My last post was a message I heard as I did lectio on the phrase "shake off the dust that is on your feet" from Mark 6.10-11: “Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet…”
Following is a little analysis of the way various gospels interpreted the saying.
All three of the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) have a version of this saying, but they interpret it as a call to judgment. Perhaps a message of radical non-reactivity was simply incomprehensible.
They were caught up defending their burgeoning cult to synagogue traditionalists, and surviving the Roman world after the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus represented incomparable “Good News,” and many who happen on a spiritually illuminating theology think that after everyone gets it, all suffering will end. So it is easy to condemn anyone who refuses to hear. What kind of benighted fool chooses to reject the end of suffering?
I have no idea if the historical Jesus actually said anything about shaking dust. If he did, I have no idea what he meant. But one sign that the judgment interpretation is a gospel writer’s add-on is that in historically successive gospels, the language gets more vitriolic. (The historic sequence of the canonical gospels is Mark 67-73 CE, Matthew and Luke between 85 & 90 CE. John was last at 90-100 CE.) To whit:
Mk: shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them.
Mt: shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor'rah than for that town.
Lk: say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
Radical non-attachment grows out of radical unconditional love–a love that equally embraces all, like the sun that rises "on the evil and on the good" (Mt 5.45)–a love that is absolutely and radically nonviolence. Such love eschews even the violence of setting out to "fix" others. Because that means seeing those others as “broken” and therefore inferior–with the fixer automatically assuming a superior position as less broken.
So, how does radical unconditional love interpret the gospel admonition to shake dust?
Speak where your words promote growth in compassion and understanding. If your words aren’t heard, merely leave–without anger or shame–trusting that this also is God and not your concern.
(If you'd like to do a little parallel gospel comparison of your own, try The Five Gospels Parallels site. A great site to read of scholarly debate on dates, authorship, etc. is at ReligiousTolerance.org.)
No comments:
Post a Comment