A Wise Rabbi
CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault understands Jesus through the lineage of Jewish wisdom teachers:
When I talk about Jesus as a wisdom master, I need to mention that in the Near East “wisdom teacher” is a recognized spiritual occupation. In seminary I was taught that there were only two categories of religious authority: one could be a priest or a prophet. That may be how the tradition filtered down to us in the West. But within the wider Near East (including Judaism itself), there was also a third, albeit unofficial, category: a moshel moshelim, or teacher of wisdom, one who taught the ancient traditions of the transformation of the human being.
These teachers of transformation—among whom I would place the authors of the Hebrew wisdom literature such as Ecclesiastes, Job, and Proverbs—may be the early precursors to the rabbi whose task it was to interpret the law and lore of Judaism (often creating their own innovations of each). The hallmark of these wisdom teachers was their use of pithy sayings, puzzles, and parables rather than prophetic pronouncements or divine decree. They spoke to people in the language that people spoke, the language of story rather than law….
Parables, such as the stories Jesus told, are a wisdom genre belonging to mashal, the Jewish branch of universal wisdom tradition, which includes stories, proverbs, riddles, and dialogues through which wisdom is conveyed…. Jesus not only taught within this tradition, he turned it end for end. But before we can appreciate the extraordinary nuances he brought to understanding human transformation, we need first to know something about the context in which he was working.
There has been a strong tendency among Christians to turn Jesus into a priest—“our great high priest” (see the Letter to the Hebrews). The image of Christos Pantokrator (“Lord of All Creation”) dressed in splendid sacramental robes has dominated the iconography of both Eastern and Western Christendom. But Jesus was not a priest. He had nothing to do with the temple hierarchy in Jerusalem, and he kept a respectful distance from most ritual observances. Nor was he a prophet in the usual sense of the term: a messenger sent to the people of Israel to warn them of impending political catastrophe in an attempt to redirect their hearts to God. Jesus was not that interested in the political fate of Israel, nor would he accept the role of Messiah continuously being thrust upon him.
His message was not one of repentance (at least in the usual way we understand it) and return to the covenant. Rather, he stayed close to the ground of wisdom: the transformation of human consciousness. He asked those timeless and deeply personal questions: What does it mean to die before you die? How do you go about losing your little life to find the bigger one? Is it possible to live on this planet with a generosity, abundance, fearlessness, and beauty that mirror Divine Being itself? These are the wisdom questions, and they are the entire field of Jesus’ concern.
A Way of Life
To understand the world knowledge is not enough, you must see it, touch it, live in its presence.
—Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe
Father Richard Rohr illustrates how Jesus’ wisdom differs from intellectual knowledge.
Suppose a couple superstars of knowledge visit your house. With multiple PhDs, they sit at your supper table each evening dispensing information about nuclear physics, cyberspace, string theory, and psychoneuroimmunology, giving ultimate answers to every question you ask. They don’t lead you through their thinking processes, however, or even involve you in it; they simply state the conclusions they’ve reached.
We might find their conclusions interesting and even helpful, but the way they relate to us won’t set us free, empower us, or make us feel good about ourselves. Their wisdom will not liberate us, nor invite us to growth and life; indeed, it will in the end make us feel inferior and dependent. That’s exactly how we have treated Jesus. We have treated him like a person with numerous PhDs coming to tell us his conclusions.
This is not the path to wisdom nor is it how Jesus shared his wisdom with those who wanted to learn from him. Rather Jesus teaches his disciples through his lifestyle, a kind of “seminary of life.” He takes them with him (Mark 1:16–20) and watching him, they learn the cycle and rhythm of his life, as he moves from prayer and solitude to teaching and service in community. As Cynthia Bourgeault explains, Jesus taught as a moshel moshelim, or a teacher of wisdom. [1] He doesn’t teach his disciples mere conceptual information as we do in our seminaries. Rather, he introduces them to a lifestyle and the only way he can do that is to invite them to live with him. He invites us to do the same (see John 1:39).
