Jesus as the Means

In the first month, the entire Israelite community entered the Zin desert and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there. Now there was no water for the community, and they assembled against Moses and Aaron. Then the people confronted Moses and said to him, “If only we too had died when our brothers perished in the Lord’s presence! Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this desert to kill us and our animals here? Why have you led us up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place without grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates? And there’s no water to drink!”

Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the meeting tent and they fell on their faces. Then the Lord’s glory appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses: “You and Aaron your brother, take the staff and assemble the community. In their presence, tell the rock to provide water. You will produce water from the rock for them and allow the community and their animals to drink.”

Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, as the Lord had commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. He said to them, “Listen, you rebels! Should we produce water from the rock for you?” Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. Out flooded water so that the community and their animals could drink.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t trust me to show my holiness before the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them.” These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites confronted the Lord with controversy and he showed his holiness to them. - Numbers 20:1-13

You read that correctly. Moses cannot enter the Promised Land because he hit a rock two times rather than just speaking to the rock. Which of course seems crazy. Moses did a lot of things that seemed a bit more “out of line” than hitting a rock in order to provide water. The time he murdered a man (Exodus 2:12). There was that time he smashed the ten commandments (Exodus 32:19). The time he ordered the killing of 3,000 fellow Israelites (Exodus 32:27-29). We do not call these actions “the sin of Moses”, that title is reserved for when he hit a rock to provide water for the people. 

It is easy (and lazy if you ask me) to chalk this story up to some moral or ethical imperative for leaders. Something like, “leaders are held to a higher standard” or “Moses should have had faith” are found all over the internet. And maybe those are true, but these suggest that previous actions of Moses were less important than this one act. 

It is interesting to me that those who told this story of Moses were willing to justify the violence of Moses as though he had a sort of divine permission. Those who told this story suggest that the most important thing is “following orders” - even if they are violent to another sister or brother. We live in a time where we are prone to think that the ends justify the means, but perhaps it is worth considering that God cares about the means just as much (or even more so) than the ends they produce. Maybe Moses could not enter the Promised Land not because the rock was struck, but because Moses fell prey to the idea that the ends justify the means - even violent means. Maybe God forbids Moses from entering the Promised Land because God desires that we pay attention to the means (the way) we use to bring about healing in the world? 

This may be why Jesus says that he is “the Way” and not “the end”. The Way (the means) matters.

The Telos and The Scopos

The second chapter of John Cassian’s work entitled “The Conferences of Desert Fathers” begins with Abba Moses expressing the following:

All the arts and sciences, said he (Moses), have some goal or mark; and end or aim of their own, on which the diligent pursuer of each has his eye, and so endures all sorts of toils and dangers and losses, cheerfully and with equanimity.

Then in chapter four Moses is to have said:

The end of our profession indeed, as I said, is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven; but the immediate aim or goal, is purity of heart, without which no one can gain that end: fixing our gaze then steadily on this goal, as if on a definite mark, let us direct our course as straight towards it as possible, and if our thoughts wander somewhat from this let us revert to our gaze upon it, and check them accurately as by a sure standard, which will always bring back all our efforts to this one mark, and will show at once if our mind has wandered ever so little from the direction marked out for it.

Abba Moses taught the end is the kingdom of God while the goal is purity of heart. What that means is that Abba Moses thought that in order to reach the end (Kingdom of God) we must focus on the goal (purity of heart). We cannot reach the Kingdom of God without purity of heart but if we have purity of heart we are more likely to reach the Kingdom of God.

The difference in the telos and the scopos is made clearer by the Stoic Arius who said that the scopos is the target we shoot for while the telos is hitting the target. I think of it like a golfer hitting the ball is scopos while the cup is the telos.

The UMC spends a lot of her time working to achieve the end (make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world) and we are failing. Not because it is an incorrect ends/telos (although we only adopted this mission statement in full just twelve years ago), but because paradoxically we are more likely to hit the target if we focus on our scopos, not our telos. A golfer is more likely able to land the ball near the cup (telos) if they focus on hitting the ball (scopos). In fact taking your eyes off the ball and looking at the cup is a detriment to actually getting the ball into the cup! The golfer who focuses on the ball (scopos) and not the cup (telos), has to trust that by doing so they will get closer to their telos.

Many in the universal Church are fascinated at landing the ball in the cup that there is little time given to focus on the stance, ball, swing and follow through.

Focusing on making disciples for the transformation of the world then is like focusing on the cup and not on the ball. We are focused on the scorecard and not on the swing. We are focused on something that, regardless of its virtue, decreases our chances to actually land the ball well.

Rather than focusing on the end, the cup, the making disciples, I wonder if we were to shift our eyes and focus on that which will be more helpful to reach the same ends? What if were to take the advice of Abba Moses and have the goal of purity of heart. Or perhaps Jesus who said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

It is my conviction that pastors are much more interested in cultivating the heart of a person than to make a disciples, because a disciple can still betray and deny Jesus, but one who is the heart of Christ cannot do anything but love like Christ. What would a Church look like if we were to focus on cultivating purity of heart?

“But”, Richard Beck says, “hearts aren’t easily changed. You can’t change hearts with pep talks, protests, podcasts, Facebook rants, tweets, or a really good sermon. Hearts require spiritual formation through habits and practices that directly address the social and psychological dynamics at work that keep us from seeing and welcoming each other.”

The means are the ends at #UMCGC

General Conference is a gathering of rules and a desire for order. It is one that votes in either/or. There are yes or no votes. There are few times when there are more than two options. It is a place that is ripe with opportunities for misunderstanding and misrepresentation. These are not malicious opportunities, it is just the way the General Conference is set up. Because it is a body that values accomplishing something, the focus is on “ends”.

When petitions come forward, there seems to be a level of suspicion of “what is the end game to this petition?” Because there is such distrust among the body, there is a cloud that hangs over the body that showers down doubt and even more mistrust. Rather than assuming petitions are submitted in good faith, the general conference body seems to assume that petitions are crafted to hide their true intentions which have a nefarious ends.

The reality is that one of the things that marks the Church from other organizations is that in the Church our means are the ends.  Other organizations places priority on the ends, what is accomplished, what is completed, what is the bottom line. There are ethical boundaries that guide many in the business world, however “at the end of the day” there is a desire to meet the goal, achieve the goal, arrive at a place, and meet the projections.

The reality is that the Church is one that proclaims that God came in Jesus Christ. To put it another way, Christianity is one that affirms that the means are the ends. How God does what God does is what God does. How we do what we do is what we do. Few will know much of the decisions that are made, but what will be remembered is the actions that are taken. The means we take is the end that people will “know” about the Church.

We can say all that we want that we are a loving people and desire for reconciliation. However nice our creeds are, it is our actions that are branded in the minds of the world. Christianity is seen as a hypocritical and “anti” organization by many outside the church.

When we confuse the ends as primary, we will take any means to achieve them. Let us not forget that our means are the end.