"Jesus is Lord" ???

Luke 24:44-53, Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23

Little Bobby was spending the weekend with his grandmother after a particularly trying week in kindergarten. His grandmother decided to take him to the park on Saturday morning, because Spring was in the air. The cherry blossoms were fluttering in the gentle breezes. All the greenery seemed to be stretching toward the sky to soak up the light and warmth of the sun.

Staring quietly at the scene, taking it all in for a few moments, Bobby's grandmother finally remarked..."It's just so beautiful!. Did you know, Bobby, God is like an artist, ... and God painted this beautiful scene just for us ?

Bobby said, "Yes, and not only that, Grandma, God painted it all left-handed."

A bit confused, Grandma asked: "Why 'left-handed?'

"Well," Bobby said, "there's no other way, 'cause we learned at Sunday School this week that Jesus is always sitting on God's right hand!"

Little Bobby understands his world in what some theologians call a “mythic consciousness,” a level of consciousness in which the mythic is understood to be real in a very concrete sense.

Scholars tell us that in much of the pre-modern world, (that period which began about the year 500 CE and lasted more or less up to the Renaissance), there seems to have been little of what we now understand as historical consciousness. The horizon of the pre-modern world was limited in a way that made it very hard to notice that culture itself was behind the construction of its gods and demons, its dragons and fairies. Within that pre-modern horizon these beings were metaphysically real. Sure, you couldn't see them... unless of course they wanted you to... but they were there... and people knew that it was best not to offend them...because they were not mere mortals like us. They had special powers.In this so-called “mythic consciousness,” the entities and adventures of myth were real, in the most literal sense, which made the pre-modern world quite a magical, and often scary, place to live.

We hear in today's Scripture readings that “Jesus is Lord” – that God raised him from the dead, that he was seated at God's right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

These words about the “Lordship” of Jesus make up the theological core of the myth of the Ascension, which we are celebrating today.

The very fact that we do such things as celebrate the Ascension of Jesus defines us as a community of people who are seeking to understand ourselves and others and the world, with the help of a particular myth. That's why we follow the common liturgical calendar of sacred time. That's why we follow the common lectionary of biblical texts... which cycles us through the entire Christian myth every three years. And then we do it again, and again, and again... because understanding and being transformed by a sacred myth is a lifetime exercise.

How do we feel about being defined in such a way, as “people of the myth?” Is that something that we should be embarrassed about, and try to play down, or perhaps overcome altogether? Does it make us look terribly “un-progressive?”

It's an important question these days: How do we relate to the fact that the very foundations of the Christian religion are mythic in nature?

Of course, the answer to that question depends on... what we mean by “myth.”

From the pre-modern perspective of mythic consciousness, the Ascension of Jesus means that the literally resurrected Jesus literally rose up from the literal ground into the literal heavens, where he was seated at the right hand of God the Father, and proclaimed to be the Lord of all. Period.

In a similar way, from the perspective of mythic consciousness, Lord Krishna was a literal blue-skinned divine being who literally walked the earth in ancient India, teaching humanity how to infuse their ordinary acts with the sacred power of devotion. And, similarly, the Lord Buddha was not born in any ordinary way but literally emerged out of the opening center of a lotus in bloom, (and he emerged not only fully enlightened... but fully clothed....)

How do we relate to sacred myth, such as the Ascension of Jesus? Little Bobby took it literally. So did much of the pre-modern world. So do many today. Mythic consciousness is alive and well.

Maybe little Bobby was right. Do you think maybe that's what Jesus was suggesting when he said that “Unless we are converted and become like beginners in life – like little children we will not enter the kingdom of heaven?” (Mat. 18:3) Did he mean that we should be experiencing ourselves, and others, and the world through a “mythic consciousness”? That we should never grow beyond the horizon of a pre-modern view of the world? ... I don't think so....

The historical movement that we call “modernity” didn't think so either... Some date the beginnings of modernity around the time of the Renaissance & Reformation, in the 16th century. Others insist that modernity as we know it didn't really begin until the 19th century, after the French Revolution.

But whenever it began, modernity put forward a clear message – the primacy of human reason to uncover truth. All truth claims were to be subjected to critical thought (except perhaps the claim that human reason was primary!). We still often hear that famous quote by the “father of modern philosophy,” Rene Descartes, -- “I think therefore I am”

The modern period takes us at least into the 20th century, and why it is so important for us to consider this morning, as we celebrate the Myth of the Ascension, is because modernity... has played a crucial role in how our culture came to understand “sacred myths.” You see, modernity came to believe that sacred myths were essentially nothing but concepts, dressed up in gaudy clothes. And so, for such myths to become intelligible, they had to be translated into their rational, conceptual equivalents.

