Jesus Brand Spirituality: EARTHY, MYSTICAL, CURIOUS by Ken Wilson
[Contact scene 34]
The experience of discovering or being discovered by Jesus is uniquely personal. Which is strange because it happens in context of this wild & wooly thing called religion. Jesus has one of world's great religions named after him: Public, noisy, messy religion. We can't expect to find him in a religion-free, vacuum-sealed pouch.
But we can find him. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a man who finds treasure buried in a field. I think Jesus is the treasure and religion is the field, human culture is the field, the world is the field.
You can't rise above religion to find Jesus. But you can dig through it.
When we uncover Jesus in the field, there's always an element of surprise. "I had no idea! Why didn't someone tell me?"
Jesus has uncanny capacity to by-pass expectations generated by the religion that bears his name. He by-passes expectations of those ignorant of the Christian religion and those expert in it. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Christian thinker of middle ages, had a vivid encounter with Jesus at end of his life and came away saying, Everything I've ever written is like a pile of straw…." I had no idea!
Here's what I didn't expect to be so but is:
Jesus Brand Spirituality is earthy, mystical, curious.
EARTHY: The Jesus I found buried in the field of religion surprised me by his earthiness. I mean, he had a thing about the literal earth. About dirt and soil. He said, I am the vine, you are the branches and of course a vine is planted in the dirt. Over and over he spoke of the kingdom as a seed planted in dirt, growing out of the earth. He said, "unless I'm planted like a seed in the dirt, I won't bear any fruit."
He seemed to like earthy people like fishermen. He was a carpenter.
He talked about money in an earthy way. Use it or lose it. Invest your talents for a good return. Make friends with it.
He wasn't afraid of our fleshiness. He touched people. Embraced a leper. Let a woman bathe his naked feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair--without squirming.
He was focused on the earth. His prayer went, "May your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven."
Others called him the Son of God and he clearly understood himself that way. But his term for the part he was playing in the big scheme of things was "son of man." Which in Hebrew was "Bar Adam"--a play on words for dirt-soil-earth, Adamah.
It grieves my heart when the religion that bears his name makes people care less about the earth. Here's an email from a leading scientist talking to Christian about the environment: During the trip I had dinner with a pastor’s wife who simply didn’t believe climate was a problem because “we believe the world will be destroyed, and God is in charge.” When I used the analogy of WWII to show the diff betw God’s plan and man’s agency, she said God was in control during the war, too, and obviously it was OK with him. At that point I just poured myself another glass of wine. Then I said scientists also believe the world will end, but I suggested we let God do it. She seemed very closed, snippy, uncomfortable, and perhaps threatened
Her Jesus was bad news for the earth. But the real Jesus makes us care more about the earth as the focus God's love and concern. The real Jesus enhances our vision of the earth, like high definition TV lets you see the pores in the face of the sweaty NBA players.
MYSTICAL: We have an understandable need to simplify things. We like our four spiritual laws and our bridge diagrams. And they do help, but they don't prepare us for the real Jesus.
He turns out to be more mystical than that. Like he had some direct experience or contact with ultimate mysteries so profound they couldn't be cut & dried without losing something in the translation.
Take what happened up on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was in prayer with Peter, James and John and slipped into some direct experience of the divine, in the presence of Moses & Elijah.
So far as we know he didn't talk about it. Maybe he couldn't. Peter was talking nonsense, but Jesus was just shining. There's no record of Jesus saying anything about the experience. Just his words to the disciples when it was over: Get up. Don't be afraid. (Right. You shining, dead people appearing. Don't be alarmed, my eye!)
Mystical experience isn't so easy to articulate. Talk to a mystic after a mystical encounter and they are usually tongue-tied, cross-eyed. Their answers sound like riddles half the time. Like Jesus to Nicodemus: "You must be born again." Say what?
Mystics aren't afraid of occasional contradiction. Anyone who isn't against us, is for us….Whoever does not gather with me scatters! Which is it? Each. Both. It depends. That's what you get from some-one in touch w/ realities beyond what eye can see or reason master.
