August 16, 2009

Clay Nelson

Pentecost 11
     1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14     John 6:51-58


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When I was sixteen I read King Lear for the first time. In it there is a scene, which has haunted me all my life.

In this most tragic of all tragedies, we first see King Lear as an old father, a king – almost a god – with awesome authority, absolute power. We see him terribly demanding. Which of his daughters loves him most, he demands to know. His two older daughters profess to love him “dearer than eyesight.” His youngest daughter – and his favorite – Cordelia, “cannot heave her heart into her mouth.” She can say nothing. In awful anger Lear thunders “Nothing can come of nothing.” He curses her and disowns her. “Better thou hadst not been born than not t’ have pleas’d me better.”

You may remember that the two older sisters act horribly toward their father, and actually throw him out in a terrible storm. The scene I remember features Lear, now “a poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man,” raging “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” To which Lear’s Fool admonishes him, “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise,”

At sixteen my goal was to avoid Lear’s fate. Sadly, at sixty it appears I have missed my deadline. But if Lear can eventually get it, perhaps so can I.

When I read the story of Solomon’s rise to power and his prayer for wisdom I roll my eyes. How can a man who allowed his mother to manipulate him into killing off his half-brother, his father’s priests and advisors to solidify his power be considered wise? It is baffling that this same person who after praying for wisdom would drain his kingdom’s resources and oppress his people to build a Temple even God did not want. That this despotic ruler is promoted as the embodiment of wisdom, makes me wonder what the hell wisdom is anyway and how do we know our prayer for it is answered?

I’ll give those questions a go this morning, but given I am still seeking illusive wisdom, when I finish I suspect none of us will be the wiser. I really do need to order from Amazon a copy of Wisdom for Dummies.

Lacking that I turned to Google. I asked it what the hell is wisdom anyway?    It told me, “Wisdom is an ideal that has been celebrated since antiquity as the application of knowledge needed to live a good life. Beyond simply knowing or understanding what options are available, "Wisdom" provides the ability to differentiate between them and choose the one that is best.” I said fine, but how do we become wise?

It told me that, “depends on the various wisdom schools and traditions claiming to help foster it.” Oh, thanks a lot. That’s helpful. But what do we need to achieve it?   Google answered, “Various combinations of the following: knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion, and intuitive understanding, along with a capacity to apply these qualities well towards finding solutions to problems.”

Since that was not as helpful as I might have hoped, it occurred to me that maybe I was asking the wrong question. If the wisdom of Solomon was bankrupt maybe I should ask about the “wisdom of Jesus.” The Google oracle only gave me 600,000 hits – apparently “wisdom” is not often ascribed to Jesus. But the first item listed was a book entitled The Wisdom Jesus. It had a familiar ring to it. Where have I heard that before? I looked to the left of my computer and on the top of a pile of things to do or read was the very same book by Cynthia Bourgeault. Could it be a sign? Wisely I thought maybe I should at least skim it. I tried, but it was so engrossing, I couldn’t put it down. There is too much wisdom in it to be shared in one sermon. Even Cynthia could not articulate it all in the one talk she gave here not so long ago. Let me just say it offers a key to unlocking the wisdom of the centuries. If only kings Lear and Solomon had read it as young men. If only I had.

Her premise in the book is that Jesus was a wisdom teacher. With our 20/20 hindsight we have trouble seeing this. Not just because he did not live his life very wisely by our standards. He didn’t keep good company. He was something of a party animal. He was shiftless and unemployed, moving from town to town. He was extravagant and a chartered accountant’s worst nightmare telling his followers not to store up treasures for tomorrow. He defied authority and recklessly crossed boundaries. Eventually he even gambled his life, choosing not to cling to it but rather to squander it. As a result we fail to see his wisdom, but rather his love and compassion. We see him primarily as our saviour. He did it all and we need do nothing but receive his gift.

Bourgeault points out that our understanding of him has been shaped by only one of four streams of Christianity. Roman law, order and hierarchy shaped our theology, but there are three other streams that see Jesus not as our saviour but as our teacher. They are all Eastern in flavour and they all focus on the wisdom of Jesus. Aramaic doesn’t even have a word for salvation. For them Jesus was a master of consciousness seeking to raise our consciousness.

Cynthia explains this in a way that even this geek priest can understand it. She argues that every human being is born with a level of consciousness. She equates it to a computer’s operating system. It is probably not Microsoft’s. It works. It was not installed broken. However, it operates like all computers. It is dualistic in nature.

Have you ever wondered what a byte is? It is either a 1 or a 0. Those are the only two choices. A program has millions of such bytes. It is that dualism that is similar to our human operating system. We were born to see the world dualistically. It is either a 1 or a 0. We operate by either/or. It is up or down, black or white, before or after, good or bad, right or wrong; cold or hot.

This operating system’s purpose is to make sense of what we see. It is how we know a chair from a table and cat from a dog. Very early on it helps us to determine our identity. I am not you; I am I. Each of us using this operating system knows how we are distinct and different from others. For example Denise and I are both Anglican priests, but you can tell us apart because her dog is brown and mine is white. We identify ourselves to make us unique and special, but this operating system also separates us from one another. It makes us the centre of our known universe. My reference point is fixed within me. I understand the world from that experience. This operating system seems to function well when the world makes sense to our experience, but what happens to our sense of self when it doesn’t?

When we see white light refracted through a prism for the first time we discover contrary to what we see white is not white but the spectrum of the rainbow. It can be disconcerting to discover that what we know to be reality is a mirage.

That our perceived reality is an illusion created by our operating system is a teaching found in all the great wisdom traditions. The reality the mirage blinds us to is that there is no self. There is no inside and outside. Nothing is separated from everything else. That we think otherwise is an illusion created by our operating system’s tearing everything to bits and pieces so we can perceive it. 

Jesus calls us, like all wisdom teachers, to upgrade our operating system. He calls us to repent. Today he might say upgrade and reboot. He is challenging us to a higher level of consciousness. The upgrade is to a non-dual or unitive system. The good news is we don’t even have to purchase or download it. It lies latent within us waiting to be booted up. 

This upgrade does not operate by differentiation. It doesn’t divide by inside and outside or subject and object. It harmonizes instead. It hears chords instead of single notes. It sees the world in its relatedness not its differences. It doesn’t conclude, “I think therefore I am,” it begins with I am therefore I think, feel, intuit, reflect, and connect. I am one with the cosmos. There is no separation between me and God; between me and my neighbour; between me and the planet.

This raised consciousness is the beginning of wisdom. Jesus devoted and gave his life to this cause because from his level of consciousness he knew we would never know an abundant life without living it generously and the joy of love without squandering it wastefully. He needles and wheedles his disciples and us with his actions, sayings, and parables.

I am convinced his intention was to invite us to wonder and question--to come and see a new way of being. Perhaps by confounding our present operating system he thought he could cause it to freeze up and make us reboot into a new reality. A new reality where the wisdom of Solomon grasping for personal power is forsaken for the wisdom of Jesus. A wisdom where clinging to the false reality that we are the centre of the universe deprives us from knowing we are the essence of the God with whom we are one.

That is chapter one of Wisdom for Dummies…so much to let go of; so little time.

Endnote:

I am indebted to the ideas and teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault presented in her book The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind — a New Perspective on Christ and His Message. Shambhala, Boston: 2008