“The Graves of
Craving”
Mount Sinai was a mountaintop moment for Israel. Previously, they had been living as slaves in Egypt, but there at the mountain they encountered God and learned just how much God loved them. Later, the people would compare Mount Sinai to a wedding ceremony. There they had entered into a holy covenant: God would be their God, and they would be God’s people.
It is a beautiful moment in Israel’s history. And it is quickly followed by a terrible lesson. When the people of Israel depart from the mountain, one of the first places they camp is Kibroth-hattaavah. The translation of that place name? “The graves of craving.” There, the people become consumed by their own desire. They are tired of manna, and they desire luxurious food—the kind that they could not find in the wilderness. Which is perhaps understandable. On the days that I go without coffee, I often find myself later visited by a strong desire for what I have missed. But the Israelites cannot let go of this desire. Instead it eats away at their soul. When God later provides the people with a healthy supply of meat, some of them eat so much that it starts coming out of their nose. A number of them die and are buried there in the wilderness. Hence the place name: Kibroth-hattaavah, “the graves of craving” (Num 11:4-35). It remains a part of Israel’s history as a reminder that our cravings can indeed consume us and keep us from life.
I wonder if we can identify with Israel’s experience here. Maybe not the food-coming-out-of-our-noses part. But the being-consumed-by-a-feeling part. Maybe some of us know a little bit about road rage. Maybe others of us have known the bitter taste of an affair that promised to be so sweet. Maybe some of us know what it feels like to be gripped by an obsession for money, seeing dollar signs in just about every encounter. The details may differ, but the storyline is the same. What begins as a natural feeling becomes a craving that consumes us and disconnects us from the rest of life.
“You Can’t Stop Air
Coming Into Your Lungs”
In today’s scripture, Jesus seems to raise the bar for righteousness. Last week, Jesus had told his disciples that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of his time. Today, he illustrates just what he means. Don’t just refrain from murder, refrain from murderous thoughts. Don’t just refrain from adultery, refrain from adulterous thoughts. Don’t just refrain from false oaths, refrain from oaths altogether. Jesus seems to be raising the bar for righteousness.
One common interpretation is that, here, Jesus moves sin from the hand to the heart, from deeds to thoughts. Maybe that gives us a momentary feeling of spiritual superiority, as though we are called by Jesus to be purer than the rest of the world. But if this sense of spiritual superiority gives us a momentary high, then what follows is a devastating crash. Life suddenly becomes a lot harder.
I remember the confusion I felt as a teenager reading this passage, particularly the passage about lust. Where was the line between attraction and lust? Was I living in sin every time I noticed a pretty girl? I am somewhat comforted to have learned that I was not alone in this experience. Many of my peers have described our upbringing in the church as one of “purity culture.” One of the marks of purity culture is a repressive attitude toward sexuality and an excessive policing of attraction. The result is that some youth felt shamed for feelings that are in fact natural and God-given.
I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention at all. I don’t think he was policing our feelings or telling us that we’re bad because of the thoughts that visit us. I find great encouragement from an ancient story in our Christian tradition. A man came to the wise Abba Poemen and was worried about some thoughts that he was having. Abba Poemen sent him into an open field and told him, “Open your lungs and do not breathe.” The man replied, “That’s impossible.” Abba Poemen explained: “Just as you can’t stop air coming into your lungs, so you can’t stop thoughts coming into your mind. Your part is to say ‘no.’”[1]
It’s not wrong to feel anger or attraction or a sudden conviction. That’s not a sin. But it is dangerous if we are unaware of these feelings and become captive to them. I recently heard it put this way: Never be ashamed of your feelings. But always be aware of them—because they can eat you alive.
