Memories: journey to Lebanon


Beirut, 1968

In September, 1967, we began our journey to Beirut, where Rob would teach chemistry at the American University, and where I would care for two baby boys. We also hoped  to explore the eastern Mediterranean, especially the places where Jesus lived and taught (Galilee, Jerusalem, and points in between), and where his first disciples took their electrifying message (in today’s Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy).

Our first flight took us first from Oakland to London. After a few days in Great Britain (and after purchasing a large pram that Mary Poppins would have loved), we flew to Paris (pram and babies in tow). From Paris we went on to explore Florence, Rome, and Athens before finally arriving in Beirut.

Before the trip, I took a brand-new copy of the New Testament and began
to mark it up – reviewing the story of Jesus and his first disciples; digging into first-century history; and finally, in the margins of the Book of Acts, sketching maps of St. Paul’s travels around the Mediterranean. (I still have that old New Testament, with its well-thumbed pages and penciled maps – and that’s why this study is using the translation from that old Bible, first published in 1961.)

It was only after we moved to Beirut that we learned the city was surrounded by refugee camps – where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had settled after escaping from ongoing wars in the “Holy Land” (the latest refugees had arrived just a few months before our arrival, in June 1967).

From long before Jesus’ birth to our own time, the “holy places” of the Middle East have never known a time without violence and war – and as Luke’s Gospel begins, all of Israel is subject to Roman domination.

 

Introduction to Luke


Luke writing his Gospel
from the Arnstein Bible, c. 1172
(iArnstein is in today’s Bavaria)

The Gospel begins: Luke 1:1-4

The author to Theophilus:  Many writers have undertaken to draw up an account of the events that have happened among us, following the traditions handed down to us by the original eyewitnesses and servants of the Gospel.  And so I in my turn, your Excellency, as one who has gone over the whole course of these events in detail, have decided to write a connected narrative for you, so as to give you authentic knowledge about the matters of which you have been informed.
Translation from the New English Bible (1961)

Theophilus:  Who was he? *  

Thoughts: on reading Luke’s Gospel

Since the late first century, when this Gospel was written, Christians have believed that Luke was a physician and Paul’s companion on his missionary journeys around the Mediterranean (see Acts 16:11f and Colossians 4:14).  And, from the first century to our present day, many have believed that this Gospel is the best “life of Christ” ever written.

Luke wrote this Gospel and the Book of Acts as a single work.  In terms of the sheer number of words written, Luke’s work dominates the New Testament.  In terms of literary beauty and the power of story, this Gospel is first in our hearts.

* Theophilus

Luke wrote his gospel in Greek, addressing it to a man named Θεοφιλος (Theophilus).  The Greek name Θεοφιλος meant “friend of god”, derived from θεος (theos, god) and φιλος (philos, friend).  Theophilus was both a common name and an honorary title among learned Romans and Jews in the first century CE.  Over the centuries there have been many conjectures about who Luke’s Theophilus was, but no one knows his true identity.

Introduction

 

In The Wisdom Jesus  Cynthia Bourgeault writes:

“Who do you say I am?” Jesus asks repeatedly throughout the gospels. Which really means, “Who or what in you recognizes me?” It is the crucial question.

One of my own most important mentors along the path is Father Bruno Barnhardt, who for many years was prior of the Benedictine Camaldolese Monastery in Big Sur, California. He was the first person who really put the pieces together for me: that the key ingredient is really recognition energy – the capacity to ground-truth a spiritual experience in your own being. The gospels are built on it – and so was the early church – as the powerful liberation energy of the Christ event spills over and travels forward, moving from recognition to recognition.

Bruno Barnhardt explains: “As we accompany Jesus through the gospels we are present at one dramatic meeting after another. One person after another experiences a mysterious power in Jesus that from this moment changes the course of his or her life. If we are fully present at the moment when we read such a narrative, we ourselves experience the liberating power of this awakening. Examples come quickly to mind: the two disciples in John’s first chapter: ‘Rabbi, where do you dwell?’ ‘Come and see.’ … Time after time we feel the break-through of life, the wave-front of wonder…”

What caused [the first disciples] to say ‘yes’ to Jesus? I’d like to explore this question more deeply by looking at one of the most interesting and significant people who said ‘yes’: the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4f)….

When I listen closely, the first thing I hear is a sort of mutual boldness. Clearly Jesus sees something in this woman from the start, for him even to begin to address her. And far from being intimidated, she returns his serves beautifully. It’s a fascinating exchange. There is a heart-to-heart connection, and a heart-to-heart inner seeing. He sees who she is; she sees who he is. And in the light of that mutual recognition they keep on empowering each other and drawing each other along to a greater self-disclosure…

What an extraordinary moment! It is the first time in this gospel that Jesus reveals his true identity to anyone. Something he sees in her gives him the confidence to be so nakedly vulnerable; and something she sees in him gives her the confidence to follow his lead… This quality of awareness is not something that comes from outside the moment. Rather, it grows up in the moment itself through the quality and energy of the heart connection. It is a transfusion from within (‘one deep calling to another’, in the words of Psalm 42).

Bruno has been reflecting on the mysterious energy of the exchange between Jesus and this unknown woman at the well, and he observes: “This Jesus whom we encounter is a light at the center of the world, a fire at the world’s edge. He moves beneath the images of himself as an alternate center of energy. He awakens that which lies at the core of my own being. The series of Jesus’s healings in the gospels are the story of the gradual raising to life and consciousness, to freedom and fullness, of this nascent person that I am.” He then concludes with this remarkable statement: “The knowledge of Jesus Christ is a unitive knowledge – the luminosity of my own true and eternal being… Jesus Christ standing before the Samaritan woman becomes the mirror in which she sees not only the face of God but her own true face.”

In the gospels, all the people who encountered Jesus only by hearsay, by what somebody else believed about him, by what they’d been told, by what they hoped to get out of him: all those people left. They still leave today. The ones that remained – and still remain – are the ones who have met him in the moment: in the instantaneous, mutual recognition of hearts and in the ultimate energy that is always pouring forth from this encounter. It is indeed the wellspring.

Intrigued?  In this book study, we’ll look more closely at Jesus of Nazareth and his wisdom teachings, and we’ll also learn some wisdom practices inspired by his teachings.

* See The Wisdom Jesus, p. 1-12

Prepare the Way

There’s a voice in the wilderness crying, a call from the ways untrod:
Prepare in the desert a highway, a highway for our God!
The valleys shall be exalted, the lofty hills brought low;
Make straight all the crooked places where the Lord our God may go!     
Hymnal #75

This Advent hymn perfectly captures the excitement of the herald on the desert road, calling people to prepare a way for the coming king.

Even today, in desert landscapes the long roads from one town to another always need repairs after a winter’s winds and rains. In Jesus’ day, the major Roman roads were made of stone, but throughout the empire other roads were still tracks through dirt and sand.  So at the end of each winter, the highways needed to be made smooth again…. the rock slides cleared off, the deep holes filled…..the drifts of sand swept away.

The prophet Isaiah, whose words are repeated again and again in the New Testament
(although we may recognize Isaiah’s words from Handel’s Messiah!) says –

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low:
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”             Isaiah 40:3-5

And now the prophecy is retold by Luke, with John the Baptist as the herald.  Like all heralds, John’s job is to clear the way for the One who is coming next.  But also — and here John the Baptist sounds a new note — those who serve the coming king will not only smooth out the rough places and fill in the potholes so the king can come to his people: this king is going to turn the world upside down.

We hear this in the second verse of the Advent hymn:

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up to the heights and sing!
Proclaim to a desolate people the coming of their King.
Like the flowers of the field they perish, like grass our works decay,
The power and pomp of nations shall pass like a dream away.

