Rehumanizing the Christ Part III

In keeping with the precedent that I set forth in my last RtC, I will not be focusing on Jesus, but another figure in the Bible that I believe has become dehumanized.  This one, however, seems to have been dehumanized in the opposite direction from Jesus.  Where Jesus's emotions have been eliminated by society, this particular character's motives and emotions seem to have been distorted to a distinctly inhuman level.

Therefore, I humbly present for your consideration:

REHUMANIZING JONAH

We all know the story of Jonah, right?  Guy gets swallowed by a whale (let the "big fish" debate begin) and God gives him a second chance, blah blah blah.  In case you haven't read the story in a while, it's conveniently located in the book of Jonah in the Bible.  I'm not going to recount it here, because it's significantly more in depth than the summary I just gave and I'm going to be using some scrawny details for this.

I'm going to assume you've read it and press forward.

When God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and preach against them, he had a vast and complicated run of emotions.  The Bible jumps immediately to Jonah running away, but let's think about it.  As best we can tell, Jonah was a prophet.  God telling him to go tell people that he wasn't happy with them was no big deal, so what was special about this one?  God was talking to someone other than the Israelites!

This meant a lot of things for Jonah.

Firstly, as many scholars have pointed out, the Ninevites were probably not on good terms with the Israelites.  Like any true patriot, in Jonah's mind, the world was better off without those pagans!  Jonah likely felt more than a twinge of excitement at the prospect of God being angry with Ninevah.  Finally, something would be done about those fish-slappers!  (Because VeggieTales is the most accurate portrayal of every Bible story ever told!)

Secondly, he would have to venture into a land where God was not recognized for the god that he is.  This message would be a lot harder to explain, because he would, in essence, have to explain God as well.  Have you ever had to explain God to someone?  It's not as easy of a thing to do as you might think.  Where do you start?  Do you jump straight to God is angry with you or do you start way back with "In the Beginning"?  Moreover, how would they react to the condemnation of a foreign God?  Would Jonah make it out alive?

Thirdly, we must combine these first two prospects.  Jonah would have to travel into foreign land and share God's message with those foreigners every self-respecting Israelite despised.  Go into an extremely fundamentalist Christian church and tell them that Muslims are going to heaven.  You're now in less than half as much danger as Jonah was in.  Imagine if someone found out where he had been told to go.  He would be shot down and chastised in so many ways for even considering sharing their God with gentiles.  It is possible he would even be cast out of society if he completed his task.

When you consider these last two, it's no wonder Jonah ran!  This wasn't a simple decision to run away.  It was a calculated move.  He thought it was his best shot.  His fear not only of the Ninevites, but of his own people far outweighed his desire to be obedient to God or his dark excitement about their condemnation.

I'm going to skip the part of the story that they taught you in Sunday School, because I think the VeggieTales version does an excellent job with this middle part.  Watch it.  It's worth it.

I'm going to skip to the end of the story.  This was actually my main inspiration for writing about Jonah.

After going into Ninevah and giving them a message that, interestingly enough, says nothing about God or his divine wrath, Ninevah repents.  Jonah, however, is angry.  All my life I was told that this was simply because Ninevah was Israel's enemy and Jonah wanted them destroyed (which is all he said in his message), but I was hit on Sunday with a powerful word that has caused people to become angrier over sillier things than Jonah:

Embarrassment.

Jonah had to have been embarrassed.  He had just spent three days going through the city telling everyone that it would be destroyed, and now God was changing him mind.  He did not say in his message that Ninevah would be destroyed unless they repent.  He simply said they would be destroyed.  How would it look if Ninevah was not destroyed?  Would he simply be a crazy person to the Ninevites?

Furthermore, he couldn't easily go back to the Israelites and tell them that God had spared Ninevah.  Then he would sound like a crazy person to them too.  Our vengeful, all-powerful God forgave a city full of sinful gentiles?  Preposterous!  You've been in the sun way too long!

He was now a crazy person by the accounts of both nations.  Where was he to go?  He had lost any sense of self-identity and dignity he had left.  What did he have left to live for?

