-->

Jim Weller

Pacific School of Religion 

Berkeley, California

29 October 2008

Idou! Pay attention!

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of

the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is

at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

In the Gospel According to Mark, Chapter 1, Verses 14 and 15, this is what Jesus did and said first in his Galilean mission, on his way to Jerusalem, and the cross. The Evangelist, in Mark, wastes no words. He must have considered this proclamation to be of primary significance. I understand this as the concise expression of the gospel, the Good News of God.

In other words, “God is Present, In You! Here and Now, and Forever, in the

Eternal Now. The time is ripe for you to realize your holy identity as an earthly incarnation of the Supreme Being, a beloved child of God, a living manifestation of the power of the ultimate reality that is God Eternal.”

Re-pent! Meaning, “Think again.” “Turn your head around.” “Transform your mind.”

Metanoia is the Greek word used by the author. It signifies a spiritual conversion, a turning around, to face the Reality and the Presence of God – in the mirror, as it were!

Christ has no body now but yours;

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which He looks

compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Teresa of Avila put it that way. In Mark, the Evangelist wrote, “Believe in the good news of God!”

How did Jesus arrive at this exalted state of being, to begin his holy mission of salvation, which we emulate? Here is a literal translation of the Greek text. It is as brief as a recitation of poetry:

And it was in those days, came Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee,

and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

And immediately going up from the water, he saw being torn the heavens, and the Spirit as a dove coming down upon Him. And a voice there was out of the heavens:

You are the Son of Me the Beloved, in whom I take delight.

And instantly the Spirit Him thrusts into the desert.

And he was there in the desert days forty being tempted by Satan,

and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

Throughout the four gospels, accounts of Jesus’ teaching by parables are retold in various settings. And I regard as well the gospel authors’ accounts of various vignettes of the life and ministries of Jesus as parables, composed for our learning, in which the figure of Jesus himself, in relation with God, is symbolic of the possibilities for our relationships with God.

If you were Jesus in the Jordan (and I do believe the Evangelist means for his hearers to identify with Jesus as the protagonist in his gospel) how would you respond? Like, “Wow! Who, me? Oh, my God!”

At the moment of his baptism, it seems to me, Jesus suddenly realized who he was. And he understood immediately the Name of God, given to Moses by the bush that burned and yet was not consumed: Yod-Hay-Vav-Hay (YHWH) pronounced Eyeh-Asher-Eyeh; “I am that I am!”

Jesus must have fallen on his knees in the river. “Oh, my God!” – I imagine the revelation washing over him, transforming him, converting him; “I am God!”

It was just as it is written in the Upanishads, the holy book of Vedanta, in that ancient

Sanskrit wisdom utterance known as the Maha Vakya, the “Great Saying”: Tat Tvam Asi, “That Thou Art!” In this saying, “That” refers to Brahman, the Ultimate Reality; “Thou” refers to Atman, your innermost Self; thus, Atman is Brahman – “You are God!”

And thus, Jesus became Christ, the Anointed One, the incarnate Son of God the Creator – the living manifestation of Being Itself, in intimate relationship with the One Being Eternal and Infinite, by and through the Holy Spirit, that constant communion between Creator and Created, the carrier of prayer and transcendence.

I believe that we human persons, you and I, are living realities profoundly connected with one another in God, the Ultimate Reality – just as mountain peaks are connected in the

continents upon which they rise, and the continents are connected in the planetary sphere, of which they are topological features. We personal beings are topological features, as it were, of Being Itself. That is why it is true to proclaim, “Thou Art God!” And God is that eternal reality upon which our temporal reality is utterly dependent.

We are, all of us, living embodiments, incarnations, manifestations of God Eternal. Just so, each of us is a beloved child of God, made in the very image of God – but too many of us refuse to believe this, the Good News of God. The time is fulfilled. The time of self-realization has come! The words of the Christ now reach our ears. Let those with ears to hear, listen!

The kingdom of heaven, God’s realm, is present here and now – in the eternal now,

where we all are living. No one lives in the future; the future is not a reality. The past is but a memory. Reality is here and now; eternal life is lived in the eternal now, in Christ consciousness, fully human, fully God – this is the self-realization of Jesus Christ at baptism. The gospel, God’s good news, as Jesus proclaimed, is that eternal life is ours – now!