John the Baptist is proclaiming the same message as Mary in her song, the Magnificat:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord…
for God has looked with favor on his lowly servant…
God has scattered the proud in their conceit,
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.          Luke 1: 46-55

Both Mary and John are proclaiming that God will lift up the lowly, cast down the powerful, give food to the hungry, and command the satisfied to share their bounty. (Our world has made some progress towards God’s kingdom over the last 2,000 years, but we still have a long way to go — and so God is still calling us to join in the task of clearing the way.)

Luke’s Gospel has 24 chapters, and every chapter proclaims the greatness of the Lord.

It’s not just Luke’s last chapter, where he describes two of Jesus’ disciples, walking in sorrow away from Jerusalem.  On the road to Emmaus they meet Jesus, their Risen Lord.       Luke 24:13-35

It’s not just Luke’s first chapter, where he describes the angel Gabriel, visiting a poor young woman named Mary, telling her she will bear a son, whose kingdom will never end.        Luke 1:26-38

It’s not just the eleventh chapter, where Luke collects Jesus’ teachings on prayer: the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2-4) and the prayer of persistence (Luke 11:5-13); or Jesus’ own prayers in his Last Supper, which we find near the end of the Gospel (Luke 22:14-20). 

And it’s not just Luke’s middle chapters, where he records some of Jesus’ greatest parables:  there’s the great banquet in chapter 14, to which the host invites not his family, nor the rich and powerful, but the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind (Luke 14:7-14). 

And there’s the joy of God the Father in chapter 15, which Jesus portrays through the  parables of the lost and found: the lost sheep, the lost coin — and the prodigal son (Luke 15:3-32). 

I’d like to encourage you to read Luke’s Gospel this year: for the history that Luke tells us… for the stories he collects … for the parables he remembers… for the prayers he gives us … and above all, for this Gospel’s truth and beauty.

On most Sundays this coming year, we’ll be hearing from Luke’s Gospel. But the readings will jump around, as we move from Sunday to Sunday, and the sermons you hear after the Gospel will be from the preacher’s point of view. (Just as you’re hearing my point of view today!)

I’d like to encourage you to read this Gospel from beginning to end, so you can see and hear the whole story.  Read just a bit at a time…. then meditate on what it means to you.
And then, when you come back to the Gospel, pick it up where you left off.

You can read the Gospel on your own, or with a member of your family, or with a friend, or a group of friends. But – and this is so important – I encourage you to read this Gospel without consulting the experts first.

Yes, that’s right – whether you’re alone or in a group, listen to your own heart first,
before you listen to what some book says about it – even if books written by the greatest scholars.

Why should you listen to your own heart first?

Luke, you may know, also wrote the Book of Acts.  Acts is not only the second volume of Luke’s masterwork, it is the book that records the work of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit poured out on you and me.

In the second chapter of Acts, St. Peter quotes the prophet Joel:

In the last days, God declares,
it will be that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
          (Acts 2:17-21, Joel 2:28-32)

That same Holy Spirit will always meet us in the Gospels – speaking first to our hearts, then to our minds, and finally to our innermost souls, calling us to keep working to prepare the way of the Lord.

I learned this lesson the hard way.

In seminary, I always read the experts before I wrote an essay or a sermon, to be sure I got my facts right – because that’s what my professors were looking for.

But a few years after seminary, I signed up to take week-long course at the College of Preachers, on the grounds of Washington’s National Cathedral.  (The pictures of George Bush’s memorial service at the National Cathedral this week brought back memories of the times I visited and studied there.)

The first course I signed up for was to be taught by one of the Episcopal Church’s
leading experts on preaching, and the author of many books on Christian education for all ages.

That first afternoon, the classroom was filled with clergy from around the country and from several denominations, all of us eager to meet this popular author in the flesh.

Then the speaker arrived – a simple, unassuming man with a very quiet voice. (A greater contrast with John the Baptist you can’t imagine!)

He began the session by talking about the power of the Holy Spirit, working in and through the Scriptures to teach us, and inspire us, and guide us. And he finished the session by telling us this:

Never read the experts first – always read the Scripture first.

“Listen to what the Spirit says to you in your own heart…

“You can always trust the Spirit to speak to you…. and if you don’t hear it right, you can trust the Spirit to correct you.

“The Spirit will speak through the commentaries, yes – and the Spirit will also speak through others who may be reading with you…. but…

Always listen to the Spirit first.”

This author of many books wasn’t telling us that books and knowledge aren’t important, he was just saying that books and guides are not enough. We need to begin by listening to the Holy Spirit speaking in our own hearts, and only then listen to what others have to say.

This coming year, let’s prepare the way for the Spirit’s coming into our own hearts, into our own lives, into our own communities.

Let’s roll away the rocks, sweep out the sand, fill up the potholes, and straighten the old crooked pathways…. to make room for the God who yearns to turn our hearts, and our world, upside down.

Preached at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Kenwood – December 9, 2018. 

 

 

The Widow’s Offering


Mark 12:41-44

Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and
to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses
and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. Then a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he said to his disciples, “This poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had.”

The widow

Some of the most important people in the Bible are nameless. The widow in today’s Gospel is surely one of them.

When Jesus saw her putting her coins into the Temple treasury box, he pointed her out to his disciples, as an example for them. But what was she an example of?

(We are now once again in the stewardship time of year, and many are the sermons that have pointed to this poor widow as an example of someone who gives her all to her church and to charity – and I’ve preached one of those sermons myself!)

It’s true that the poor among us are much more likely to give sacrificially than the rich – perhaps because no one knows better than the poor what poverty feels like.

But have you ever thought that Jesus is not talking about money here, but about something else altogether?

The setting

So let’s step back from this widow for a moment, and look at the context in which her story has been set.

Mark’s Gospel has been telling us that this week is Jesus’ last week on earth.

The week began when he entered Jerusalem, riding on a lowly donkey, while massed Roman legions were marching through another gate to maintain order during the Passover.

Then Jesus went into the Temple and drove out the merchants who had set up their tables in its courts, selling their wares and in the process swindling the poor.

Returning to the Temple the next day, he sat down to teach his disciples and the others who crowded around him. He warned his disciples to watch out for the self-important people who were walking proudly through the Temple, ostentatiously depositing their offerings in the treasury – the same people who took away widows’ houses and scorned the poor.

And that’s when Jesus pointed to this widow, putting her last coins into the treasury box.

The disciple’s offering

In just two more days it would be Passover, and the Last Supper, and the night in Gethsemane, and the trial before Pilate, and the cross on Calvary.

Just like this poor widow, letting her last coins fall into the treasury, Jesus was pouring out his life – teaching, healing, giving, suffering, dying.

At the Last Supper he would even take the cup of wine and tell his disciples – and telling us, in every Eucharist – “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many.”                                                                   (Mark 14:24)

At that moment during supper, his disciples were afraid, but they still didn’t know what was about to happen.

Later on they would remember what Jesus said, and meditate on the lengths he would go to serve others. And later still, they would begin to understand the example he had set for them: he was not only giving himself for others, but calling them to do the same.

The New Testament only begins to make sense when we understand that it was written for Jesus’ disciples – and when we begin understand that we are Jesus’ disciples, too.

So, if we are his disciples, we are called to give ourselves for others — to pour ourselves out, not just into Temple treasuries or into worthy charities, but into the world around us. But to walk the road that Jesus walked – to walk the way this widow walked – that is so hard!

How can we learn to offer ourselves, as she did – as he did?

The disciple’s prayer

I’ve come to understand that prayer is the first step toward offering ourselves for others.

