"Paradise Revisited"
A Sermon by Rev. Judy Tomlinson
January 11, 2009
Paradise? Who are you kidding? "All is for the best in the
best of all possible worlds," Dr. Pangloss? I don't think so.
I gave up the idea of Paradise a long time ago. Just look around.
Poverty, not only here but all around the world. War and all its
destructiveness: to those who fight, to their families, to innocent
bystanders, harm to homes and hospitals and the environment both
in war's preparation and its execution. The psychic damage of threat
and fear. Government emasculation of civil rights. The scapegoating
of others for our problems. Followed by the twisted idea that if
we could just get rid of "those people" our problems would
be solved.
Then of course there is disease and persecution and on and on.
This litany may sound familiar, and of course it is, but it also
ancient. It is a world that the early Christians would recognize.
"Nothing new under the sun" as the writer of Proverbs
would say.
And yet, did you know that for almost 1000 years after the death
of Jesus the Church emphasized the immediate experience of Paradise
and not the crucifixion and death of Jesus?
In October I attended the Liberal Religious Educators Association
Fall Conference. Our theme speaker was the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker,
President of Starr King School for the Ministry, one of our Unitarian
Universalist seminaries. She and her writing partner, Rita Nakashima
Brock, have just published a large tome titled "Saving Paradise:
How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Cruci-fixion and
Empire." Parker began this book when she learned that the crucified
Christ was not a major theme in Christian art until 960 AD, almost
1000 years after the death of Jesus.
This fact stunned Parker. Given the centrality of the dead body
of Jesus on the cross today, it was hard for her to accept that
it hadn't been that way from the beginning.
And so, she and Brock went on an amazing, five-year-long global
pilgrimage to explore early Christian art and writings beyond the
Christian scriptures to find out if this was true and what it all
meant.
As I listened to her speak, I felt washed with calm and peace.
As I saw the reproductions of the images and read pieces of the
text they found, I was moved in an unexpected way. For these were
Biblical images and stories of rescue, not sacri-fice.
Today the majority of Christianity preaches that believers are
saved through Jesus Christ's death on the cross. It communicates
that self-sacrifice is the highest form of love. Parker's contention
is that if we are taught and incorporate that teaching
into our beings (and who hasn't?), we open ourselves up to harm.
Traditionally women follow this model in the home with their husbands
and children, and also now at work. If taken to the extreme, as
is too often the case, it can become domestic violence. Men are
often called to make the ultimate sacrifice through duty to their
country in the military.
Parker and Brock believe that there is a direct connection between
the emphasis on Christ's sacrifice and the violence in today's Western
cultures. And they believe that if the emphasis had remained on
what Jesus said, a more peaceful, loving culture might have been
the result.
You are probably wondering what happened to change the thousand
years of Paradise-focused Christian history, art and doctrine to
the focus on a crucified, martyred Jesus. Brock and Parker argue
that it started soon after Charlemagne subverted the rich mixture
of pagan and Christian religion of the Saxons by converting them
to Christianity at the point of the sword. That was followed almost
300 years later by Pope Urban II, who organized the Crusades and
brought violence into the heart of the church.
If we wonder about how the Muslim suicide bombers can possibly
believe that the horror they inflict can get them a direct pass
to heaven listen to this. "Urban declared that war was not
only just, it was holy . . .Crusaders who killed Jews and Muslims
earned forgiveness for all their sins and were assured of a place
in paradise after death, not after baptism" as was the promise
in the millennium which preceded him. Parker says that this is the
time when we see the paradigm shift from images of abundance, rescue
and gratitude to sacrificial martyrdom.
I think it's powerful to realize that the doctrine of redemptive
violence and self-sacrificing love was bravely challenged many years
ago by the Universalists. They famously said that God was a loving
parent and not a cruel tyrant. And, like the early Christians, they
focused on the life and ministry of Jesus rather than his death
and crucifixion.