Protestant orthodoxy assures us that the gospel is good news of God’s love and merciful forgiveness. Our appropriate response is faith – trust in God’s promise of salvation and eternal life, called forth by the Holy Spirit – and by grace, received through faith, we are reconciled to God, redeeming us from the state of sin.

Some Christian theologians teach that what is meant by “sin” is a state of spiritual estrangement from God. It is a state of imprisonment of the alienated self, isolated in its finitude, born with a death sentence into a brief life of bondage to suffering, travail, and ultimate demise. 

As the poet A. E. Housman wrote,

And how am I to face the odds / Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?

I, a stranger and afraid / In a world I never made.

The truth, for me, is that in all our existential anxiety, despair and doubt, we are deluded.

The Holy and Eternal One Whose Essence is Existence Itself and Whose Self-Realization Is All-Encompassing Love brings us into being to praise and glorify the holy self we recognize in one another, and to answer the love that gives us being with a love for one another, for all beings, and for being itself!

Now, knowing the truth of this gospel, what will I do with the rest of my one holy and

beloved life? This one, the one I’m living here and now. What, then?

Jim Weller's remarks on receiving the 2018 Amos Award for prophetic advocacy and community organizing for social justice, at Peace United Church of Christ, Santa Cruz, California on January 28, 2018.

To the church and gathered friends:

Seventeen years ago, when I left my corporate job behind to become a seminary student, and a minister, I had no idea I would one day become a prophet - and be likened to Amos.

You know, before he got around to saying, "let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!" old Amos had just been raging and ranting to Israel's royalty and priesthood, "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me!"

That's not my style, really. Although I do make uncomplimentary remarks on Facebook about certain regrettable public figures.

Probably it would sound cheesy to say it anywhere else but in church - but I'm really just a messenger. A humble person carrying the gospel message - the good news of God. Accompanied by a great cloud of witnesses.

As I understand it, this is the message of Jesus: God is real, and present, and you are acceptable as a vessel for God's grace. As you are. With all your character flaws, and mine. Whatever you've done, wherever you've been, whatever anyone may think or say, you are beloved of God.

The message Mark says Jesus uttered was this, "The power of God is at hand; change your hearts and believe in the good news!"

Here is the message as I know it intuitively, by heart: We are all children of God. God is ultimate reality, all that ever was, is now, and ever shall be; every being, every world, every universe.
We are made of God, and God is love. We are physical and spiritual manifestations of God, here and now. All of us. But we mostly don't know it. And we can't prove it to anyone who doesn't already know it. All we can do is just let it show and believe.

The power of God - the "kingdom" or imperial rule of God, as Jesus put it - is here with us now, among us and within us. At hand. God is the source of life, Caesar is not. The powers and principalities are not.

This means there is a higher power, a higher authority, a higher meaning by which to govern our lives than the ruling class of the moment - the plutocrats, the oligarchs, the bureaucracies, the corporate-ocracies, the pundit-ocracies, the merit-ocracies, the military-ocracies, the media-ocracies.

Our lives mean much more than that. Each one of us is a face of God, but not alone, all of us together. Our choices affect multitudes of lives, and generations to come. Therefore, it behooves us to choose carefully how we live. And to act meaningfully for the greater good while we live.

All indications to the contrary notwithstanding, we do indeed have at hand the power to save us and the world; to choose blessings instead of curses, to choose life instead of death, so that we and our children may live.

We have a choice, now and always. In everything we do or think or say, we have a choice. Meaning or absurdity. God or Mammon. Blessings or curses.

As Micah, another one of those wild-eyed prophets said, "What does the LORD require of you? This is all it is: be kind, be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with God."

Another way to put it is the way the earliest Christians did: Love God who made you, and your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to others what you don't want done to you.

Now, I can't go around outside the sanctuary of the church talking about God and religious meaning like this without making people cross the street to avoid me. In mixed company, other manners of dialogue are required.

Since I am called by the spirit of God to community ministry out there in the weird world, I have to speak in words of the world and get in the mess with the ways of the world, and hope my actions preach the gospel without God-talk.

So that's what I do. I advocate and try to organize people for the greater good. I guess you could call it disciple-ing. I hope others will go and do likewise.

Maybe I am sort of a prophet. But I'm not sure I want that label on me, except maybe here in the safety of the beloved community.

You know what they always do to prophets.