March 4, 2007

Glynn Cardy

Lent 2     Luke 9:28-43

Occasionally I am quizzed about whether I believe in the divinity of Jesus. It's one of the tests of orthodoxy and some are keen to prove that I am outside its bounds.

There is a great history associated with this debate, not least the theological turf war between Athanasius and Arius in the 4th century. Athanasius, that fiery bishop of Alexandria, was of the view that Jesus had eternally existed and was both God and human. A lowly Palestinian carpenter, Jesus, was not only elevated into the heart of the mystery and magnificence of God, but also had always been there. God was not upper class, or class-less, but of the peasantry. This was highly contentious and revolutionary in a class-ridden society. The emperors, when they figured out the political ramifications, were not pleased and regularly banished Athanasius.

Arius on the other hand was concerned about preserving monotheism. He believed that Athanasian theology led to two Gods: the Father and Jesus. Further, deification politically removed Jesus from any meaningful identification and suffering with humans. The placing of a heavenly crown on his head beamed Jesus away from earthly solidarity. Jesus would be a chaplain to kings not a champion for the poor. In this Arius' foresight would prove to be right.

In time Athanasius won, and we have the dubious legacy of the Nicene Creed. Unfortunately however the potential of Athanasius's theology to bring down the mighty from their thrones, to relativize their power, and to lift up the lowly and meek was not realized. If the proof of the theological pudding is in how effectively it feeds the poor, we may have been better off with Arianism.

It is difficult to contemplate how Jesus is both God and human. How can a human being be the Supreme Being of the universe? How can that human God suffer? Some theological contortionists posit that Super Jesus voluntarily gave up his ability to feel no pain and command angelic armies to identify with us mere mortals. But any one who has a choice to end their torture and doesn't is either masochistic or deranged. My reading of the Gospel story is that Jesus was not a self-flagellating saviour.

If however you begin the Jesus/divinity discussion like I do with a working definition of God as boundless and transformative Love the shape of the conversation changes. Instead of thinking about how Jesus could be a divine Supreme Being and a man, we can think about how the immense power and potential of transformative Love could be so prevalent in a person's life that it defines that life. Athanasius had the Creator [Father] as eternally begetting, and the Son [Jesus] as eternally being begotten. One was the Source and one was the Expression. Cannot we think of transformative Love being source and its manifestation in Jesus being an expression?

I believe that in every person are seeds of that divine transforming Love. Some people water and nourish those seeds, and some don't. Some people live out the results of that nourishing by loving and giving, generously and unreservedly. And some don't.

There are plenty of seeds, wind blown or planted, that come into the gardens of our lives. There are seeds of greed, violence, and selfishness. There are seeds of kindness, hospitality, and justice. We have choices about which ones we water and which ones we don't, which ones we weed out and which ones we fertilise.

The divine Love seeds are somewhat different from other seeds. They not only take water and nutrients, but they also give to the garden – enriching the soil, supporting other emergent plants, and perfuming the whole environment. Love is cultivated by the garden, and the garden by Love.

I think divine Love not only shone out of Jesus by his words and actions, but also was so powerful that his followers would later say something like: 'When we saw Jesus we saw God, when we experienced Jesus we experienced God'. Transformative Love was so prevalent in his life that it defined his life and his life came to define Love. Not only was Jesus a billboard pointing to God, the very billboard was as if God was here appointing you and me. Still today Christians, me included, use the words and actions of Jesus to shape our definition of the very nature and essence of God. In this sense Jesus is unique.

This is very different though from how some understand the phrase 'God is Jesus'. Jesus life might have offered a definition of Love but it didn't limit it or constrict it. His life didn't fence Love in, although some would dearly have liked it to. Saying 'God is Jesus' can be understood as limiting the vast, boundless, mysterious, energy of Love that courses through the universe and beyond to one man, in one place, at one time in history with all his particular male Jewish 1st century prejudices intact. This understanding shackles God to the texts and understandings of a period in time.

I can believe that after Jesus' death the Love that flowed through him co-mingled with that great universal source of Love, and still does. I can understand too how the Church used pictorial anthropomorphic kingly language – 'forever sitting at the right hand of God' – to describe this mingling of love. I can understand it, but I wish they hadn't.

I don't think however that the limitless Love called God is solely manifested in Jesus. Surely the whole notion of sacred or holy Spirit is saying that the seeds of divinity are thriving within many people, including many who would not call themselves Christian. When the author of the 4th Gospel talks about the Spirit leading us into all truth, I understand that as an unshackling of God out of the cultural particularity of any person, age, gender, sexual orientation, knowledge, and politics and allow that transformative Love to re-emerge, to incarnate, in every time, culture, gender, orientation, and circumstance. Even to incarnate in non-human form.

In the 1980s Rosemary Radford Ruether asked a great unshackling question: “Can a male saviour save women?” Rosemary's contemporary, Mary Daly, put it more provocatively: 'If God is male, male is God'. For those who wish to eternally elevate, or beget, a 1st century male into the heart of God, is there any space for women? If the Godhead is masculine then those who worship will elevate the masculine, preferring even oppressive male leadership to female alternatives. If the Godhead is masculine it also becomes oppressive for all who don't fit masculine hierarchical categories, including many men.

The transformative Love called God is not only known in the male Jesus. God is bigger than that. Love of course is manifest in women too, and a great many others beside. If we allow Love to be only sculptured by the words and actions of men, then the Love that is good news for all genders becomes distorted and misshapen. If Love is locked into the historical Jesus there is little liberation for any one who wants change.

The divinity of Jesus depends on your definition of divine. If you wish to consider Jesus as more than human – and therefore non-human – transforming him into a cosmic superman in the sky, then there are considerable flow-on effects including monotheistic integrity, solidarity with humanity, and the gender/culture of God. If however you understand the divine as transformative Love that is both transcendent and immanent, and Jesus' life and actions as the paramount expression of that Love – but not the boundaries of that Love – then Jesus is not more or less human than anyone else, God is not a Palestinian 1st century male, and we have the seeds of divinity within us.

The implication of having those seeds within us can be quite frightening. But that's another sermon.