Mind Games

In this part of the Gospel of Luke Jesus has returned to his hometown to teach and is not particularly well-received. The scene provides an excellent illustration of human nature.  As John Shea points out, each of us has two responses to every single thing we experience: Things are either pleasing or displeasing. We either like something or we don’t. Something is either beneficial or it is harmful. Happenings are good or they are bad. Things are either going our way or not going our way. People are either acting the way we think they should or they are acting counter to our expectations. There are rarely shades of gray for us. We have an internal judge that is pronouncing sentence on every little thing every second.  And in this way we are actually not in command of our own minds. It’s like a computer program is running continuously that we have no control over. We live this way our entire lives and are unable to stop without engaging in a long and devoted spiritual practice. There are people who can help us with this process, authors Michael Singer and Eckert Tolle being two of them. 

Quite truthfully, most of us aren’t too bothered by this dominant dualistic mindset and are not in the least motivated to make it stop. And I want to make clear that to make that choice is neither good nor bad; it simply is what it is. There is something comforting about it letting the mind rule over us. But there are drawbacks; to live in this way prevents us from ever going very deep spiritually. People who live from a very intensely spiritual place accept that the mind is full of tricks and does not really have our best interests at heart; the mind is understood in that way, seen for what it is, and its machinations confidently dismissed. The rest of us, myself included, strive for a kind of compromise: periodic meditation to quiet the mind for even a few brief moments to regain some sanity amidst the insanity that engulfs us as we allow it too.

The Israelites who hear Jesus are were probably pleased by his initial teaching; it likely fit with what they understand about the law. But when the teaching becomes more difficult the tide turns in the other direction; enough to promote them to want to kill him in a rage. Before we get all judgmental about them, let’s recall the ground I just covered.  Things either sit well with us because they go with the flow of our ideals and principles or things rub up against the things we perceive to be important and right – our values. Things either support the tenets of our faith or threaten them.  This is why we have a really hard time hearing what people are saying when we are in stark disagreement with them. They are wrong, we are right. And as long as we are in that place, nothing can change in the relationship; trust is the first casualty when there is no bridge to cross over to get to the other side. We are not above throwing people over cliffs or under buses if they threaten our belief systems. Short of that, we knock the dust off our sandals and move on until we find our tribe, the people who think just like we do. Jesus just got kicked out of his tribe and escaped with his life.

And his escape is fascinating. Imagine the crowd pushing him out of town until his back was against the edge of cliff. Then he suddenly moves through the midst of them and goes his own way.  What did he do exactly? Don’t you wonder? Did he become invisible and walk through them unknown? Did he turn himself into dog in which case no one would notice him? Did he vaporize and re-organize on the other side of town? Perhaps he just used a little magic, suggesting to the crowd: “You will allow me to pass through you free of harm.” And they did. Or maybe he practiced the art of surrender. Maybe he didn’t see their actions as we do therefore he did not respond as we would. What if he did not see the crowd as bad people gone temporarily insane by their prejudices. Go back to the teaching. Maybe he never saw the teaching as accusatory or something that was intended to incite anger and upset. We read it that way because we are full of judgment and we project on the reading of the scripture our own understanding which can only be dualistic. The Israelites think with one mind:  What do you mean God gave preference to the pagans? If God gave healing to pagans and overlooked the chosen people that changes everything we were ever taught about God and God’s relationship to us.  Nothing so counter to the construct of my reality can be true; therefore you are a liar and an enemy to the faithful. Jesus preferences this teaching by saying: "But the truth is....", neither good nor bad, nor meant to promote self-congratulation or inflict punishment. Truth just is what it is. 

How do we know what is true? Truth is what is and always has been.  In this case, the truth is that God is impartial.  We might not want an impartial God any more than the Israelites. I think we rather like having a very partial God – a God who sees how hard we try, and that we are baptized properly, and that we say our prayers; a God who we proclaim in word and deed blesses us over an against our enemies - despite our best theologies to the contrary. The Israelites did not want an impartial God. And they were willing to kill Jesus to make sure that kind of God could not threaten a whole system that worked out of partiality. Whoever God preferred, the Israelites preferred. And whoever God rejected, the Israelites rejected. Jesus used the full weight of the scriptures to reveal the flaw in that system.  People who do this kind of work need make sure their life insurance policies are kept up to date.

If the truth is that God is impartial, non-judging, all loving, then Jesus was impartial, non-judging, all loving. That means we are supposed to be impartial, non-judging, all loving. The Danish Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard observed after years of trying and a great deal of suffering that the Christian life was totally incompatible with the way the middle class live. It would appear as though we have failed because the task is impossible to begin with.  But that is because our minds have judged it as possible or not possible; our actions as either successful or a failure. But God is impartial, non-judgmental and all loving and so not even our self-judgment cannot stand.  God is impartial. We are meant to be impartial. God is divine and we are but spiritual beings finding our way through this human experience. We can but only practice impartiality, not judge it. We can but only practice putting away our persistent judgments. We can but only practice loving our neighbor. Life is practice. Faith is practice put into action. Each day is filled with opportunities to practice.

Being part of a church community is a way to practice. There are three ways in which Christians have traditionally practiced being impartial, non-judging and all loving. Some have done so by focusing intently on the person of Jesus with prayers and thoughts, devoting their whole hearts to him by devoting their every waking thought to him. Some have practiced through works of service: they have devoted their lives to the struggle against oppression and injustice; they have fed the hungry, cared for the widowed and orphaned, clothed the naked and freed prisoners. And some have practiced through contemplation to the point that they have removed themselves from the world and become recluses in an effort to unite with God in the quiet of their minds.  While all of these ways of practicing a life of faithfulness are helpful and freeing on some level, none of them, in and of themselves are adequate. 

Deepok Chopra wrote a book some years ago called the Third Jesus. In it he points to the historical Jesus, the theological Jesus and Jesus the mystic. His thesis is that only the third Jesus, the teachings of Jesus the mystic is who we should be following. In his teachings the mystical Jesus instructs us to live in the world but not be a part of it. We are to set ourselves apart from the lies that the world would have us believe about our separateness, our independent natures, and the myth of our self-sufficiency. The only thing to come out of those teachings is hatred, disharmony, partiality, and judgments that lead to division; all of which lead invariably to suffering. None of those things are compatible with the Word that is Life. This is a long spiritual journey for those seeking unity with God.  There are no short cuts. Live in the world but do not be a part of it. That means suspending our dualistic mindsets in as much as we are able. To work toward that goal requires support from a community of people with that as their common goal.

I like to think that St. James affords you the opportunity to practice this way of life. I believe that our warm and genuine hospitality is a testament to the way in which we practice impartiality and non-judgment. I believe that all our missional efforts bear witness to our communal practice of non-judgment and unconditional love. I believe that the books we study tell a lot about our curiosity about the mystical Jesus and his teachings as we try to parse them from the doctrinal theological Jesus of the institutional church. I believe that the way in which we practice our common worship testifies to each of these things: impartiality, non-judgment and unconditional love. We begin our practice each week by feeding ourselves spiritually; and this self-love, this self-care, in turn, opens the door to the acceptance of all that is, just as it is. Begin with yourself. Be impartial with yourself. Be non-judging with yourself. Be all loving to your own self.

For you and I in the day to day operating of our lives, surrendering to what is, whatever that is, which is not good or bad, success or failure, in God’s eyes, is the only path Jesus gave us to follow. Live in the world, but do not be a part of it. This is our practice. Embrace it. Or don’t. God is impartial.