I recently heard a great quote from an enlightened author
named Paul Smith, “Christianity started in Palestine as an experience, it moved
to Greece and became a philosophy, it moved to Italy and became an institution,
it moved into the rest of Europe and became a culture, it moved to America and
became a business”. While history is never that simple, that statement gets
right at a fact, the institutional church long ago moved away from the
spiritual experience of the first century Jews it reveres and even worships.
And that is a problem—why? So what, why should we care? We should care because those experiences are transformative—and
healing.
The late scholar of Jewish studies Alan Segal wrote the
following in his landmark book, Paul the Convert, “To comprehend Paul’s experience, we must inquire into the secret and
imperfectly understood Jewish mysticism of the first century”. I, as I’m
sure you can tell by now, agree wholeheartedly. Scholarship and a great deal of
common sense tell me so. Marks of the early and often strange Jewish mysticism
are simply all over Paul’s letters. And whenever we read any of those letters
we must always remember this: every bit of Paul’s theology is informed by his
own transformative spiritual experience. Our text today is no different. If we
don’t remember that Paul was radically changed by what we call today a
non-ordinary state of consciousness, we simply cannot understand what is going
on for Paul—or for that matter in early Christianity period. By the way—just a
related side note here. This week, while preparing my final sermon, I had a
chance to reflect on the state of the church in our contemporary culture. These
days we hear a lot about a decline in the number of people attending church but
I don’t believe the current obsession
with numbers in the church is doing it any good—you know—the constant cry of oh
no they’re all leaving—because Christianity is not primarily about numbers and
money. Christianity is about the transformation, not the money, not the good time or entertainment, of
human beings. If people want to be entertained they can go to a movie or an
amusement park—now, if they have a
desire to transform, to renew their minds, as Paul says, they can follow Christ
by taking up a transformative practice. And one thing the institutional
church would do well to remember—Discipleship does not depend on church
attendance, money given, or committees sat on, never has, never will, period.
In spite of all that, I will say this—if the church wants to attract people
they should think about something—the church is losing its influence,
especially among younger people,—that is simply true. In the modern West Institutional
Christianity started to decline at the very same time that the number of people
interested in transformative spiritual practices like meditation and yoga started
to increase. In recent decades many people left the church because they were
fed up with all the moralizing and spiritual starvation. Just ask all the
baby-boomers that became Buddhists. These two trends, the decline of church attendance,
especially among younger age groups, and the increase in the numbers of people
practicing ancient techniques like meditation and yoga, along with many, many
other things, tells me the church needs to open up, look beyond its walls for
some advice—because, when it comes to spiritual growth and development, there’s
something new going on out there—and a lot of it is very good, in fact it might
even remind one of the early church. A fun, and loving communal experience is
great—we all like and need that—but without practices specifically designed to target the deepest levels of the human
psyche, the kind of transformation Paul and Jesus experienced--simply will not
happen—a good and comforting time might
be had—but not rebirth, not the feeling
that Paul is describing in Galatians when he says, I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me”—it
was Paul’s revelation or apocalypse of Christ that told him that the ultimate “I”
or subjectivity is Christ.
So, to go back to the brilliant insight of Alan Segal, how
does looking into the mysticism of Paul’s day help us when we read a text like
Galatians? First, we need to understand the word I just mentioned, Apokalypsis—Paul
uses this all important word at the very beginning of the letter. “For I want
you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is
not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I
taught it, but I received it through a an apokalypsis of Jesus Christ”. First
century Jews used this misunderstood word when discussing their non-ordinary states of consciousness, their
visions, their trances, their journeys to heaven. As we go through this
morning’s text we should keep that in mind.
