Afraid To Be

We are afraid of unity.  We call ourselves Unity, and yet fear that which the name implies.  Do we really believe that there is just One Presence and One Power in the universe and in our life? Do we really believe that the Christ that dwells fully in us dwells just as fully in even Rush Limbauh?  Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.”  Can we say the same of our self? Can we say the same for Charles Manson?  Do we really believe that God is love and that we are one with that love? Let’s say we can get up the nerve to say yes to all of these questions and then what does that imply?  I say we are afraid of unity.

Who among us is fool enough to place a tourniquet around our right hand and then leave it on watching all along as it turns blue, then eventually black as the life giving qualities of our blood were cut off from it? Who would continue to refuse to remove the tourniquet over the next weeks or months as their hand literally dried up, became useless, infected, and died before their very eyes. Unless we were insane, we would remove the tourniquet because it was our hand, it was part of us, a useful part and a needed part.  By not removing the tourniquet we endanger our very life.

If we are truly One as Jesus spoke so beautifully of in the 15^th chapter of John, one with him, one with God, one with each other, then are we not fools as we stand by and ignore the poverty, injustice and greed around us? In our nation, the most powerful and richest nation in the world, the top 1% own 40% of all our nation’s resources and over 50% of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds, while the bottom 80% own only 7% of our nation’s resources.  In our nation 46 million people live in poverty and 49 million face hunger.  In the world the top 1% own 46% of all the world’s assets. Every 5 seconds a child dies of hunger related disease.  Over 3.1 million children have died this year due to hunger.  One in 8 people or 895 million people do not have enough to eat.

In the parable of the sheep and goats or the Judgment of the Nations found in the 25^th chapter of Matthew we read, “⁴¹ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Christ calls us to die to our false puny separate egoic selves so that we can be born anew into the true powerful Spiritual Beings that we are. Beings who are one with Being Itself, a Unity where the least is as important as a King or Queen, President or Corporate CEO. We are afraid of Unity because we are too comfortable with our false separate selves…….too captivated to let them die…….too busy to be born again……..too afraid to be who we really are.

This Real Christian Community?

This past week we discussed some of the different words for church found in the Greek New Testament.  Basilica is the word used for church when referring to the building.  Ekklesia, which was the name of the democratic popular assembly in Athens during the Greek Golden Age, and one of the words used in the Greek New Testament to signify the assembly of  Christians who gathered together.    The Greek word used most frequently was koinonia.  Some of the meanings assigned to this word are: “fellowship, association, community, communion, joint participation, intercourse . . . a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution, as exhibiting an embodiment and proof of fellowship.”[1] It was used 19 times in the New Testament and was translated  as contribution twice, fellowship twelve times, participation twice, sharing three times.[2]

The first time koinoia is used in the New Testament, the translators translated it as “fellowship”.  It appears in the second chapter of Acts speaking of the first Christian converts, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles.    All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. . . “[3]

 