The last straw came when God tried to teach Jonah a lesson.  After giving Jonah a plant to keep him comfortable, he took it away and made the conditions around Jonah even worse.  From Jonah's perspective, God teased him with a small taste of the comforts he had given up in obeying God's command to him and then pulled the rug out from under him.

Jonah's reaction of wanting to die was over more than just a plant.  He had given up his country and would not exactly be welcomed with open arms because he decided to share God with Ninevah.  He had been made out to be a fool when Ninevah was not destroyed.  Because he obeyed God, he was left alone and miserable in the middle of the desert, and now that very same God that was the cause of all his suffering had taken away the last blessing he had ever gotten from him!  After all this torment from following God's command, God had taken away what Jonah perceived to be his last bit of hope.

Jonah may have been wrong to say that it would be better for him to die, but can you say you would do differently if God ripped away your last shred of hope?

It's not such a simple story, now.  Is it?

Surprising Myself

Yesterday, I found myself beat over the head with inspiration.  I have found that when inspiration hits me that hard, I have to follow it before it leaves me.  You can read the resulting story here:

Merlin's Machine

Towards the end of the story, after the machine finishes and Brent starts dealing with the people, I messed up.  I really didn't mean for the story to go that way at the end.  I really like Brent, and I'm not sure whether or not this is the way I want him to go out.  If you haven't read any of my other stories, Brent is a recurring character in my stories that I have grown quite fond of.

I thought about it, and I realized that there are some possibilities I can still go with.

Before those of you who don't understand the creative process behind writing can offer the suggestion, no.  I can't change the ending.  Based on the characters I have created, the events I know are going on around the story, and the events in the story itself, that is the only possible ending.  I can't simply rewrite it and make everything ok.  If I rewrite everything, I will either come to the same result, or betray something deep within me.  There are ways to leave the story as is and repair the timeline so I'm happy with it, but the story stands.  It cannot be changed.  Especially the ending.

I also have several more stories based before this one where I can still use the character, so I don't have to give him up completely even if I don't use a loophole.

For those of you who are interested, there are currently seven stories that I have at least started that all relate to this wide reaching, surprisingly complex, storyline.  Five of them are currently on my website.  I'll be honest, I don't know everything that's going to happen, but I do know a lot more than I've said in the stories.

I actually have an unhealthily long list of questions that I haven't even answered myself.  I don't get to find out the answers to these questions until I write them.

It's a lot more exciting that way!

Second Nature

I just got back from a long weekend away, and I'm really tired.  I seriously debated about whether or not I was going to post at all.  Then, during my six hour drive back, I was struck by an odd thought that I need to get into writing before I forget it.  I figured you guys would at least pretend to be interested in it.

It all started when they read this verse on one of the programs I was listening to:

"But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."  Matthew 6:3 (NIV)

Let me start off by saying that Matthew 6 is an absolutely amazing chapter of the Bible that you should go and read in its entirety right now.  It's chalk full of advice that the world as a whole has basically forgotten, including this little gem.

Basically, this verse is about not making a big deal about doing good works.  Imagine just how quiet you would have to keep your actions in order to prevent a part of your body from knowing what's going on.  THAT would be impressive.  It would be especially impressive in a world where there are so few truly good acts that whenever people do them, they feel like there should be a Hallelujah chorus and the entire world should pat them on the back.

That lesson, however, has been beaten to death by theologians across time.  You should know by now that I'm not really a fan of simply rehashing old ideas.

People often talk about doing your works in secret so that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.  The thought that struck me tonight was this:  What is you did works so that one hand doesn't notice what the other is doing.

You are now probably thinking one of three things:

1. Ah, I understand.  You are most wise.
2. Dude, you just said the same thing twice!
3. There's no way he's gonna guess what I'm thinking!

If you are of the first persuasion, thank you.  I try.  If you are of the third persuasion, I got you you smart alecky little snot!  If you are of the second persuasion, I'll explain.  The key thing to notice between the two statements is what the one hand is not doing.  Look at them side by side:

Do good works so that the one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.
Do good works so that the one hand doesn't notice what the other is doing.

The important change is from know to notice.