I’m not talking about prayers when we’re using words, whether we’re in church, waking up in the morning or going to bed in the evening, or at times throughout the day when we are stressed or drawn to the needs of others – although of course this kind of prayer is necessary.

And I’m not talking about those times when we’re prayerfully reading, or listening to music, or looking at art, or walking in the natural world, reflecting on the presence and meaning of God in our lives – although of course this kind of prayer is necessary, too.

And I’m not talking about those times when we’re listening to (or watching) the news, feeling our hearts going out to people who are being threatened by fires, crushed by earthquakes, drowned in storms, murdered by guns, rejected for the color of their skin, persecuted for their religious faith – although this kind of prayer is necessary, too.

I’m talking about simply opening our hearts, our minds, our selves, to God – so God can be with us throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the year, going with us wherever we go.

Or to say it more accurately, so we can be with God throughout our days, throughout our weeks, throughout our years, going wherever God takes us – following Jesus wherever he goes.

Henri Nouwen writes *

Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness…

Why would you really want to do that?

Perhaps you would let the Other cross your inner threshold to see something or to touch something. But to allow the Other into that place where your most intimate life is shaped – that is dangerous and calls for defense.

An elderly woman brought to a psychiatric center… She was wild, swinging at everything in sight, and frightening everyone so much that the doctors had to take everything away from her. But there was one small coin which she gripped in her fist and would not give up. In fact, it took two people to pry open that clenched hand. It was as though she would lose her very self along with the coin. If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing more and be nothing more. That was her fear.

When you are invited to pray, you are asked to open your tightly clenched fists and give up your last coin. So… when you want to pray… the first question is: How do I open my closed hands? …. Perhaps you can find your way to prayer by carefully listening to the words the angel spoke to Zechariah, Mary, the shepherds, and the women at the tomb: “Don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid of the One who wants to enter your most intimate space and invite you to let go of what you are clinging to so anxiously. Don’t be afraid to show the clammy coin which will buy so little anyway…. Each time you dare to let go and to surrender one of your many fears, your hand opens a little and your palms spread out in a gesture of receiving You must be patient, of courses, very patient until your hands are completely open.”

That day in the Temple, when Jesus watched the widow pouring her coins into the treasury, he saw that she knew how to open her hands wide. He watched her letting go of her fears for the future.

Can we also look at this woman, and learn how to follow her – to that place where we become willing to let God lead us into our future?

Preached at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Kenwood – November 11, 2018

 

* Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands. Ave Maria Press, 1995.

 

Come, Follow Me


St. Anthony’s Monastery, Egypt

Mark 10:17-22

We can hear today’s Gospel speaking directly to us, through the power of God’s Word – words first spoken by Jesus, words echoing down through the centuries, words which still call us today: Come, follow me.

Perhaps no story in Christian history shows the power of this Gospel more than the story of St. Anthony of the Desert.

Anthony was born in Egypt, the child of Christian parents, only 200 years after the first Christian churches were established. As a child Anthony loved to go to church with his parents, and he listened to the Scriptures read in church so carefully that he remembered them for the rest of his life.

Now when Anthony was about twenty years old, his parents died, leaving him with all their property.

A few months later, on his way to church, Anthony was thinking about a Scripture he had heard on a previous Sunday: How the first Christians had sold their possessions and gave the proceeds to the Apostles for the care of the needy (see Acts 4:35).

Then, when Anthony entered the church, he heard this Gospel being read:

As Jesus was setting out on a journey,
a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing;
go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

When the man heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving,
for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,
“How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

When Anthony heard these words, he felt they were spoken directly to him. So he sold the property he had just inherited from his parents and – setting aside some of the money for the care of his younger sister – he gave the rest to the poor. Then, taking only a wooden staff and his cloak, Anthony walked out into the desert, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Soon disciples were following Anthony into the desert, gathering around him to live with him and learn from him. (In later centuries other monks would call Anthony the “Father of Christian Monasticism,” because he inspired similar communities of monks, first in the Egyptian desert, and then throughout the Christian world.)

Now these are the words that inspired Anthony throughout his life:

Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.

At the end of a very long life, when he knew that his death was approaching, Anthony told his disciples to give his possessions away as soon as he was gone – 3 things in all:
his old wooden staff and two sheepskin cloaks.

In the end, that’s all Anthony had left – two cloaks and a wooden staff.  Throughout his time in the desert, Anthony’s only wealth came from his love of God and from the Word of Jesus.

The Word of God and the Power of Wealth

So Anthony’s story is really a story about the power of God’s Word.  But his story is also a story about the power of human wealth.

By the middle ages, even though they were founded upon the teachings of St. Anthony and those who followed him, many Christian monasteries had become fabulously wealthy because they held onto the money and possessions given to them over the years.

How hard it is to hear the Gospel in the face of wealth, even for those monks who heard it every day of their lives!

Wealth, in Anthony’s time as in ours, always has the power to drown out the Word. Unless the Word is planted so deep in our hearts – teaching us to love others, constantly calling us to share what we have – wealth can keep us from hearing the Word.

Wealth, in our time as in Anthony’s, builds up over the years; we can hold onto it and treasure it, and at the end of our lives we pass it on to our heirs.

And the Word, in our time as in Anthony’s, can enter deeply into our hearts, working there until it prods us into action. But the Word can also go right over our heads.

Some of us will hear Jesus’ words, but we think there’s no way we could follow them. (Some of us imagine that we, too, are being called to walk out into the desert with just a staff and a cloak.)

Others will make a practice of giving away some of what we have: from the ordinary giving of everyday people, to the extraordinary giving of some of the richest people in our country today.

But many who have heard Jesus’ words will still spend our lives collecting possessions and wealth. (Some of us can hear this Gospel, and even Anthony’s story, without really letting it speak to our hearts.)

So what did Jesus mean when he said, “Follow me?”

Anthony heard Jesus tell him to sell everything, and walk out into the desert.

The Way of Love

Very few of us are called to live in the desert; but all of us are called to walk the Way of Love.

The Way of Love will be different for every one of us, but those who have been taught how to love, and those who have learned how to share, can learn to resist the call of wealth.

In Anthony’s life, it was his parents who taught him to love Jesus, and to love the word he heard in church.  In my own life, it was my grandmother, who showed me her love of Jesus, and taught me to share with others. Who taught you the Way of love?

The Word of God is the Word of Love. Love was the Word that hovered over the waters of chaos, at the very beginning of time.  The Word of Love lived deep in the soul of Jesus, who looked on that rich young man and loved him, even though he knew that the man would not find the strength to follow him.  And the Word of Love is still working through the Spirit, who breathes through us here today.

It is the Word of God, the Love of Jesus – who loves us all, and connects us all  – who calls us all to share what we have been given.

My prayer for all of us today is that we will hear these words of Jesus, letting them penetrate deep into our hearts, helping us find the Way of Love, and helping us to share more of what we have been given.

And my prayer for Leela and her family today is that she will someday hear Jesus’ words, and remember Jesus’ words throughout her life: Come, follow me.

 

Preached at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Kenwood – October 14, 2018
(and for Leela’s baptism)

Learning from the Canaanite Woman

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre.  He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.  Yet he could not escape notice, for a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  She begged him to caste the demon out of her daughter.  He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter.”  So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.   Mark 7:24-30

Whenever I hear a story from the gospels, I’ve learned to ask myself:

What does this story tell me about Jesus?
What does it tell me about God?
What does it tell me about the world that Jesus lived in?

