Ion Paradoxes in the
Bible
Not
peace but a Sword
"Do
not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a 'a man against his father, a
daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a
man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' " Matt 10:34 - 36
NIV
"Then
the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus'
companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high
priest, cutting off his ear. "Put your sword back in its place," Jesus
said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." Matt
26:50 - 52 NIV
Jesus first says he is the
bringer of a sword and then tells his companion to put the sword away. What is
going on? Is it a contradiction or something else? What is more, the passage
that Jesus quotes from in the first example is from the prophetic book of Micah
in which Micah describes the dangers of living in a time when "the godly
have been swept from the land" (Micah 7:2). Jesus seems to be saying that
he has come to bring such a time.
Possible ways of understanding
this paradox:
1. some have suggested that the
sword that Jesus brought was truth and that truth can divide people. Jesus'
companion didn't understand this and so needed to be corrected when he went for
his physical sword instead of the sword of truth.
2. Others have suggested that
Jesus quoted from this passage because Micah prophesied the coming of a
ruler/shepherd who would bring peace.
If it is understood as an ion
paradox then Jesus is the bringer of a sword in the sense that his message can
not be understood by parents and family who are not ready to hear it. His
message was so strange because it was a gateway message. It was the kind of
thing that makes no sense if you are stuck at a certain stage
of development. He had just finished telling his disciples to go and heal
people, raise the dead, cast out demons, and preach that the social and
political system of God was drawing near. They were to be walking evidence of a
different style of warfare. The were to go out stickless, cloakless, penniless.
By demonstrating a complete dependence of God, even when faced with imprisonment
and death they were to be witnesses to a weird and counterintuitive way of
living. Such a way of living makes no sense from the perspective of people
living in early stages of
development. J C Arnold points out that Paul compares the
sword of the Spirit to the sword of governmental authority (variously called the
temporal sword or sword of God's wrath). Paul said that God withdrew the Holy
Spirit from the world because people would not obey the Spirit. So God gave the
sword of earthly government whose stability and authority is rooted in military
power. See the section on Girardian contributions to the understanding of Left
handed Power for a more complete discussion on the subject of the role of
scapegoat mechanisms in human government and the radical departure Jesus offers
as an alternative.
Violence of Love
Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero said the
“Violence of Love … left Christ nailed to a cross; it is the violence we
must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and the cruel inequalities
among us. It is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred, it is the
violence of brotherhood, the violence that will beat weapons into sickles for
peaceful work.”
Bishop Romero’s words echo the Ephesians 5:2
Eph
5:2
and walk
in love
(agape noun feminine benevolence),
just as Christ
also
loved
(agapao Verb to be fond of) you and gave
Himself
up for us, an offering
and a sacrifice
(qusia noun feminine victim – ritual offering) to God
as a fragrant
aroma.
NAS
In this verse we find the heart of the Christian religion.
Christians are admonished to love others in the same way Jesus did, and Jesus
showed God’s love by dying in our place. This act was pleasing to God.
Christians are so used to hearing this line of reasoning that few stop to think
what it is actually saying. A cursory reading of this verse might lead some to
conclude that the highest virtue (as illustrated by Jesus) is to become a
sacrifice for someone else and that this will be a sweet experience for God.
Usually it is interpreted to mean that Jesus “paid the price” that God
required of us for the sinfulness of humankind. This idea of a price on our head is
rooted in a theology of God that reasons that nothing sinful can exist in
relation to God. This logic, imperfect as it may be, creates in people's minds an
image of God as distant and severe, the sort of being that does not have the
power to forgive us without the ritual purification of a sacrifice.
In fact the Bible does talk a great deal about sacrifice. But
much of it seems contradictory. In some places sacrifice is said to be pleasing
to God and in others the impression is given that God is tired of such offerings
and really just wants people to be kind and loving and to get to know God.
(Hosea 6:6) Link to a more in depth study of this apparent
paradox.
What Bishop Romero and the Apostle Paul
referred to is
the strange paradox that we must actively sacrifice our own importance and allow
God to be the main force in our lives if we are to find peace and love.
This
reasoning runs contrary to much of our genetic and social programming. The basic
need to survive has insured that our species values aggressive individuals who
place personal success and accomplishment first with
corporate success and accomplishment balanced in second place. Individuals who
are not naturally aggressive find supporting roles in society and provide
cohesion and adaptability. Now that we are the dominant species on the planet,
survival may well depend on a shift in the direction that Romero and Paul
suggest.