So from the vantage point of modernity, one could conclude that the“Ascension of Jesus,” if it means anything at all, can only mean that the group of human beings, who put forward the myth, were people who regarded the attitudes and values of Jesus as very admirable and worth perpetuating. So, in the translation of modernity, those who have faith in the Ascension of Jesus, the Lordship of Jesus, are those who are in essential agreement with Jesus' ideology and his actions. Any meaning more than than that ran the risk of sliding back into the abyss of “mythic consciousness,” which was modernity's great fear.

It is through this sort of translation process that the world of modernity cleverly escapes some of the problems of the pre-modern world. But what kind of world does it end up escaping to? It ends up constructing a purely f-l-a-t world, a world without a vertical or transcendental dimension, a world where the natural and social sciences can reveal how literally everything that is...is conditioned by physical, social and psychological realities, which can be measured, studied, and eventually, controlled. (To speak of an Unconditioned is to speak of myth...)

It is in this era of modernity that historical criticism of sacred texts emerged and uncovered many purely human agendas that had been concealed behind religions' metaphysical beliefs. And we learn many crucial things. We learn that Jesus' death was the tragic result of going against the political powers that be. We learn that the reason Lord Krishna supported the caste system was because the ruling class in India supported it. We learn that the Buddha's teachings didn't take hold in India as they might have because they threatened to make the low caste into nobles. And so on. As we discovered such things, we naturally began to buy into the assumption that “perhaps sacred myths really are nothing more than dressed up ideology, which modernity has finally given us the courage to disrobe.

Clearly, we can see some historical roots here of our own Liberal Protestant tradition. In fact, back in the 1920s, when the UCC was born, Liberal Protestantism was even being called “modernist theology.” Of course... not all liberal theology fit that flat caricature of modernity. The great liberal theologians of the 20th century– for example, people like Paul Tillich, Reinhold Neibuhr, Walter Raschenbush – were deeply concerned with how modernity had lost the Transcendent as a reality, and retained it only as a concept.

It was undeniably a great achievement that, where the pre-modern world got stuck in mythic consciousness, the modern world had liberated itself into an historical consciousness. “But let's not stop there!” Let's not stop with that narrow horizon which disposes of mystery and dismisses all sacred myth as nothing but concepts or “magical thinking.”

This is a fashionable rant these days among overly-educated types, who like to contrast the “modern” era with one called “post-modern.” And the really chic category to belong to is the “post-modern” one. So if someone in this clique comments on something you've said, by saying “that is so modern!” ... it's not a complement! They're saying that you are not quite “up to date.”

But, in spite of that kind of snobbery, I think there is something about the notion of a “post-modern” era that is important to notice. We really are at quite an unusual point in history. Just consider – you're sitting here this morning listening to a gay Buddhist, with a Hindu name, who was married in the Church, preach about the Ascension of Jesus.... how unusual is that?

We don't have to label ourselves “post-modern” to recognize that “modernity” gave us some wonderful gifts, yes... without a doubt, but its vision of life, its horizon, is terribly constricted, constricted to the point that the spiritual, the transcendental dimension of who we are and what we're about is simply rationalized away to nothing.

III

So here we are today, on the 4th of May in the year 2000 and 8, in the so-called post-modern era, at Bloor Street United Church, celebrating the Ascension of Jesus.

How we experience this celebration depends a great deal on how we relate – inwardly – to sacred myth.

We are just beginning in our culture to see some vague outlines of an alternative to the unhelpful extremes of literalist, “mythic consciousness” on the one hand, and modernity's hyper-rational “myth-bashing,” on the other.

We're just beginning in our culture to realize that “sacred myth” is neither just “magic” nor “concept” but rather something more subtle, like a living language of the soul, and perhaps even the only language through which the deepest truths of life can be semi-adequately spoken.

We're just beginning to get a glimpse of a world in which people don't need to be either fundamentalist or spiritually anemic.

So when we hear the Myth of Ascension proclaiming that “Jesus is Lord,” how can we relate to that? How can we prevent the unhelpful extremes of taking it literally, on the one hand, or translating it into nothing more than a set of ideas and action plans on the other?

So much modern scholarship has focused on taking apart the word “Lord,” exposing its despotism and misogyny and patriarchy and its many other insidious meanings. And all of this is very important, of course. But let's not stop there.

Let's consider, at least for a moment, how incredibly bizarre, how paradoxical these words, “Jesus is Lord,” are.

Jesus, after all, is the most marginal of the marginalized. Jesus is the slave of the slaves. And so, how can Jesus possibly be “Lord” ? How can Jesus be the very center point of all life, the point around which everything turns, the one that is in some sense 'in charge' of everything that is? We're obviously at a very strange level of discourse here.

If “Jesus is Lord”, it could only be in some extraordinarily subtle and non-obvious way. The “Lord” word clearly signifies centrality, ultimate importance. The “Jesus” word clearly signifies marginality, the despised, the rejected, the slave, the crucified, that which the powers that be consider foolish, threatening and disposable.