In today’s gospel Jesus has traveled beyond the border separating Galilee from the land of the Canaanites. Today there’s a heavily militarized border there between Israel and Lebanon. But there were no borders under the Romans –  you could go almost everywhere, because Rome kept an iron grip over every people around the Mediterranean Sea.

But even without borders, there are always walls between people. It seems that we humans have evolved with the need to protect ourselves from “the others” – that is, anyone who is different from us.

And so today we’re still building walls — between peoples, languages, sexes, classes, and religions.

Today’s Gospel shows us this tendency even in the human Jesus: His culture and his Scriptures were telling him that he was called to the people of Israel.  He believed that he had been sent to bring the lost sheep of Israel back into the fold.

He was probably visiting a Jewish home in Tyre. (It’s still a city in southern Lebanon today, bombed for decades now by Israeli planes and armies.) But into this Jewish home comes a Canaanite woman, begging healing for her daughter.

And now we see Jesus changing his mind – he begins to understand that his call is not only to his own people, but to anyone seeking the love and mercy of God.

Jesus changed his mind? Now the story gets interesting!

Maybe Jesus wasn’t born knowing everything. Maybe he had to learn and grow — just like us — and maybe he, too, had to stretch his mind to see his world as God saw it.

Perhaps Jesus was divine not because he was all-knowing, but because he knew how to open his heart to God. Perhaps, growing up, Jesus had to learn how to listen — and how to be aware of the needs of others.

Perhaps Jesus also had to learn how to pay attention to his own deep feelings, and then to reflect on the meaning of these things. (Perhaps he learned to “ponder these things in his heart”, as the gospel says of his mother Mary).

I think Jesus always yearned to “dwell” – to live and move and have his being –
in that place where God lives.  And in learning to “dwell” – listening, feeling, reflecting, praying – he learned to understand where God lives.

But notice, in this Gospel story, that Jesus also found the strength to return to God whenever he found himself off-base, whenever he was wrong, whenever his vision was incomplete.

Can you do that?  Can I do that?

Usually I can understand what’s right and what’s wrong, and often I can see where God dwells, but still it’s hard to move myself to that place.  Yet that’s what we see Jesus doing in his encounter with the Canaanite woman.

So we look again at this Gospel, and ask:

What can we learn about Jesus? He was a human being who lived and learned,
with a unique ability to stand where God stands.

What can we learn about Jesus’ world (and ours)?  We humans have always lived in a world of walls, and even when the walls are breaking down, our first impulse is to build new ones.

What can we learn about God from this Gospel? The God of Jesus Christ builds no walls, but embraces the world.

The early church had to remember the Canaanite woman. They had to remember her because she taught Jesus about the breadth and height and depth of God’s love.

And so, down through the centuries the Canaanite woman has been teaching the church about God’ love, through this Gospel we’ve heard today.

In the 16th century, when the English prayer book was written, the authors still remembered this woman; and you probably remember her prayer, too. We always called it “the Prayer of Humble Access”, but we could have called it “the Prayer of the Canaanite Woman”):

We do not to presume to co:me to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy…. BCP p. 337

And in the late 20th century, the poet Brian Wren wrote this hymn, which says it all:

When Christ was lifted from the earth, his arms stretched out above
through every culture, every birth, to draw an answering love.
Still east and west his love extends and always, near or far,
he calls and claims us as his friends, and loves us as we are.
Where generation, class, or race divide us to our shame,
he sees not labels but a face, a person, and a name.
Thus freely loved, though fully known, may I in Christ be free
to welcome and accept his own, as Christ as accepted me. Amen.

To hear the hymn, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EupYa9VxiQ

Preached at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Kenwood – September 9, 2018.


A Whale of a Tale

The Prophet Jonah Before the Walls of Ninevah
Rembrandt

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Mark 1:14-20

After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

A whale of a tale

The Bible tells us that Jonah, the man we’ve heard was swallowed by a whale, was actually a prophet. So here are three things to know about prophets:

(1) Being a prophet is never easy;
(2) Prophets are called to be truth-tellers, not fortune-tellers; and
(3) Everyone – not just a special few – has a call to prophesy.

(1) Being a prophet is never easy:

Today’s lessons (at least, the portions we’ve heard this morning) make being a prophet look easy. Jonah saves 120,000 people (not to mention every animal) in the enemy’s city. Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee and calls disciples, and they immediately drop everything to follow him.

But would you really want to be a prophet? (Just look at the Gospel again – Jesus’ story begins with John the Baptist’s arrest by Herod.) Everyone knows that being a prophet is never easy.

We all know about Jonah, the man who is said to have survived in the belly of a whale, but we don’t much else about him. Actually, the story of Jonah was originally a legend that circulated all around the Middle East. When we lived in there in the sixties, we visited two beach towns – one in Lebanon, the other in Syria, which called themselves “Nebi Yunis,” (the Prophet Jonah in Arabic) – each town proclaiming that it was the very place where the whale coughed Jonah up.

How can a human being survive for three days in the belly of a whale? That’s the question the name of Jonah usually raises. Biblical literalists still argue that Jonah really survived his time in the whale, thinking this old story is about miracles. But it’s not a story about miracles at all – it’s a story that points out how hard it is to be a prophet. It’s even a story that makes fun of prophets.

(Here are some more reasons not to be a prophet – you might be killed; you might be thrown into jail; you might be hated; and you certainly will be laughed at.)

After centuries of being told as an oral legend in various languages around the Middle East, the Hebrew book of Jonah was written around 500 years before Jesus was born. The writer takes the old legend and turns it into a short story. It’s a very short story, only four chapters long.

God calls Jonah to be a prophet, but Jonah doesn’t want to do it. The whole idea of going all the way from Israel to Ninevah, a big city in today’s Iraq, to be a prophet turns Jonah off. He is absolutely sure that no one in Ninevah, a great foreign power, will listen to him.

So Jonah runs away to Joppa, a city still on Israel’s Mediterranean coast today, and there he boards a ship heading for Turkey. He thinks he’s escaped God’s call, and falls asleep happily in his bunk on the ship.
And while Jonah sleeps, God stirs up a great storm. The ship’s crew becomes desperate, and each sailor falls on his knees, begging his own god to save them. Finally, after a couple of stormy days, the ship’s captain comes down and wakes Jonah up from his nap, asking him to pray to his God, too. Maybe Jonah’s God will stop the storm.

But Jonah already knows why the storm has blown up – God’s angry at him. So Jonah talks the crew into throwing him overboard, thinking that this punishment will take away God’s anger. And Jonah is right – the storm is calmed and the ship survives.

But now a great sea creature (which we call a whale) is sent by God to swallow Jonah. For three days and three nights Jonah suffers inside the fish’s belly. He finally confesses his disobedience, and he begs God for mercy. Then God speaks to the sea creature, which spits Jonah out onto dry land.

Now, after his rescue, Jonah knows he has to go to Ninevah, to tell the people there to repent. So he walks the thousand miles to Ninevah, muttering all the way that no one will listen to him. But when he gets there, he hurries through the streets calling people to repent – and to his surprise, they do! The people beg for forgiveness – and God, being a forgiving God, does forgive them. What a great outcome to Jonah’s hard work!

(2) Prophets are called to be truth-tellers, not fortune-tellers:

But Jonah is furious, and he angrily tells God this is the reason he tried to run away. He says,

“Oh Lord, Isn’t this what I told you when I was still in my own country? Isn’t this why I ran away? For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

(What Jonah meant was this: “I knew that you would be merciful to the Ninevites, even though they are foreigners and don’t believe in you!”)

