What Christ said was true, but it was never a truism. The escape from truism came by the consistent employment of paradox in which there is always a hint of the laughable.
—Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ
Would Jesus of Nazareth emerge in our era as a megachurch preacher? One wonders. Would he dismiss megachurches, as some people do, simply because they attract large numbers? Certainly, Jesus preached to big crowds. Add to this that Jesus spoke with authority; he had the charisma often associated with megawatt preachers. He could pack them in. At least in the beginning.
Imagine this scenario. A well-known preacher has just finished a sermon heard by thousands in a huge amphitheater and by thousands more via cable TV. The one-hundred-voice choir, backed by a twenty-piece orchestra and cutting-edge technology, has sent people away with a stirring musical climax. The preacher is walking out a backstage door when a dozen key backers, who have been with him since he was a complete unknown, corner him. “Tell us again,” they ask. “What exactly were you trying to say this morning? We didn’t understand a thing!” I suspect such an admission (or accusation) would be devastating to the preacher’s credibility. Yet this is exactly how Jesus’ own disciples approached him on several occasions (for example, Matt. 13:36–43). How long would any megachurch preacher last if people went away scratching their heads?
So axiomatic is today’s omnipresent emphasis on clarity—“If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?” (1 Cor. 14:8)—that it startles us to discover that Jesus was not overly concerned if people did not always get it. At times, Jesus was clear and pointed—indeed uncomfortably so, for his original audience and for us. But we miss a major element of Jesus’ preaching if we fail to recognize that he was quite willing to be paradoxical. He left listeners puzzled and perturbed, with dangling loose ends and no easy resolutions. Often his words or parables proposed contradictions. Seldom, if ever, did Jesus’ preaching have a fill-in-the-blank directness that in some circles today is an assumed sign of good communication.
Playful Paradox
New Testament scholar Robert Stein identifies many literary forms Jesus uses to startle and entice his listeners, including paradox.1 Usually Jesus’ words are paradoxical in the ancient Greek sense of violating usual categories or going against the grain. This is quite different from the paradox to be discussed in parts 3 and 4, where truth resides within the tension created between opposing assertions. If we use our earlier definition of paradox as “anything which is intellectually objectionable but nevertheless unavoidable,”2 Jesus’ paradoxes may indeed be intellectually objectionable, but they are not, ultimately, unavoidable or irresolvable. I call them playful paradoxes because they play with traditional ideas, worldviews, or attitudes, often juxtaposing contrasting ideas to get us to respond in new ways. Even more, they playfully confront our often overly serious approach to living the life Jesus has for us.
As I began exploring Jesus’ use of paradox, I was also surveying what academia has to say about paradox. I discovered a rich vein of insight into Jesus’ methods in an unexpected place: modern psychology. Viktor Frankl, the renowned Viennese creator of logotherapy, which was birthed during his experience in a World War II concentration camp, wrote about “paradoxical intention” in his treatment of compulsions and phobias.3 Since that beginning, “therapeutic paradox” has proliferated and become something of a buzzword.4 Unlike traditional psychotherapy, paradoxical strategies do not assume that change results from insight into hidden impulses, memories, or feelings. Rather, change is a result of doing things differently.5 Clients are cajoled into new ways of acting, the premise being that how we act eventually influences how we are. For example, a client who sweats profusely before leading a business meeting is instructed to try to produce even more perspiration; an agoraphobic is told to spend even more time in shopping malls; a compulsive hand washer is advised to wash her hands an extra twenty times a day.
The primary therapeutic paradox strategies are paradoxical intention and reframing. These are two conceptual maps by which we can better understand how Jesus’ playful use of paradox leads to change, and why it does not lead to change if we squeeze out all the paradox and take it too seriously. We will look through the lens of each strategy in the next two chapters.
Playful Paradox and Systems Change
As a beginning, however, it is important to note the distinction that systems theorists make between first- and second-order change.6 Human beings are part of many overlapping systems, including country, region, community, church, family, person, and finally each person’s own worldview. First-order change happens within a system; second-order change, by contrast, originates from outside a system with the hope of changing the system.
