“What God is really about”

Karen Sloan 17/04/2022

Readings - Mark 16:1-8

We have done a lot of Lenten studies over the years, in this church, that usually go for 4 to 6 weeks.   Our friend and New Testament scholar Bill Loader took many of them, exploring the deeper meaning of the biblical texts.  But we have also had other speakers, or looked at a set program or video presentations, including from the more progressive living the questions people.

This year, for various reasons we had a one off presentation, looking at the meaning of easter, not as simple as it may sound, and hearing from many authors and scholars in this space. I think that the 50 people who attended thought it was great. 

But going to presentations like this makes us ask our own questions, particularly in these crazy times.

Do we really believe and trust in a universal God of love revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, or in something more exclusive, as some forms of Christianity proclaim?  I think how we see God reflects how we see Jesus, and therefore one another. And particularly how we see and what we believe about the resurrection.

So I want to explore that a bit more, unpack it just a little bit.  For so much about today has been highjacked by literalists and a pie in the sky when we die mentality. 

Our faith is so much more than that.

But maybe we have to start at the beginning, before we get to Jesus. 

The term God is bandied about pretty readily, particularly in church, but what do we really mean when we say that word..

I have always had the sense of a something more that drives life itself. Not a presence that disappears then reappears because of a sacrificial death, but a presence that is found throughout the life of the universe,  the life of all of creation and the life of every human being. Which is closer to us than our own breath but urges us to connect with one another with love and care and compassion.

When we talk about this extra bit of life, this creative force or divine presence, how do we describe it, how does it affect who we are as people? Well many, including me, would say we see this presence most clearly in Jesus. 

Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was flesh and blood, who laughed and cried, prayed and suffered, who was human like us, and who died a horrible painful death.  A Jesus who confronted the powerful and paid the price, as many do. Somehow his story lives on in those that follow.  A story that resonates in our own lives and the lives of others.  Even in the 21st century. 

Can I really see God in this person?  Is God and Jesus one? The New Testament writers think so, they write so long after his death, but with such passion and purpose.  While we have varying accounts of the resurrection, some physical, like the one we heard today from the gospel of Mark, and Matthew, embellished with an earthquake, and Luke, and some spiritual, like the writings of Paul, the reality is the disciples and his followers were transformed by the events. 

In fact the truth of the resurrection is not in the details of the differing stories, but what occurred afterwards. And what happened is that God became real to people through Jesus in a way that was different, maybe more earthy, more concrete.  

Jesus became a living presence, symbolising what life lived in God should be like.  His early followers believed that "in his words were God's words and in his action were God’s actions". The love, and compassion and justice and peace of Jesus, were not defeated by the worldly powers of Rome.  His vision of a new empire, which he lived out with them long before he died, could not be killed by an executioner or cross. They recognised that the life they had experienced with Jesus was not ended but had been affirmed by God in their own lives.

In other words, his followers continued to experience him after his death, not as a figure of the past, but as someone still walking and talking with them. And It gave them hope.

One of the presenters  in our Lenten presentation, a guy called Brian McClaren,  who was a pastor for many years, and is an activist, writer, and philosopher, said it this way,

 He says, “Do I believe God is a God of domination, and might and coercion or do I believe God is about compassion and love and faithfulness and gentleness.  The disciples believed the later, but had to face the death of Jesus and all their dreams. Maybe they thought themselves fools and idiots for following Jesus, yet in the time after his death, they came to understand that in Jesus and in his life, they saw the light of God, how they thought the God they believed in worked.  The disciples experienced Jesus’s presence in a way that showed them that this life was not all there was, and that there are things that are worth doing and saying and being that are worth risking everything for”.  Suddenly they were not afraid of the powers and despots anymore.”

Pretty powerful stuff.

Yet it still could all have stopped there in the 1st century, remaining as a little subgroup of the Jewish religion. But it didn’t.? And it’s pretty amazing that Jesus is still a central part of many people lives and the lives of people here today in the 21st century.  Sure it could be a ticket to heaven as some believe, or it could be a whole new way of seeing world. I am in the later camp.

While Jesus was a particular man in a particular time, he birthed a universal message of love that has lived on well past his humanity.  The particular became the universal. Jesus became Jesus Christ, not because Christ is his surname but because his  teachings and actions, and God driven life lives on. Christ means anointed not magical. Richard Rohr would call this the Universal Christ, Matthew Fox the Cosmic Christ. Either way it’s a truth so deep and central to being human it is awe inspiring. 

The famous 20th mystic Thomas Merton wrote, “A true encounter with this Christ, with this presence,  liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.”—The Merton Journal

A God power, which is itself is universal!

So I can believe, as the early disciples did, that in Jesus the God presence was and is revealed most fully. Well, weirdly, yes.  Somehow the message of Jesus touches and activates something mysterious in all of us.  In me. He turns on the light. His words and deeds, and the response of his followers show us how to act in faith, to be people of the way.  Because this is what God really is all about.  And because it’s clear to me that what we believe in our hearts and minds really does affect how we act and be in the world.

We can become aware of this divine presence within ourselves, as it was in Jesus, if we let go our ego and our activity driven lives, and look for it, for it hasn’t gone somewhere else, or only comes now and again.  Our response will then reflect Jesus’s concerns in the every day.   Our day. 

Concern for ourselves that we can be the best people we can be, concern for others that they may be loved and cared for, and concern for the planet and all of creation that it should be protected and nurtured. At this time it is what is needed more than ever.  And maybe what decisions we make about our money, our time, and the things we value.  God transformed Jesus and God transforms us. 

So the resurrection story is not about a divine resuscitation of a body or an empty tomb! It’s not about a cosmic plan and a future elsewhere. And it’s not a once off event, a miraculous supernatural apparition, never to occur again. 

Resurrection is about the divine presence found within each one of us, and in Jesus. Giving light where there is darkness, renewal where there is decay, hope where there is despair, and new life where there seems only death. Resurrection happens all the time, it happened with the disciples, after Jesus died, and they were left to carry on, it happens in communities and countries, it can even happen for you and me.

It’s a deeply human experience, and a revelation of how the universe and how the God of the universe works in the world.

It happens when we keep the story and spirit of Jesus alive.

So to finish I want to share a little story, that my friend who is an atheist gave me.  We laughed because in so many ways this story reflects something I hold deeply as being a truth to life, although he thinks I’m deluded!

Apparently in Mayan culture, a sophisticated culture dating back to the 5th and 6 th centuries but present today in South America, their calendar counted backwards to zero.  Yes they counted down not up.  They had and have 2 calendars, a short count which was roughly 256 years, and a long count, which lasts 63 million years.  The most recent end to the short count was in 2012, and caused a great deal of anxiety to everyone who was not Mayan.  It’s going to be the end of the world, we are finished, there is no tomorrow.  What will happen to us.  

And do you know what the Mayans did, they just started the count again.  Reset,  and continued on with life.  I love that, a reset, a chance to begin again. A chance to get it right.

Now isn’t that what resurrection is all about.

Amen