April 11, 2004
Rev. Dr. Frank Carpenter,
D.Min.
St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church, Cincinnati, OH
In his poem, THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS, Oliver Wendell Homes describes the experience of walking along a beach and coming across a broken shell. The wrecked Nautilus, with its spiraled rooms cracked open to the observer, is a “Gift from the Sea,” to recall the words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. After imagining the simple life that once created the pearly shell, the poet finds a moral for himself in damaged beauty:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
The meaning the poet finds is that paths of renewal call us to give up the masks, to surrender the stories we have about who we are and encounter reality. Our ideologies and images of reality are ever inadequate; reality calls us to slough off the old and create anew. It is the same message of renewal that I believe the mystic poet, William Blake wants to bring to our consideration in his poem, Eternity:
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
Just what this means was brought home to me in a conference I recently attended. The conference discussed in part woman’s issues. At one point there was discussion about Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. The remarks were about why he had used some language in a court decision on disabilities. Rehnquist had adopted language that made him sound almost like a contemporary feminist. Why, was the question. The speaker suggested that Rehnquist’s wife had developed a disabling illness, and thus his own experience showed him the inadequacy of his hard won ideas. Reality had led him to leave his mansion for a more stately one. Such are the paths of renewal in our lives.
This season, Passover, Easter, renewal of earth at the time of the Vernal Equinox, all speak of the renewal of life, of hope and courage. The themes are endless and I could go on indefinitely. My thought this morning is to first focus on the main figure of Easter, the figure of Jesus.
Some might wonder what I might have to say about Jesus to a Unitarian Universalist congregation. I am reminded of the story of the pastor who invited all his young people to come forward for the story that Sunday. He began by saying, “I’m thinking of a small brown furry creature about this long. Can you guess what it is?”
Silence. “I’m thinking of a small brown creature about this long that lives in trees.”
Silence. “I’m thinking about a small brown furry creature that lives in trees and has a bushy tail.”
Little Johnnie’s hand went up to the delight of the preacher. “Yes, Johnny, what do you think I am thinking of?” “Pastor,” responded Johnny, “I know you want me to say Jesus, but I think it’s a squirrel.”
We’d like to think our children would not be confused, and would quickly identify it as a squirrel.
I’ve decided to talk about Jesus this morning as I feel it is my responsibility as your minister to tell you what I think on that subject. We live in a culture that is predominately Christian. It would be misleading for us to think that we do not need to reflect about Jesus. Such really leaves unchanged our thinking about Jesus, our images left perhaps in childhood.
I have been particularly struck these past months about Jesus’ high profile in popular culture. The best selling book for months has been THE DA VINCI CODE, about Jesus and the sacred feminine. A very different image of Jesus has been presented in Mel’s Gibson’s PASSION, a traditionalist Catholic view of intense violence.
Let me mention a couple of other images of Jesus in popular culture. Foxnews carried a story about a different view. A movement of Christian gyms offers a Jesus on steroids and an environment where one can work out and worship at the same time.
There have been a number of attempts to make Jesus into a kind of businessman, a Donald Trump, and "manly redeemer," as with Bruce Barton's influential 1925 book, "The Man Nobody Knows." "Barton presented Jesus as a savvy executive who 'picked up 12 men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world.' Like Barton, this Jesus was an adman whose parables were 'the most powerful advertisements of all time,' "[ http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=JESUS-BOOKS-02-16-04&cat=LR ]
There are so many different images of Jesus in our culture. What is one to make of all these, often conflicting Jesuses, Jesus on steroids, Jesus as non-violent activist?
A number of years ago, the curriculum developed by our denomination on Jesus was entitled “Who Do Men Say that I am?” These words have been the title of a number of magazine articles and television documentaries about Jesus. The question is asked by Jesus himself, as you can read in the Gospel of Mark.
The main point I want to make this morning, as I talk about pathways of renewal, is that what is important about Jesus, is not the answers. What is important, and I will suggest in a moment that what was important for Jesus was the question, “Who do people say that I am?” It has been the efforts to insist about the correct answer that has mislead Christianity. The path of renewal is a constant re-asking the question. There were no steroids in 0 B.C. but who knows if Jesus were alive today whether he would pump up at a gym.
It’s the question that is important. Think a minute about Holmes’ poem on the chambered nautilus. In the language of his poem, each image of Jesus is a stately mansion, some, for sure, more stately than the others. But each must be let go of to walk a path of renewal, -- if we are not to destroy the winged life.
One of the most memorable statements I have come across on Jesus was a remark by Albert Schweitzer. Earlier I read some of his remarkable thought on Jesus, which comes from his conclusion to his study. More stunning to me is a remark in his Preface. There Schweitzer reflects upon all the biographies he has read by scholars of the Bible. Just as they did, so many of us, Dan Brown, Mel Gibson, Bruce Barton, have tried to say who Jesus really was. And what does Schweitzer say about all of these efforts? His words are “There is no historical task which so reveals a man’s true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus.”(page 4) What is this great Unitarian scholar saying? Write a life of Jesus and you are describing yourself?
When was the last time you sat down and written what you, in your heart of hearts, thought about Jesus? The Buddha? Thomas Jefferson?
I think that Schweitzer echoes this conclusion in the final words of his book, saying that those who seek to understand Jesus will find “as an ineffable mystery, ... their own experience of Who He Is.” The answer is not to be found in creeds or books, but in the meeting.