Romero internalizes the crucifixion of Jesus and indicates
that we must do to ourselves on the inside what Jesus allowed to be done to him
in front of the world. We must deliberately, lovingly nail our self to the
boards of the horizontal and vertical realities of existence. We must hold down
with force our natural selfish tendency.
The Paradox of the
violence of Love is also about taking the
violence that the world gives and returning love. The natural side of us reacts
to violence with an emotion to strike back, to take revenge. But the revelatory
act of Jesus shows that this reaction is part of a very old pattern of behavior
that only propagates more violence (See Girard).
Gandhi practiced a form of this love when he
insisted that the violence of the system remain unreturned. By doing this Gandhi
and all those that stood with him, showed the injustice of the situation and
gained human dignity and social change at the same time.
The Paradox of the Violence of Love is also about how real
love terrifies and angers people with vested interests in selfish social
systems. Charity and giving does more to illuminate darkness that any amount of
arguing, reasoning, or masterful communication. When the darkness of humanity
strikes out against the love of humanity it becomes clear that both sides cannot exist without great crisis. Jungians may argue that integration of the
two sides is possible, but such integration is only realized when the violence of love opens before
the honest soul.
No
Life without Death
Jesus
replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you
the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains
only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves
his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep
it for eternal life." Jn 12:23 - 25 NIV
Whoever
finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find
it. Matt 11:39 NIV
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 of forfeit his very self?"
This
is perhaps the most quoted ion paradox of Jesus' teachings. The usefulness of
this teaching is that it propels us forward through various stages
of development
providing a different and deeper understanding the more we question the reality
that surrounds it.
First
of all, why do we want to find our life? and why are we afraid to lose it?
Secondly,
what does it really mean to keep it for eternal life?
Finally,
what is the deal with the seed? How did Jesus produce many seeds, and how will
we if we die to ourselves?
The
answers to these questions tell us about who we are and what motivates us. The
human condition seems to involve a search for a sense of identity. Once that
identity is formed it is not satisfied with being, but insists on expansion. In
order to expand, however, it must undergo various transformations, and each of
these transformations involves realizations that make it difficult to regress to
simpler means of identity. We can not stuff our new selves into the old selves.
We get bigger. In the end we can not be contained and maintained in the
physical. Attempting to hold on to the reality of our physical being only stifles
our progression. Such clinging, and the clinging to ideas, perceptions and
levels of understanding, can lead to a twisting, like the twisting that happens
when a part of a plant is caught on a barbed wire fence. This twisting can ultimately
cause our personality to become unstable. Unless we learn to let go of our
achievement, perceptions, successes, and in the end physical life, we run the
risk of a collapse of who we are.
"The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up
your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save
it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every
day...submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.
Keep nothing back. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really
yours...look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else
thrown in." - C.S. Lewis
Wisdom
of Fools
For the message of the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the
intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. 1 Cor 1:18 - 19
We
have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.
We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are
strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and
thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hared
with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we
endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have
become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.1 Cor 4:9 - 13 NIV
The
foolish message of the cross. What is that message? It is this: Jesus is not a
hero. Not in the usual sense at any rate, because the hero is supposed to ride
in on a white horse and banish the evil villain from the city by force.
In
the Christian story, Jesus does ride in to town on a colt but he rejects the use
of force and instead allows himself to be handed over to the authorities to be
hanged on a cross. Jesus is scapegoated and draws attention away from the issues
considered most important by the religious and political leaders, onto the
mimetic mechanism of the scapegoat itself.
The
injustice of the situation is apparent. Why are they killing Jesus, the healer
and teacher? The reason given is that he claimed to be God. Early followers saw
in Jesus a sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Christians speak of Jesus as the
spotless lamb who's death took away our sins forever. But in fact what his death
did was take away the "system" and effectiveness of sacrifices
forever. Jesus showed the inadequacies of mimetic violence for solving human
problems.
This
is the ion paradox of Jesus' death and it is great foolishness to those who
continue to believe that the way to address the evil in our midst is with might
and force. Military strength and a strong police force work for a culture that
lives in the early stages
of development but falls down for those who wish to graduate to a better way
of living that is free from violence completely. Such ideology is considered naive
and unworkable by the majority. But The paradox is there pointing a way for
those who can see.