In verse 23 Paul says that before faith came, we were
imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore
the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified
by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a
disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
Put simply, these words clearly reflect Paul’s own spiritual experience—the
apostle’s own non-ordinary state of consciousness. As I said, ancient Jews
developed and practiced a meditative technique that was designed to induce
visions and trances. It was in such a state that Paul’s life-changing conversion
is likely to have happened. These experiences often bring with them a sense
that one’s ego has been transcended, that one is no longer estranged from God
or the ultimate reality—and this heals the fundamental human wound. It is,
needless to say, a powerful and moving experience. Think again of Paul’s words,
by likening the law to a disciplinarian, he is saying that it is like a slave
charged with keeping his master’s son out of trouble—so one is being dealt with
by a mediator—not directly by one’s Father. Under the thumb of legalistic
religions we are like a child estranged from his or her parent. That was the
situation under the law—estrangement—the works of the law could not bring
justification, could not reunite divine parent and child. It took Paul’s
non-ordinary state of consciousness to justify him, to reconcile him to God. There
is of course in Paul’s metaphor a developmental implication. Before his
conversion experience Paul was like a child that needed a disciplinarian—now he
has outgrown that stage. Literally hundreds of studies have shown the
developmental benefits of non-ordinary states—simply put they have been shown
to accelerate one’s growth through moral stages of development—the bottom line
is these ancient practices and experiences work—and the modern west is
increasingly acknowledging this, in fact many therapists and psychiatrists are
now prescribing meditation. Paul’s experience changed him and led him into a new relationship with the law—and his old religion—aren’t we, like Paul,
called to have a new perspective on our old religion?—there’s the dangerous
part—the powers that be in your old religion, no matter what it is, may not
like the change a transformative experience brings about in you—Paul was, and
in fact remains, a very dangerous man. Institutional religion always views
mystics with suspicion—for once you have direct experience with the divine you
don’t need the meditators, so mystical experience is often feared and
mistrusted by those who represent the institution. Remember, Paul and Jesus
both got themselves in hot water with the good religious people of their day. After such a direct experience one simply
finds the mediator unnecessary because, as Paul says in verse 26, one is
reunited with God as a child of God. This reflects Paul’s mystical or spiritual
experience and his radically different view of the law afterward. During such
an experience Paul and other ancient Jews believed they were being transformed
from regular human beings into children of God that were similar to angels—in
other words they became like heavenly beings with knowledge of the heavenly
places. Contemporary people who experience these states often report feeling
like they have been reunited with God, nature and the deepest regions of their
own psyches—in short they feel radically changed by these experiences. In verse
27 Paul says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ”. According to a standard Jewish myth operative in
Paul’s day, the first human being, Adam, was said to have been the radiant image
of God, and he and Eve were thought to have worn garments of light that were
then lost as a consequence of the Fall. In Genesis 3:21 we hear that after
their sin, God made garments of skins, for the man and for his wife, and
clothed them. Some Jews in the first century, Paul included, believed that this
lost radiant image could, to some degree, be restored prior to death. This myth
is behind verse 27, a statement about Baptism and being clothed with Christ—being
clothed with Christ meant healing the deep wound of the Fall. Paul’s own conversion
had, for him, begun to reverse what had happened as a consequence of original sin;
in short it had saved him—and was saving him. Several studies show that non-ordinary
states of consciousness often heal our deepest psychic wounds—and healing means
salvation.
“There is no longer
Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and
female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. I recently heard a sad
statement—Sunday morning is still the most segregated time in America. A major
characteristic of the spiritual experiences I have been speaking of is the
sense that the old or separate self has been overcome—that one is connected—and
somehow identified with All things, All people, that superficial differences
are not ultimate—are not to be feared—The rabid political correctness of our
day is not born out of those differences being overcome or relativized—it is
often born out of those differences being feared and suppressed. Modern Christians would be well served if they
were encouraged to have experiences in which they feel, not intellectually know or agree with, that we are all one,
that we are all part of this incredible God that shares us. Now that would
save---save us all from feeling we are estranged, that we are unloved, or disconnected.
We all read about, see, and feel the terrible consequences of this
fragmentation everyday—people who overcome that feeling or heal that wound are
transformed, they are truly justified. Real justice depends on real
justification, not political thinkers and their schemes—Jesus and Paul are
still trying to tell us that—real justice comes about through experience—an ultimate
WE experience in which one feels reunited with God and neighbor— the kind of
ultimate “WE” experience Jesus and Paul had. The ultimate “WE” is the
church—the mystical body of Christ. There is no building or religion big
enough to contain it—in order to be it
we must go beyond all walls—the walls of our buildings, and most especially the
walls of our old selves. The ultimate “WE” is not a philosophy, it is not
an institution, it is not a culture,
it doesn’t depend on what you wear, or what you believe, nobody owns it. The
ultimate “WE” is a feeling, it is an
experience. It saves us—it justifies
us—it loves us. Amen.