“But the crowds got to know where he had gone and they went after him. He made them welcome and he talked to them about the kingdom of God and he cured those who were in need of healing” (Luke 9:11). Can’t you just imagine the apostles standing at Jesus’ side, watching him, noticing how he does things: how he talks to people, how he waits, how he listens, how he’s patient, how he depends upon God, how he takes time for prayer, how he doesn’t respond cynically or bitterly, but trustfully and yet truthfully? Can you imagine a more powerful way to learn?
Luke tells us that Jesus walked the journey of faith just as you and I do. That’s the compelling message of the various dramas where Jesus needed faith—during his temptation in the desert, during his debates with his adversaries, in the garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross. We like to imagine that Jesus did not doubt or ever question God’s love. The much greater message is that in his humanity, he did flinch, did ask questions, did have doubts—and still remained faithful. This is the path of wisdom.
| Fools and Their Barns NADIA BOLZ-WEBER AUG 4 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” -Luke 12 NRSV THE GOOD PART Just to get it out of the way, I know it’s not nice to call someone a fool. I mean, I was raised right. But please tell me I’m not alone in sometimes thinking someone’s a fool. Surely some of you have thought (but politely not said) it about that relative who says, “I did my own research,” and then proceeds to spout off something totally unhinged about like, freemasons and the moon landing. The older I get the less hesitation I have about calling myself foolish – Like the other day when I actually responded to an email from someone who said they were my bishop before realizing that whoever bishop7139@ gazoogle.com is, they are for sure not actually my bishop. This is all by way of saying that there’s something particularly cathartic about the parable we just heard. It’s the one Jesus tells after saying “be on guard against all kinds of greed”. The one where a rich man has so much that he has to build bigger barns to hoard all his grain along with his new boat and vintage Harley and all those extra Rolexes and Dubai chocolate bars he bought just for himself. And then, weirdly, he talks to his own soul like he’s its financial advisor. He says, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax.” But then right after he locks the doors of his humongous new barn with all his stuff he is trying to keep all for himself… the guy dies. Just sort of drops dead. And God says, “You fool.” Mwah. Chef’s kiss, right? A divine smack-down always rings like good news in my ears. Unless it’s about me. Then, you know – less so. Because sure, this is a critique of greed. But not just The Real Housewives of Wall Street greed. Maybe it’s also about the kind of internal hoarding that’s way more relatable. I say this because I’m preaching this text today for Montview Church—in this gorgeous sanctuary nestled in one of Denver’s wealthiest neighborhoods—and also for New Beginnings, the congregation inside the women’s prison that meets in cinder block gym – It’s one thing to speak of hoarding wealth to we who have 401k and stock portfolios and another to those who have $3.75 in their canteen. So for today we are going to expand the lens through which we look at how greed and hoarding shows up because the temptation to store up treasures for ourselves isn’t just a rich people problem. It’s a human problem. It’s a “I’m so scared I won’t have enough” problem. A “what if I’m not enough?” problem. A “I have to keep as tight a grip as possible so that something I love isn’t taken from me again” problem. Because we hoard different things depending on our circumstances. Some of us hoard resources. But some of us hoard affection. Some of us hoard compassion for others, some of us hoard our talents as though we can stockpile it all in Ziplocs and store it in the freezer. And life is rough, it breaks our hearts, and people disappoint us, and every day there are new scams to avoid, so it’s understandable that we build barns to try and protect our hearts, our money, our gifts. But of course, as always, Jesus invites us to imagine a different economy than one where we hold back out of fear. In the parable God calls the dead guy with a barn full of stuff a fool. “So it is,” Jesus says, “with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” What does it even mean to be “rich toward God”? Because scripture says that the Earth and everything in it is God’s. So God isn’t in like, financial trouble and needs a bailout or a payday loan. Maybe being rich toward God starts with noticing how rich God has been toward us. How “scarcity” is not in God’s lexicon, scarcity is just something we create for others and fear for ourselves. But God didn’t create the cosmos by being stingy or holding