Jesus Is a Call to Action

When the New Testament writers call Jesus “son of God”, they do so in a purely Jewish sense. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the phrase “son of God” refers to a human being ~ a king, a priest or a prophet ~ who enjoys a special intimacy with God and has been entrusted by God with a special mission.

St. Paul, the earliest extant Christian writer uses the phrase in this sense, and so do the evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke. Luke indeed, from start to finish, also calls Jesus a prophet, somebody who speaks for God. They do not believe that Jesus was God per se.

These writers, with the possible exception of St. Luke, were all Jewish and would have been horrified to think that God had sired a son like the pagan deities. They do believe that Jesus enjoyed special status, but there is always a distinction between Jesus the man and God the Father of us all. Thus the very early Christian hymn quoted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Philippians says that because of his obedience and humility, Jesus was raised to a uniquely high level and given the title Kyrios (“Lord”) “to the glory of God the Father” (2:11).

In his gospel, written later than the others, John has a different take on Jesus. He sees him as a pre-existent being, the Logos or Word of God, who had become human and descended to earth as God’s ultimate revelation to humanity. The term Logos was not unique to John; other Jews were thinking about God in a similar way. Philo of Alexandria (d. c. 45 CE) uses the term; other writers saw God’s Wisdom, which enabled him to create the world, in much the same way (see Proverbs 8).

Our words are uniquely our own; they express our inmost being; they are the means by which we reach out to the rest of the world and make things happen. But our words never express our inmost thoughts exactly; they are not the whole of us; there is a clear distinction between our thoughts, fears and inchoate desires and the words we use to try to express them. So even in John there is still a distinction between God and Jesus.

God is inexpressible ~ far beyond the capacity of human beings ~ but we can get glimpses of God, when he adapts himself to our limited human minds. Jews at this time also spoke about God’s “Shekhinah” or his “Holy Spirit” to distinguish our limited experience of God’s presence on earth and within us. For John, Jesus is the incarnate Shekhinah. When we look at him, we have some idea of what God may be like.

Later, it took Christians seven hundred years to decide what they meant when they said that Jesus was the Son of God. By this time, Christianity was no longer a Jewish faith and Greek speakers did not understand these Jewish terms correctly, so many people were confused.

Eventually the East and West evolved two entirely different notions of Jesus. In the West, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury evolved one notion of Jesus during the eleventh century. The sin of Adam had been so great that only a God could atone for it; but because God was just, he knew that a man, who was responsible, had to atone. Hence God decided to become human and died to save the world. The Greek Orthodox did not like this idea, because they felt that it made God weigh things up like a human being; it was too anthropomorphic: God transcends this type of limited human thinking. And there is also something abhorrent about God sending his son to die a horrible death as a human sacrifice ~ I think.

So the Greek Orthodox, who don’t really believe in the Original Sin theory, evolved a more Buddhist notion of Jesus. The idea was first stated by Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662). He did not believe that Jesus came to earth to save us from our sins. This would have happened even if Adam had not sinned. Jesus was the first fully deified human being; he surrendered to God so completely that the divine infused his entire being, through and through, in the process of theosis (“deification”). And we can all be like him; we can all be deified too if we give up our egotism and greed ~ even in this life.

It is similar to the Buddhist notion of Siddhatta Gotama, the Buddha. He was the first fully enlightened human being in our historical era; he is so closely identified with Nirvana that when we look at him ~ composed, peaceful, in control, compassionate ~ we see what the inexpressible Nirvana can be in human terms. And we all have the capacity to achieve Nirvana ourselves -- even in this life.

I see the Christmas story and the deification of Jesus not as a statement of historical fact or an abstract religious doctrine. Like all religious teaching it is a call to action. When St Paul quotes that early Christian hymn in his letter to the Philippians (2:5-11), he was not giving his converts a lesson in the doctrine of the Incarnation. He was telling them how to behave.

