Upward, Not Northward

"Upward, Not Northward"--July 22, 2016

"Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' Jesus answered, 'Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?' Pilate replied, 'I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?' Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not from this world.  If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.'  Pilate asked him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Every one who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.' Pilate asked him, 'What is truth?'" [John 18:33-38]

Poor Pilate.  Poor, sad, too-big-for-his-britches Pilate. His mind, his view of the world, is so pathetically small that I almost want to feel bad for him not getting it.  Almost.

But still, the sad and clueless imperial show-off just can't grasp that Jesus could mean something different when he talks about a kingdom, a "reign," that is different than the bluster and brutality of Rome.  If Pilate weren't also a cruel and violent authoritarian, I would pity him for how small his understanding is when he is face to face with the Walking, Talking Truth.

There is this line that comes to mine from Edwin Abbott's classic thought experiment Flatland, about what would happen if someone who lived in a world of two-dimensions (hence, "Flatland") came to experience the three-dimensional world that we know.  Harder still, Abbot's protagonist then has to go back to the 2-D real of a plane and explain to everybody there what it was like to be plucked out, beyond somewhere, and to be able to see his X-and-Y-coordinate-bounded world from a new vantage point, and to try to explain what a sphere and a cube are to folks who can only think in terms of circles and squares.  So to remind himself, he has this repeated line of what his experience was like, he keeps saying, "Upward, not northward."  When he says "up," everyone in a two-dimensional world assumes north--that is all they have ever experienced.  But of course, for folks in three dimensions like you and me, we can understand that "up" means more than "north."  From our perspective, a world of three dimensions isn't esoteric or mysterious--it is more real than a 2-D world would seem to us. 

I sometimes think of that challenge--that "upward, not northward" train of thought--when I read about Jesus' encounters with the powers of his day, and really with all of us.  But particularly when Jesus comes head to head with the religious gatekeepers, the political appointees, and the imperial loudmouths, I think Jesus must have had a hard time trying to get through to them.  He saw reality--well, he still sees it--in its fullness, in all three dimensions, so to speak.  And when he speaks that to, say, a Roman governor who wants to impress the people by sounding tough and making himself look like a "winner," Jesus has to try to cram three dimensions' worth of reality into two dimensional worldviews, in a manner of speaking. 

Jesus is heralded as "Messiah," for example--a term that, yes, speaks of kingship, and of a reign, but also speaks of redemption and justice, of God's own rule among people, all the way down to their hearts, and of ancient promises being kept.  But Pilate can only hear "king," and immediately the only kings he can picture are kings like Rome's, and all the other empires that have come before.  Pilate, like all of Rome's way, can only think in terms of armies, swords, conquest, and death.  Pilate thinks only in terms of winning by killing your enemies and making the next people in line afraid of you.  Pilate, a good soldier of the empire, can only think in terms of control, fear, and brutality.  That's what power looks like to him, and so that's what he assumes rulers, kings, and kingdoms will look like, too.  No wonder, then, that poor, sad Pilate tries like a schoolyard bully to make himself look tough.

But Jesus means something far more--not less, but more--than kingship and reign.  It's not that Jesus is saying, "I only say and do spiritual things, so I have no opinion on matters of politics and power," but rather than the world around him is only settling for the 2-D version of the picture, and Jesus sees real power and real kingship in an infinitely richer depth.  When Jesus says, "My kingdom is not from here," he is not saying that God is only interested in "getting souls up to heaven," and then giving up on the rest of creation to go to hell in a handbasket.  No!--God is determined to reign in all things, on earth as in heaven.  But God's Reign doesn't work like the flat (and frankly pathetic) 2-D kingdoms and powers and empires of the world.  Jesus brings us face to face with a totally different kind of power--one that doesn't kill its enemies to win, but which dies on a cross for them. 

That's why Jesus says, "If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting... but my kingdom is not from here."  It's a way of saying, "Here, you all squabble and kill each other to try and get your way, like that is the greatest kind of power there is.  My kind of power is the creative power of suffering love.  My kind of reign comes from self-giving.  My kind of kingdom is like a sphere... and you can barely wrap your head around a circle, Pontius."

That's also why Jesus (and I imagine this with a sigh of frustration, rather than anxious defensiveness) says back to the Roman blowhard, "You say that I am a king," before going on to say "I came into the world to testify to the truth."  It's the old "upward, not northward" thing again: Jesus is trying to put into words that Pilate can understand what God's Reign is like, and Pilate can only think in terms of kings and empires.  To Jesus, "being the Lord of God's Reign," "being King," and "testifying to the truth" are all part of the same thing--but Pilate doesn't get it.  And because he doesn't get it, Pilate forces it through his tiny categories and sees Jesus as a threat--to him, to Caesar, to Rome. 

That's why I still almost--almost--feel sad, feel pity, for the tiny-minded voices of power today.  The labels and the empires have changed, but the same pattern keeps coming back: people who can only see power in terms of killing, people who can only see the "other" as a threat, people who use fear to get what they want.  It was Pilate's strategy, and it is still the stragegy du jour of pompous blowhards and political bullies.  If their small-mindedness were not also so dangerous, I would almost feel sad for them.  Poor, pathetic modern-day Pilates, who just don't get it.  Sad.

But into this pathetic scene, there is still Jesus.  Jesus, who perhaps sighs that we still don't understand him, but does not give up on us.  Jesus, who speaks again, to you, to me, and to the Pilates of every age: there is good news!  There is a new kind of Reign with a new kind of Ruler!  It has begun!  And its greatest conquest was not the execution or deportation of a dangerous enemy, but the death of the king for his people.  Jesus keeps speaking, like he is trying to get three-dimensions of space into our small two-dimensional brains, so that we will be pulled into his deeper kind of reality. 

And frankly, the fact that Jesus has not given up on us to keep speaking that truth of his new kind of reign, well that is something we did not earn.  That is grace.

Today, be a voice of grace... even to the Pilate-sounding bullies. Be a voice that shows the power of God's suffering love that conquers the world.  Be a voice that shows how the power of laying down your life is infinitely more potent than killing and intimidating.  Be a voice that keeps at it, even when the bluster of the bullies is at its loudest.  And when all their showing-off is over, then, like Jesus, speak in measured tone, "There is another Way."

We are the citizens of that new reign.  We are the members of the commonwealth of grace.  We are following after Jesus' other Way.  Keep on following--upward, not northward.

Lord Jesus, stretch our minds and souls to take in all your fullness, and to settle for nothing less.