Christ (at night on stucco) next door at the Geriatric Center
On my walk this evening, as usual, I passed the information sign board outside the Second Baptist Church of Germantown — which often announces the subject of their upcoming Sunday sermon. Tonight, the sign read, “What do to with Jesus.” The church is behind my apartment building, next to the geriatric facility run by Catholic nuns and which also abuts our building. So I am surrounded by followers of Christ.
Thus, aside from today’s message striking me as synchronous with certain current events — namely, with the question of what to do with and about the various candidates, and Hillary, and all other crises that are simultaneously ocurring in the world – the question strikes me as just plain odd.
Christ and I have been neighbors, I thought, since I moved here two years ago. As someone who practices buddhist and wiccan spiritual elements, I understand why I, my fellow practitioners, and for that matter those who are practicing Jews, Muslims, Hindus — as well as the Jains and Voodoo practitioners –may be wondering what to do with Jesus, especially if we grew up with Jesus, then left him. However I wonder why the Baptists are now, apparently, also wondering what to do with him…
Honestly, I feel empathy for Christ. I think he has been misunderstood. Somehow, possibly as a result to sheer timing, he was ’plugged’ into a culture which just happened to have a need to externalize and ‘deify’ a great teacher. However, by taking the ’spirit magic’ out of humans and putting it all on Jesus, his adherents essentially made him do all the work and, as a result, could then just sit back and self-flagellate, beseech, and generally belittle and victimize the human condition. Personally, and I’m not alone, I don’t think he ever wanted it that way.
There is also a rumor that Jesus spent a significant period of time – the ‘lost years of Christ’, the ones for which they ‘lost’ 7 years of his journals (although there are claims that these journals have been found) — doing spiritual practice in India, the birthplace of buddhism. I like this theory. Naturally, those who would rather beseech and beg someone else — the previously-mentioned external deity – to make their life better, instead of simply doing the work of spiritual practice themselves, would hide the evidence that Christ himself engaged in spiritual practice. This makes complete sense.
I grew up in one of those independent fundamentalist Christian churches where everything in the Bible was considered, well, the gospel truth. Literal possibly to the point of diagnosis, per the DSM IV, of mental illness, symbolism did not enter the mind of our pastor and congregation at the First Church of God (of North America), despite the Bible’s complex, esoteoric symbolic composition. In our church, Lazarus was raised from the dead despite his DOA status, the loaves the the fishes fed the hungry multitudes without the benefit of cloning technology, and the Red Sea parted without recorded evidence of Tsunami activity in the area.
What did we “Church of God” people do with Christ? Easy. We celebrated his birth, studied his life, mourned his suffering and death, and ecstatically celebrated his miraculous arising from the dead. We prayed to him, accepted him as our personal savior, conversed with him individually on a daily basis, and thanked him for his sacrifice (secretly glad that he was the one nailed to the cross, not us). We elevated him above our mere pitiful, mortal selves. Clearly he had gotten the Lord’s attention in a way we could not and therefore, he was our intermediary.
The Baptists, however, have always been a rule unto themselves.
Alternatively, maybe the Baptists are imagining Christ more as a visitor from out of town whom they need to entertain, in the sense of, “Christ is coming for a visit, what shall we do –with him – while he is here in Philly?” Miniature golf, perhaps? Nah, too far out of town. Or maybe he’d like to take a Philly Duck Tour? Visit the Franklin Institute, appreciate great works at the renown Museum of Art, study the theoretical roots of the U.S. government at the Constitution Center? He would probably even appreciate the macabre and now illegal medical specimens on display at the Mutter Museum or be up for exploring the ruins of the Eastern State Penitentiary. In a sense, Christ could be a potentially challenging guest, for the very reason that he must have a wide range of interests.
Or maybe Christ actually has no interests and he just wants to care about others and help them. So if he visits a happy busy group of people with no currently overwhelming problems, it would be hard to entertain him.
Ah HA! Serious dilemma. Then, understandably the question, “What to do with Jesus?” becomes quite the challenge. Beseechers with no issues to beseech about are certainly paddleless up the creek, with very little Christ-centered entertainment value.
As a spiritual practitioner, however, I think I would have many answers our question du moment, “What to do with Jesus”. Christ and I could meditate together, discuss food choices over meals, talk about spiritual process and practice as we walked in the woods or down city streets. I would ask him about those years in India. His stories must be amazing, endless, full of instruction & insight. I’m certain he would be a wonderful companion, caring, creative, and no doubt funny — in the same ballpark, undoubtedly, as HH Dalai Lama, who has absolutely the best laugh on the planet.
How ironic, even delightful, that I have now have much more of an idea of “What to do with Jesus” as a post-Christian than I would have as a youngster growing up as his ‘follower’.
We may even go on a Duck Tour.
Peace, Love, Compassion & Courage,
Ms. SpinCycle
