Jesus: The Original Life Coach

Good morning; My name is Melanie Peltz, and I get to reflect on Jesus as life coach. AND I will give you a quick language lesson. AND you might need to take notes. Get a pen and paper handy. (It’s the teacher in me)

Ms. Peltz is in the house.

You’re welcome.

metanoeō (meta no WAY oh)

Repeat after me: Metanoeo

It’s the Greek translation of the Hebrew SHUV, and Jesus uses Shuv translated to Metanoeo to mean “to return” “to go back” or even “to go home”. He uses this in Luke 13 with the parable of the barren fig tree to help us understand how to handle situations that are beyond our control, that the tragedies we experience are not some sort of divine retribution for humanity’s transgressions, and that sometimes bad stuff happens. And how do we, as people of faith, cope or heal.

Dr. Jeremy Williams (professor of New Testament at TCU) comments that Jesus’ message is clear: do not be like the fruitless tree in this parable. Rather than focus on the gravity of others’ transgressions (and Jesus’s audience has been through it, y’all, they’ve been through some stuff - lots of death, lots of tragedy at the hands of political leaders), make sure you are producing good. Instead of assigning causality to others’ or your own misfortune, ensure that you are not ignoring your own missing fruit.

If you refuse to do this work, you are already ruined.

Jesus is prompting his audience to change their minds: About the current affairs, about the political systems that are oppressing and punishing them, and about the events that are harming their friends, families, communities. And, in the end, to change their minds about the fig tree (the human heart) that isn’t bearing fruit (love).

He doesn’t say, “go! Fight! Win!” He doesn’t say, “everything happens for a reason.” He doesn’t say, “oof, that was real bad...what did you do?” He says Metanoeo. Adjust your current course; return to God.

Quick footnote: Most translations of the biblical narrative to English, have used (instead of “to return”) they have used “repent” as a synonym for metanoeo

as in “repent or perish”

it’s a triggering, trauma-inducing, and judgmental cherry-picked phrase from the Bible. At its best it’s a misunderstanding; at its worst it’s the war-cry of fundamentalist evangelicals.

Those of us who are deconstructing, reconstructing, or reforming our faith to feel less “you’re doomed unless you’re saved” and to feel more “earth as it is in heaven” might pause a little before we embrace a scripture verse that says:

Metanoeo

If the only meaning our minds can understand is “repent”

Thank goodness language is more complex. So I reclaim metanoeo, and I appreciate Jesus saying, “change your course; return home; don’t be fruitless.”

But c’mon.

It is excruciatingly HARD to do when...well, everything feels terrible. Insurmountable.

Hopeless. Dead.

Consider the things Jesus heard (and hears) that the crowd laments and yet he asks us to change our minds about:

People aren’t given safe passage at our borders.

Human grief continues, prolonged, overwhelming...unbearable.

We’ve worked so hard, for so many years and financial freedom feels far-too-distant;

especially now AND the pastor is asking for the biggest tithes we can give.

We’ll lose our jobs if we say “everyone is welcome here”.

People are dying, and we can’t equitably treat everyone who is sick.

The government is gutting programs that provide clean water, health care and education to the “least of these”

And, in the face of all these struggles, fears, deaths, terror that we can’t control or change -

but we really feel like we ought to -

Jesus’s Parable of the Barren Fig Tree says our best strategy is to...

Change our minds?

Jesus. Are you kidding me?

Because this isn’t a “If tomatoes are fruit, then ketchup is a smoothie - change my mind” or “cereal is soup - change my mind” kind of conversation.

And the Divine winks. And says, ok, snowflake, this is not a minimization of your righteous anger. What if I said...shift the focus of your attention to something a little more interesting.

Jesus: The original life coach.

Here’s where you need that pen & paper (if you want - you can also simply imagine with me): to draw a paradigm for understanding the experiences of life that are repeated over... and over...and over again - that Jesus might want us to change our minds about. This 4 box model is adapted from Dr. Maria Nemeth’s Mastering Life’s Energies. It goes like this: Draw a four-square like you would on a playground.

In the upper left hand corner, write “conclusion”; this is the square Jesus says to focus on.

In the upper right hand corner, write “evidence.” As humans, we are duty-bound to (and inevitably we will) gather evidence in support of our conclusions.

In the lower right hand corner, write “how I show up”; when we gather evidence for the conclusion; we show up supporting that conclusion.

In the lower left hand corner, write “how others show up around me”; others show up around me in a way that we would expect that supports the conclusion.

And the cycle continues.

Humans are stimulus and response MACHINES. And this 4-box model is 1 way of understanding Jesus’ admonition to “return” or to “change your mind”

Imagine that you’ve ever had this conclusion:

“My boss is a jerk”

A conclusion that you have interest in and focus on.

When you take this conclusion, you WILL gather evidence to support it.

Your mind will not accept evidence to the contrary.

Whatever they might have said or done will prove that your boss is a jerk

Then you show up expecting them to be a jerk

And by the nature of how you show up, the boss knows you don’t love them, so they (and others) show up around you reinforcing the conclusion you’ve focused on.

And the beat goes on.

And in life coaching, any good life coach will say:

Shift the focus of your attention.

Metanoeo

The most control you have is what you populate the boxes with. And that’s precisely what the Divine calls us to do. When all else is unchangeable and unpredictable: change what you can. Your mind. From what you’re experiencing to who you really are, who you are called to be in your beloved hero’s heart.

Prophets, teachers, and leaders have encouraged us from the beginning of time to change our minds; to not be fruitless trees.

Jesus guides us: choose love and bear fruit

Mother Theresa implores us: EVERYONE is Christ

Dr. Martin Luther King directs us: set one table for all of God’s children

Pastor Debra asks us: keep the doors of welcome & inclusion open wide

Gather evidence for the conclusions you’re interested in because you will be known by the evidence you danced with.

metanoeō (meta no WAY oh)

My sister quit smoking this year. For decades she’s had this addiction. At the risk of simplifying her complicated, frustrating, and courageous journey, I wanted to share an important mantra she adopted.

She has a list of them, but this one hits differently:

“A cigarette won’t fill the void; cigarettes create the void”

Metanoeo

In this season of growth for our coffee shop, bookstore, church, perhaps our shift might be in our perception of how generously we give to the space that breathes life into the margins. Perhaps we change our mind from: “I’ll never be able to give enough money” to “My intention is to ensure Urban Abbey is financially successful, and I will do my part to keep our doors of welcome and inclusion open wide”

Metanoeo

As a high school English teacher, there are days when it is really easy for me to slip and slide into a mindset of “teenagers are selfish and cruel.” But it’s far more interesting and creates so much more space in my heart when I shift my attention to: Teenagers are learning who they are and how they are meant to be in the world, and I get to witness this extraordinary transformation - it’s messy, thank goodness.

Metanoeo

Sometimes we’ve thought about people, ideas, ourselves, tragedies, or addictions for 1 year, 3 months, 30 years, 2 days, or 5 minutes - it really doesn’t matter how long we’ve carried these perceptions - we can always make the shift and return to something more interesting, loving, life-giving, fruitful.

Change your mind, bear the fruit.

The green of spring reminds us that change is constant. And our Loving God offers us wisdom along the way: even in the immutable, unchangeable and ever-changing, unprovoked and provoked, unfortunate realities of life: God gave us brains and expects us to use them. She uses prophets like Jesus, Mother Teresa, Dr. King, Dr. Nemeth, and Rev. McKnight to remind us that we can change our minds. Our Loving God reminds us to return to Her and to each other - to do the work that bears fruit with tender loving care.

Metanoeo

May we have the courage. May it be so.