So Jonah finishes by saying, “Now, O Lord, just put me out of my misery.” And in his snit, Jonah goes outside the city and sits down in the scorching sun, prepared to die. But God makes a bush to grow up over Jonah, to give him shade. And Jonah is happy for the shade. But the next day, a worm comes and attacks the bush, and it withers away. Then the sun rises, a great east wind comes up, and the hot sun beats down on Jonah’s head, and once again he begs God to let him die.

Then God says to Jonah: “So you are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people and also many animals?” And Jonah says to God: “I knew that your are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…. But who is getting your mercy? Me? Or these foreigners, who don’t even believe in you?”

(3) Everyone, not just a special few, has a call to prophesy:

Increasingly in this nation, we are becoming foreign countries to each other. Many of us, like Jonah, are beginning to think that God should have no mercy on the foreigners, the illegal aliens, or the lazy poor. Others are thinking that God should have no mercy on the haters, the prejudiced, and the penny-pinchers who won’t spend an extra cent to help the poor.

And most of us are still thinking that one person, the right person, will make all the difference and lead us to the promised land.

So here’s the task ahead of us: we don’t need any lone prophets, we need a multitude of prophets to speak the truth.

So, what prophetic word is God giving to you?

 

Preached at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church
January 21, 2018

Walking the Jordan River


We will not fear, though the earth be moved, though the mountains topple into the sea. Psalm 46

On either side of the river is the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit,
and the leaves of the fruit are for the healing of the nations…
Revelation 22:1-5

Then Jesus came to the Jordan, to be baptized by John….
Matthew 3:13-17 

The Jordan River winds through the whole Bible, a sacred symbol for Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  Jews remember that their ancestors crossed through the Jordan into the promised land.  Christians remember that Jesus came there to be baptized in its waters. And Muslims remember Muhammad, whose closest companions were buried there.

In today’s Gospel Jesus steps into the Jordan…. not just to be baptized in a symbolic action, but to be completely drenched in the river.

Are you ready to step into the waters, too?

Walking the river with Jesus

As a young boy, Jesus probably climbed into the mountains north of his home in Nazareth, perhaps even reaching the springs that feed the river near Mt. Hermon.

Cascades near Mt. Hermon

He would have seen farmers using the Jordan’s water to irrigate their farms…

The upper Jordan

He would have hiked around the Sea of Galilee, formed by the river over many centuries.

The Sea of Galilee

And as a grown man, after his baptism in the river, we know he climbed into the dry hills above the Jordan, to wrestle with his call to ministry.

The lower Jordan desert

Walking the river today

I invite you to walk the Jordan River with me this morning.  We could choose to hike along the Colorado River, sacred to the Native Americans who live along its banks, dammed by American engineers, and diverted to American farms before it reaches Mexican land.

Or we could walk along the Ganges as it rushes south through India and Bangladesh, or along the Nile as it winds through the nations of North Africa.

We could be walking almost any river on Earth, because every river has ecological, human, and spiritual value to the people who live nearby; but we’re walking the Jordan today because it already has spiritual value for us, and it is crying out for practical solutions to its many problems.

The Jordan from outer space

For a river with such mighty meaning, the Jordan River is very short – only 156 miles long.  It was once more than 75 feet wide, flanked by willow trees and poplars and filled with fish that could be eaten; but today, at its best the Jordan is less than 6 feet deep. It’s become more like a creek than a river.

The river flows through some of the most dangerous and disputed land on Earth.  Its sources begin in the mountains where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet.  Then, below the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan forms the border between Israel and two Arab nations.

But the crisis facing the river Jordan involves more than international politics.  Today environmentalists blame Israel, Jordan and Syria for crippling damage to the river and its ecosystem. 70% to 90% of the river’s waters are used for human purposes along the upper Jordan, and the remaining water comes from sewage and the contaminated agricultural run-off.

at Yardenit

Just below the Sea of Galilee, the modern pilgrim comes to Yardenit, where the Israelis have created a pool of clean water.  Every year more than 600,000 pilgrims come here, to step in the water, to be baptized, or to be re-baptized. If you only saw the Jordan here (as most Christian pilgrims do) you might think that the Jordan River is still robust and vibrant.

at Alumout

But just a few miles south of Yardenit, we come to the Alumot Dam, which diverts the fresh water into Israel’s national water carrier.  A small sewage treatment plant processes the rest, sending a thin stream of brownish-yellow sewage water back into the stream. As the river continues south, the sewage from thousands of Israelis living in the upper Jordan Valley; from thousands of Israeli settlers and Palestinians on the West Bank; and from a quarter-million Jordanians provides the Lower Jordan River with most of its water.

at the Island of Peace

A few miles south of Alumot, we come to the “Island of Peace”. To find an Island of Peace anywhere in the world is rare, but to find it in the Middle East is a miracle.  The land here is Jordanian, but it’s owned and farmed by an Israel kibbutz.  100 years ago, kibbutz leaders received permission from Jordan to build a hydroelectric power station, and the canals and dams built for the station created an island.  In spite of continuing conflict, Israel ceded the area to Jordan 25 years ago, as part of the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace. Jordan agreed to lease it back so the Israeli farmers could continue to cultivate the land. The kibbutz on the Island of Peace continues to this day; international pilgrims still visit; and Friends of the Earth – Middle East hope (now called EcoPeace) hopes to create a “Jordan Peace Park”.

at Bethany beyond the Jordan

A few miles south of the “Island of Peace” we come to al-Maghtas – or “Bethany beyond the Jordan”. This is the traditional site of Jesus’ baptism – honored and visited for nearly 2,000 years of Christian history.   Today pilgrims walk down steps that led to a deck on the river’s edge, and – if they dare – can step into the Jordan’s waters.

Two years ago, EcoPeace led journalists on a tour of the river.  One of the journalists recorded,

“One look at the river and we understood why we came on the trip. It was pitiful.  The Jordan River, for all its fame, was a narrow  brownish stream that gurgled its way south.  On the opposite side, just a few meters away from us in Jordan, was a similar wooden deck where tourists came and went.

“One pilgrim put on a white cloth and calmly entered the water. The guide, who had been explaining how the river turned from gushing rapids into a fetid stream, stopped mid-sentence as we all watched in horror. “

Sometimes our convictions about spiritual truth the can blind us to material reality.

   at the Dead Sea

A few more miles, and we come to the Dead Sea. The Jordan always ended here; the waters have no outlet because the sea is so far below sea level. But today the Dead Sea is truly dying, shrinking by the day as its waters are drained away for human use.

The Jordan River is the latest victim of the Syrian civil war

More than 3 million refugees have fled Syria to date, and over half a million have settled in bone-dry and water-impoverished Jordan.   Environmental issues are understandably a very distant second to humanitarian concerns, but the rising numbers of refugees needing water have reduced the river’s flow to a trickle.

Za’atari refugee camp

One of the Jordan’s major tributaries, the Yarmouk River, flows southwest out of Syria and forms the border between Syria, Jordan and Israel.  Nearby is the Za’atari Refugee Camp, the second largest refugee camp in the world and now the fourth largest settlement in Jordan.

(To illustrate the impact that humans have on these rivers, note this: When refugees began to flee southern Syria, the amount of water flowing downstream to the Yarmouk water greatly increased – because the water is no longer being used by Syrian farms and towns.)

EcoPeace Middle East  

EcoPeace Middle East is an international organization active in environmental peacemaking. With 40 paid employees and hundreds of volunteers, EcoPeace publishes scientific and social research, spearheads national-level advocacy campaigns and engages in grassroots community development.

One of EcoPeace’s major goals is the rehabilitation of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.  Its Good Water Neighbors project engages residents of all ages, mayors and municipal representatives in 25 communities throughout all three countries in a united effort to rehabilitate the regions’ shared water resources.  Amazingly, considering the region’s problems, EcoPeace has made surprising headway in encouraging cooperation to save the river.