Jesus is a Rorschach image, what you see there is what you put there. That is why there are so many different Jesuses. Is this wrong? Is this good; might it have been what the original historical figure knew would happen? Are there supposed to be so many Jesuses?
The figure of Jesus in the New Testament was created by the selection process of the early church. They selected the four Gospels there out of a great many of them. The most significant thing in Biblical studies to happen since Schweitzer has been the discoveries of other Gospels and New Testament literature at Nag Hammadi and elsewhere fifty years ago.
Most important among them appears to be the Gospel of Thomas. A theme of Jesus there is that the disciples have “not come to know the one who stands before them.” (91) Thomas’ Jesus says “recognize what is before your eyes, and the mystery will be revealed to you.” (5) He says people are blind, drunk and do not see what is before them, do not see him, Jesus. And they do not see themselves. In Jesus’ words, “when you know yourselves, then you will be known. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are poverty.” ((3)
It seems to me that Jesus was well aware that people could only know who he was if they knew who they themselves were. This was the path of renewal he pointed to. Finally, it is not “Who do men say that I am,” but “Who do you say you are?” that Jesus is asking. To me an important insight into this comes from the title of the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas is the Greek word for twin. The gospel of Jesus’ twin suggests that the seeker is the twin of Jesus, or Jesus is the twin of the seeker. Jesus is asking people to look in the mirror, he is the mirror, and discover who they are.
Jesus knew well that he was a Rorschach mirror. He was like a cloud in the sky that people project themselves upon. Unfortunately, the church has made Jesus infinitely distant and all too often people have not found self-knowledge, but self-righteousness in Christianity.
These Gnostic teachings of the quest for our true identity are ancient wisdom. Perhaps as ancient as any teaching.
As another example of this pathway of renewal, that we discovery ourselves in what we project of ourselves on the world, is found in indigenous American teachings, those of the Cheyenne. They tell us that we meet ourselves in almost everything we confront. A group of people spending a night on a lonely desert plateau will each have a different experience. One person may be overcome with a sense of wonder. Another may be gripped by clasping fear, and another may just sleep the night away.
The Cheyenne teacher Hyemeyohsts Storm talks about the Indian concept of the medicine wheel. In his book SEVEN ARROWS, Storm says “Any idea or object can be a Medicine Wheel, a mirror for man. The tiniest flower can be such a mirror, as can a wolf, a story, a touch, a religion, or a mountain top.” Using the language of this ancient indigenous wisdom, I am saying that Jesus was and remains a medicine wheel.
There is a picture of a medicine wheel on the cover of our Order of Service. This symbol serves as a mirror for the universe, human beings, or any other unity. It consists of a circle marked with the cardinal points or four great directions. To the North lies wisdom, to the South feeling, to the West introspection, and to the East illumination or seeing afar. Each person approaches life from a combination of these directions. A person of the North, for example, is wise but cold because out of touch with his heart; a person of the Southwest is sensitive to his own feelings, but lacking breadth of vision and wisdom. Further, each person's path in life leads through a particular direction, that is, through a particular way of experiencing the world. In time a person learns to experience in all ways and he who desires to know things as they are, consciously seeks to round out his perceptions by cultivating the various ways of vision which he lacks without abandoning those which are more natural to him. The goal is to exist at the center of the medicine wheel with all faculties developed and in balance. Then one truly reflects the universe and therefore is in harmony with it. [ http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/human/hu-sbd4.htm ]
This ancient teaching is that we are discover ourselves in mirroring the universe. The American Indian calls the soul’s journey, it path of renewal, the Sun Dance. It’s teaching is that the real purpose in living is to broaden the base of our perception. The Medicine Wheel teaches us that there are several ways of seeing. In the stories in SEVEN ARROWS, the four directions of the Medicine Wheel represent the four ways of perceiving. To the north is perceiving within mind. To the south, within innocence and trust. To the east, within illumination. And to the west, within introspection. Storm tells us that as we follow the Sun Dance we “will learn to see through the eyes of our Brothers and Sisters, and to share their Perceptions.” [ http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/america/am-wad.htm ]
Perhaps it is that all path ways of renewal are medicine wheels, things that reveal to us who we really are. When both the first teacher of Christianity and a Cheyenne shaman talk about overcoming our blindness and expanding our perception, I think once again of that message of renewal that the poet Blake gave so simply:
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
There are many paths of renewal: the search for the real meaning of Jesus, the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians. A classic example is of course the conversion of the author of Amazing Grace. He says he was blind, but came to see. John Newton was the captain of a slave trading vessel. He came to see that buying and selling human flesh was inhumane.
The varieties of Jesuses that we find in our culture reflects the variety of paths of renewal. We each are on our spirituals journeys. Our renewal comes in readiness to surrender the old and welcome the new. In the words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, "Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach waiting for a gift from the sea."
How well this is illustrated in the life of the first African American major league baseball player. Jackie Robinson’s first season with the Dodgers was terrible. He was insulted by teammates and by players on the opposite teams. Fans told him to get back on the bus and go back where he came from.
One game, finally, the story has it that the Dodgers were playing here in Cincinnati that day, Peewee Reese, born in Louisville, came over to Robinson and put his arm around him. He spoke a few words of encouragement. A deep silence fell over the field as they stood there. The game stopped for a moment. Then players from both teams came over to Robinson and shook his hand. Much of the racist comments stopped then. It was a moment of renewal, not only for major league baseball, but also for America, as a not so stately mansion was cast down and a new one built.