The Kin-dom is...

Excerpts from We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light in a Time of Darkness by Alice Walker and Gospel of Thomas: Saying 3

Standing in the lobby of a hotel in what seemed to me to be in the middle of nowhere North Carolina, I mustered up the courage to approach a woman getting water from the drink station. I saw you yesterday. I said, "Are you here for the Wild Goose Festival?" In fact, she was. And she was friends with the historian, Diana Butler Bass, one of the people I had come to see. So, I asked if I could get a ride from her the next day, explaining why I had come 1,587 miles for this. But I didn't quite know what I was getting into. There was no shuttle between the campground and the hotel where all of the vent events were taking place. And it was 100° and humid. And all of the bathrooms were portapotties. I know. I befriended a woman named Eunice who showed me where the secret bathrooms were. I was basically totally unprepared. While standing in some line for some iced tea, wiping sweat from my forehead with a napkin for the millionth time. A woman leaned over and said through a thick accent, asking if I had heard the expression, "The air you wear." It's like, "Well, it sure is here."

In June, I heard a podcast from historian and scholar Diana Butler Bass with her interview with Elizabeth Shrader Polzer, and I knew I had to get myself to see them in person. If you have been on the hunt with me for these spiritual breadcrumbs, you will remember that Elizabeth is the person who followed her question all the way back to school where she earned a PhD to continue to keep asking questions about the Gospel of John. You might remember I told you that she was just a songwriter. Dr. Elizabeth Shrader Polzer was just a songwriter. She was not an academic of any kind. She was not living the life of an ivory tower in any way. She was just an ordinary episcipalian who believed in the Jesus way and didn't give up on her questions or her intuition.

When I heard the two of them would be speaking together, I told my man, "I got to go see about a scholar." If this is new to you, here is the nutshell version. Elizabeth found that the oldest copy of the Gospel of John, Papyrus 66. I know all this stuff in my head now. The Greek letters were changed and Martha was added. The intent is hard to prove, but the impact is that Mary Magdalene was deluded in the Gospel of John and over time that and other things allowed her true presence to be diminished and hidden. But with this new scholarship, Mary Magdalene clearly stands alongside Peter giving the christoologgical confession. Elizabeth's scholarship has been taken seriously and last October the the scholars who decide what goes into the Novum Testamentum Graece,

commonly known as the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, like the fancy people who decide what goes into the Greek which decides what goes into the Bibles that make it to the rest of us maybe in a couple years they agreed and this is the technical term this is all they'll say yes there are instabilities in the text, which is about the best you can do for that group.

And it's not just Papyrus 66, it's all of the fragments. And I heard her say this in person. So, there will be in our lifetime an updated footnote under John 11. Church nerds, this is a very big deal. With time, others will understand what this really means, but I think some of you already do. In my experience, sometimes it takes us humans a while to understand what things really are in front of us. Which is why we have again and again in our sacred text, "Let all who have ears to hear hear." Because we aren't always ready to hear until we are. And Elizabeth says, "The Gospel of John might not have even made it into our Bible if it had been as it was written. and it would have been way too radical.

But she says, "Now we get to see it." It was super duper hot on that Friday, and by then it was leaning toward noon, and I was starting to really sweat through my t-shirt that I had ordered just for the occasion. It said, "Justice for Mary Magdalene." I sat right in the front row. Elizabeth is bubbly and was generous with the line of us who were not going away. It was clear. I was like, I am getting my I've come all this way. She seemed surprised that she has groupies, but she does. There was a line of us who were like, do you get who she is? I realized that part of the reason I felt compelled to go all that way was to say thank you. I wanted to thank her in person for not ignoring that inner voice, that inner pull, that inner nudge, that guide, whatever name we have for it that has wisdom for us here on earth.

As you heard in the gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, "The kingdom is within you and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known. You will find something that you need, something that changes everything." How are we open to heaven here? In here, in here, out there.

The dominant expression of Christianity has really tried to demonize the proximate, seeking to ensure that only external authorities are given a platform. A god far away. A religious leader who mediates access. The book not written in your language. But Jesus teachings and the core scaffolding of the Jesus path I believe are about recognizing the kingdom of heaven that is at hand. Now that makes the whole thing fall apart, right? If you don't need the god far away and the man religious leader to tell you how to do it, you have it here right within you already. The kingdom is within you. That's empowering. And it also asks each of us to take responsibility for this life we have begiven. How are each of us going to show up here? How will we bring our gifts to the whole? What do we have to offer that can only come from us? If we lived, if we are each an expression of the divine, not separate from it, the holy energy showing up in and through us, what might be different?

As we heard from Alice Walker, I saw the path to happiness and to liberation at a glance, and it was inside myself.

One of the reasons the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the Bible is that it values internal authority, internal wisdom, internal heavenly experiences on this realm. Instead of God being only out there, God is here. Instead of happiness being on another realm, it is here. Instead of heaven only being out there, it is here, too. This gospel values the human experience, elevating the possibility of each of you having access to something liberating. And that is just too powerful a message against the backdrop of a crushing empire right then and now.

There is no consensus on when the Gospel of Thomas was written, no consensus on its theological outlook or its relationship to the synoptic gospels. and it was only discovered in 1945 with the many that were uncovered at Nag Hammadi and not translated into English until much later. It has 114 sayings about half of them are comparable to what we read in Matthew, Mark and Luke. And it was mentioned by the church fathers even Athanasius who you might remember is the one who sent out the letter to be what included. So we know it's it's authentic. Dr. Elaine Pagels, Princeton scholar and renowned expert on early Christian writings says that the Gospel of Thomas isn't about theology in a traditional sense that rather it's a sense of awareness who you think you are. Do you see yourself as separate from others? Or do you think you are deeply connected to the source of creation in the image of God? She compares it to the Jewish mystical literature kabbalah. As Lynn Bauman writes in the book on The Gospel of Thomas: the Wisdom of the Twin, in this gospel, redemption has to do with finding the hidden treasure within. On this quest, the searcher is sent to discover the nature of his or her true self, hidden and buried in the field inside.

I think that with all of the hard things happening in our world, we need to pay attention to what the spirit is doing right now. I have experienced that miracles happen in situations like this and in times like these and one of them is getting to be alive for some of these great uncoverings. taking seriously the texts at Nag Hammadi texts like the gospel of Thomas and the work that Elizabeth has embarked upon uncovering these edits in the gospel of John, I believe summons each of us to explore what hidden treasures are within maybe we are now ready to see them in this time of a great uncovering what treasures are in our lives our communities our sacred texts our tradition how can we reclaim internal authority uthority, internal wisdom, internal access to God, noticing a knew what was there all along. Maybe now we are ready to hear.

The man scholars didn't understand the significance of the edits in the oldest copies of the Gospel of John. So, it took her, it took Elizabeth going back to school to get her PhD to learn Greek. It took her believing the kin-dom is inside her, too. to listen to that inner voice, to believe that she had something to offer this particular moment. And her work does not just elevate Mary Magdalene back to her place to the tower, Migdal, alongside Peter the Rock. As I said, it helps rebalance the core story, which helps rebalance the whole world, allowing us to welcome back reciprocity, love, giving us permission to reclaim internal wisdom, the kingdom that is within each of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known in a different way, and the world will be changed.

Beloved of God, let all who have ears to hear, let us be open to what was once excluded. Let us uncover what was once devalued and deluded. Let us reclaim the kingdom that is within each of you. I saw the path to happiness and to liberation at a glance. It was inside myself. May it be so. Amen.