You are the Light of the World

 

In his book, The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, Deepak Chopra depicts the biblical scene of the "Sermon on the Mount" and the “new” ideas Jesus preached, the Beatitudes. So powerful and different were the words Jesus spoke that Mahatma Gandhi carried the sermon's ideas with him at all times and lived its message to the letter, Chopra said in an interview "He was not even a Christian; he was a very orthodox Hindu, but he lived the Sermon on the Mount," Chopra said. "And this bald, frail man brought down the British Empire without firing a bullet."

The Sermon on the Mount is a message that can cross many worlds, according to Chopra."The words of Jesus, no matter which version or how you read them , ring with a truth that is very profound," he said. "Why restrict it to Christians and make it exclusive?" He believes there are three interpretations of Jesus — the historical Jesus, the theological Jesus and what Chopra calls the "Cosmic Christ," the third Jesus who has broad appeal. The story of Jesus is "the most romantic story ever told; it's a very beautiful story," he said. "Jesus is part of our collective unconsciousness and you know he's not going to go away. So we have to see what kind of relationship we are going to have with this kind of divine inspiration."

Chopra says he does not belong to any religion. He is not a Christian, a Buddhist or a Hindu. For that matter, he doesn't believe Christ was a Christian or that Buddha was a Buddhist. "These are institutions we created later," he said. "I believe in a secular spirituality, a domain of awareness where we can all experience the same truths."

Chopra first learned of Jesus as a young boy in India. His teachers were the Irish Christian Brothers, a Roman Catholic lay organization, to whom the book is dedicated. Because of them he has read the Bible "thousands of times."  

Proof of the historical Jesus, Chopra says, comes from the New Testament, the writings of St. Paul and the Roman historian Josephus, who was originally Jewish. The theological Jesus, he believes, was created by an institution responsible on one hand for great charitable and humanitarian works and on the other acts of war and cruelty such as the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity today "has been hijacked by movements that violate Jesus's teaching even as they proclaim they are defending it," he writes in the book.  

Increasingly, Chopra believes, people seek a more personal relationship with God. And that's where the third Jesus comes in. Changing minds…"He can shift our perception of how we see this world," Chopra said. That's where what Chopra calls "God-consciousness" plays a role. In a sense, it's a combination of Western and Eastern approaches. "God-consciousness means to see the divine in all that you perceive," he said. "Mother Theresa understood that when she said: 'When I look at these children that I take care of, I see God in them and I feel this profound love.' "With that approach, God is not hard to find, he says. Matthew 5: 13-16

In his book, Chopra lays out 15 steps to "God consciousness" based on the teachings of Jesus and outlines how to achieve them on a practical level. The most important, he believes, is the first step: To realize that the kingdom of God is within you. "The kingdom of God is not a place, " he said. "It's a state of being. The (gnostic) Gospel of Thomas says, 'It's already here and you just can't see it.' "

"If we want a change in this world, we will have to do it ourselves," he said. "We can't worry about the theological institutions or the politicians. But we can connect with other like-minded people doing the same thing and hope one day there will be a shift in consciousness. "You can't fight ignorance, you can only switch on the light."

Deepak Chopra: Christ teachings go beyond the Christian church.

BOOKS: “Jesus' broad appeal,” BARBARA KARKABI, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle,  Published 6:30 am CST, Saturday, March 8, 2008

I learned the truth at seventeen

 

How many of us were raised to think that the Beatitudes were an outline of character traits that we as Christians were called to embrace? In some way this is true; however, here again we see Jesus turning everything upside down.  Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are they who mourn; blessed are the meek. Really? On the surface these are hardly traits that usually are identified with success, but who is doing the defining here. Jesus reminds us that God has prepared the disenfranchised of the world for His Kingdom?

Yesterday we had the opportunity to celebrate my grandson’s 17^th birthday. It seemed hard for me to believe as it seemed like only yesterday when he was born. Could his father my son, really be old enough to have a 17 year old son? And what about me? You can see where I’m going with this. We reflected on my son’s 17^th and tried to remember our own. In listening to reflections from most people, it was a time of betwixt and between, the best of times and worst of times. It was a care free time of adolescence in which the child in us as its way, but it also was a time of approaching “adulthood” with the world knocking and wanting answers that we were not always prepared to answer. Can’t we just stay here a little while longer some will ask? Others can’t wait to forge ahead. In both instances there is a learning curve and the care free days of youth are turned upside down; it’s time to get serious.

So why did my grandson’s turning Seventeen have effect my stream of consciousness as I thought about our Gospel (Matthew 5: 1-12Matthew 5: 1-12) and the Beatitudes? The Beatitudes run counter-intuitive to what humans have been taught as society’s rules for successful living. I am reminded of lines from Janis Ian’s song from years past, At Seventeen. She like Jesus summed it up in one line, It isn't all it seems at seventeen. But as most who recalled that time, the lyrics ring true:

To those of us who knew the pain, Blessed are they who mourn,
Of valentines that never came, Blessed are they who hunger and thirst,
And those whose names were never called, Blessed are the poor in spirit,
When choosing sides for basketball, Blessed are the meek
It was long ago and far away
the world was younger than today
when dreams were all they gave for free, Blessed are you when they insult and persecute
to ugly duckling girls like me...

