Today is the last Sunday in the Church Year,
commonly
referred to as Christ the King Sunday.
Now, I just plain don’t like this title.
It’s
just not the Jesus I know
either
in my own experience or from the witness of scripture.
It was only a few Sundays ago, in fact, that we had the
story
of
the disciples James and John,
asking
Jesus about sitting on his right and on his left
when
he ascended to that throne as the Messiah King.
And Jesus put them in their places very clearly and
firmly,
letting
them know that if they wanted to be on his right and his left,
then
that would fix them with him in serving everybody else.
King is certainly not a title that Jesus ever applied to
himself.
Not even when asked directly,
such
as when Pilate, in today’s gospel reading, asked,
“Are
you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Do you ask this
on your own, or did others tell you about me?”
When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom,
it
is not his own kingdom he is talking about.
It is his Father’s Kingdom, where God reigns,
and
what Jesus perfectly reflects and witnesses to with his whole being.
See the Kingdom of God as all divine, omnipresent
self-revelation.
Jesus is a walking parable of the Kingdom of God and how
it works.
Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, prayed to his Father,
“Not
my will, but yours be done.”
In Jesus the full will of God is expressed transparently.
But Pilate doesn’t get it. He says,
“So
you are a king?”
And Jesus answered, “You are the one saying that I
am a king.”
BUT
for this I was born, and for this I came into the world,
not
to be a king,
but
to testify to the truth, be a witness to the truth, to what is real.
Everyone
who is of the truth is able to hear my voice, to hear my witness.
And Jesus puts his life on the
line for the sake of testifying to the truth.
Jesus Christ, the faithful
witness,
as
he is described in the reading from the Book of Revelation for today.
But Pilate, having been put on the spot
and
needing something to pin on Jesus to justify a crucifixion,
isn’t able to hear his witness or recognize the Truth
right in front of him.
What
is truth? Pilate asks.
And that is the main question of the whole Gospel
of John: What is Truth?
What is Truth?
That
is also the question that leads me into my sabbatical.
I’ve been asked to say some
things about this sabbatical happening immanently.
The question of truth and reality is very much at the
heart of
why
I am using this sabbatical in this way.
The answer to this question – What is truth? –
will
not be found in any academic pursuit,
because
truth is not captured in a grand unified theory
or
any intellectual understanding,
but
in knowing, in experiencing, in encountering
what
is REAL in our lives.
It is a matter of consciousness, awareness,
and
the realization that comes out of lived experience.
The recognition of truth is a matter of awareness, not
information.
Jesus said, “You will know the Truth, and the Truth will
set you free,”
and Jesus, pointing to himself in terms of full realized
union with the Father,
could
then say, “I AM the Way, the Truth,
and the Life.”
So, for this sabbatical, instead of going off to study
some course,
work
on another advanced degree
or
get credentialed in some new area of certifiable competency,
I am going to one of the few places on this planet
where
spiritual work is taken seriously and is respected and revered,
and
where there is a spiritual master who will work with me and on me
for
facing that question of what is truth,
someone
who provides a potent and intense environment
for
seeing the truth about oneself,
for
the liberation of awareness and expansion of consciousness.
So, you see, folks, I am not going to India as a
impoverished nation,
impoverished
in the eyes of western capitalist thinking.
No, I am going to an immensely rich cultural environment
that has produced
the
most profound holy scriptures and holy people ever known.
I am not going on a mission, I am going on a sabbatical.
I may or may not be engaged in some form of social action
or ministry
while
I’m there,
but
if so, that will be part of the educational process of the sabbatical.
My study on this sabbatical will be of myself and the
process of awakening,
the
process of coming into greater awareness of the truth
of
my own identity in Christ,
what
my baptism really means,
not
as an academic exercise, but as experienced reality.
I am going to be in the presence of Amma, the hugging
saint of India,
a
realized spiritual master who is someone through whom,
I
truly believe, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Resurrection Jesus,
works
with great effectiveness.
In her presence the agaph unitive
love of God flows abundantly
for
healing grace and empowerment for transcendence.
I go to India to do my own spiritual work,
something
not usually measurable or quantifiable,
but
utterly essential for the kind of work I do here.
I tell you about this, in part, to set an example.
We all have our spiritual work to do,
even
though this culture has a really juvenal idea
about
what that spiritual work is.
Life is set up for doing this spiritual work.
If we don’t learn our lessons when we are young,
then
life will keep giving us repeating events with the same issues,
until we finally face them and get it.
For instance, how long does it take for us to learn
that
aggression intensifies and perpetuates alienation,
that
security does not come from having enough possessions,
that
others are not objects for our use – and abuse –
or
that perfect love casts out fear.
Name your own issues.
Back to the liturgical theme for today, Christ the King
Sunday.
Some might argue that, of
course, Jesus is not at all like an earthly king or dictator.
Instead we are to have Jesus rule in our lives; we are to
obey him as our ruler.
But that’s not good enough,
that
is a deficient view of what discipleship with Jesus is like.
Discipleship is not about ruler-ship.
Discipleship is about liberation of consciousness
The discipleship we are called into is a relationship,
a
relationship with Jesus
in
which we are open in letting Jesus work with us and in us.
He came to forgive us, to help you get rid of your sins, to
wash that away
for
your awareness to rise up to eternal life,
to
know yourself and self being as one with the Father,
that
state of transcendence,
that
glory that Jesus had with the Father before the world began,
for the ultimate dissolution of
all the existential positions and historical hang ups
which
we all have with such great intensity.
Where
does Jesus bear witness to truth? How does that occur?
The witness to the Truth occurs in every person through
the Holy Spirit
who
is the Presence of Resurrection Jesus in us.
The realization of that is there for us.
It is a revelation – not something told us about Jesus,
but
Jesus as transparent as when he said to Thomas,
“If
you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”
The Holy Spirit is the witness
to the Truth, to enable it come into actuality in us,
to
make us transparent also.
And love is the effect, the result, the fruit,
the
outcome of divine self awareness,
to
realize the truth that the self is love –
that
is the main issue of the development of the self .
And as a community of faith,
that is our work together.
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