Nightmares offer a simple example. To escape the fearful presence, a person might hide, fight back, or run—these are first-order changes because they happen within the dream. A second-order change—changing the system itself—is waking up! Systems theory suggests that many issues we face require second-order change—change that originates from outside the system. For example, an individual within a family can begin acting differently when the family system in which she is living begins to change. A family enmeshed in anger and destructive behavior begins to change when the child’s teacher invites Mom and Dad to attend free parenting classes at the school. A church that peremptorily fired its last three pastors has a more successful pastorate after inviting an outside consultant to hold up a mirror in which it can see its dysfunctional issues.
Our natural responses to most challenges are first-order solutions; we confine our thinking to the system in which the challenges originate. A family seeks to solve its conflicts without consulting an outside counselor; a city seeks to solve its drug problem without thinking about where the drugs come from; a state seeks to improve air quality without addressing sources of pollution throughout the region; a nation seeks to expand its economy without considering the trade policies of neighboring countries. If a person struggles with insomnia, first-order solutions might be practicing relaxation techniques or drinking a glass of warm milk before bed. However, some first-order solutions can exacerbate or even become the problem—for example, the person trying to will himself to sleep, which only increases the anxiety that makes sleep impossible. Paradoxically, a second-order solution to insomnia might be someone telling the person to try to remain awake all night; the anxiety of not being able to sleep slowly dissipates, allowing sleep to come.7 For lasting change, we often need intervention from outside the system where the challenges occur: “Second-order solutions are often viewed from within the system as unpredictable, amazing, and surprising, since they are not necessarily based on the rules and assumptions of that system.”8
We can begin to appreciate any number of Jesus’ paradoxical sayings as promoting second-order change. They come across as “unpredictable, amazing, or surprising” precisely because they originate outside his audience’s worldview. Elton Trueblood puts it well: “Christ seems to employ exactly that amount of shock which is necessary to make people break through their deeply ingrained obtuseness.”9 Paradox explodes assumptions that imprison us within a system.
In first-century Palestine, greatness was measured by having servants, not being a servant. “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44). “Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all’ ” (Mark 9:35). Viewed from within Jesus’ first-century cultural system, the idea that the very last will end up first is downright delusional. Jesus steps outside the assumptions of this system to state a new definition of greatness in his kingdom.
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matt. 11:11). John the Baptist is greatest within the first-order system of “those born of women.” Yet the kingdom of God is a more comprehensive system, now arriving as a whole new order of reality. What a surprise to John’s disciples!
“Take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them” (Matt. 25:28–29). This paradoxical conclusion to the parable of the bags of gold (Matt. 25:14–30) is a classic reversal of expectations. God’s kingdom, so seemingly unfair in our eyes, explodes the rules and assumptions of our system.
“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3–4). The first-century Jewish view of children was the polar opposite of our modern, sometimes-romanticized view. Robert Stein explains, “Children were not thought of in Judaism as innocent unspoiled children of God. On the contrary, they were thought of as under the fall of Adam, possessing an evil inclination and without help until they became a bar mitzvah at the age of thirteen and received the help of the law.”10 How shocking that to become such an evil child was the pathway to greatness!
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’ ” (Matt. 10:34–35). The expected Messiah was to lead “us” (Israel) against “them” (Romans), not create such painful divisions within “us”! Once again, Jesus exposes in a dramatic way the high stakes in following him.
In these examples (and in Jesus’ use of paradox in general), the contrasting assertions forming the paradox are within the same saying (for example, “Whoever wants to be first must be slave” [Mark 10:44, emphasis added]; “Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest” [Matt. 18:4, emphasis added]).11 Ultimately, the paradox is resolved as it succeeds in opening our minds to second-order change. As we will discover in the next chapters, Jesus’ playful use of paradox has a serious purpose.
Reflection Questions
1. Have you ever thought of Jesus as playful? Can you incorporate such an idea into your mental picture of him? What might need to change in order for you to do so?
2. Think of an experience or problem where you kept trying first-order solutions that were not successful, then discovered a second-order change that came from outside the system.
3. After reading this chapter, how might you approach one of Jesus’ paradoxical sayings differently?
4. How might the playfulness of Jesus be contrasted with the seriousness of the Pharisees? Don’t they criticize Jesus because he does not seem to take his religion as seriously as they do? What new insights does this stimulate in you?