You can see some of the remnants of the early church's evocation
of Paradise as you enter a Catholic sanctuary. There is an emphasis
on water. Most other churches also have flowers on display. These
hints of beauty are intended to trigger a sense of entering and
being surrounded by the sacred, by Paradise.
We are not naive, nor were the early Christians, about the struggles
of the world. They lived with many fewer options than we now have.
They lived as a small minority amid a formidable empire that was
not averse to using its power and terrorizing its people. The crucified
were on display along the roadside as a warning to any who might
question the power and authority of Rome. It was a shameful way
to die and a sign of defeat.
And so, the early churches did not display a dead Jesus, they presented
a living one. A risen one, as a sign of victory over all that could
befall them. Pastoral scenes with rivers flowing from the mountain
top-the mountain of Paradise from which all life flows, and the
four rivers named in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. In the images
were sheep, deer, peacock, swans, angels, flowers, trees and birds.
Images of Moses and the burning bush, Moses removing his shoes because
he was on holy ground.
Do we not walk on holy ground? Is not all ground, all the earth
holy?
It took 4 billion years of creation, evolution, good luck and dumb
chance for each individual one us to be who we are and another astronomical
set of odds for all of us to be sitting in this room with each other
today.
Look inside yourself and count yourself a miracle. And now into
the eyes of your neighbor and see a blessing there. Amazing. Awesome.
Is not every life an amazing and awesome miracle? Remove your shoes.
You are in the presence of something wholly miraculous.
A couple of weeks ago I went to see the movie "Slumdog Millionaire."
Have you seen it? I won't give the plot away but, at the beginning
of the movie some very young children are living in extremely crowded,
filthy, poverty conditions. Part of a Muslim minority, the people
of the slum are preyed upon by larger, stronger forces. And yet
the children fin opportunities to happily play games, have heroes,
and make their way, even in the midst of grief and want.
Last Saturday, I went to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia
where they were showing a movie called "Mystic India"
in the Imax Theater. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the extreme
conditions the Indian people experience; they've developed a culture
where the sacred infuses daily life, where religious ritual is central
to their existence.
It has long been the place spiritual people in the West yearn to
go to find wisdom and practice yoga and meditation.
Can it be that, even in the harshest conditions, it takes just
a slight shift of consciousness for us to find all that we seek?
Can it be that Paradise is not far away? That it is right here and
with us now? Can it be that it is within our power to re-claim Paradise?
In the early Church, they knew they lived in threatening times
and so the route to membership was an arduous one. To be baptized
took great preparation. To enroll in the path that led to baptism
you had to apply. You had to have several letters of reference,
there was a background check and an interview with the Bishop was
required. You could not be a gladiator, a member of the military
or a stage performer. If you were, you had to change your way of
life.
There was a two-year process of study and mental and physical training.
It was akin to athletic training to contest evil in oneself as well
as in the world.
A little more challenging than taking NewUU and signing the membership
book.
Where is Paradise? The location is somewhat vague and elusive.
When I Goggled "Paradise images", the vast majority were
pictures of tropical islands and beaches with an occasional mountaintop
and pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Descriptions
in the Hebrew Scriptures are of green pastures and still waters.
In Psalm 48 a holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy
of all the earth. The scriptures describe Paradise as a place of
beauty, creativity, justice and healing. This is not a description
of some other-worldly place that we cannot recognize, but of what
this place, here and now, could be.
Do we have the power to create and inhabit such a place? I just
attended a weeklong workshop run by the Industrial Areas Foundation
organizer Michael Gecan. Charlie Ortman, our Parish Minister, Nick
Lewis our Board President and, congregation member and seminary
student Barnaby Feder were there as well. Gecan talked about IAF,
and our New Jersey Together at Montclair Chapter, as power organizations.
He means that organized people and organized money have the ability
to get things done. We can effect change. We can find creative ways
to operate in the world as it is, the real world, and take effective
steps to transform it into the world, as it should be, into a worldly
paradise.