back so they didn’t run out. God created the world with wild, irresponsible generosity. I mean, Eleven thousand species of birds? Over thirteen billion light-years of stars? More kinds of flowers and kinds of landscapes and kinds of humans than we know what to do with? Abundance is written into the DNA of the universe. Which brings me back to the rich man. I’m sure he felt like he’d made it He won the game. He had more than he could ever use. But this week I wondered what he lost by winning. When the rich man died he was alone with his big useless barn of grain. Which meant He never got to meet another person’s need, or experience the freedom from self-obsession that comes from generosity. But he was stingy in more ways than just one. He withheld from his neighbors, not just the abundance of the Earth which by the way, belongs to God, but he also withheld the blessing of his neighbors getting to be of service to him. He didn’t get to experience being given to. Not a single neighbor got to show up with a loaf of Zucchini bread in August, or helped him fix a fence. He lost the chance to be generous—and to be on the receiving end of generosity. Because that’s part of it too. To be rich toward God is to know that our lives are stitched together with other people’s lives…That we were never meant to go it alone. So being rich toward God is not just about giving. It’s also about receiving. Which for some of us is harder. I don’t mind the being of service thing but I don’t love the letting other people take care of me thing. Some of you know that the first sentence I ever spoke was 3 words – Do. It. Self. I will do it myself, I do not like having to rely on anyone else, in fact most days of my life I wear a cuff bracelet inscribed with the word, “independent”. But a couple weeks ago I was inside the prison – meeting with a small group – when my blood sugar dropped. I had nothing with me and the last thing I wanted to do was ask the women for anything. I got a little shaky and light headed before finally saying “I’m so sorry to ask, but does anyone have something I could eat” – I mean, it was humbling – I have so much and they have so little but Nadine was clearly delighted that she could hand me her granola bar. For a moment I felt embarrassed until I realized it would have been stingy of me to be of service to them and withhold the opportunity for them to be of service to me. My dad is my teacher here. He has a progressive neuromuscular disease, so over the last 10 years we have watched as he slowed down a bit, then relied on a cane for support, then a walker and now for several years a wheelchair. Last Summer he took a turn and was in hospital for a week, and I got to spend a day sitting with him in his room. Now, my father was a professor and is a dignified man; tall, handsome, with a certain command of presence. So after a nurse had come to help him with toileting, I said, “Dad it must be really humbling to need other people to do so many things for you.” And to my surprise, his face lit up and he said “No kiddo. That’s the good part.” That’s the good part. The needing. The being needed. The being humbled by our own humanity. The economy of grace that God has given us to live within. Thinking of myself as so independent is a joke by the way. Because all week as I studied this text, my mind wandered to those in my life who did not withhold their gifts of attention and time and encouragement. The woman who gave me a place to live when I got sober, the friend who brought me a lasagna when I was too depressed to leave my apartment, the artist who said I told funny stories and should maybe do that on stage, the community college night class film studies teacher who told me she thought I was smart, the pastor who saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself. Each of these people could have kept their time and attention and energy stored away in a barn. I know how easy it is to default to this, trust me. But they were generous with what God entrusted to them. I don’t know what it is God has given you on behalf of others, maybe it’s money, or a killer sense of humor, or the ability to create art or music – which we really need right now, or just the sacred gift of being a really good listener. I just hope none of it ends up in a barn. “So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God”, he said. And then, just a few chapters later, Jesus gave away the last thing he had—his own life. He poured it out. Even at the end, when he could have lashed out or shut down or called ten thousand angels, he kept giving – he gave his forgiveness to those who hung him on that cross and then he gave his mother to his friend and his friend to his mother. “You belong to each other,” he said. And in a world that tries to convince us we are alone, maybe that’s all we really need to remember. We still belong to each other. That’s the good part. Amen. |