He introduces this hymn by a call to action: “You must have the same mind as Christ Jesus!” (Philippians 2:5) he tells them, and he quotes the hymn not to make a metaphysical, dogmatic point, but to tell them how they themselves must live. They must be like Jesus and “empty themselves” (Philippians 2:8) of their egotism, pride and self-importance. You must, he tells them: “Leave no room for selfish ambition and vanity, but humbly reckon others better than yourselves. Look to each other’s interests and not merely your own” (Ibid. 2:3-4). Only if you behave in this way, will you understand the meaning of the life of Jesus, Kyrios Christos.

Karen Armstrong

Prayer Helps Us Chip Away Our Egotism

I always had difficulty with prayer. If God knows everything and is, as the Qur’an says, closer to me than my jugular vein, why did he need to hear my requests?

I disliked the idea of a God who demands endless praise -- he reminded me of a tyrant who demands constant, obsequious abasement from his subjects. Surely God did not need to be reminded that he had created the world and that we are all miserable sinners, as we say so frequently in our liturgy.

And I had great problems with petition. Why should God answer my prayers, when he so clearly fails to heed the prayers of many hopeless people throughout the world? I also did not really believe in a God who would intervene in history and change the natural order: Why should he avert a storm from the location where I am planning a picnic and send the storm onto some other unfortunate folk?

But then I came to understand that prayer is really for us. It is selfishness and egotism that hold us back from God and our best selves. We use language to build a protective carapace around ourselves, to ward off attack and to bolster our self-esteem. How rare it is to really apologize; and how frequently the person who does apologize points out that you too are somewhat to blame for what has occurred.

How rare it is really to praise. There is a nasty little part of us that feels impaired by somebody else’s success or good fortune. I recall a friend once saying to me: “Oh Karen! Congratulations on your marvelous reviews!” And then, almost immediately: “Have you put on weight recently?” People are often reluctant truly to thank somebody from the bottom of their heart or to express need: It is a tough world and you have to seem in control.

But prayer teaches us to use language in a different way: To thank, praise, and beg pardon wholeheartedly, without holding anything back. And as we do that, we chip away at our egotism. And that, in turn, will make us a force for good to the people around us and make the world a better place--without asking God to perform a miracle.

Karen Armstrong

A Rejection of A Widespread Idolatry

In the very early days of their history, Jews, Christians and Muslims were all called "atheists" by their pagan contemporaries. This was not because they did not believe in God -- obviously they did -- but because their conception of the divine was so radically different from that of their neighbours that it seemed blasphemous. Historically, atheism has rarely been a blanket denial of the sacred per se, but a rejection of a particular conception of the sacred. Even the most fervent atheists often have sacred things in their life: They see humanity or the natural world as inviolable, uniquely precious and mysterious.

And not all religions are concerned with theism -- with God. Buddhism, for example, has no conception of a Creator God, because it finds this idea unnecessary and limiting. But they certainly have a strong commitment to the transcendent and the ineffable, which they call Nirvana, and describe this in ways that are similar to the way theists speak about their God.

Often atheists today are rejecting the classical Western view of a personal God who is responsible for everything that happens on earth, who is wholly omnipotent, and utterly compassionate. Elie Weisel said that this God died in Auschwitz: He found it impossible to imagine such a divine being who would permit such an atrocity. As we look around the world today, many of us would agree with this.

But this Western notion of the divine is relatively recent -- a mere four hundred years old. Before that time, Jews, Christians and Muslims all insisted that though one could start with this notion of a benevolent father, one had to move beyond it, because God transcends personality. Some -- Maimonides, Ibn Sina, Ibn Arabi, Denys the Areopagite, Edckhart -- said that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our conception of existence is far too limited to apply to God. They said that God was not the Supreme Being, because that implied that he was a being like ourselves, but bigger and better. God was not "another being." The Greek Orthodox formulated the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century in part to remind Christians that they could not think of God as a simple personality.

