Jesus the Mystery?
What place does Jesus have in a faith where the old God does not exist?
He is not the only Son of God if god as we have formerly believed does not exist. If god does not exist in the way that we imagined, then Jesus does not come into the picture at all as the Divine Son.
If the old "heaven to earth" theology is empty, can Jesus in some way lead us "up" to the Divine? Does/did Jesus have an innate authority as a man, apart from what the church gave attributed him as a divine and pre-existent being? Do we find such a compelling and authentic life that we are bound to follow him some way?
If we are seeking to maintain a connection with the church, it is easy to say "yes!" It is too easy to forget that much of what is said about him in the Book, and on which we base our thinking about him, is reflection and claim based on the old god in heaven who no longer exists. We need to forget that god, and ask if there is a life un-bolstered by the old claims of divinity which nonetheless still points us to the Divine. Does Jesus warrant some kind of primacy among humanity's list of heroes and exemplars?
There are people like Gandhi and Mandela from whom we can learn much. There are the saints and mystics. But as Christians we have said that Jesus has a primacy over all these. He is the cipher by whom these are judged. He is the authoritative one for us: "if you have seen me, you have seen the Father." Is it still really so?
In a previous page I said, "I smile at Spong, thinking "Really, all you are doing is trying to find a way to stay in the Church you love. So you are trying to dream up a theology that will still work! And you can't... not yet anyway." My greatest emotions as I read his book, are that I too, do not want to lose the church..." The church has been my home for almost 30 years. As much as it irritates me, and leaves me despairing, it is still my emotional home. I am at ease with the mission of the church. It is a mission to assist all people towards the deepest humanity they can achieve. It is a mission that seeks justice for all people. Perhaps it is not a bad thing to ask if I can not only be a seeker of the Divine, but still also a Christian. At its best, the church seeking to serve this Christ has been a mighty force for the Good.
The first task:
There seem to be two tasks of great importance here. The first is to allow Jesus to be human, and to be interpreted and criticised by the thinkers and forces of the day... in order that I may 'hear' him more clearly. Fundamentalism, as an extreme, does two things to Jesus which need to be avoided.
Firstly, it demotes him below an inerrant scripture in an act of idolatry. In the final analysis, scripture proves Jesus, rather than Jesus proving scripture. This means it is inevitable that at some point Jesus will be silenced for the sake of a doctrine.
Secondly, in a misguided attempt to protect scripture, and Jesus, Fundamentalism insulates Jesus from our humanity, and the thinkers and forces of our time. A question often suggested to a seeker is, "What would Jesus do?" In answer, the church has tended to ask what someone in Palestine in robe and sandals, with long fair hair and blue eyes would do in 30AD. I sometimes ask in a sermon, "What would Jesus who was home all day with her two little toddlers and no car in 2003... do?" in an effort to get past this type of insulating thinking.
But it would not do (be acceptable) to ask "What would Jesus do if he had just broken up with his boyfriend and been so distressed he'd had to tell his Dad he was gay?" That would be as bad as to ask why Jesus responds to the Syrophonecian woman in a racist way, or why Jesus got angry in the temple. I note that someone who left a newsgroup in umbrage many months ago suddenly came on line recently, quoting the original Greek, to show Jesus was NOT angry. We insulate Jesus from his humanity.
The only way we can 'hear' Jesus is in an act of imagination, when we allow him to humanly interact with the world around us. ( Like Jesus, Gandhi has never been in our situation. When we learn from him it is only by imagination.) When we deny Jesus humanity, or do not let him near certain situations, there will be no synthesis, no serendipity, and no insights in the situation. We will gag the Christ! There will just be dry repetition of old ideas. It is in meeting with the new and even the scandalous that his life will generate new ideas and new insights and growth for us. This kind of empathy is vital to an historian trying to understand the significance of an event. We would be critical of an historian who apriori ruled out certain human reactions on the part of their subject. Yet, so often, we do just this with Jesus. Fundamentalism is an extreme theology, but its effect on faith is a warning to us all not to take a similar path toward rigidity.
The second task: is to meet Jesus again for the first time. All of my life Jesus has been brought and taught to me through the blinkers and filters of a church grounded and predicated on the god who no longer exists. So the Jesus I have thought about and read about and in some way met, no longer exists either. I do not know the Jesus who is a man seeking the Divine, and who may have the greatest insights for me about this great task of life.
Meeting him again means reading the New Testament stories with new eyes. Eyes seeking to see past the first century accretions back to the man. It means to read the non canonical gospels, and the secular histories of the time. Seemingly arcane titles like Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, or Pharisaic Epistemological Method (OK, I made that up) will have a bearing on my quest, for how can I imagine some one whose world I do not understand?
In the end, however, there is simply faith. This is no five week study after which we will say, "Yes, Jesus is worth listening to." or "No, the Jesus thing is finished." At some point the decision must be made whether to step into the theological circle, as Tillich would have it. Either we have an arcane hobby as a Jesus historian (and live from some other energy source), or we look at Jesus with some commitment- as a Christian. As with faith in the old god, there is only hind-sighted proof of the Jesus story, gained by living that story. It may well be a cyclic faith, stepping back and looking and rethinking and re-assessing. But in the end the only way to meet the mystery that is Jesus, if he is "there" is to enter the world of faith that spends time and effort on the meeting. (Jan)
10/10/2003