One would think that the earliest Christian community established by the apostles would be closer to what Jesus had in mind.  This would have been radical in Jesus’ times and none the less radical in our own present day capitalistic society.  Similar thoughts obviously crossed Charles Fillmore’s mind as well.  It has been interesting exploring Unity Institute’s Archives.  In many ways Mr. Fillmore was as radical in his thinking as Jesus was. In a written talk that Mr. Fillmore gave in February 20, 1927 called “Cooperation in Service”, Mr. Fillmore said, “Jesus Christ opened up a great new consciousness to the race.  He taught the universal mind from which we have disconnected ourselves some because we were thinking materially.  We were thinking about the affairs of this world too much; we were being deceived by riches; we were deceived by this selfish man.  And now that we have the light of the Spirit, that we shall break down this carnal mind and come into a new world, a world in which is light, the light of life.”[4]  He went on to tell the story found in Acts 4:32-36 about the direct followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Charles asked, “How did the light affect them?  It did away with their selfishness.  Instead of being deceived by possessions and thinking them paramount in this world, they were willing to part with them.  They brought all their possessions to and laid them at the feet of the disciples.  They had all things in common.  Everybody had everything they needed and there was no lack anywhere.”[5]  He continued saying, “Now we Unity people are aiming again toward starting such a community.  We see that the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the universal ownership of everything. And when that idea is carried out in a practical way, we shall have a community interest and there will be no lack of any kind . . . Everybody will be provided with everything necessary.  And there won’t be any rich people but the people will all be prosperous.  Now I say these ideals can be carried out but we must be willing to serve, we must be willing to give everything that we possess to the one great Good.  Nobody can have anything and call it strictly his own.  Even the clothes that you wear on your back, Jesus taught that you should give to the man that needed them.  Now if you can go this far, we can give up everything to the one good universal cause, we shall have this real Christian Community”[6].  He then said that “we shall be Christians, not looking forward to the heaven in the future, but that we shall be Christians in service and establish right here in the earth, everything that has been dreamed of; everything that has been idealized.  That’s practical Christianity.  Let’s bring it right down to the now.”[7]

 

It appears that “this real Christian Community” Mr. Fillmore was visualizing is more than just a little radical, but a radicalism informed by one of the earliest Christian communities. It's certainly worth giving some serious thought.

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[1] Thayer and Smith, “Greek Lexicon entry for Koinoia”, The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon, 1999. http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/koinonia.html

[2] Thayer and Smith, "Greek Lexicon entry for Koinonia", accessed November 10, 2013http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/koinonia.html

[3] Acts 2: 43-47  ( NRSV)

[4] Fillmore, Charles. Co-operation in Service. Unpublished Talk. 20 February 1927.  Charles S. Fillmore Papers (605), Unity Library & Archives, Unity Village, Mo.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

Heart, Mind and Soul

This week our theological discussions turned to Eschatology, the most speculative of theological subjects, “that part of Christian doctrine concerned with the final end of man”……….covering such theological subjects as the second coming, the resurrection of the dead, the immortality of the soul, etc.(1)

Considering the speculativeness of this broad range of subjects I kindly request your indulgence in my own speculativeness regarding the soul, its immortality or otherwise. As A Handbook of Theological Terms notes, “There is no developed conception of the soul in either the Old Testament or the New Testament”. (2)This was an interesting line of thought for me, in that over time I had come to not believe in a soul as proclaimed in Christianity.  Further investigation of the Hebrew concept of the soul expounded that the Hebrew word nepeš translated in the KJV of the Bible as “soul” referred to man’s whole life. “The soul that a man is is simply the living being a man is. The soul that a man has is simply his life, in any manifestation of that life. In the Hebrew concept the nepeš a man is and the nepeš a man has are one and the same; namely, the life that constitutes a man a living being and the living being so constituted. It is but a trick of language, accentuated by the difficulties of idiomatic translation, that appears to separate this comprehensive meaning into two”.(3)

In Pre-Exilic Hebrew thought, there is no soul separate from man and certainly no immortal soul. The soul which is man’s life eventually dies. Any thought of a soul that exists separate from the body is a direct influence of Greek thought and is nonbiblical.  “The Living God created all other living beings. God, the great nepeš, created every other nepeš. As He, the Great Living One, is a nepeš in His higher sphere of existence and activity, so man, is creature, is a nepeš in his sphere.(4) 

My disbelief in a soul separate from the body that lives on after death has very much been influenced by my studies in Buddhism.  In Buddhism there is no soul, no self, only life and it is One.  The early Hebrew writers are pointing to One Presence, One Power and One Life. The life that God breathed into us at the

beginning was God’s life and It, as God, is One life.  Jesus understood this when he said, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30).  He confirmed it again when he said the greatest commandment of loving God with our whole heart, mind and soul was the same as loving our neighbor as our self (Matthew 22:37-39).  He states this truth again when he says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).  If we truly believe in Omnipresence, how can it be otherwise?

