THE SHELLACKED SAND MANDALA

Luke 9:28-36
http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+9:28-36&vnum=yes&version=nrsv


I met this man in the north market in Columbus, Ohio, during our 2003 General Convention. The market has just closed and I was looking for a place to eat something light, was like five or six o’clock and this man was manning a stall, actually the only stall open in the market, with his two daughters and an older man besides him. The dress was peculiar because it reminded me of the Old Order of Amish, straw hat, bear, no shoes, plain and rough material shirt. The girls were having a good time playing but their dress was simple, the older man looked very similar in appearance to the younger man, I think in his late thirties. He seemed to be the two little girls father. There was a cell phone on the table and a credit card machine the only two reminders in the whole scene that I was still in USA 2006.

The stuff he was selling were beeswax candles and honey and sweets, I do not remember much. He had some fliers about the wax and the honey and one shabbily printed flyer on the Old Quakers, my mother was a Quaker before becoming a Communist and I engaged him in conversation, he was very pleasant and well read, quoted Plato. He was critical of the modern Quakers that engage in social work or human development in the world as a matter of program ad not as an specific prompting of the inward Christ. The session we had just finished was one of acute arguments over the authority of Scriptures and I asked him to comment.

I must admit that my knowledge of the Society of Friends is very superficial, so I was surprised when he said that there was no way we could really know what Jesus meant or the circumstances in which his sayings were said, he said, I think, that words can never convey a story in full. Therefore they wait upon God to give them the word for this time, that well could be interpretation of Scripture or something totally new.

It was refreshing to see somebody dress like a peasant from before the turn of the century, with the name conservative attached to himself speaking so liberally about the authority of Scripture. The foundation of what he said were not a sign of arrogance but humble understanding and acceptance that words can never contained a whole experience. That is why we have resorted to poetry and the arts in general to provide insights that words cannot efficiently and fully ever provide.

How parents can describe in words how their children looked like when they were born, how they felt, how other people felt and responded to their coming into the world. How to apprehend the entire story in words? Or tape for that matter?.

I think the history of the value of Scripture as the Word of God is tied up to the history of the Reformation, a revolt of the Universities against the ignorance of the clergy at the break of the Renaissance. Not surprising still to this day, in some of the Lutheran denominations, clergy garb is the black academic gown worn by University professors. Luther principle of “sola scriptura” (only scripture) is paired with “sola gratia”(only grace). Interesting that he found a balance between a written and somewhat fixed record of God’s work in the past -Scriptures- and the most fluid and experiential: God’s grace.

The gospel passage of today is one of those beautiful instances in which we need to imagine Scripture. We need to sit and purposely contemplate the Divine and to consider such contemplation sufficient in itself. We need to enhance the text and open ourselves to te experience.

The undertow of the passage is still the ancient story of Exodus. I have said that the whole section of this stories from the rejection at Nazareth, the feeding of the 5,000, the walking on water and the Transfiguration had underneath the ancient and well know story of Exodus. The retelling of which was re-enacted in all Jewish homes during Passover.

The theological problem of the time, could be the fact that the Jews were slaves in Egypt and still remain slaves in the Promised Land, against the promise of the Lord to bring them to a land of milk ad honey, instead they lived in squalor and from hand to mouth. The reconciliation of God’s will with the presence of evil, one of the thorniest issues in Christianity according to conservative Anglican theologian Stott, was most likely also a serious problem in the Israel of the first century.

The Jewish understanding of cause and effect mediated by the contractual nature of their relationship with God will make them believe that they or their ancestors before them were sinners and because of that they will were today neither free or wealthy. Not only they were poor and slaves but their were the only ones to be blame for it. Wonderful idea for the oppressor class to convinced the oppressed that they are the ones to be blamed for their status in life. The complexity and codification of religious practices and their lack of resources and time made the poor sink even further into guilt.

In short the people of Israel were like an abused wife convinced by her abuser that is her clumsiness in ironing or lack of ability in cooking that makes her responsible for her “just” punishment. And here Jesus, in the feeding of the 5,000, or walking on water or being transformed on the Mount is reminding them that is not God’s will their present misery, and that it is certainly man abusing of his free will. He reminds them of the foundational myth of Israel, the story of Exodus so they can break away from the stupor of years of theological abuse and break free again.

The journey with Jesus, was a like a new journey with a new Moses to a new promised land. One that you engage with the essentials for travel, one in which you know yourself to be homeless in the world and recipient of the hospitality of faith. One in which you know that God multiplies scarcity into abundance. One in which God shares his very self in the midst of the storm reassuring us and calming the elements. It is also a journey with God’s endorsement, like when Moses met God and his face shone, Jesus clothes became dazzling white.

Moses came down with the seeds of Scripture, the Ten Commandments tablets, second edition, while Jesus, Elijah and Moses were talking about Jesus impending passion in Jerusalem. The New Law of this New Moses seems not be a catalogue dos and don’ts, but rather an experience, a sacrificial one to boot. One in which the need for a scapegoating and its consequent mimetic violence will be extinguished. So instead of written law, Jesus brings a law written in our hearts.

There are many differences between Jesus and Mohamed, and I will not even to attempt to name them all, but one that is clear to me is that Mohamed wrote a book -Quran- that he claimed inspired by God to the letter, but Jesus on the other hand lived a life and die on the cross for us. The only instance in which we know of Jesus writing was during the forgiving of the adulteress, when he wrote something on the sand.

The stories of Hebrew Scriptures in the present authoritative list were put together by the so-called Council of Jamnia in 90 after Christ and the stories about Jesus we call the Gospels and the rest of the letters and most of the New Testament were not accepted as authoritative until the Council of Constantinople 381 and 397 with the Council of Carthage a council for the local church of North Africa.

I will not question the faith of the early church, which often did have very few patchy pieces of the new scriptures. Even more we do not know exactly how they were consider in the community. What was important for them and for me is that those scriptures said about the One they loved so much that they did not want to offend him, not because of fear of retribution, but rather for fear of facing in solitude a troubled world.

It reminded the story of the sand mandala, a special creation of Tibetan Buddhism - and I am not going to enter into details about it other than to say that is made with colored sand deposited in a highly stylized form. The story goes that a Japanese tourist after taping the building of one he asked to be able to take home to which the monks smiling agreed, and then he proceeded to shellac the whole thing.

Peter’s response to the fleeting apparition of the Divine was to try to fix in time the experience, codifying it -building tabernacles as in the Feast of Booths- understandable human desire of moving from faith to certitude, specially when face with great challenges. It is no different that the desire in some Anglican corners to go back to the law written in stone and abandon the more fragile, exposed and rather fluid law of grace. It is not surprising that most mega-churches are built on the same principles, because people want the certainty of law to face the monumental cultural changes that Americans and most of the affluent North Atlantic Affluent societies are presently facing. To a world in flux we Christians have no to other choice but to get on the boat until we get to our true home. We have no to other choice but to trust God that our present homelessness in the world can only be faced with the hospitality of faith, that we need to do ministry without bling-bling. We have no other choice that be faithful to a God that can convert two fish and five loaves of bread in food enough for many.

We can shellac the Divine presence to take home to join touristic souvenirs but be certain that you will be worshiping an idol not the true and living God. He is my Son, listen to Him