A study by EcoPeace scientists shows that the Jordan River could return to life with 400 million cubic meters of fresh water annually.  Where would the water come from?  Half would be returned by Israel, a quarter by Jordan, and the last quarter by Syria.  EcoPeace says those percentages are based on historically who has taken what.  “Historically, Israel has taken 46% of the flow. So it can at least return that much and because of its [strong] economic situation it can return more.”

Impossible?  The work EcoPeace has done with local councils and the media has created a public outcry which in turn has convinced the local authorities near the Sea of Galilee to finally build a sewage treatment plant, which will treat the waste and then use that water for other purposes.

A proposed Jordan River Peace Park is another source of hope to EcoPeace . Its leaders envision an island national park where Jordanians, Israelis, and Palestinians, who so seldom meet, might congregate and try to overcome their differences.

What are we going to do about water?

This has been another week (September, 2017) when we’ve felt defeated by American politics, alarmed by world leaders threatening war, and overwhelmed by monster hurricanes and earthquakes.  Can we muster any energy to save earth’s waters?

Every worth-while task is daunting.  It doesn’t matter whether you want to save the salmon in the Columbia River or the Morro Bay Estuary, share water equitably from the Colorado or the San Joaquin delta.  It doesn’t matter whether your water issue starts with underground wells in Cambria or Paso Robles, or the with the cost of treating sewage in Los Osos.

But if Israelis and Jordanians can maintain an Island of Peace in a region of war, what could we do here?

I know that everyone here this morning is already personally doing something to care for the environment.  We’ve learned to recycle, take shorter showers, stop using Styrofoam cups and plastic bottles  – small personal actions that mount up when we do it together.  But how are we working together to pressure our local officials, our national leaders, to make better decisions about water?

If some brave Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians can cooperate to save the Jordan River, can’t we muster the patience to deal with our own neighbors, with our community service districts, with our county, state and national leaders?

How big a task is too big for us?  Let’s return to this morning’s psalm:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved,
though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea.
though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Psalm 46

As I see it, there are two ways to respond to what this psalm is saying.

We could hear it saying,  Don’t worry, leave it to God.
Or we could hear, God will give you strength to do the work before you. 

Which do you hear?

Every worth-while task is daunting, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.


The Mud Creek Slide

Yesterday when Rob read this verse – the mountains toppled into the depths of the sea – he was reminded of the great slide on Highway One north of us – and the mind-boggling challenge of repairing it.

So Rob asked, should we wait for God to fix this – these mountains that have tumbled into the sea – or can God give us strength – the strength to decide to fix our infrastructure, to repair our roads and our dams, and then agree to pay taxes so the state of California can fix it?

Rob says that’s one thing he can do.

What’s “one thing” you can do?

Preached at St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church, Los Osos
River Sunday: September 24, 2017

 

Jesus: The Human Face of God


© Jay Parini. Reproduced by permission of the author.

QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOUR READING:

What is metanoia?

Over the years, when have you experienced metanoia?
      What could new metanoia mean for you today?
         What could metanoia mean for your home?
            For your town?  For our country?

 

PREFACE          

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your soul.
For my yoke is easy and my burden light.

Matthew 11:29-30

The soul of man is the lamp of God. 
Hebrew Proverb

This is a biography of Jesus, not a theological tract, though I take seriously the message embodied in the story of Christ that unfolded in real time. In Jesus: The Human Face of God, I offer a fresh look at him from the viewpoint of someone (a poet, novelist, and teacher of literature) who regards scripture as continuous revelation, embodied  not only in the four gospels – still the main source for information about the life of Jesus – but also in extra-canonical writing, such as the Gnostic Gospels, as well as in centuries of poetry and literature, where we see that prophecy remains active and  ongoing. I emphasize throughout what I call the gradually realizing kingdom of God – a process of transformation, like that of an undeveloped photograph dipped in chemicals. The process  itself adds detail and depth to the image, which grows more distinct and plausible by the moment.

Literal-minded readings of the scriptures distort this understanding of the kingdom of God in unfortunate ways. In my view, one is not “saved” by simply checking off the boxes in a code of dogmatic beliefs – this is not what Jesus had in mind.  He asked more of us than that, and offered more as well. And so,  in this portrait of Jesus’s life and ideas, I put forward a mythos – a  Greek word meaning story or legend – which suggests that the  narrative has symbolic contours as well as literal heft, and that one should always read this story with a kind of double vision, keeping in mind the larger meanings contained in the words and deeds that have mattered so much to Christians over two millennia.

Modern theologians have talked about demythologizing Jesus, but I want to remythologize him. At every turn in this biography, I try to imagine what Jesus meant to those who  encountered him, and how his teachings and behavior inspired  deeply personal transformations with public or social (even political) implications.

Jesus was a religious genius, and the Spirit moved in him in unique ways, with unusual grace and force, allowing him access to the highest levels of God-consciousness. His own life provided an example of how to behave in the world, urging us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to turn the other check when  struck, and to remain fixed on “faith, hope, and love.”  “This is  my commandment,” Jesus said, putting before us a single ideal, “That you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  The simplicity and force of this statement take away the breath.

In the course of this book, I make an effort to place Jesus and his teachings within the context of desert wisdom. He came into this world at a turning point in history, a devout  Jew trained in the laws of Moses and the traditions of Judaism.  But he lived on the Silk Road, where he had access to Eastern as well as Western ideas. These currents informed his thoughts, and the Sermon on the Mount – where the core of his teaching  lies in compressed form – extended and transformed key Jewish concepts while absorbing the Hindu and Buddhist idea of Karma: the notion that we ultimately reap what we sow.  Jesus thought of the human mind in Greek terms, of course: an amalgam of body and soul. Yet his understanding of the human condition drew on every available concept as he set forth at the age of thirty with energy and passion, hoping to reshape the world, speaking not to elites – those who ruled the Roman Empire  or administered the Second Temple in Jerusalem – but to the  poor, the weak, and the marginalized. Here was, indeed, a revolution.

He was a ferocious, challenging teacher, hardly the Jesus “meek and mild” of the church hymn. And he made huge demands on those drawn toward him, as when he says in Mark  8:34: “Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and  take up his cross, and follow me.” It’s an audacious invitation and one that Christians rarely take with the seriousness intended. The Way of Jesus, as it might be called, involves self denial, a sense of losing oneself in order to find oneself, moving  through the inevitable pain of life with good cheer, accepting  gracefully the burdens that fall on our shoulders and the tasks  that lie before us. This is true discipleship,

On this subject, I often recall the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and minister who was executed by the Nazis in a concentration camp at Flossenburg on April 9, 1945, only a few weeks before its liberation by the Allies. Bonhoeffer stood up boldly to Hitler, and his anti-Nazi activities led to his arrest by the Gestapo. During his imprisonment in Berlin’s Tegel Military Prison for a year and a half, Bonhoeffer offered comfort and inspiration to his fellow prisoners, and even his Nazi jailers admired his courage and compassion, the example he set for others in a dire situation. He imitated Jesus there,  making use of his example, allowing it to define his own life and actions.