Consider this, God manifests as life infinitely, but it is One Life.  In the Hindu concept of Maya, life in this realm is an illusion and God plays hide and seek with Himself.  In the Christian concept of Kenosis God empties Itself of all Its God like attributes in order to incarnate on earth in human form. In Buddhism everything is Buddha Mind where form is emptiness and emptiness is form, mater and spirit is the same; there is only doing and no doer. Quantum Physics points us to a wholeness where everything is interconnected and anything done in any part of the universe affects every part of the universe.

We are free to write the stories of our lives as we please, but they are nothing more than the interwoven stories of fictionally separate selves, who each are appointed to die at some point in the fiction of time, only to awaken in another story that continues forever. There is only One Life, and so any story is no more true than the previous story, but one intimately connected to and continuing the previous one.  They are only stories taking part in the Mystery of what is. So, does how we write and live our story matter? Oh, yes!  More than you will ever know! But then again……not at all.

1. Van A. Harvey, A Handbook of Theological Terms: Their Meaning and Background Exposed in Over 300 Articles (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 226
2. Ibid.
3. E.W. Marter, The Hebrew Concept of "Soul" in Pre-Exilic Writings, Helderberg College, Somerset West, Cape, South Africa, accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.auss.info/auss_publication_file.php?pub_id=378
4. Ibid., 107-108

A Finger Pointing To The Moon

This week the discussion has been on the concept of the Trinity, a theological term like most, if not all other theological terms, that came into existence as a response to other seemingly untenable beliefs on God and one’s relationship with God.  We have learned that “Christian Theology has always served to clarify and criticize the faith of the churches”.  Put into a layman’s language, Christian Theology has always served to prove how my belief is the truth and yours isn’t, or perhaps more diplomatically “better than yours”.

A review of the doctrine of the Trinity as discussed in Van Harvey’s Handbook of Theological Terms is an excellent example of the mechanics of theology.  It is a term that was developed in conjunction with that of Christology which asks and explores the question, “who was Jesus Christ, what was his relationship to God and what does that mean to us?”  It took over three hundred years to finally crystallize into something that questionably most of the Christian churches could agree to; although, as Harvey points out, “the doctrine has always been alleged to be a mystery”.  In other words it is something we can never prove, but as theologians we will not hesitate to try to clarify it and make it the most believable of the unverifiable theological concepts out there. Although, a flippancy may be heard in this on my part, it is being used to point to something of importance to me and hopefully to you.

It is important to remember that all theological terms are symbolic.  They point to what the user believes to be the Truth.  They are the finger pointing to the moon.  They are not the moon.  When it comes to Christian theological terms such as the Trinity, Christology and Incarnation, they are all symbols used as vehicles to point to and reflect on the unique figure of Jesus of Nazareth, a man who lived over 2000 years ago, who through his life, teachings and death changed the world and continues to do so.  If we are to call ourselves Christians, Metaphysical or otherwise, there is a demand placed on us to struggle with the questions of who and what Jesus was, what his relationship was to God, what we mean when we acknowledge him as the Christ and most importantly of all, what is our relation to this Christ and what in turn does this require of us?

   

These are questions that Charles Fillmore, one of the founders of Unity, struggled with.  In Talks on Truth Fillmore says that Jesus “was more than Jesus of Nazareth, more than any other human who ever lived on the earth.  He was more than human, as we understand the appellation in its everyday use, because there came into his humanness a factor to which most people are strangers.  This factor was the Christ consciousness.  The unfoldment of this consciousness by Jesus made Him God incarnate, because Christ is the mind of God individualized, and whoever so loses his or her personality as to be swallowed up in God becomes Christ Jesus, or God man.” This is Fillmore’s answer to one of the questions asked in class, “was Jesus the exception or the norm?”   What is your answer, and what does that mean to you and therefore to the whole world?