What are some things you do that you don't notice?  Breathing, blinking, digesting, etc.  These are things that your body does automatically without you having to make a conscious effort to do them.  There are other things, however, that you don't notice until you can't do them.  Using your toes to keep your balance; bending your fingers to grasp something; moving your legs to walk from one place to another; opening and closing your jaw to break up your food; etc.  These are things that you can do consciously, but often don't actually think that much about them.

Imagine if doing good works was like that.  Imagine if doing good works was so much a part of your life that you didn't even notice you were doing it.  Imagine if it were just second nature like extending one leg after the other hits the ground.  Imagine if even if your left hand knew what your right hand was doing, it didn't think about it, because that was a part of it's typical actions.

What would the world be like if doing good works was second nature?

Just something to chew on.

Rehumanizing the Christ Part II

I have long felt that the world as a whole has lost Jesus's human identity almost completely, but I was never entirely sure why.  I came to a realization on this front the other day during the discussion following a Bible study:

The Bible is INCREDIBLY dry!

The Bible doesn't spend a lot of time on character development.  And why should it?  It's original purpose was not to be a dramatic work, but a series of attempts to record pieces of history.  Because, as we all know, the Bible is 100% unadulterated fact and everything that happened happened exactly as recorded in the Bible.  [ACHOO!]

Seriously, though, the Bible spends all of its time recording events and virtually none of its time describing the people involved.  It tells you just enough about these people to explain the events.  It does not help you understand anything about these people's personalities.  This would really not be such a bad thing.  In fact, it could be a really wonderful thing and allow you to look at it from lots of different perspectives.  Unfortunately, society as a whole has no imagination.  Because of society's unimaginative nature when it comes to reading the Bible, we have lost the humanity of not only Christ, but of virtually all the characters involved in the Bible.

When I say we've lost the humanity of Biblical characters, I don't mean we believe they're something other than human.  I don't mean we have deified them or anything like that.  What I do mean is that they have lost their complexity.  The good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad.  End of story.  The good guys have no ulterior motives than the will of God, and the bad guys want nothing more than to destroy God's people.  I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you that real people don't work like that.

With this revelation in mind, I have come to the conclusion that my original focus for "Rehumanizing the Christ" was too narrow.  Before I can get you to accept a human Christ, I believe I'm going to have to get you to accept the humanity of other people in the Bible.  Therefore, my next entries in this little "series" will be focused on rehumanizing some of the other figures in the Bible.  My hope is not for you to accept what I'm telling you in these to be the only way you look at these characters.  My hope is that you will get a taste of what these characters could have been like and to explore the possibilities that this opens up.

In the Bible study that led to my revelation, we were discussing the story of Jacob and Esau.  For those of you who don't remember the story, the part I'm going to be talking about comes from Genesis 25 and 27:

"Isaac married Rebekah.  At some point after that, Rebekah got pregnant.  She was extremely uncomfortable with the pregnancy and was very worried about it.  God told her that she would have twins and that they were already fighting and that the older would serve the younger.  Esau was born and was quickly followed by Jacob.  The two grew up, and Esau became an outdoorsy person and Isaac's favorite while Jacob became a more . . . domestic person and Rebekah's favorite (a mama's boy).  At some point, Jacob managed to get Esau to trade him his birthright for some soup.  Later on, with a TON of guidance and assistance from Rebekah, Jacob managed also to steal the blessing of the firstborn as well."  Genesis 25, 27 (MXPB)

What really got the post-study discussion going was the fact that as we were talking about the story during Bible study, everyone's motives were so pure.  I mean, love and obedience to God's will are obviously the driving forces in this story, right?  [ACHOO!]  The story of Jacob and Esau is a story of plotting, betrayal, and revenge.  I do not believe for a second that the only driving forces in the story were love and obedience.

What really drove me nuts about the Bible study was everyone's portrayal of Rebekah.  And that, dear readers, is why today's focus is:

REHUMANIZING REBEKAH

During Bible study, everyone kept coming back to Rebekah as a kind and loving motherly figure and a sort of prophetess.  All she wanted was to protect her child and fulfill God's plan in the lives of her sons.  [ACHOO!  My allergies are really bothering me today!]

Let's look at humans around you first.

