“Okay, Jesus, What Now?” Answered
In the movie Secondhand Lions, the character Hub, played by
Robert Duvall, gives his speech about “what every boy needs to know about being
a man” to young Walter, played by Haley Joel Osment. He says,
"Sometimes the
things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the
most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean
everything; that power and money ... money and power mean nothing. That good
always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this.... that
love....true love never dies! Remember that boy ... remember that. Doesn't
matter if it is true or not, a man should believe in those things, because
those are the things worth believing in...... got that?"
Religion and Spirituality are all about how we live according to the
things that are most important to us. These things are spiritual in that they
form us at the deepest places in our lives, and they provide for us a way of
life steeped in meaning and significance. Spirituality and Religion are about
“the things worth believing in,” and then seeing how those beliefs play out in
our lives.
Spirituality, then, has to do with how we live our lives in relation to
that which is both beyond us and within us, which empowers life, and which
teaches us about that life and how to live it.
When Jesus refers to himself as the Way, the Truth and the Life (John
14:6), he is speaking directly about how he embodied this deeper purpose-filled
and significance-drenched aspect of life. Simply put, a Christian spirituality
means to enter into the heart of Jesus, to explore his Way, his Life and his
Truth, and to live it out in daily life. It is more than thinking correctly
about doctrine or agreeing with religious ideas or statements. It is all about how
we live our lives in the world, how we treat the members of our families, our
co-workers, with what sort of integrity we go about living out our values and
beliefs. Putting it another way, the integrity of our lives is reflected in how
congruent our everyday actions are with what we believe.
The spirituality of Jesus is concerned with aligning one’s heart with
God’s heart, and with living the life that arises out of that alignment. Jesus
taught that if one had seen him, they had also seen the Father. So in order to
understand the heart of God one must study and follow closely how Jesus lived his
life, and to look to its congruity and integrity.
Our journey these past several
weeks through the Sermon on the Mount has been very revealing to me just how
coherent and interconnected Jesus’ teachings are in terms of revealing what it
means to be a disciple of Jesus, and a resident of the Realm of Heaven. When
Jesus began his ministry, he said to repent, for the Kingdom (or Realm) of
heaven was at hand (or within). The word he used was a Greek phrase, metanoiete, that best translates as
“move into the greater mind,” which describes the Presence or Image of God
within us.
We have considered in these
sermons our journey into what Jesus called “life in abundance.” It is a journey
to realm of a higher consciousness, a more expanded understanding of the
universe and of what it means to be human. Because, as Irenaeus understood, the
glory of God is a fully alive human being, it is also a journey of becoming
fully human, filled with the Divine Life within us. It is a way of connecting
into the mind of God that Jesus came to reveal and into which he leads us.
In order to make room for the
realm of heaven in our lives, we need to empty our hearts of everything that is
not heaven. That is the key to true happiness. True inner work of the realm of
heaven involves a careful self-assessment that looks at our own strengths and
shortcomings, which then helps us to focus on what we need to do within
ourselves. When we open our hearts,
minds and souls to the Presence of God, we are entertaining a Royal Guest. The more we enter into that Realm of Heaven,
the more we entertain that Royal Guest, the more radiant we become, and the greater
is the light of God shone out into the world.
The key to understanding Jesus’ teachings is
this: we are to look inside ourselves first, and deal with what is in our own
hearts, minds and souls before we even attempt to cast a judgment or provide commentary
upon another person. Jesus puts the responsibility right squarely upon our own
shoulders, the work is ours to do, not thrust it upon someone else.
It is important always to keep in mind as we
do this work within ourselves, not to beat ourselves up with these scriptures,
and don’t let someone else beat you up, and by all means don’t beat anybody
else up. God wants you to love yourself as much as you love others, and you
need to love yourself as much as God loves you. We all have enough stuff within
our own lives to work on, behavior to get better at, injuries to heal from,
things to stop saying or doing. There is enough to keep us busy for a
lifetime - or two.
Throughout the Gospels, we find Jesus engaging
in a wide variety of spiritual practices such as prayer, fasting, engaging in
acts of forgiveness and healing, doing acts of mercy and justice, spending time
in nature, engaging in religious rituals and worship. These practices set up
the physical conditions whereby the Holy Spirit can do its work within us. One
of the things that Jesus addressed in this process was how to transform the
violence we receive from our society in creative ways that do not perpetuate
that violence. His way was a way of nonviolence that nonetheless stood up to
oppressive systems without becoming oppressive itself.
Since Jesus’ spirituality is a
means to align our hearts with God’s heart, prayer becomes a means to keep us
in alignment, and the Lord’s Prayer is a guide to that alignment. We begin by
aligning our wills with the will of God. We simplify our wants according to
what is truly needful. We loosen the bonds of indebtedness and seek forgiveness
where we have offended or transgressed against others. Then we resolve to live
a life that works for the good of everyone in every situation.
None of this is easy. Jesus
never said it would be. But this is the pathway to the abundant life that is
the glory of God and fullness of humanity. May God bless us all as we seek to
live the Way of Jesus, the Realm of Heaven within us.
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