The Breath of God

The question today for our theological discussion is:

Shall we pray to God’s Presence and Power in the Cosmos, opening ourselves to the infilling of Sprit?  Or shall we center on the Spirit within, allowing it to emerge? Also known as the “Let It In/Let It Out Controversy”.

This question is just another manifestation of a fundamental problem within theology regarding the definition of God.  In Van Harvey’s A Handbook of Theological Terms, it is noted that in Christian Theology, God is “both a proper name and an abstract noun for deity.”  Within this twofold meaning lies “the problem of relating the God who may be named and addressed in prayer to the absolute and underlying power of the universe called deity”.

We are immediately faced with multiple paradoxes.  How can we ever know that which is absolute and incomprehensible? How can the finite comprehend the infinite? How can the personal symbols of our faith be reconciled with the symbols for the changeless, timeless, omnipotent, ineffable absolute?  How can God be both immanent and transcendent? As Harvey points out, since Kierkegaard paradox itself has been “defended because it is said to point to the inability of man’s reason to grasp the infinite nature of God.  All true theological doctrines, therefore, are alleged to be paradoxical…..”

In such paradox, “Traditionally, Christian Theology has asserted both the immanence and transcendence of God”…….transcendence as “that which stands ‘over against’ all finite Being as such, hence a term for God, the ground and source of all being” and at the polar opposite immanence “that technical term used to denote the nearness or presence or indwelling of God in the Creation”. 

At the heart of Unity’s Metaphysical Theology lies the same paradox of a Oneness that is both transcendent and immanent.  One Presence and One Power in the universe and in our lives.  This Oneness is not a being, but Being itself.  In Revealing Word, Charles Fillmore speaks of  “Transcendent God----God above or beyond God’s universe, apart from it.  God is more than God’s universe; God is prior to and is exalted above it, but at once God is in the universe as the very essence of it.  God is both transcendent and immanent”. How could an Omnipresent God or Omnipresence be otherwise? 

In theologian Paul Tillich’s book The New Being in his chapter on The Paradox of Prayer, Tillich comments on the Apostle Paul’s statement in Romans 8:26-27 where the Apostle says, “we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words”.  Tillich says “God Himself in us: that is what Spirit means.  Spirit is another word for ‘God present’, with shaking, inspiring, transforming power.  Something in us, which is not we ourselves, intercedes before God for us.  We cannot bridge the gap between God and ourselves even through the most intensive and frequent prayers; the gap between God and ourselves can be bridged only by God”.

So the answer to our question: Shall we pray to God’s Presence and Power in the Cosmos, opening ourselves to the infilling of Sprit?  Or shall we center on the Spirit within, allowing it to emerge? Also known as the “Let It In/Let It Out Controversy”. In Genesis 2:7 we read of God forming man from the dust of the ground and that Spirit “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being”.  So the answer is both, for Spirit which is our life continues to breathe life into us and with every exhale we allow Spirit to emerge from us. There is no controversy, for God’s breath is ours……….. a very natural in and out.

It's Not All About You

I went to Brandon Nagel’s really fine chapel service this past Wednesday, which he entitled, “It’s All About YOU!”  I thought his talk title was provocative.  It made me uncomfortable.  I wondered if it made others uncomfortable?  Anyway, it got me thinking. You see, I think so much of Christianity has frankly become selfish, the actual antithesis of Jesus’ message. Brandon’s message wasn’t that way. It was about our Christ Selves, our True Selves and the wisdom, love and power that is available when we awaken to it and allow it to express through us. It was about the real YOU, not the little me who comes to God for what he can get from God. 

So much of today’s Christianity is about right beliefs that make us eligible for free tickets to heaven.  It is about our victory and our salvation by being part of the right church with the right beliefs.  As a metaphysical Christian I like to think I am just talking about fundamentalists and mainline churches, but it definitely spills over into our circle.  We metaphysical Christians are certainly not beyond smugness.

Jesus didn’t call us to believe, he called us to follow his example.  In my Metaphysical Christian circle we call Jesus our “way shower”.  As disciples he invites us to do what he did. “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. John 14:2.

