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.