It was my first sermon, ever. It was the fall of my second year in seminary. The preaching rota had been set months many weeks in advance. And so it was simply the luck of the draw that my first sermon would be the day after 9/11. Whatever sermon I had planned was trashed and I was up all night constructing my words to address a seminary congregation of students, faculty and staff that was jolted out of the ordinary routines of academic life and plunged into horror and grief. The pressure was immense. When it was done I felt I had connected with the congregation at the point of their emotional state by dealing directly with the event while also presenting a sovereign God to whom we could look for solace and justice.
A couple of weeks later I met with my homiletics professor for a review of the sermon. He began with, "You sold out." Followed by, and I paraphrase: You gave them what you think they wanted - meeting them where they were and resorting to sentimentality. Followed with: "I don't care if a bomb goes off outside the chapel while you're preaching - you preach the gospel and don't you ever forget it."
It felt harsh. I was expecting praise. I thought I'd done a good job. In fact, in a moment of hubris, I wondered if I'd ever preach another sermon that was that good. I'd risen to the occasion. I had no shortage of pats on the back and "great sermon!" comments. I felt relief that I'd been of some help to people. The situation was critical, they needed to be reassured - I thought I'd done that. Isn't that what we were supposed to do?
Well, not exactly. The truth is, the Gospel does not seek to make us feel better. Rather, it insists relentlessly, and without regard of our situation, on raising us to new life, to a new mind. And this new mind is often at odds with what we believe about God. Perhaps this is because we do not have a broad enough sense of Love to include the whole of God's vision for humanity. Love your enemy..., is the gospel - but no one in crisis wants to hear that. Let the dead bury their dead..., is the gospel - but no one in crisis wants to hear that. Father forgive them for they know not what they do..., is the gospel - but no one in crisis wants to hear that. Sell all you have then you can follow me..., is the gospel - but no one in crisis wants to hear that. Not one stone will be left standing..., is the gospel - but no one in crisis wants to hear that. And I did not preach any of those things. I departed the Word (the call to transformation) and presented a God that aimed to have us all feel better, reassured, and did not require the discipline of mind (and tempered action) that the Gospel cultivates.
Recently, there was a terrible mass shooting in Texas. An 18 y.o. gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school. The nation was jolted out of the ordinary routines of everyday life and plunged into horror and grief. Many were staggering from disbelief and finding it hard to find a foothold on what seems, increasingly, to be life on the Titanic. We desperately move the chairs around on the deck and try to grasp for understanding when all the things that tether us to sanity, to sanctity, seem to be falling away, and there is a culpable sense of sinking. The people cry out: Help us O Lord! I feel a tinge of deja vu.
"No problem can be solved at the level it was created." (A. Einstein)
Though spoken by Einstein, and not one of the four evangelist, it is, nonetheless, a statement of truth that is not what we want to hear. But the truth is a great help to those experiencing life in a way that feels like being of a sinking ship, on which, suddenly, the boat lilts violently and there is panic and a rush to the life rafts. There is no amount of negotiation or protestation that will change the fact that something that was once solid and stable is now breaking apart; the very fabric of our common life. In the first five months of 2022 there have been 214 mass shootings (that is, at least four people were killed or wounded per incident); and 17,300 total gun deaths, not including other forms of murder. No problem can be solved at the level it was created. We will need a new mind, a higher consciousness to lift us to a level that is not on the plane we now operate if we hope to reconstruct life in the way of Peace. We will need to awaken; to acquire Christ-consciousness. We are in need of the Gospel; to be transformed in to Christ likeness. In other words, we are called to change ourselves and then move out into the world. Otherwise, we may well, and unknowingly, be perpetuating the problems that plague us. No problem can be solved at the level it was created. A higher mind is necessary to solve the problems that face us. And we do not always want to hear this.
What Einstein offers in this saying is Wisdom akin to "Let the dead bury their dead." This is not a statement of rejection. It is simply an assessment of a people who do not wish to awaken. It is an observation; and I believe one made in Love. It does not aim to make us feel better; but is a statement of truth, unvarnished. As the saying goes: Clarity is kindness. It does not conjure up the image of Jesus the shepherd who tenderly holds the baby lamb. It is fierce Love, warrior Love; which is the true nature of Love. Love that comes not from sentimentality (sweet cherubs on the coffee mug) but from a place of power (and not force, which is its opposite). How does one move to another level, the level at which solutions may be found and implemented? How do the living, the awakened, bury their dead?
In the East, it is long been said that meditation is the only thing that prevents insanity. The continual focus we in the West have on thinking, on thought forms, which are only abstract, partial representations of reality, prevent us from experiencing actual reality. (A. Watts and others) We think and think and think and think - and cannot move beyond our thinking. We are dead, dead, dead and we don't even know it. We cannot move beyond the abstract forms that we falsely believe accurately represent life. Our thoughts are but shadows of what was; and we box with shadows. To move beyond the shadows to seeing and experiencing reality as it actually is, is to awaken. When we move from thinking to acquiring awareness we become alive; alive in Christ and one with God. (See John 17, Jesus' Farewell Prayer). We do not wait to die to enter the Kingdom of God. If that were so, there would be no need of the Gospel. The call to awaken is for us in the here and now.
But in lieu of meditation we move straight to reaction and are caught in the web of dualism. One side is right and the other is wrong, deadlock ensues and the conditions of violence and in-fighting are all consuming. To that end:
But what about gun regulation? The gospel does not address gun regulation but Jesus does address violence. When Peter cut off the ear of the soldier who arrested Jesus he rebuked Peter and restored the man's ear. He did not banish the sword, but rather brought to life the ancient teaching:
“God shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4)
We cannot know the mind of God who decides for many peoples until we become one with the mind of God - when we learn to see the shadows of the mind for what they are, break from the insanity of constant thinking and living in either the past or the future (neither of which actually exists outside the present moment), and find rest in another level of consciousness. This is where true power (and consolation) is; where wisdom resides and discernment occurs: "Once I was blind but now I see."
Whenever we attempt to create solutions apart from Christ-consciousness we sell out. We either move to force, perhaps even counter-violence, or to denial, mental escape - we check out, or engage in sentimentality. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. (1 Corin. 13:1)
The fierce Love of the Gospel does not sell out. It always engages with truth, absent of force. Love is a warrior that does not shy from the brutality of life, but looks directly down the barrel of the gun and calls us to new life, a new mind. It does not attempt to make us feel better but urges us to attend to higher consciousness, to share in the mind of God. And being of one mind, then and only then, shall we beat our swords into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. Anything less, is a resounding gong, a clanging symbol, a sell out.
Thank you for reading my blog and walking with me in the path of spiritual grace; for your willingness to spend this time with me, as together we learn how to see and be Christ in the world. Rowena +
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