Thoughts on Richard Rohr’s “The Universal Christ”:
“in Christianity, we have made the mistake of limiting the Creator’s presence to just one human manifestation, Jesus. The implications of our very selective seeing have been massively destructive for history and humanity. Creation was deemed profane, a pretty accident, a mere backdrop for the real drama of God’s concern—which is always and only us. (Or, even more troublesome, him!) It is impossible to make individuals feel sacred inside of a profane, empty, or accidental universe. This way of seeing makes us feel separate and competitive, striving to be superior instead of deeply connected, seeking ever-larger circles of union. But God loves things by becoming them. God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them” (Rohr, chapter 1).
“God loves things by uniting with them, not by excluding them” (16).
What does God want to do in this world through me? Through this temporary form? I feel there is some purpose, but I am floundering. If this world and all its visible forms are only temporary, what is the greater invisible purpose? Is it useless then to strive for fulfillment in this lifetime? No. That is a pessimistic view, an apathetic view. This finite world, this finite existence with all its temporary forms still reflects the formless, invisible, infinite universe of deep spirit. Paul had glimpses of this deeper reality at times. Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Or Hebrews 8:5, when talking about the tabernacle, the writer points out that it is based on template from the invisible (spirit) universe—“They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.’” And Hebrews 9:23-24, “So it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made copy of the true sanctuary, but He entered heaven itself, now to appear on our behalf in the presence of God.”
II Corinthians 4:18 reminds us that this world is temporary, only a shadow or a poor copy of the spirit world—“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (NIV). Jesus the Christ continually reminded people that he was not of this world, his kingdom was not of this world. This world is only a temporary copy of the real thing, the eternal world which is held together in the very being of the Christ. Jesus was just the Christ’s temporal, earthly form in a specific moment in time. But the Christ is eternal. He is the LORD, that is translated as Yahweh, the I am that I am, the nameless, formless, eternally existing outside of time God, divine spirit, divine presence, the light of the world, life itself in whom ALL things exist and from whom nothing can ever be truly, completely separated. See Romans 8:38 again. For I am convinced that NOTHING in the entire universe can separate us from the love of God that is in The Christ. Why? Because the Christ is in all and through all. Nothing can exist outside of the Christ. The entire universe is held together in his being.
I am convinced that the separation from God arises in the mind, in the ego-self, in our mind made constructs, our identities or those things to which we uselessly cling to define ourselves. Adam and Eve is a myth with keen insight into this differentiation from Spirit God. When they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they suddenly had an awareness of self as separate from God. Before that, they were one with God. It is precisely this egoic self that continues to divide us. Jesus understood this. In his great temptation, we see that each encounter or temptation was a temptation to define self, defend his sense of self, to embrace the ego. “If you really are the Christ...” is a total attack on his identity self. Yet, in his first sermon, Jesus taught that the egoless (the meek) will inherit the earth. Can we die to self as he taught over and over again? Can we give up defending a preconceived idea of who we think we are or should be or who we think others are? Can we give up judging? That is the egoless self of Christ. Years before he went to the cross, he had already “died to self” or chosen the egoless life. And that is the very path he has shown us.
So, though this world is temporary, what I do, or rather, how I do is important, too. Again, I keep getting caught up in the “what” rather than the “how”... what’s that saying? “How you get there is where you arrive”. Let that one sink in.
How you get there is where you arrive.
When I make it my goal to be a better person, I’ve already turned that good quality into an object. “Goodness” becomes the object. But true spirituality is not about the goal or object, it is about the subject. We only get to the “subject” state by being. Jesus got this. James said, “Don’t just be hearers of the word, but doers” (James 1:22). Even this view is problematic, in that it only gets to half of the truth. Jesus’ most critical teachings in Matthew 5-7 get to this point. Just doing is not the answer either, especially if your doing is to gain applause or build your ego in some way. Even the Pharisees did all the right things, right? So making it my goal to be seen as good by doing all the right things is not the answer. The “how I am in the universe” is more useful than who I am (trying to define infinite self with finite labels) or what I do (object). The “what I do” becomes an object when I make it my goal, rather than letting my doing be a byproduct of my joyous being now.
Everything that Jesus the Christ pointed to was about being, now. Being. Now. Being goes beyond thought. Being exists without labels. In our very frail, human state, we seem to constantly try to label everyone and everything, “good, bad, pretty, ugly, nice, mean, awful, wonderful, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, male, female, old, young, tree, rock, dog, cat, evil, saint, us, them....”. Judging. Constantly labeling in our minds. This is what the Tao Te Ching meant when it says, “All in the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful. Herein lies the ugliness. All recognize the good as good. Herein lies evil” (TTC 2). Labeling is judging. As though a word could describe all the wonder and glory that is wrapped up in each intricately formed being or object in this universe which is also intricately connected to the whole and is a part of God. Yes, even that hateful, despicable guy that Jesus told you to love, even if he mistreats you, he is connected the wholeness that is God. He may not know it. And that not knowing is his own disconnect, the very thing that drives him to be the way he is- fearful, hateful, angry, bitter.
Ahhhh, so this brings me back to my question earlier. What is my purpose in this temporary, fleeting world? My purpose is to find the universal Christ in everyone and every thing. Only then can I let go of judgment, of my own ego, and embrace being now. Only when I see the “weight of glory” (C.S. Lewis) can I love my enemies or my neighbors as myself. When I love and stop judging everyone and everything, I finally begin to understand Rohr’s point above that God does not exclude, but unites himself to what he loves. True religion never excludes but becomes ever more inclusive. Religion is pure when it connects us to the whole, not when it divides us into us and them, believers v nonbelievers, good v evil, Christians v Muslims, republicans v Democrats, Protestant v catholic, straight v homosexual. Jesus made it clear that Heaven is here now (Matthew 3:2, 4:17, 6:25-34, and 10:7) and that thinking that heaven is in the distant future or that it is a continuation of this time bound world with its labels and hierarchies completely misses the point about everything he stood for (see Matthew 22:30 and Galatians 3:28).
As Rohr points out in the quote above, the early church got this. They understood in a deep knowing, beyond words kind of way, that getting everyone to believe in Jesus the human as the son of God was not the point. Trying to convince everyone to believe in Jesus was never the point. They understood that as long as we continue to cling to our egoic identities, we separate ourselves from Christ who has always been and is in all and through all and without whom nothing in the universe exists. Jesus Christ did not come to start a new religious sect. He came to show that he is the Christ and that we are a part of him. He came to show us how to see the Christ in every particle of the visible universe. He came to show that we are already the light of the world, that we are already connected to God the invisible, immortal one, that we have never been disconnected except in our minds. He came to show that we have always been in him, that he loves us and is united to us. We just have to wake up from this dream reality which only lasts temporarily.
