What about Jesus? What About Us?

Karen Sloan 16/08/2020

Readings -

Albert Schweitzer

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside,

He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.” 

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’ And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

The other week Richard gave me an article to read, published by a member of the Jesus seminar.  It was titled, Towards a strategy for an enlightened faith.  In it Roy Hoover described what he thought an enlightened faith required of us –

1.    As the heirs of the Christian tradition, we have the responsibility to become knowledgeable about the origins of this tradition in the time of Jesus, Peter, Paul and Mary Magdala and what their faith meant to them.

2.    We also need to be aware of the effects on religious understanding and belief that have resulted from the discoveries of Galileo, Darwin and others who have advanced modern knowledge of the world and of human history, so that we can identify what may be continuous and what has become discontinuous with the forms of Christian faith acquired in previous eras. 

3.    In light of this knowledge, we need to create new ways to speak about and give communal form to the meanings and values essential for human flourishing in our time, because we recognize that to have a spiritual life is to live in the presence of meaning. A quote from Paul Tillich.

Of course Nev has opened our eyes for years about the distortions to the Christian faith which makes it unbelievable and dangerous for so many people. No text without context.  No dogmas and doctrines without exploration, particularly in the 21stcentury. 

So this is what we have been exploring during  the past few weeks, perhaps in the reverse order. We have talked about God and the impulse we have to find God, name God and respond to God.  We have talked about the way in which we can see  the world and science in the 21stcentury and how it affects how we talk about our faith.

Today, well today we are going to speak about our traditions, particularly as they surround Jesus, and how Jesus talks to us today. we will see how we live our encounter with /Jesus in our own place and time, as Greg Jenks would say. He has an essay in the book encountering God, and I use some of his insights here.

So as I have said in the weeks previous I came the church as an adult, and through thinking about the spirit, not really Jesus.  In fact I sometimes have thought, could I have a vibrant faith that didn’t include Jesus of Nazareth at all.  I have come to the conclusion that no, I can’t leave him behind, but that’s not to say I accept everything that is told about him.. In fact much of what the church teaches about Jesus leaves me cold.  What we have in terms of Jesus teachings, actions and sayings, on the other hand somehow powerfully speaks to me.  Yet he is more than just a good bloke, or a model to follow, he reveals something to me about my own life, my own way, and my links with the greater spirit found in all people in all places everywhere.

So do I need Jesus, yes I think I do.

But I think it’s about trust as well as faith. After reading so many books lately, that my eyes have gone cross eyed, I decided I am going to write you a letter, to review what we have covered and to go beyond....

I am inspired by Nadia Bolz-Weber who did a similar thing for her congregation. Because I want to share some things that are personal.

So, Dear Members 

I want to speak to you about trust, and about belief and about life. Nothing major! 

I have been on the Christian journey for a long time, as you now know, actually it seems a life time really.  For me it’s had its ups and downs and sometimes I have screamed to get off it, to run away and maybe join the circus, not that I can juggle like Matt.  The demands are too great, I don’t feel religious or spiritual enough or compassionate or generous enough.  Sometimes , I just want to go on holidays, and leave everything behind! Sometimes, I don’t want to worry about whether I am good enough for the ride! Sometimes I just want to enjoy the ride.

Maybe this is some of you.

Yet there has always been something underneath my occasional despair, that lifts me out of it. 

Something that draws me back to the path, a still small voice that speaks to my heart,  about what it is to really live, with passion and love and forgiveness and hope. When I act more expansively, and am less worried about myself and what I want or need, and more about what is good for other people, this voice becomes real. So real.

Although this is slightly presumptuous, I sense this is a truth found deep within all of us, those that are here, and those who would not be seen within a mile of a church. A truth that says, when we give up things, when we deny things for the sake of others, we somehow become happier, more settled and more content. We seem to find life, a fullness of life.  Sometimes, surprisingly,  we may even find God, I know I have.

Yet It is almost impossible to convince someone else of the veracity of this great and abiding truth. Why, because we live in such an individual, ego driven world and God is usually dismissed as an ancient, unbelievable idea, which has outlasted its use by date. 

I am not talking about a God in the sky or an old man who whimsically acts occasionally for some, while leaving others alone and lost, but something sacred in life that gives life meaning and purpose.  A presence that cannot be described, only experienced, a presence found in all things at all times in all the universe since the beginning of time.  That urges us to be better than we are, more loving, more compassionate, more forgiving. You can call it what you like, but many people seek it and find it, and their lives and the lives of those around them are better for it.  This is what keeps me going, in a world that thinks we are slightly crazy and deluded.

But what about Jesus. I started my journey looking for God, when dissecting dead people and have ended up here. In a different culture and country I may have ended up a Hindu or a Muslim or even a Jew but instead I am a Jesus follower.   As I said before, I sometimes have thought about my faith with and without Jesus, and realise I can’t quite leave him behind. He seems to be with me wherever I go, not literally but spiritually.

So as each of us seek to find who Jesus is, let me share my vision after seeking ways to understand him, although as Albert Schweitzer suggests, maybe it’s an impossible task. He would know, having searched for the historical Jesus his whole life.

I see a man of his time, a first century Palestinian Jew, a courageous, feisty, loving and inclusive man, who more than I realised was way, way ahead of us all.  Women, the poor, the outcast, the downtrodden, they were his friends, and he spoke to his followers and to us in ways that left indelible marks, that have lasted 2000 years. He was both spiritual and also political, at a time when the Roman Empire wasn’t too happy with those that opposed them, and his opposition which got him ultimately killed.