Facts make you certain. Beauty makes you wonder. Both express truth. Jesus was in touch with facts, but also beheld a lot of beauty. Because he was face to face with a God robed in beauty of holiness.
My heart sinks when we turn all the beauty that leads to wonder into facts that we master. Sure, I get nervous when the church becomes too mushy headed to say anything clear. As if there are no facts. But it's also annoying when the church gets too certain. There's a reason they call it, dead certain.
Just once I'd like one of our experts, adept at arguing their case for this or that truth, to have an encounter with something they can't argue, something that leaves them tongue-tied.
CURIOUS: I went to doctor for this bum shoulder. He was hurried; understandable--we've put so much pressure on these doctors, they don't have time to use the bathroom. I told him shoulder hurt and he said, "bursitis…I'll give you a shot to reduce the inflammation." I said, "Whoa! Don't you have more questions?"
You don't want your doctor jumping to conclusions. You want her to be curious, ask questions, listen before she leaps at you w/ a needle.
There's a guy on West Coast, calls himself, The Bible Answer Man. More power to him. I'll take Jesus. The first time Jesus is shown saying or doing anything intelligible, first picture of him in the gospels beyond the baby pictures, he's asking questions. Lk. 2:46-47
Sitting among them, listening, asking questions.
I was with Dave and Anita Workman last week. Dave is one of the most successful pastors in Vineyard. Leads the Cincinnati Vineyard, 6,000 strong. National reputation. Could easily be great answer man. Instead, he's a great conversationalist. Not a great talker. Not a great one to assail you with his thoughts. But an easy guy to sit with, someone who likes to listen, who asks questions.
But every now and then, after asking questions and pulling you out of your head, he sees something, then says something, and it's like God just wrote you a message and put it on your refrigerator door.
One time Dave is asking me his questions, pulling things out of my head I didn't know were in there. Then he said, "Sounds like a book. You ought to stop what you're doing and go do that for us." A year later, I'm signing a contract to write the book.
Jesus sat among them, listening, asking questions. Questions their answers couldn't answer. So they asked him some questions. And only then, did he offer his answers.
Doesn't it annoy you when people try to shove answers down your throat to questions you're not asking? Don't you respond better to people when they sit with you, listen, then ask questions because they care what you think…and don't offer answers until you ask?
God's trying to start a conversation with the human race. Jesus gets the conversation going. His curiosity, his ability to listen and ask questions, makes him a great conversationalist.
It grieves me so many Christians are nervous about science because science is all about curiosity. Starting with assumption we don't know, then asking questions. Looking for hints from reality and following the trail wherever it leads.
Many scientists think you have to give that up to be a Christian.
Friendship Project: "They're very smart and very scared of us."
That's on us. That's our bad. We haven't been practicing Jesus brand spirituality. Curious. Listening. Asking questions not just pronouncing answers. [Most rejection of evolution for faith reasons is rooted in
ignorance about how science says it works.]
Jesus was not one to simply accept the traditions handed down to him because they were handed down. He respected them enough to poke and prod and question and that led him to see things differently than others did. Curiosity led him to the truth, not away from it.
We humans, if we're anything when we're being ourselves, are curious. How could Jesus be truly and fully human without being curious?
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So that's what surprised me about the treasure hidden in the field of religion: A Jesus who is earthy, mystical, curious.
What's that got to do with us? Plenty.
If Jesus is earthy, mystical, curious, then his path will lead us to become more earthy, mystical, curious.
So let this be a guide to the authentic Jesus brand….
Ò Any Christianity that doesn't enhance your concern for the earth, to care about and for this place as a sacred trust, is distorted.
Ò Any Christianity that doesn't leave you a little bit tongue-tied in the face of mystery is barking up the wrong tree.
Ò Any Christianity that inhibits curiosity, views it as a threat to faith, can't handle the questions we ask when we're being ourselves, doesn't cut it.
Holy Spirit. Contact. Direct contact is possible. I had no idea.