Love Not Fade Away
In Matthew
chapter 16 we read, "24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and
follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who
lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if
they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in
return for their life?"
In some
Bibles it is sur-titled The Cross and Self Denial. I would take issue with
that. I would title it The Cross and Our True Self. Or, The Cross and Denial of
our False Self.
In Hinduism
and Buddhism there is a clear understanding of a divided self - an outer self
and an inner self if you will. Some have called it our False Self and our True
Self. It has to do with how we see and present our selves. This of course
determines how others see us as well.
In Jnana
Yoga there is an exercise in which when you are walking down a path you try to
watch your self walking down the path. It is in exercise in discovering that
among all God's creatures, we alone are capable of stepping outside ourselves
to look at our selves. All religious and
wisdom traditions have acknowledged this one way or another. All religious and
wisdom traditions have established some form of spiritual exercise like
Mindfulness Meditation or Centering Prayer to enable us to access this
capability to step outside ourselves and see our selves – our outer self and
our inner self.
Freud, Jung,
Reich and their disciples have forged new modes of accessing our inner and true
selves. In the modern era they have helped us to see how we hide our inner or
true self not only from others but even from our selves. When we do this we
become a divided self which eventually takes a toll on us spiritually,
mentally, emotionally and of course socially.
We become a
problem to ourselves. Professor James Carpenter at The General Theological
Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America
often used to begin our Systematic Theology classes by declaring, "Man
(sic) is irreducibly a social creature since we are created imago Dei, in the
image of God." For Christians this lies at the very heart of our
understanding of God as Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Creator,
Redeemer, Sustainer; Earth Maker, Pain Bearer, Life Giver.
Other
monotheists find this baffling, as do many Christians. Simply put, however, it
suggests that even God is a social creature - God desires and chooses to live
in community - within God's self and with God's creation and creatures. To be
created imago Dei is to irreducibly live in community with God and with others
- all others.
I believe
Jesus is getting at just this. After Peter correctly identifies Jesus as the
Christ, God's anointed one, Peter immediately demonstrates that he still does
not "get it." Note that Jesus had anticipated just this when he
instructs Peter and the others not to reveal this to anyone. Jesus is clear
that he is and must be a Pain Bearer. Peter rebukes and "corrects"
Jesus. No way! This cannot be! Jesus' reply strikes us moderns as harsh.
"Get behind me, Satan!"
Yet, this
could simply be a way of saying, "I need you to follow me, not lead me.
You must line up behind me here and now. You must let your false and divided
self die, accept and claim your true self, and gain life – eternal life with
God."
Find your
true imago Dei, your inner self which you will discover is aligned with who I
am and what I am telling you. Be a divided self no longer and be free.
It starts at
the very beginning, which is seen perhaps most clearly in how Mark begins the
story. There are no angels, not wise men, no Mary and Joseph, no stable, no
manger. John the baptizer is in the wilderness, which of course is where Moses
is commissioned by the Bush, the great I AM, to take the people into the
wilderness so that they might be schooled for 40 years in just what it means to
be imago Dei. As John is inviting people to repent, that is to turn away from
their false self, turn away from their divided self and recommit themselves to
the lessons forged long ago in the wilderness.
Jesus arrives
in the wilderness as an adult and chooses to participate. Jesus goes under the
water of the River Jordan. That is when it is revealed. That is when it
happens. That is where we are meant to see and hear what it means to be imago
Dei. As he comes up out of the water the Holy Spirit, that part of God's own
community, descends upon Jesus "like a dove." It is not a dove, it is
"like a dove." The Bible, more than any other literature, speaks in
metaphor since it is impossible to describe or explain these things any other
way. Then a voice from heaven declares, "You are my beloved; with you I am
well pleased."
Literary
note: this is the first time that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are on the stage
all at one time. That is, at Jesus' baptism by John God's full and undivided
self is revealed.
This moment
in time on the banks of a lazy river that connects the Sea of Galilee with the
Dead Sea is so powerful and transformative that the very first thing Jesus does
is to allow himself to be lead deeper into the wilderness for 40 days to ponder
just what this means and what he is going to do about it. When he returns he
announces the beginning of God's kingdom and invites everyone to repent, to turn
away from their divided and false selves to enter into the fullness of God -
Earth Maker, Pain Bearer, Life Giver.
In the
Christian rite of baptism we are once and for all incorporated into the Body of
Christ, and this bond we believe is indisoluable. After pondering this for some
time I finally got it. When we come up out of the waters of our baptism – water
that we say is the water over which God’s Spirit hovered in creation, the water
through which the Spirit led the people of Israel out of bondage in the empire
into the land of promise, and the water of Jesus’ baptism - a voice says to us,
"You are my beloved; I am well pleased with you." It is the "I
am" of the burning bush speaking to us.
And I have
come to believe that at our baptism angels, cherubim and seraphim fly around us
whispering and singing into our ears, "You are God's beloved; God is well
please with you!" It is the first thing we hear as we are incorporated
into the Body of Christ. Then we “grow up,” things happen, life gets
complicated and we forget that we ever heard that voice – the voice that tells
us who we are and whose we are – the voice that announces the fact of our
undivided self: We are God’s Beloved; God is well pleased with us. Even when we
are reminded of this we cannot believe it is really true. Yet, Jesus not only
wants us to get behind him. He wants us to accept the gift of our belovedness.
It is not easy to accept such a generous gift, but when we do our inner self,
our hidden self, our undivided self that is incorporated into the fullness of
God’s own undivided self begins to emerge. We begin to know what it means to be
imago Dei. Made in the image of God. Our
belovedness is eternal, grounded in God’s eternal love for all creation – a
love that never fades away. Amen.
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