Here’s what I think. There are no true beliefs.  Beliefs like words, verbalized or not, are just symbols pointing to a transcendent reality.  Reality is being and doing, not visualizing or verbalizing images or words in our heads. I can write an entire cookbook with hundreds of recipes but not a single recipe will feed me or others until I use the recipe and actually cook a meal. To say I am a follower of Jesus because I can mouth what I consider to be his teachings means nothing until I actually obey his words.  “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” Luke 11:28

I’m reading Robin Meyers’ newest book, “Saving Jesus From The Church”.  In it he says, “Christianity as a belief system requires nothing but acquiescence.  Christianity as a way of life, as a path to follow, requires a second birth, the conquest of ego, and new eyes with which to see the world.  It is no wonder that we have preferred to be saved.”

Myers is calling us into a discipleship of “a collective victory over injustice, poverty, war, or environmental degradation.”  He continues, “Faith has become essentially an individual transaction, and the image of God is that of a personal trainer.  Much preaching today is framed as an invitation to God to come into our story, but the biblical invitation is radically different.  We are being invited into God’s story.”

I’m just getting warmed up.  In my next blog I’ll be continuing this theme and talking about Discipleship and how it applies to Unity. Until then…..Peace.

The Four Lenses of the Unity Quadrilateral

The Unity Quadrilateral is a “Theological tool kit” developed by Dr. Thomas Shepherd based on a Wesleyan model. He offers it as a “simple framework” whereby “we can begin to make sense of the world” theologically.

In ministry we are constantly entering into and inviting others to join us in the discussion of theological issues. The Unity Quadrilateral offers four lenses (Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reflection) through which we can examine and explore these ongoing theological issues.

Scripture

Each religion has its cannon of accepted sacred writings and as a Christian movement ours is the Bible.  Whatever theological issue we might examine, we have the opportunity to look to what the Bible says regarding it on several different levels…….literally, metaphorically, allegorically, and metaphysically.  Because we honor other religious paths we can also use Scripture from other religions as a supplement to the Bible.  And because there have been some prolific and very good writers within our “Theological Circle” of Metaphysical Christians, we are at ease in using their writings as well.  Our theology is strengthened, explored and sometimes called into question in our congregations by the use of Scripture in Sunday service readings usually through the Daily Word, as well as within our weekly messages and study classes.

Tradition

Shepherd’s description of tradition as “just history that sticks”….. stuck with me (no pun intended). As Shepherd notes, “If an idea or practice works for a community of faith, it binds with the thought patterns and lifestyle as part of that church’s traditions. No one is immune from this tendency”….including Metaphysical Christianity.  For example my home church’s weekly recital of one of Unity’s Five Basic Principals, reading from the Daily Word, closing with the Peace song followed by Freeman’s Prayer for Protection. As a fairly new movement, we have already created some of our own traditions.  At Christmas and Easter time we have a large list of traditions from Christian history that we can and do pull from including, traditional Christmas carols, use of Poinsettias and Easter Lilies, Christmas trees or Easter egg hunts….they are ideas that work for use.

Experience

We are all shaped by both personal and communal experiences.  We have each been born into and brought up shaped by a unique one of a kind combination of experiences.  When we come together in a spiritual community for classes, Sunday services, service opportunities and fellowship, we have the opportunity to share the stories of our past experiences as well as create new ones of our own as well as reflect upon them.  Any issue examined theologically will be viewed through a multitude of experiential lenses that we bring with us.

Reflection

As we wrestle with theological questions, reflection (both intellectual and intuitive) is the one pair of lens we will use most.  Intellectually we will reason, analyze, compare and contrast.  Intuitively we will “feel” our way around the questions……determining what emotions are moving us as we proceed?

In closing, the Unity Quadrilateral with its four lenses is a simple framework that we will use again and again as we do the work of theology.  Each lens is an unavoidable source of discernment that will help lead us to new insights.