As part of the workshop we did some contextual learning. We went
to East Brooklyn, a place that not too long ago was described as
"the beginning of the end of the world". About 30 years
ago IAF came in and helped local congregations organize to get the
City to bulldoze the burnt out and abandoned houses. Seeing the
resulting empty lots, they realized that this was an opportunity
to begin to build quality affordable housing. And they did just
that.
The IAF has built about a billion dollars - that's right, a billion
dollars - worth of affordable housing. They're now getting new schools
built. And they don't just build houses; they organize and train
local citizens to take creative action on their own behalf.
We visited the site of a whole new development of affordable housing
that will be owned and occupied by families with incomes ranging
from $36,000 dollars to $99,000 a year. These houses will be bought
with regular, not sub-prime, mortgages. The families will own these
homes. This development will have three parks and a daycare center.
While the governmental was involved in funding and building the
infrastructure of utilities, roads and the like, this will not be
public housing but individual homeowners. The American dream.
Is this Paradise as we know it? Maybe not, but I'll bet it is paradise
for them and it certainly has transformed this area of the City.
That kind of power is life giving to the people who had previously
been invisible, ignored, and unrecognized. Instead of being treated
in a way that saps one's self esteem, you could see the spirit of
life in the eyes and hear it in the voices of the everyday citizen
community leaders who spoke with us. In no small part, I'm sure,
because of their successes in transforming an important aspect of
their community. To me, this sounds a lot like the words we use
in every worship service: transforming our hearts, our homes, our
community and our world.
In the religious world we talk about speaking truth to power, about
holding the powerful forces of government and business accountable
to lifegiving values. But these people were speaking as power to
power, they had not only the power of principle which is many times
ignored, they had the power of organized people, and while it can
be intimidating to stand up and act in the face of corporate and
governmental power, these ordinary citizens had the courage to do
so.
Earthly paradise is not struggle-free. There are problems and challenges.
But in overcoming them we build strength and confidence. It is like
exercising a muscle. In our need, we pull together and that is paradise-the
pulling together. It takes us from loneliness, isolation and depression
and gives us purpose and meaning and so heals our injuries - and
our cynicism.
We are prey to imagining that ideal past in the Garden and then
projecting some perfect golden city on a hill into the future. But
that keeps us from living in the messy and complex here and now.
It keeps us feeling defeated, inadequate and burnt out.
As Rebecca Parker puts it, "the heart is broken all the time
when Paradise is always in the future-always a receding horizon."
We need to drink deeply of the wholeness and beauty of the world.
To give ourselves the power to see the world as good and the Spirit
of Life with us, here and now.
On a smaller scale than the IAF but in our own way, did we not
create a moment of Paradise in the lives of the Newton St. School
children through our Mantel of Giving? When we do this, we claim
this world, this life, this existence as Paradise. Once again Parker
writes, "We have neither to retrieve it nor construct it. We
have to perceive it and to bring our lives and our cultures into
accord with it."
This takes discipline, the kind of discipline the early Christians
practiced, the discipline current day yogis practice, the kind of
discipline that we can find if we have the longing in our heart
to give it our all. To start it takes commitment and patience. We
can sometimes balk at finding 10 minutes to meditate during the
day. So, perhaps it takes honoring ourselves as a manifestation
of Paradise and thus caring for ourselves in body, mind and spirit.
Maybe it takes each of us de-fining our mission in life and being
disciplined enough to say 'yes' to the things that will further
that mission and 'no' to the many seductive things that distract
us from it. For those of us who haven't made a New Year's resolution
yet, could it be as simple as saying," I will treat myself
and others as an embodiment of Paradise this day."
We need to see the self-sacrificial attitude as the deception that
it is. We need to let the healing waters of the Paradise we live
in wash away those cultural expectations that inhabit our psyches.
There is love, generosity, appreciation and caring before us right
here, this very day. Perceive it. Claim it.
In the words of Rebecca Parker, "May the doors of Paradise
be open to you. The power to do deeds that are divine."
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