Another View 2-10

Sometimes it seems we’ve reverted back to an “old world order.” It was this “old world order” that kept the religious people upset, for when Jesus brought in the new, they were not about to give up the known for the unknown. ‘Seems much like the struggle we are in today. Jesus, how dare him, comes along and simply ignores the systems of values and righteousness that are so intent on clarifying “who is in” and “who is not.” It was a “good thing” a duality that produced a way of keeping score -- “in and out,” or “right and wrong,” or “orthodox and heterodox.” Not at all dissimilar is that to the same scorekeeping devices of the Church today: “believers and unbelievers”, or “saved and unsaved,” and the best one of all, “churched and unchurched.”

Jesus gave them vivid images to describe their dualisms-- all kinds of stories and symbols to communicate a purity system that would separate the “chosen“ from the “unchosen” (freely translated, the damned), the “clean“ from the “unclean”. The new vision of the world he spoke of came in the shape of old wineskins and new. The new wine caused the old wineskins to burst, and often the “wine ran out.” He kept reminding them that “you have heard it said of old,” and you knew that he was getting ready to blow the horn of newness, a horn that terrified them, echoing the new: “but I say unto you…” And it was a reminder that the religious world as they knew it would never again be as before. It would be new, something radically different from their law, their teachings. It was a mess and it was messy. And they began to hate him for toppling their security, their hardened legacy.

Of course, the preservationists sought to still the ground that shook beneath their Mosaic well-being. They had no idea that another Golden Calf had been codified, simply another alchemical hardening of law that would become self-righteousness. Unfortunately, Westerners have tended to soften the conflict that Jesus had with the system of his day. He created a state of disequilibria, and the status quo swayed under their softened pillars of money, power and artificial God-talk. He would have none of that. He spoke openly that those on the “outside” were on the “inside” and visa versa. The mother of anger is fear, and they were not going for long to allow him threaten their corpus juris.

However, and remarkably, Jesus does create a very methodical antithesis to their model of dualisms. He created a “coincidence of opposites” himself: power vs. powerlessness; fullness as emptiness; last as the first; hidden yet available; weeds that have purpose; new wine vs. old wineskins; small is large (as in mustard seed); sleep vs. being awake; the end is all the time; poverty as wealth; the greatest is the servant of all; a new heaven and a new earth, the old is passing away; lower is better than higher; prostitutes before publicans; liberty, equality, and fraternity vs. identity, justice and community. Who of us can stand it? Little wonder they would cross him. He was the non-sequitur to everything their kingdom had come to be built upon. Their opinion of him was not the authority, yet they would ask “by what authority” he said the things he said. They recognized the authority that had come among them, and it was seditious and incendiary.

They recognized that if Jesus was their future, then they would be devoured. A new sense of self would have to emerge, and at all cost, that emergence must be prevented. They simply would have to bring him to a tragic end. For once your symbolic world changes, once the insides have experienced metanoia, you are “trapped in the truth and you can never forget it.” You can no longer take some things seriously. Jesus is standing on the brink of a new, emerging symbolic universe.

I get pretty comfortable with my cosmology too often. I want to “figure it out,” as we say in Texas. It’s a way of controlling everything, including God. That’s why Jesus pushed and pushed their cosmology. He knew that the perimeter of their circle was the circumference of their questions. Therefore, unless he pushed against that circumference, they would never enlarge, and their journey would lack passion and become an insipid experience in the preservation of law.

Richard Rohr has gotten it right: “Our ordinary lives are given an extraordinary significance when we accept that our lives are about something much larger…” I had a young woman invite me to lunch one noon, and her simple adoration was touching, but not so much that I lost my perspective. “How did you come to the wisdom that is your life,” she asked. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself. “Careful with this one,” I silently reflected, gaining perspective. Finally, I blurted out, “Suffering!” I thought her eyes were going to roll out on the table, yet -- it was the truth.

I have come to the awareness that any pain is simply participation in a suffering that is the place and teacher of wisdom, and therefore, it is potentially redemptive. I’ve become aware, as well, that any creativity spawned from any of us is simply God’s passionate love lavished one more time through this sacramental opening of a human being. That God is about passion and blood and fire in this world, still. My role is this great interaction between cosmology and anthropology is to say whatever lines are given me, not too fast and not too slow, not too soon and not too late -- but to be awake to say them, and that will be enough. That there is grace enough, and that I will not be left wanting, or God is a liar. This God is far too often forgotten, and I believe holds for most of us Another View.