and 3. what we acquire as a means of identity building…the problem of course that once we start building this false self we then have to be vigilant to protect it all so “our self” remains in tact.

and herein lies our greatest source of unhappiness…

-our inability to do what we think will satiate our hunger
-our inability to impress the right people with the right traits so we can
get their kudos and affirmation
-our inability to acquire the right stuff in the right combination for the
right group to accept us.

This is the definition of unhappiness.

Jesus by saying no to these temptations essentially undercuts any energy loss from trying to maintain a self image and instead can simply be and act from a true deep self, one in unbroken connection with God his Father.

And when you don’t have to build, maintain, and defend something you really aren’t, you are truly free. You know the Truth, and that is real freedom.

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Matt. 4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’’”
Matt. 4:7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’’”

The first test to Jesus manufacturing a false sense of identity and self was through Jesus acting to meet his own needs when he knew he could but at the same time knew he actually needed something deeper. In some ways this is one of the most fundamental human dilemmas. Will I act to momentarily satisfy my own cravings or realize those are indicators of something more, something deeper?

This second egoic challenge has to do with power. Picture this. You are in the middle of a busy business district of a world-class city. Lunch hour has arrived and there is a hustle and bustle of activity and a buzz of city sounds all around. But you pause as you notice something irregular there is someone at the top of the highest and what also happens to be oldest cathedral in town. Here is the stage for what could be the ultimate super hero entrance. That someone at the top places their hands straight in the air and slowly starts leaning forward. As their feet leave the highest steeple of the cathedral their back gently arches into a most graceful swan dive. A few people notice – gasp – a few more and as a larger number begin …all of a sudden everything seems to go to slow motion and the guy in the swan dive gently and effortlessly lands Spider Man style in the middle of the awestruck crowd.

An ego trip? Head rush? Winsome display of super powers? Yes, yes and yes. And this is apparently what Jesus was challenged with.

Should he establish a sense of self through the exercise of
power in front of other?

Isn’t this the temptation we all encounter? The propensity to posture ourselves in front of others? To use personal power to feel good about ourselves and make others think we are something other than we are?

What examples of this have you seen? How do you read this temptation of Jesus?

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Jesus decides to respond to the movement led by his cousin, is baptized, showing his solidarity with the movement, and is then gifted with a moment of “enlightenment.” This moment, whether audible voice or internal impression, would obviously be a watershed event for anyone. There is no reason to assume this is anything less for Jesus and the construction of the narrative by Matthew highlights the gravity of this baptismal moment.

Jesus is instantly thrust/driven/compelled to go to the eremos. I use the word eremos here not to give you a Greek 101 lesson but to highlight a clear and obvious usage in language of the metaphorical. Eremos here in Matthew 4 may very well refer to a literal desert, as in a sandy, arid, cactus dotted landscape. But interestingly the idea may be something much more subtle.

Mark’s usage of the word eremos is in English translated solitary place, desert, lonely and in some translations mountains – all of these being locations Jesus went to do “internal work.” What is the point? After Jesus’ deep affirmation at baptism, he is driven to the eremos, whether mountains, desert, sea, solitary or alone places, Jesus goes to do serious interior work with God.* On various occasions it appears Jesus is praying, discerning, reflecting, sensing the heart of his Father and featured most prominently in this passage of Matthew 4, doing ego work.

The eremos/desert Jesus is driven toward is a desert of internal work around whether or not this affirmation at his baptism will quite simply “go to his head.” The question being asked is will he remain grounded in a deeper identity that was affirmed in the voice he heard? Or will he construct an alternative identity and a false self based up an inflation of what he has heard at his baptism? Another way of saying this to use the terms of the contemplative tradition, will Jesus construct a false self based upon attachments or remain unattached and grounded?

Setting the scene.

Jesus is in the solitary/desert/alone/quiet place and has been fasting 40 days. The number 40 as we well know has high symbolic value due to Israel being in the wilderness/desert space for 40 years. In that liminal space Israel is forming, deforming and re-forming her identity as the people of God. The 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness are not only connected to Israel, Jesus being the culmination and representative of Israel, but are connected also at the point of identity. Will Jesus act within and from the base of who he really is or be de-formed by succumbing to the very same temptations Israel faced (and failed at by the way)?

Temptation #1 Will Jesus use his ability to act and create (his ability “to do”) in such a way that he can fulfill his own needs?

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’’” Matthew 4.1-3

Jesus has a perfect opportunity to use his agency to meet his hunger needs and yet refuses. What does this refusal tell us about constructing a false self? If we are to follow in Jesus’ footsteps what does this invite from us?

Isn’t our attachment to fulfilling our own needs through all sorts of hunger soothing options, many of which are attainable, the very malady of modernity? Isn’t advertising “tempting” us to procure, obtain, purchase and secure all matter of things and stuff so we can have our “hunger” satiated?

Jesus’ refusal was a model of a deeper centeredness. Obtaining stuff isn’t bad or problematic unless we think it will have the ability to meet our genuine hunger. No human agency can satiate our deepest needs and desires.

So temptation #1 – establishing a sense of self by doing.

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*usages of eremos in Mark as translated in the NIV

Mark 1:12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert,
13 and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Mark 1:45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Mark 6:31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Mark 6:32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

Mark 6:35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late.

Mark 8:4 His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”

Mark 13:14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

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Had the honor to speak at Mosaiek again this past week up in Johannesburg. Here is a pdf of the art and slides I used with the quotes people have been asking me for. Below is the link to the message. Please retweet this. My guess is at this time of year there is hardly a more important message for us to assimilate.

Lettinggospeedofblur PDF of Slides

Life at the Speed of Blur

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