Bonhoeffer reflected passionately on the meaning of his life, writing in his diary only a few months before his death: “It all depends on whether or not the fragment of our life reveals the plan and material of the whole. There are fragments which are  only good to be thrown away, and others which are important for centuries to come because their fulfillment can only be a divine work. They are fragments of necessity. If our life, however  remotely, reflects such a fragment … we shall not have to bewail our fragmentary life, but, on the contrary, rejoice in it.” (1)   

In The Cost of Discipleship, a bracing theological work, Bonhoeffer meditates at book-length on what it means to take up the cross: “Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ.” (2)   So it won’t do simply to follow a doctrinal system, marking off the things one has to believe in order to be “saved.” To follow the Way of Jesus, one has to walk in a certain direction, experiencing the difficulties as well as the illimitable freedom of that choice. “Happy are the simple followers of Jesus Christ who have been overcome by his grace,” writes Bonhoeffer. “Happy are they who, knowing that grace, can live in the world without being of it, who, by following Jesus Christ, are so assured of their heavenly citizenship that they are truly free to live their lives in this world.” (3)   Bonhoeffer’s statement makes one question the idea of dogma, the notion that one should adhere  to strict rules and prescribed statements in order to pursue the  Christian way.

Jesus himself would have been startled to learn that, only a few centuries after his death – with the conversion of Emperor  Constantine in the early fourth century – the Roman Empire itself would officially adopt his teachings and make them the law of the land. He might well have balked at the thought that a world religion would arise in his name, with competing theologians (and armies), all convinced that their understanding of his gospel message is correct, while other views are wrong. Jesus had no intention of founding a church (Greek: ekklesia) in competition with Judaism, although as the parable of the mustard seed suggests, he could imagine large numbers of people flocking to his tree of ideas like birds.

In the last chapter of this book, I explore the “afterlife” of Jesus, how a church gradually formed, with competing ideas about what his life meant. I also explore the various attempts to write about his life, which in the modern age began in the eighteenth century, when after the Enlightenment a degree of skepticism arose about the historical status of Jesus and the deeds  and words relayed in the gospels. But that’s later in the story.  The starting point, for me – as suggested above – is the world into which Jesus was born, a pervasively Jewish world in Palestine at one of the major junctures in history, when the message that Jesus offered struck a small chord among a core group  of people  – most of them Mediterranean peasants who could  barely read or write – that would grow louder and more resonant in time.

Yet questions loom: Who exactly was this man, Jesus of  Nazareth? Was he, as some scholars argue, a wandering rabbi, a magician, a healer and exorcist like many others at this time, including Rabbinic sages such as Honi ha-Ma’agel or Hanina ben  Dosa?(4)   Was he also an apocalyptic visionary who imagined an end to history? As anyone who reads the gospels soon notices, Jesus quoted easily and often from Hebrew scriptures, with incredible alertness to parallels that foreshadowed his own story.  He understood that Jews in Palestine felt profoundly uneasy  under Roman rule, and he reflected this political reality in the  things he said and did. But it’s important to keep in mind that he was always a good, if unconventional, Jew. The fact that he took himself to be the long-awaited Christ (the Greek word  for messiah) would, in fact, hardly have endeared him to Jewish  authorities, who never imagined that the Chosen One would come from peasant stock in a remote Galilean village. That wasn’t what they had in mind, and they looked askance at his purveyance of “signs and wonders” – miracles and astounding deeds that drew crowds wherever he went.

Christians have sometimes turned away from the supernatural aspects of his life with a sense of embarrassment. Walking on water? Giving sight to blind men? Healing lepers? Turning water into wine? Bringing the dead back to life? Rising from the dead after being crucified? Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy – both sons of the Enlightenment – sifted through the gospels with great care and a red pencil, underlining the aphorisms where his wisdom shone; at the same time, they crossed out the supernatural parts, including the Resurrection, which they assumed no self-respecting intellectual could abide. In What Is Religion? Tolstoy puts his views forward without fudging his skepticism: “Religion is not a belief, settled once for all, in certain supernatural occurrences supposed to have taken place once upon a time, nor in the necessity for certain prayers and ceremonies; nor is it, as the scientists suppose, a survival of the superstitions of ancient ignorance, which in our time has no meaning or application to life; but religion is a certain relation of man to eternal life and to God, a relation accordant with reason and contemporary knowledge.” (5)

To this day liberal Christians tend to deflect the “superstitious” parts of the Jesus story and prefer to see religion as “a relation accordant with reason and contemporary knowledge,”  with Jesus as a prophet who preached love and nonviolent resistance to evil. He becomes simply a wise man who wished us to behave like the Good Samaritan in the parable (Luke 10:29-37), that kindly fellow who went out of his way to help a robbed and beaten traveler who lay by the roadside. This was ethical behavior of a high order, and Jesus encouraged such habits of rectitude and responsibility. Love your neighbor. Treat people as you would treat yourself (unless you happen to treat yourself badly).

This Jesus stands in contrast to the Jesus of evangelical Protestantism, where he becomes the Savior, the single doorway to heaven, the only route to eternal life, the way to ward off the flames of hell. Indeed, we’re all familiar with the bumper sticker versions of this theology, perhaps best summed up as “Jesus Saves.” For such Christians, the Redeemer was required by his father in heaven to die for the sins of humanity. In this tradition, simply believing that he gave his life for our sins buys admittance to God’s kingdom. This is widely known as conversion: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, and your house,” as we read in Acts 16:31. It’s a simple idea, attractive to large numbers of people, although such a picture of Jesus and his “good news” tends to oversimplify his message and meaning, leading to a kind of limited vision that is both reductive and – in my opinion – dangerous. It suggests that one can, in an instant, cross a magical line and acquire salvation instead of entering into the gradually realizing kingdom of God, a process of daily transformation.

JESUS INVITES US TO “STRETCH” OUR MINDS

Jesus invited, even insisted on, a change of heart, asking us to repent. But repentance is only part of the deeper meaning buried in the Greek term μετάνοια (metanoia) – a key word in the New Testament. The word derives from meta, meaning “to move beyond,” as in metaphysics, or “grow large or increase.” Noia means “mental” or “mind.” So the word, quite specifically, means: “to grow  large in mind.” When scriptures suggest that one should “repent” in order to be “saved,” this actually means that in addition  to having a change of heart – and that remains a core meaning here – one should go beyond the mind, reaching for awareness of the spirit, for a deep grounding in God.  Even to be “saved”  doesn’t relate to “salvation” in the most common sense of the  term: soteria in Greek. It means “being filled with a new spirit.”  In other words, one shifts consciousness, through prayer and  meditation, through worship, seeking a larger and wider consciousness. One wakes up into the kingdom, moving beyond  the deadening confines of everyday reality.

This is very different from the usual focus on repentance and salvation, concepts that actually derive from the early Church Fathers, especially Justin Martyr, who influenced Irenaeus and  Tertullian, early theologians who focused on the need for remorse, for expiation – getting rid of one’s sinful deeds by admitting them. St. Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin in the late fourth century, absorbed this teaching, and he set in motion  a range of theological misperceptions by translating metanoia as paenitentia, which becomes, in English, repent, as in the King James Version (KJV): “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2) .

This translation does not reflect a properly complex version of the term metanoia (which occurs fifty-eight times in the New Testament). The word itself suggests a beckoning by God toward the human soul, an invitation to spaciousness and awakening. (6)   It implies a reaching beyond (meta) the mind (noia), a wish to acquire a wider spiritual awareness.  A better way to translate this verse in Matthew would be: “Have a true change of heart and wake up to God. The spaciousness of his kingdom lies inside you. Transformation is not only possible: it lies within your grasp.” This, for me, is what it means to be “saved,” and it asks more of us than mere assent to a list of beliefs. It requires a mindfulness and absorption of God’s kingdom that is, in the end, life changing.