Not to Make Life
Harder, But Easier and Better
I don’t think Jesus was moving sin from the hand to the heart, from deeds to thoughts. I don’t think he was trying to make life harder. In fact, when I pay close attention to his instructions, it seems the opposite to me, that he’s trying to make life easier and better. If anything, he seems to be saying that indulging certain thoughts, like anger or lust, makes life much harder than it needs to be. If we are not aware of these thoughts, they can grow and consume us, like they did the ancient Israelites at Kibroth-Hattaavah. Jesus repeatedly warns us that the consequence of indulging these thoughts is like being thrown into prison or being thrown into “hell”—and here it’s vitally important, I think, to know that the word for “hell” is Gehenna, which was basically a big dumpster fire outside Jerusalem, a stinky site where trash was burned. Some interpretations have seized on these passages to fabricate a frightening mythology of the afterlife, but I think what Jesus is doing is much simpler. He’s saying that when we are consumed with a thought like anger or lust, when we let it run unchecked, it’s like being burned alive. It’s like being bound up in prison. I suspect we already know this terror from experience. We know what it’s like to be eaten alive by a grudge or envy or obsession. It devours us. It disconnects us from our relationships and from life.
And that, I think, is Jesus’ primary concern. The context for these instructions is righteousness. Last week, we noted how the Jewish concept of righteousness (tzedakah) has to do with right relationship. Righteousness is not the moral character of our inner thought-life. It has to do with a healthy connection with others. Unchecked anger and lust lead us to treat other people as objects or obstacles, as things to control or to possess. It goes without saying that such an approach prohibits real relationship. It prohibits us from seeing and appreciating others as children of God.
An Aside
As an aside, I do want to pause and acknowledge that many readers of today’s scripture have been shipwrecked with shame or guilt over Jesus’ instruction on divorce. I do not claim to have the authoritative interpretation, and I encourage you to interpret it for yourself. But I do want to invite you to read this instruction within the context of first-century Judaism, in which marriage entailed an unequal relationship in which divorce was the sole prerogative of the man. One rabbi roughly contemporary with Jesus famously decreed that a man could divorce his wife for anything he found offensive, such as a badly cooked meal! As you can imagine, this left the woman in a vulnerable predicament. Anything that displeased her husband could be grounds for divorce, which would leave her shamed and without the security of a protector. She could essentially be ruined for life. I find it intriguing that Jesus’ instruction on divorce comes directly after he has addressed the indulgence of lust, that is, the treatment of women as objects of gratification and control. It seems likely to me that Jesus’ words on divorce are an extension of his words on lust, warning men against a flippant recourse to divorce, which reflects the same diseased thinking as sustained lust. Such a person is already bound by the unhealthy desire to control and possess another person.
Where We Encounter
Christ
Did you know that there are three places where Jesus promises to be with us? One is at the communion table (Matt 26:26-29; cf. 1 Cor 11-12). Another is when we serve “the least of these,” the hungry, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned (Matt 25:35-36). And the third place is where “two or three are gathered” to seek Christ (Matt 18:20).
The common denominator of these three places where we encounter Christ, is other people. Christ tells us that we will encounter him in connection with other people.
And I think that’s the heart of Jesus’ concern in his “You have heard it said” instructions. His instructions are not meant to make life harder, but to make life better. He is not threatening us with punishment, but describing what we already know to be true, namely that unchecked feelings of anger and lust can grow and consume us and disconnect us from life and each other. And he wants us to stay connected.
Many of the earliest Christ-followers developed a most simple practice to respond to difficult thoughts, such as anger and lust. They practiced mutual confession—not for the sake of correction or advice, but just for the sake of being honest. They found that simply being honest about their feelings and thoughts with another person diminished the strength of those feelings and thoughts. I think their experience provides a fitting conclusion to our passage. When our thoughts and feelings threaten to disconnect us from God and others, the best thing to do is to reconnect. When we are honest with other trusted followers of Christ, we open ourselves to God’s grace and discover what it is we have been seeking all along: connection. Relationship. With God and one another.
Prayer
In Christ you have reconciled us all to yourself:
Awaken us to those feelings and thoughts
That end up consuming us
And keeping us from healthy relationship
…
Inspire us not to be ashamed
By these thoughts and feelings,
But instead to be honest about them
And to turn toward what we really desire:
Connection with others and with you,
For in this we find abundant life.
[1] Adapted
from The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks (ed. and
trans. Benedicta Ward; New York: Penguin, 2003), 101.
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