Think about the people in your life.  Think about people on the news.  Think about humanity as a whole.  Generally speaking, we are self-serving creatures.  We lie, cheat, and steal to get to the top.  Many people will, and have, stab their own family and friends in the back in order to move up in the world.  This, dear children, is part of being human.  All of our motives are not nice.  Think about the things you did throughout today.  Were there times when you were self-serving?  Were there times when you did something you knew would cause problems for someone else?  Were there more times that you did self-serving things or things that would improve the lives of others?

There is a definite dark side to being human.

With that in mind, let's add some negative traits to Rebekah.  Let's really develop her side of the story and turn her into a character that you can believe.  That's the goal here, right?

Rebekah was power hungry.

Women in biblical times had virtually no power on their own.  Their only real chance of getting power was to make connections with powerful men.  This meant that they had to marry well, but it also meant that they had to raise their sons well.  Not only did they have to raise their sons in such a way that they would be powerful men, but since this powerful man would be in charge of their fate some day, they had to make sure that their sons cared enough to take care of them.

Rebekah was forewarned by God that she would have two sons and that the younger would be more powerful.  Do you think she's going to have information like that and not act on it?  No!  As the two boys grew up, Isaac, knowing full well that as the firstborn, Esau would be in charge of the family, took Esau under his wing and taught him what he believed it would take to run the family.  Rebekah, knowing full well that because of God's prophecy, Jacob would be more powerful, took Jacob under her wing.  By doing this, she ensured that when Jacob became powerful, she would be better taken care of because it was she that loved him when he was nothing.

Rebekah was impatient.

As the two boys grew up, Rebekah didn't see the results of God's words to her as quickly as she hoped.  She thought that it would be obvious early on that Jacob was more powerful, but that was not the case.  So she decided that she would hurry things along.  She did this by teaching Jacob what he would need.

She taught Jacob what it would take to claim the power in the family.  She taught him (and probably almost brainwashed him) about birthrights and blessings.  She taught him that not only were these things important and automatically the rights of the firstborn, but that they could be taken.  She also taught him some domestic arts such as cooking which would come in handy later on.  At the same time, she started planning, which leads me right into my next point.

Rebekah was manipulative.

I would like to take a moment to pause the story and look at the actual text for a moment.  Most scholars will tell you that the reason Esau traded his birthright was because in Genesis 25:34, it says "Esau despised his birthright."  I would like to point out that it does not say this until after the birthright was stolen and then, at least in the NIV, it says "SO Esau despised his birthright."  To me, this says that he despised it because it had been stolen from him.

Coming back to the characters and story, Isaac took for granted that Esau would receive the birthright and blessing.  Therefore, unlike Rebekah with Jacob, he did not see the point in teaching Esau what these things meant early in his life.  Rebekah took advantage of this.  She waited until Esau was at a weak point and then had Jacob implement her plan.

While they were still rather young, Esau came in from hunting.  He knew that Jacob always made the best food, so he went straight to his tent.  As he expected, Jacob had made a soup that smelled delicious.  Esau insisted on having some.  Jacob, per his mother's instructions, offered some soup in exchange for his birthright.  Esau, not understanding the importance of his birthright, saw the soup as being worth much more and eagerly took the deal.  Thus, the first part of Rebekah's plan succeeded.

The next part of the plot happened years later when Isaac was old, blind and about to die.  This plan is much more elaborate and much better detailed in chapter 27.  I highly recommend reading it, because I'm not going to go into it here.  Rebekah's involvement in that deception are completely obvious.  Long story short, Rebekah's plan succeeds and Jacob gets the blessing also.



Through this elegant and elaborate plot, Rebekah ensured that she was most loved by the more powerful son.  You could easily argue that she took Jacob under wing out of love.  You could easily argue that Jacob took the birthright of his own accord and that she helped him steal the blessing in order to fulfill the will of God.  Rebekah can be seen as a loving, nurturing mother and servant of God.  However, personally, I find it much easier to believe she was a lying manipulative power seeker.

I don't want you to leave here thinking that everything I wrote here is true.  Most of what I have written here has little basis in scripture and a ton of basis in imagination.  As I said earlier, my goal is not to convince you that this is how these people were.  My goal is to get you to start looking at them as actual people.  This includes looking at possible darker motives.

Not everyone's a good guy.