For centuries, radical mystics and leading theologians in all three faiths would agree that there is "Nothing" out there: they often preferred to speak about God as "Nothing," because "he" was not a being like a table, a person or even an unseen reality like the atom that could be discerned in a laboratory or by mathematical proof. God was a different kind of reality altogether.

When we enter into dialogue with anybody, we should not go out to "win"; we should be prepared to be changed by our encounter with others, and see what we have to learn. Believers should reflect that historically widespread atheism has often indicated a major leap forward in religious thought -- as is evident in the case of Jews, Christians and Muslims, who were thinking about the divine in a radically different way.

And many atheists could be in revolt from a lazy, facile theology that has far too simplistic a notion of the divine. In recent years, we have seen people committing atrocities or starting wars in the belief that "God" told them to do it. In the Middle Ages, the Crusaders went into battle with the cry "God wills it!" when they slaughtered Muslims and Jews. Obviously "God" willed no such thing; the Crusaders were simply projecting their fear and loathing of these rival faiths onto a deity they had created in their own image.

And we do not have to be Crusaders to fall into this trap. How often we hear preachers, broadcasters and lecturers claiming that "God" wills this and forbids that -- and it is uncanny how often these opinions of the deity coincide with those of the speaker. All too often people forget that God is transcendent and see him as a being like themselves, writ large, and with likes and dislikes similar to their own. Instead of using the concept of God to go beyond themselves, they use it to give a seal of absolute approval to their own prejudices. They have created an idol.

Monotheists have always warned against idolatry. It may be that the atheism that is taking hold is a rejection of a widespread idolatry which has forgotten that any conception of the divine is bound to be inadequate. In a restaurant, when we have had a strong-tasting first course, the waiter often brings a sorbet so that we can cleanse our palette and taste the next course. Today many feel the need to rinse their minds of inadequate ideas of God, and may have to enter into what the mystics used to call the dark night of the soul or the cloud of unknowing, so that we can all move forward.

Karen Armstrong

No One Can Have the Last Word on God

In ancient India, the priests used to hold a contest called the Brahmodya to find a verbal formula that expressed the mystery of the Brahman, the ultimate reality. Each contestant would ask an enigmatic question, and his opponent answered in an equally elusive manner.

The match continued until one of the contestants was unable to respond and was reduced to silence ~ and in that moment of silence, the Brahman was present. It was only when the competitors understood that their words or concepts could never express the ultimate reality that they were able to apprehend the sacred.

The reality that we call God, Brahman, Nirvana or the sacred is transcendent. That is, it goes beyond our mundane experience. Nobody can have the last word on God. That should be the principle that underlies religious dialogue. Throughout history, Jews, Christians and Muslims have all insisted that the ideas we have about the divine can never measure up to the reality itself. The Greek Orthodox believed that every statement about the divine should have two qualities. It should be paradoxical, reminding us that the idea of God cannot fit neatly into a human system of thought; and it should be apophatic ~ it should reduce us to silence, in the same way as a great poem or piece of music. Sometimes at the end of a symphony, there is a beat of silence in the concert hall before applause starts. That is what every theological statement should do. In the modern West, we have lost sight of this apophatic vision, and imagine that our statements about God and the ultimate are accurate expressions of this transcendence, whereas in reality, they must point beyond the limitations of our human minds.

So when we are engaged in religious dialogue, we should remember that the realities we are addressing are truly transcendent. If we make our limited ideas about God absolute, we are creating an idol --a human expression of the divine that is raised to an inappropriately high level. The Qur’an calls this type of dogmatism zannah, self- indulgent guess work about matters that nobody can prove, one way or the other, but which make people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian.

Worse, if we imprison ourselves in our dogmatic ideas, we are closing our minds to the divine. The Taoists used to say that it was nonsense to argue about religious truth, insisting aggressively that this could not mean that. What holds us back from an experience of God or the Sacred is our egotism. When we interject ourselves too much into our opinions, we are simply imprisoning ourselves in the ego we are supposed to transcend and making it impossible to have a truly transcendent experience.