While not a biblical scholar, I have over many years been in close contact with Christianity and Christians from different (often conflicting) theological traditions. Growing up in the home of a former Roman Catholic turned Baptist minister, I often sat through hot summer evenings in tabernacle meetings of a kind familiar to anyone who has watched Billy Graham on television. Indeed, I heard the Reverend Graham in person on more than one occasion, and countless times on television and radio – my family listened every Sunday at lunchtime to his weekly radio sermon. I continue to have genuine sympathy for what might be called “that old-time religion.” Every morning at the breakfast table, my father read from the King James Version of the Bible, large portions of which I committed to memory.  I later studied the Greek New Testament, reading a good deal  of theology in college, graduate school, and beyond. Christian theology has been a preoccupation of mine for some five decades. (I should note that most of the versions of the New Testament quoted in this book are my own, produced by working from an interlinear Greek-English text. For reasons of familiarity I sometimes prefer the King James Version, as when I quote the Beatitudes or the Lord’s Prayer. I use the KJV in all cases when quoting from the Hebrew scriptures. To my ear, it’s what the Old Testament sounds like.) As a young man I became, and I remain, a member of the Episcopal Church, with an Anglican disposition – a consequence of ten years spent in Britain, perhaps.

My religious affections range widely, probably as a result of the mongrel past described above. At the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, I wrote a graduate thesis on Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit movement and an innovator in the field of devotional practice, as seen in his Spiritual Exercises, which dates to the early sixteenth century. In college, I was thoroughly enamored of modern theologians like Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, who brought my evangelical orientation into question; yet I retain a sympathy for the religion of my childhood: my heart warms when I hear hymns like “Blessed Assurance” or “Just as I Am.” My own religious  practice, however, draws on many strands in Christianity, and  my reading in the field ranges over any number of (often contradictory) spiritual writers, many of them as much influenced by Buddhism as Christian theology. (I regularly teach a course  on poetry and spirituality at Middlebury College, bringing me into constant contact with a range of spiritual writing from the  Psalms through the Tao Te Ching, the poems of Rumi, as well  as T. S. Eliot, R. S. Thomas, Charles Wright, and Mary Oliver, among others. In fact, I write as someone who has spent more time reading poetry than scholarly studies of Jesus.) Although I will allude frequently to competing interpretations of biblical texts, my focus will remain on my own understanding of the  meaning of the life of Christ – provisional as this must necessarily be.

In the final chapter of this book, I attempt to deal with the often contradictory efforts of scholars in recent centuries to locate the historical foundations of the Jesus story: the so-called quest for the historical Jesus. It’s not easy work, as the biblical trail alone is often blurry, and the usual techniques of “scientific” history rarely apply here. The gospels themselves can’t be considered historical evidence in the modern sense of that term.  But in my attempt to reimagine the mythos of Jesus, I try to take  all this uncertainty into account, retelling the story as I see it, noting the difficulties of interpretation where they arise, drawing attention to contradictions where they exist, while trying to see Jesus steadily and whole through the kaleidoscopic lens of  many texts.

Now in my mid-sixties, I’m still in search of Jesus, and this seeking often seems more important than the finding. To a large degree, this biography itself represents the fruit of my decades-long project of trying to understand Jesus and to take his example purposefully in my own life. I often recall some lines from the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic Gospels discovered in the sands of Egypt at Nag Hamrnadi in 1945:

If you are searching,
You must not stop until you find.
When you find, however,
You will become troubled.
Your confusion will give way to wonder.
In wonder you will reign over all things.
Your sovereignty will be your rest.  (7)   

This search, for me, involves a great deal of confusion, although it often gives way to wonder, to a feeling of all-embracing peace and sympathy for others. Jesus invites me to consider the lilies, and to understand that, by grace, I have access to a wider kingdom than I’d previously imagined. It’s a matter of “thy will be done,” not my own willing: a shift of emphasis that lifts the burden.

While I pay close attention to the facts in this biography of Jesus, the historicity of his life is less important than the meaning of the story itself. It doesn’t matter what aspects of his  life – his sayings, the exemplary deeds that formed the core of his ministry, the miracles – can be confirmed (or denied) by historians. At the end of his recent book, Constructing Jesus, Dale C. Allison, Jr. – a leading New Testament scholar – concludes his long study with a moving frankness: “While I am proudly a historian, I must confess that history is not what matters most.  If my deathbed finds me alert and not overly racked with pain, I will then be preoccupied with how I have witnessed and embodied faith, hope, and charity. I will not be fretting over the historicity of this or that part of the Bible.(8)   This rings true in  my ears.

What matters is the way that God moved in the life of Jesus, who showed us how to find this spirit within ourselves.  Ralph Waldo Emerson put the matter succinctly in his “Divinity School Address” delivered at Harvard in 1838:

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion,  “I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would  you see God, see me.”

The story of Jesus transcends time and physical boundaries. To understand it, one must remain open to every possibility, regarding the miracles of Jesus and the Resurrection as mysteries more alluring than frustrating, more inspiring than disconcerting. I narrate the life of Jesus from Bethlehem to Golgotha and beyond – with sympathy for its profound mythic pull, its transforming powers. I stop by the wayside to explain major moments or concepts that may not be familiar to all readers, such as the Virgin Birth or the Transfiguration. In the process of remythologizing Jesus, I take in stride the supernatural aspects of his life, believing that reality is more complex than we usually think, and that we can’t begin to imagine the truth of things with the limited intellectual and perceptual machinery we’ve  been given. In this, I follow St. Anselm, who referred to “faith on a quest to know:’ writing: “For I do not seek to understand  so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand. (9)   

Within the Christian worldview, history becomes a pattern of timeless moments. And the work involves trying to find a place in the bewildering universe of hints and guesses that confront us as we search, looking around us at things we can scarcely hope to comprehend with the limited intellect and resources we’ve been given. As T. S. Eliot put it so beautifully in  “The Dry Salvages”:

                        These are only hints and guesses,
 Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.


QUESTIONS FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

How would you explain the Greek word metanoia?
Over the years, when have you experienced metanoia?

What could new metanoia mean for you today?
What could metanoia mean for your home?
For your town?  For our country?

 

NOTES — PREFACE

1  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1959), 33.

2  Bonhoeffer, 59.

3  Bonhoeffer, 55-56.

4  For a discussion of the Jewish context of Jesus, see Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1973) or Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York: The New Press, 2012).

5   Last Steps: The Late Writings of Leo Tolstoy, ed. Jay Parini (London: Penguin, 2009), 164.

6   For a fuller discussion of metanoia, see Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – a New Perspective on Christ and His .Message (Boston: Shambhala, 2008), 37-38. See also Murray A. Rae, Kierkegaard’s Vision if the Incarnation: By Faith Transformed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). My reading of metanoia is also reinforced by Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 219-20.  Borg says: “The Greek roots of ‘repent’ mean ‘to go beyond the mind that you have.’”

The Gospel of Thomas: Wisdom of the Twin, ed. Lynn Bauman (Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2004), 8. I am grateful to Cynthia Bourgeault for directing me to this translation.

8   Dale C. Allison, Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2010), 462.

9   Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, The Major Works, trans. M.J.  Charlesworth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 87.

Acknowledgments

It would be impossible to acknowledge all of those who have helped me along my path over many decades in my pursuit of Jesus, but several friends read this manuscript in various drafts, including a number of gifted theologians and biblical scholars. These include Ellie Gebarowski Bagley, J. Stannard Baker, Edward Howells, Paul Jersild, John Kiess, Richard McLaughlan and O. Larry Yarbrough. Without their encouragement and suggestions, this book would have been infinitely poorer, although I accept full responsibility for all errors of fact and judgment. The manuscript was closely read by my editor and friend, James Atlas, and by my wife, Devon Jersild. Their suggestions were acutely intelligent and always helpful as well as encouraging.