So, when you put those two words together, “Jesus is Lord” -- sparks fly -- it becomes a mythic portal to a transcendent mystery, a mythic portal to another world, which is quite real, but not in the concrete, literalist sense of little Bobby. Rather, it opens up a spiritual world where the bizarre morality of the Sermon on the Mount becomes natural and embodied rather than foolish and impossible.

“Jesus is Lord” is kind of like a Buddhist koan – those intentionally irrational riddles that Zen teachers give their students to solve, as a way to help them “let go” of their over-reliance on superficial rationality, so that they can begin to develop deep knowledge of themselves and others and the world. ..... Like all good koans, it doesn't just pave the way for a breakthrough; it actually transmits a vision of the Transcendent to us.

Somehow in this mythical proclamation that “Jesus is Lord” there is a transcendental insight seeking to break into consciousness... a direct awareness that the real center of all life, including our own lives, is a very... subtle... power which only desires the wellbeing of itself and everything and everyone that ever crosses its path. A very subtle power that is radically other than the power we see so busily at work in our world, whose focus is domination.

Strangely enough, marginalized persons in our society seem to be more adept at accessing this Myth of Ascension in which “Jesus is Lord” -- more able to use it as a portal to a deeper awareness of self, other and world. And that kind of makes sense if you think about it, because if you're a marginalized person, it's pretty good news when the “Slave of all Slaves” becomes the “Lord of all Lords.” In your inner world, you suddenly move from the margins into the center, into the very Heart of God. You realize a transcendental status as the Beloved of the Holy One, which puts things into proper perspective (right view, the Buddhists among us would say.).

If, on the other hand, I am one of the people who push others who aren't like me into the margins, because I think only people like me belong in the center, -- (and of course there's an oppressor in every one of us) – then this “Jesus is Lord” insight is not very welcome, not very “good news” at all. In fact, it's very confusing and upsetting, something to be warded off.

But, at a deeper level, it's also great news for the dominant culture, because – when we have ears to hear – it convinces us of the unbelievable: that we are really, honestly and truly, no better than the folks who get pushed into the margins.

So, once the folks in the dominant cultures start to realize that --to use the language of the myth-- “we too are 'sinners' ”, we start to see that the margins are really the center, that the last are really the first, that the truly vulnerable are really the truly strong, and the words “Jesus is Lord” start to mean something in our lives, at a soul level, as Ram Dass used to say,

In Conclusion, “Can't nobody do me like Jesus” ... is the title of a recent study done by anthropologist, Craig Scandrett-Leatherman at the University of Kansas. (I'm pretty sure he stole that title from an old gospel song...) It is an amazing study of the transforming power of “ritual process” in the life of an inner city community of African American Pentecostals. (I can send you a digital copy of it if you would like to read it.)

Craig's study has helped to convince me that maybe, just maybe, we truly are entering a post-modern era, where we are growing beyond the need to feel ashamed of our desire to journey through the mysterious portal of sacred myth and emerge in a new world, as a new being, again and again, so that we can live a fully human life, around a transcendental center.

Perhaps we're even on the verge of a world where we can have real friendships with our neighbors whose own life experiences have led them to realize that Krishna... or Yahweh... or the Virgin of Guadalupe..or the Path of the Buddha...or Allah... are the sacred centers of their lives. Perhaps we really are moving closer to a place where we can finally begin to join hands, and work together, to help this world as a whole, become more aware of its various sacred centers, and become a more hospitable place for all of its inhabitants.

If we want to be part of bringing such a world into being, we really need to know (not so much “where we stand,” in terms of dogma, doctrine, and ideology but) how we stand, inwardly, in relation to our own wisdom tradition, our own sacred myth, our own transcendental center.

How does this congregation at Bloor Street United Church fit into this strange myth which celebrates Jesus' Ascension into a position of centrality in the ultimate scheme of things?

Here we are in this beautiful sanctuary with its empty cross, proclaiming the power of death and resurrection, and its beautiful stained glass with Jesus at the pinnacle, proclaiming, if not “Jesus is Lord,” at least something along those lines...

Will our church continue to be a place where Buddhists can walk in and be warmly welcomed to share their faith?

Will it be a place where those who feel it are given the freedom to say 'Can't nobody do me like Jesus?'

Will it be a place where it is still important, after all of these years, to be mindful of the ancient details, like how today is the 7th Sunday of Easter, and we're celebrating the Ascension of Jesus ?

The answers to questions like these all depend on how we as a community relate to this strange myth we've inherited called Christianity.

What kind of Christians do we want to become? There are some real options at this point in time....

I think it's a question that we really have to spend some time with, together, if we hope to be “church” in a world that is struggling very hard to become something new.

We have to wonder together, amidst the many others, what does our sacred myth really have to offer?

May the Spirit guide us into a helpful understanding of these words.

Amen

Posted on: 06/27/2009 16:45

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