Beyond Belief

June 1

I invite you to join me now taking some deeper breaths, letting ourselves

arrive a bit more fully, giving thanks for the gift of being alive here. And as

you are moved join me in Psalm 19. God may the words of my mouth and

the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and

our redeemer. Amen.

Standing on the second floor of the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul last

summer, I wondered how close we really were. Our adorable, history-loving

guide Sahmet, delighted in the details. As I squinted to see the exquisite 5th

Century mosaics, Sahmet said with accented perfect English that the First

Council of Constantinople happened here, well at least near here, on this

very site where we were in the year 381. Because this most beautiful

mosque was once the biggest church in the world and what is now modern-

day Turkey was the site of the conversations and councils whose

statements would go on to determine what has become known now as the

“true” version of Christianity. At the second Council, they took the words

from the first Council in Nicaea and finalized them, solidifying their answers

to the some of the questions of the day. In the year 325, in what is now

called Iznik, 300 bishops answered the summons of the Emperor

Constantine. It was time to get all of the men in line; it was time to silence

some of the disagreements about whether Jesus was begotten or born like

the rest of us, whether the trinity was sort of pagan with three separate

entities, who are connected- were they really just 3 gods in disguise some

wondered? It is a weird doctrine, isn’t it?

These men gathered for the longest church meeting ever. They met for 3

months! May-July to work out the wording. The Emperor was present for

the whole time and what Constantine cared about was consolidating power

of course so I imagine those Bishops didn’t do much disagreeing with him.

Eventually they got in line.

And that day standing in the mosque on the second floor with my head

covered and filled with new questions, when our guide Sahmet then said

we were proximate to this most important meeting of men, I was giddy and

I couldn’t wait to read more. I found myself wondering who was not invited

but who eavesdropped from the sides. I know I would gladly be willing to

serve up some wine and pita and dates if I knew I could eavesdrop. Among

the men disagreeing openly were two Bishops, Arius and Athanasius and

basically Athanasius won, so between their first and second council

meetings, Bishop Athanasius in the year 367 sent out a letter telling all of

Christendom which texts were going to count as official and be included in

the biblical cannon. Only a short list made the cut and that list of 27 is what

we have today and so that Bishop maybe had more power than anyone in

all of Christian history. Those rogue monks didn’t destroy all of them.

But before he narrowed it down to 27, there were hundreds of Christian

texts in circulation, all kinds of different ideas floating around, different

practices and liturgies, different ways of living our Jesus’ teachings, but in

order to support the new creed, any letters with opposing views, would

need to be eliminated. They were ordered to be destroyed, but thank

goodness, many of them were just hidden really well, like the Gospel of

Thomas that you heard from earlier. What else? Let’s name some. The

Gospel of Mary. The Gospel of Phillip. Thunder Perfect Mind. Pistis Sophia.

But the ones that didn’t align and didn’t support the thinking in the Nicene

Creed needed to be eliminated. Part of what I have learned, which

confirmed what I have thought for a while is that many of the edits made by

these men, edits of ideas and texts and practices and stories, changed

some of the original intent. I think they reduced Christianity too much, made

it into a set of beliefs, instead of a path to transformation. And I think that

the worst most harmful expressions of Christianity on the loose right now

show this perfectly. It is a Christianity that almost has the heart cut right out.

It is a Christianity about feeling right, instead of being love. It is a

Christianity that is about dominating, instead of emptying and including.

This weird story that you heard from the Book of Acts is believed to be some

of the oldest writings that we did get included in the New Testament in the Bible.

You will see we get that statement of belief, do you believe? And many

point to that story as an example of what we are supposed to do as Christians.

Get more people to think a certain way.

In my opinion, it seems to me that too much has been made out of Paul’s

words. Do you know Paul never even met Jesus? So much of what is

terrible about Christianity comes from Paul. Some scholars argue that

much of what became known as the dominant version of Christianity should

really be called Paulism. The texts about covering women’s heads and not

speaking in church comes from the letters attributed to Paul. My French

friend Bernard believes strongly that Paul is a fallen angel. He reminded

me that Paul watched Stephen get stoned to death. Paul got some things

wrong, but we built a lot around Paul and the letters and community

attributed to him.

For 1700 years, we have been told to accept that what the 300 Bishops

decided is the true version of the faith. We have been told that their

decisions about the heart of Jesus’ teachings were the correct ones- their

decisions about which texts were to be seen as official, all the things that

they decided. But what if they were wrong? What if they left some important

things out? For reasons of their ego and the need for more power. A

Christianity with a beautiful diversity of expression is harder to control,

right?!

Jesus offered us a path, an integration of the head and the heart, a way

toward metanoia, repentance, an internal turning around. And while it is so

much easier to make it all about a heaven somewhere else, as we heard

from the Gospel of Thomas, I think part of what Jesus was getting at is that

it’s “It’s already spread out over the earth…” It’s here, but we miss it.

In the Book of Acts, they are told that they need to believe that Jesus is

who they say he is, and that’s how they will experience salvation. Some

Christians point to this as an example that what matters is a certain set of

words, the Jesus prayer, saying them right, saying them in the right order.

But to me, what matters just as much in this story is that those who were

hurting had their wounds cleaned and those were hungry were fed. What

matters is how they were welcomed fully into the community. Just today

Father Richard Rohr wrote that, “The Christian Eucharist was supposed to

be an act to model equality and inclusivity. But many turned the holy meal

into an exclusionary game, a religiously sanctioned declaration and division

of groups into worthy and unworthy.”

The Gospel of Thomas records Jesus as saying, “the kingdom is within you

and outside of you” which to me means it part that the journey it is a

constant back and forth, between the head and the heart, the centering and

the doing, the anchoring and the moving, the rational and irrational. I think

he meant it to be a both/and kind of thing. And I don’t think Jesus would

have appreciated the whole thing being reduced to a single creed. What

about you?

The correction that Christianity needs is this: The goal is not to be right, it is

to be whole and to support others in getting there too! It is about healing

and seeing the world in a certain way; it is seeing the heaven that is spread

out all over, already. It is time to shift away from a Christianity rooted in the

false externalities of authority from somewhere else, from a God that is far

off instead of an energy right here, beliefs instead of being present in the

world. It is time to reclaim what Jesus intended! It is a both/and faith. the

kin-dom is within you and outside of you…”

Communal Reflection

How do you live your faith beyond belief? How could our church more fully

live from both the head and the heart?

The kingdom is within you and outside of you. May it be so. Amen!