starlings

A murmuration
splits! One flock north, one flock south.
One bird's confusion.

_________________________________________________


This one bird remains flitting about, alone and in between, as if unsure which group to follow. I think of this bird often, and its teaching. Today it teaches me about the importance of living with deep attention, attention not just to my surroundings, but also deep attention to where my mind is right now.

Where is my mind right now?

And now? Where has it gone to? What thread has it now grasped?

You need to pay attention to it for only a short while to observe that your mercurial mind has a remarkable capacity to rapidly shift the gears of attention.

Sometimes this helps us negotiate difficult and demanding situations. Sometimes, however, we find our minds adrift, scattered and confused, our attention never really settling but flitting about, indecisive, and unable to respond in a meaningful way to the people or experience at hand. Perhaps we call it "stressed out," or "overwhelmed," or "I'm going crazy!"

Try, for a portion of the day, perhaps just the next half an hour of your day, to watch both your mind as well as the input coming in from all around you. If you are working at a computer, notice what happens to your mind during this time. If you are meeting with someone, see if you can hold an awareness of what is going on within you as you also pay loving attention to this person you are with.

If there is reaction, notice the reaction.
If there is defensiveness, notice the defensiveness.
If there is empathy, notice the empathy.
If there is boredom, notice the boredom.

Notice how these things rise and then fall away,
manifest and then disappear.

And here you still are.

And here is this one who is with you.

And here is yet one more moment
to practice attention and loving presence.

I wonder if this is what Jesus was describing to his dear friends, Martha and Mary of Bethany, when he said:

"Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing..."

the general dance

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Theme: The Cosmic Christ (“Reign of Christ Sunday”)

Texts: Colossians 1:15-20 and John 18:33-38

Eric Massanari

“the general dance”

Let's begin with some free association:

when you hear the word “king,”

what comes to your mind?

Chances are good that Pilate,

the Roman governor of Judea,

had some of the same things

in his mind when Jesus was

brought before him for questioning.

King, power, majesty, ruler, subjects,

swords, armies, wealth, land,

ruthless, mighty....

And here before him stood

a rather nondescript Nazarean.

“Are you the King of the Jews?”

To have made such a claim -

to claim to be the King of the Jews -

would have amounted to sedition,

an obvious threat

to the Roman Empire's

occupying powers in Judea.

Pilate and the Roman authorities

would have been aware of

the messianic hopes of the

Jewish people and the threats

this might pose to their governance.

However, Jesus really didn't fit the bill

when it came to most people's hopes for a Messiah.

Nor did he seem to fit the bill

when it came to Roman fears

about the rise of a mighty Jewish king.

Jesus is far from what people expected

of royalty of any kind.

Now, one more word association exercise:

When you hear the word “Christ”

what comes to your mind?

In the history of the Christian tradition,

both of these words have been associated with Jesus.

"Christ" (the anointed one) and “King.”

These names are religious and political.

They are names that elevate and set apart.

They are titles that, as far as we know,

Jesus never directly claimed for himself.

However, if you look at the scriptures

written after Jesus' death, and centuries

of theological writings and

and sacred music, you find that they

are names that have stuck nonetheless.

King Jesus.

Jesus Christ.

Christ, strangely, has almost come to

function as a surname for Jesus.

Not Jesus the Christ, which might

make more sense, but simply Jesus Christ.

This Sunday, just before the start

of the Advent and Christmas season,

has been traditionally marked as

“Christ the King” Sunday or

“The Reign of Christ” Sunday.

And this passage from the eighteenth

chapter of the fourth gospel is often read

as the gospel passage for this Sunday.

Before we move into the stories

of Jesus being born as a infant,

we have a story of Jesus at the

end of his life, standing before the

high priests and a Roman governor,

accused of being “King of the Jews.”

Are you King of the Jews?

My kingdom is not from this world.

If my kingdom were from this world,

my followers would be fighting

to keep me from being handed

over to the Jews. But as it is,

my kingdom is not from here. (v.36)

“My kingdom is not from this world.”