But while David Galston, a modern New Testament scholar and part of the Jesus seminar, and others,  identify mostly with Jesus wisdom teachings, or how we are to live together,  many others including me want to broaden Jesus, give him a more varied job description.  He was more than a teacher, he was a prophet, calling us to change and turn from our destructive ways, he was a healer, bringing people together, breaking down barriers, and he was a mystic, a spirit person,  revealing the deep presence of God in all of us.

Dominic Crossan describes him as a non-violent revolutionary who practised non-violent resistance to the powers of in justice until death.  And in so doing revealed most fully the creative and life giving presence of God in this world. 

So while Jesus was a particular man in a particular time,  I believe he birthed a universal message of love and life that has lived on well past his humanity.  The particular became the universal. Jesus became Jesus Christ, not because Christ is his surname but because his teachings and actions, and God driven life lives on. Christ means anointed not magical. Richard Rohr would call this the Universal Christ, Matthew Fox the Cosmic Christ. Walter Wink the archetypal Christ. 

Jesus affirms, confirms and celebrates.  He invites us afresh to embrace our true nature and deeper identity. And gives us hope and purpose and light in the process, I love that from Diarmuid O’Murchu, found in his new book, “When the disciple comes of age”.

What Jesus isn’t, is the singular savour of individuals so that they can escape the world and go somewhere else.  A blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins linked with some sort of magical resuscitation of a dead body.  As O’Murchu suggests, Jesus was not sent “to rectify some fundamental flaw that brought sin and death into the world”.  A divine rescuer, or as Nadia Bolz-Weber cheekily calls him, your magical puppy in a pound.  That if you choose him he will be yours. And with your personal magical puppy will come all the warm feelings and love and blessings you can imagine.  And you will not be required to do anything in return. Reminds me of “Jesus is my boyfriend “ songs that Margaret Mayman speaks of.  

It’s not that I want to make fun of this understanding, I don’t, but it makes me angry that our faith is so centred on this understanding that the wider more life giving message is lost. Particularly when that understanding comes from the 4thcentury. Often people will say its biblical, but it’s not really, and we know much of this understanding is from those looking back and reflecting in a pre-scientific, post Easter world. God was around long before Jesus, long before any humans actually.  And Jesus himself was loving and forgiving people, encouraging others to love and forgive while he was  still in the world. Not wanting to start a new religion, but to start a new way of being human.  

The reading I picked today reflects this wider, deeper understanding.

A reading from Mark, whose community  knew so much persecution. Who knew that Jesus was in trouble by speaking out against the Roman Empire.

What we have today in the reading is not a magical puppy Jesus, but a flesh and blood human being, who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. And if you try to save your life you will lose it and if you lose it for the sake of the gospel you will gain it.

It’s such a powerful reading, lose your life and you will save it. It seems to summarise everything that I have been pondering. Take up the sometimes incredibly difficult task of loving and forgiving and sharing and we will find life.  Give up our egos, and our power for the sake of others and we will find life.  Give up violence as a way of solving our problems, give up the idea that we are more worthy of God than our enemies, deny the idea that we are individuals that can do it alone, and we will find life in community. Fullness of life and the meaning of life and purpose.

When Jesus died he became a living presence, symbolising what life lived in God should be like.  His early followers believed that "in his words were God's words and in his action were God’s actions". The love, and compassion and justice and peace of Jesus, were not defeated by the worldly powers of Rome, the hatred, corruption and greed. His vision of a new empire, which he lived out with them long before he died, could not be killed by an executioner or cross. 

In other word, his followers continued to experience him after his death, not as a figure of the past, but as someone still walking and talking with them.

Somehow his story lives on in those that follow.  A story that resounds in our own lives and the lives of everything that lives and breathes on this earth. Even in the 21stcentury. 

As Albert Schweitzer has said…

Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from Him and flows through our time also," wrote Schweitzer, "This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery." 

Somehow Jesus touches and activates something mysterious within all of us.  He turns on the light.  His words and deeds, oh so powerful, and the response of his followers show us how to act in faith, to be people of the way.    If we can become aware of the divine presence within ourselves, as it was in him, letting go our ego or our 21stcentury manic activity driven lives, easy to do now we can’t go anywhere, our response will reflect Jesus’s concerns in our everyday ordinary lives.  Concern for ourselves that we can be the best people we can be, concern for others that they may be loved and cared for, and concern for the planet and all of creation that it should be protected and nurtured. At this time it is what is needed more than ever.

Fullness of life for everyone, means in Jesus terms, inclusion and equity and peace and justice for all. God transformed Jesus and God transforms us.

Yet as I said before , it’s almost impossible to convince others of this truth, even as I stand before you, supposedly trying to.  

Even Jesus himself had problems convincing those who were closest to him.  He asks Peter, the rock on which the church has been built, “who do you say I am”, because Peter was so blinded by the culture and religious norms of his day. Peter takes Jesus aside to try to talk sense into him, because he doesn’t really get the message. So if Jesus can’t do it, neither can I. 

All I can do is share my own experiences, along this path.

Whenever I feel I want to give up the ride, and go my own individual way, I come back to the beginning.  I actually believe very little, but I seem to know a lot. Heart knowing.  Because faith is about knowing and trusting.

Trusting that the way of Jesus gives life.  Fullness of life. Trusting that what we hear and see in Jesus is  a pointer to the spirit that lies within all of life, rather than a miracle worker. Trusting that the mystery of God gives hope, for all.  For we are all God’s children. Trusting that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even in our darkest days.

It is to understand that Christianity is a path, a way of transforming ourselves and the world for the sake of all. 

Even if it may sometimes appear otherwise.

Signed 

Your pastor Karen