And isn’t related to the upside down world of God’s as Jesus repeatedly taufgt throughout his ministry? The laws of man and of the world have little to do with God’s. Over the past weeks we have read in Mark’s gospels that man’s expectations related to power, wealth, success, fame and happiness are not God’s. Jesus challenges our conventional wisdom that suggests that success, however we define it, or wealth or power equals happiness. He teaches that the concern for losing those fleeting, superficial abstractions of what we value, relate to a life of fear and competition that leads us to think we can only be happy by winning, and by beating someone else at the game. At seventeen we leave our childhood behind and prepare to enter the “grown up” world. At seventeen I learned the truth... It is all it seems, at seventeen.

One of the reasons why this upside down approach to living remains so elusive to us is that it requires that we accept the fact that we are broken people. We have to accept our basic vulnerability as humans in order to let go and embrace life as it is. Most of us find this quite difficult, if not downright impossible. It requires that we experience some measure of brokenness—which is something most of us spend a lot of energy and effort trying to avoid. Our egos rule our self- image and take us to places that require us to want the props that support a façade that will eventually crack.

There is something about letting go of our obsession with getting what we want, and accepting what life brings us that opens up our ability to enjoy the goodness around us. This Jesus way enables us to relate to those around us with love and compassion. We begin looking at the world with the eyes of Jesus and live in God’s Kingdom in the here and now on earth as it is in heaven. At seventeen I learned the truth.

 

 

 

 

Come Follow ME

 

Do you think we could drop everything; leave our families and communities, and follow a stranger we never met and didn’t know? Both Matthew and Mark emphasize the word “immediately" to describe how quickly the new disciples were ready to do just that. Snap decisions are not always good, and don't always work but sometimes they are and do. I think we all have made impulsive decisions that turned out really well. Don’t we sometimes wonder what prompted those decisions? Matthew 4: 12-23.

And so what does Matthew’s Gospel mean to us? Does it mean leaving behind  a steady income and loving family? Or, maybe its letting go of things that hold us in place not unlike the fisherman’s nets in our story. It can be any manner of things and will vary from one person to another. While Jesus does not ask everyone to leave everything behind, no one can be a disciple and follow His call to repent without leaving something behind, or without letting go of the nets that keep us ensnared.

Jesus is calling us to a new way of life and asking us to “repent,” or turn the focus of our lives to being God centered. At its most basic level, discipleship means saying “yes” to Jesus and following him wherever he leads. There are times we try to run away and go back to where we were before but we can’t hide, no matter how hard we try out of God's sight. He is relentless, and as often as we try to run and hide, he will find us.

With regard to “snap decisions” or responding to what we are inspired to do, John Powell writes "There have been quite a few times when I have felt the winds of God’s grace in the sails of my small boat. Sometimes these graces have moved me in pleasant and sunlit directions. At other times the requested acts of love were born in the darkness of struggle and suffering. There have been spring times and there have been long cold winters of struggle for survival. God has come to me at times with the purest kindness, at times with the most affirming encouragement, and at other times with bold frightening challenges. I think that all of us have to watch and pray, to be ready to say 'yes' when God’s language is concrete and his request is specific-'yes' in the sunlit spring times and 'yes’ in the darkness of winter nights." (John Powell, S.J., The Christian Vision, The Truth That Sets Us Free, p147)

 

What are You Looking For

 

John takes charge of our readings today (John 1: 29-42) and loudly proclaims Jesus’ arrival: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” As if to validate his prophecy John cites "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him…this is the Son of God." In so doing, John goes out of his way to shift attention from himself to Jesus as if to say this isn’t about me. It’s about this guy. Yeah. He’s the one. The Lamb of God. It appears that John’s work, for the time being, is done; now, it’s up to Jesus… and us. 

And so Jesus' ministry begins not with a command to silence a demon, as in Mark's gospel, or with a sermon to the crowds who have gathered on a mountain, as in Matthew's, and not with a prophecy from Isaiah, as in Luke's. No, John's gospel begins with a question: "What are you looking for?" Needless to say, throughout the centuries and our faith's journey we continue to wrestle with this profound question.

What are we seeking? What motivates us? What is it that we really need, not just on the surface, but down deep at the core of our being? As we close out the 2022 Christmas season with last Sunday's celebration of the  Epiphany and begin our desire for an intimate, enduring relationship with God, the word “abide” has particular meaning for me. We let go of pretense and rest in God's presence and...the Word becomes flesh and abides in us, and the seeds of transformation are sown in us... and we are born into a new life.