In
the same way the path of non-violence and Christian charity described by Paul
seems crazy to the average person. Why put up with such abuse? The creed of our
culture now is one that encourages you to stand up for your rights. The refrain
today is, don't be a doormat. The amazing thing is that when you do become
defensive and assertive is when you are in danger of loosing touch with the
centering focus of a life lived in abandonment to the work of God in us. Many
spiritual leaders agree with Paul that it is when we embrace the lowness of
humility and service that we are drawn up higher than any striving could attain.
This is the working of left handed power.
See
the section on Girardian
theory for more insights into the foolishness of left handed power.
Strength
of Weakness
There
are two kinds of power in the world. Robert Capon call them right and left
handed power. Capon
carefully shows in his book, The Parables of the Kingdom, that Jesus
talked in parables so that our right brains could grasp what our left-brains can
never. He says that the gospel is a gospel of left-handed power, the power of
weakness, submitting, and obedience. He says that God used right-handed
power in the olden days, when we were still young in our development, but
that since the incarnation, God pretty much sticks to the non-interventive
approach. According to Capon the whole thing turned at the feeding of the
multitude. Jesus had been doing miraculous signs out of compassion, but then he
realized that he was in danger of being misunderstood as a provider of
right-handed power. When Peter suggests that he understands who Jesus is,
meaning that he wants him to be the provider and protector extraordinaire, Jesus
says, "Get out of my face, you Satan."
It
is when we think we understand what God is up to, especially when this knowledge
is linked to right-handed power that we are in the most danger.
Ion
Paradoxes in Eastern
Forms
Koans
What
is a Koan?
The
best answer I have seen is at:
http://www.darkzen.com/zenmar/thekoan.html
http://metalab.unc.edu/zen/index.html
On
this page toward the end of the first paragraph is a linked line, “. Read
a koan picked at random from the text.” That brings up many Koans at
random
Two
monks were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.'
The
other said: `The wind is moving.'
The
sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the
flag; mind is moving.'
Mumon's
Comment: The sixth patriarch said: `The wind is not moving, the flag is not
moving. Mind is moving.' What did he mean? If you understand this intimately,
you will see the two monks there trying to buy iron and gaining gold. The sixth patriarch
could not bear to see those two dull heads, so he made such a bargain.
Wind,
flag, mind moves.
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong.
Tonglen
In
Tibetan Buddhism there are several levels of meditative practice within several
stage of the spiritual path. The first practice in the first stage is called
Vipassana. It is a preparatory discipline that teaches you to see the
ego/self and thoughts and feelings in general as passing states or impermanent
sensations. Once this bare enlightenment is achieved you moves on to the second
stage of the spiritual path. The disciplines at this stage are designed to
foster a global awareness rooted in compassion.
Tonglen
is the foremost practice at this stage. Ken Wilber describes it this way:
"In meditation, picture or visualize someone you know and love who is going
through much suffering - an illness, a loss, a depression, pain, anxiety, fear.
As you breathe in, imagine all of that person's suffering - in the form of dark,
black, smokelike, tarlike, thick and heavy clouds - entering your nostrils and
traveling down into your heart. Hold that suffering in your heart. Then on the
out-breath, take all of your peace, freedom, health, goodness, and virtue, and
send it out to the person in the form of healing, liberating light. Imagine they
take it all in, and feel completely free, released, and happy. Do that for
several breaths. Then imagine the town that person is in, and on the in-breath,
take in all of the suffering of that town, and send back all of your health and
happiness to everyone in it. Then do that for the entire state, then the entire
country, the entire planet, the universe. You are taking in all the suffering of
beings everywhere and sending them back health and happiness and virtue."
(Grace and Grit 247)
Sound
like something you want to do? Take the tar and evil of the world into yourself
and give back peace and love? Most people find the idea distasteful and some
worry that they may in fact become ill themselves from such visualizations.
Others find the whole idea silly and disbelieve any claims made by
practitioners.
When
Kalu Rinpoche first gave these instructions to a group of about 100 people one
woman stood to ask, "what if I am doing this with someone who is really
sick, and I start to get the sickness myself?"
Without
hesitating Kalu said, "you should think, Oh Good! It's working!"
(Wilber ibid)
Counter
intuitive facts
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