It is a statement about source and origins.

The power by which Jesus teaches and acts

is not from this world, not rooted

in human kingdoms or authorities.

Which does not rule out that

his kingdom may be very much

in this world,

meant for this world,

and already moving through this world.

Jesus' response reveals

what has been true all along

in this gospel story:

he's not operating by the usual

standards of human authority,

he's not entirely playing by the rules

as they've been interpreted

by the powerful and influential people.

Which is not the same thing as saying

he is some sort of rebel or radical

simply for the sake of being a rebellious radical.

It is to say that he places his authority,

his heart, his actions, his life,

in a wholly different place,

in something much greater

and far more powerful and prevailing.

And if people need to hear more

familiar language for it

then he calls it the kingdom of God.

And that is not a kingdom from this world

because it is more true to say

that the world is from it.

The kingdom of God is beneath, above,

through, and in this world.

And beyond it.

As Gerard Manley Hopkins put it well:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

The Jesus we meet in all four gospels

is repeatedly pointing

to the grandeur of God

that lies beneath each moment

and within each life.

The kingdom of God is already within you.  Luke 17:21

Or, alternately translated:

The kingdom of God is already among you.

  

Jesus, Christianity has said,

was the full incarnation of God's love.

And at the same time he was pointing

to Love's incarnation everywhere around him.

Isn't it interesting how the religion

of Christianity has so largely

confined the idea of incarnation

only to Jesus? Jesus Christ.

Why have we done this?

What insight and meaning have we lost by doing this?

Meanwhile there is this strong current

right here in our scriptures to point

us in a much more expansive

understanding of the incarnation

of God's life and love.

Expanding it beyond Jesus,

to include far more...

Listen to these voices from the scriptures:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. And what has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. John 1:1-4

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible... Colossians 1:15

And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the glory of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect... 2 Corinthians 3:18

 

And it is no longer I that that live but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:22

One can hear in these words

a much more expansive understanding

of the incarnation of God's love in Christ.

It moves beyond Jesus to encompass

other people, you and me, and all of creation.

I want to invite you to consider today

that perhaps we have defined

a name like “Christ” far too narrowly,

far more narrowly than Jesus himself

may have intended or desired.

Christ is not simply one person—

the person of Jesus, whose life, death and resurrection

fully incarnates the shape and movement of God's love—

Christ is also the very impulse of

Love to be incarnated through

all people, and all lives, all Life!

Christ, you might say, represents the impulse of God

to liberate and make whole all things

by revealing the truth of who and what we are.

This impulse of God

is revealed in the love you give and receive.

It is revealed in your creativity,

your deep listening to another,

your speaking the truth,

your acts of generosity,

your gratitude,

your beauty,

your wonder and your questions.

In these ways you are Christ come alive.

Where might such an

expanded understanding of Christ lead us?

I wonder if it might lead us

to a more open and rich engagement

with people of other faiths

and spiritual pathways.

We become less defensive and forceful

with our one and only example

of incarnation because through Jesus

we begin to see the Christ presence

all around us, including in other

streams of faith.

I believe an expanded understanding

of God's incarnation, a cosmic

understanding of Christ, if you will,

helps us honor our own rightful place

in creation. We recognize that all

creation is an expression of

the impulse of God's love to become incarnate.

It is not ours to manage or control,

it is ours to celebrate,

and give thanks for

and care for.

And, finally, I believe an expanded understanding

of Christ helps us recognize that we

are all created in goodness and blessing.

Jesus the Christ

helps us perceive

how we can come fully alive

and live as Christ now.

We are heirs of the kingdom

that is not of this world,

but it is in this world

and it is meant for this world.

I like Thomas Merton's description of

the kingdom of God,

the impulse of God to become incarnate;

he calls it “the general dance” of all life:

If we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear the call to follow God in the mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know the love in our own hearts—at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

No despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.

Yet, the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join the general dance. 

 

- Thomas Merton, from New Seeds of Contemplation