Finally, here is a wise remark by Ibn al-Arabi, a 13th-century Muslim mystic and philosopher:

“Do not praise your own faith exclusively so that you disbelieve all the rest. If you do this, you will miss the truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omniscient, cannot be confined to any one creed, for he says: Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah. Everybody praises what he knows. His God is his own creature and in praising it, he praises himself, which he would not do if he were just, but his dislike is based on ignorance.”

Karen Armstrong

The Cruellest Month

He [Gamache] reflected on T. S. Eliot and thought the poet had called April the cruellest month not because it killed flowers and buds on the trees, but because sometimes it didn't. How difficult it was for those who didn't bloom when all about was new life and hope.

From "The Cruellest Month" by Louise Penny, 2007

What Is Happiness?

What is happiness all about? It is the eternal question, the universal issue. And if spirituality has ever dealt with it, what does it have to say to a world that has tried wealth and found it lacking?

The Sufi tell a story that rings true in every spiritual tradition around the world:

Once upon a time, a powerful king, ruler of many domains, was in a position of such magnificence that wise men were his mere employees. And yet one day he felt himself confused and called the sages for a consultation.

He said to them: “I do not know the cause, but something impels me to seek a certain ring, one that will enable me to stabilize my state. I must have such a ring. And this ring must be one which, when I am unhappy, will make me joyful. At the same time, if I am happy and look upon it, I must be made sad.”

The wise men consulted one another. They threw themselves into deep contemplation. Finally they came to a decision as to the character of the ring that would suit their king.

The ring that they devised was one upon which was inscribed the words: THIS, TOO, WILL PASS.

It is enough to make anyone pause. What I have now, I will someday not have. What is bothering me now will end, and I will not be bothered by it in the future. So, if I can hold my world, all of it—good and bad, exciting and terrifying, exhilarating and tragic—with open hands, nothing will ever be able to destroy me. Neither having too much and wasting it, nor having too little and grasping for more, can possibly be the albatross that shadows me to the end.

Happiness comes when clinging goes. We are all misers. What we have, we try to keep. What we do not have, we die to get.

When we are doing what we like, we try to freeze in time our right to do it. Like hamsters on a wheel, we insist on running in place however much the world around us goes on changing….

Then, the Sufi tell us in the story of the king who had no need of anything, the only way to be happy is to understand that whatever is our state at the present moment, this moment is already over. There is no amount of pain, no depth of pain, no disturbance or joy or irritant or exhilaration or suffering, that can possibly last forever. To be happy we must come to understand that. “This, too, will pass.”

Tomorrow is another day made for me to shape and enjoy, hear, and endure, let go of and move on. What we do not seek to control or to avoid cannot possibly make us unhappy.

If the question is, What is happiness? the answer must be that happiness is the ability to live every day, every phase, every stage of life in the awareness that it will not be ours forever—and that is just as it should be if we are to grow and live, live and grow.

From "Welcome to the Wisdom of the World" by Joan Chittister

The Jewish Buddhist

Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?

Drink tea and nourish life;
with the first sip, joy;
with the second sip, satisfaction;
with the third sip, peace;
with the fourth, a Danish.

Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.

Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health,
or a life without problems.
What would you talk about?

The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single Oy.

There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life,
you never called,
you never wrote,
you never visited.
And whose fault was that?

Zen is not easy.
It takes effort
to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkis.

To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance,
do the following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The Tao does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.

Be patient and achieve all things.
Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Forget this
and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.

Let your mind be as a floating cloud.
Let your stillness be as a wooded glen.
And sit up straight.
You'll never meet the Buddha
with such rounded shoulders.

To Find the Buddha, look within.
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.

Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical sensation
is a symptom of a terminal illness.

The Torah says,
Love your neighbour as yourself.
The Buddha says,
There is no self.
So, maybe we're off the hook.

If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?