Lost In Translation
“Lost In Translation”
Pentecost Sunday, Year B May 27, 2018
John 3:1-17 Romans 8:12-17
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Pastor Andy Kennaly
The ego limits of the false self. That’s basically what Paul means when he uses the word, “flesh.” Those who first heard these words as he wrote the church in Rome would hear “flesh” as meaning the ego limits of the false self, rather than our True Self in Christ. When we hear Paul use the word, “flesh,” we are filtering that word through the sexual revolution of the 1970’s, through sex abuse scandals both recent and in the last couple of decades, and through cultural shaping of Puritans and the Victorian era. For us, “flesh” is a loaded term, and this English translation has kind of run it’s course and is found limiting. We miss the point of Paul’s experiential faith, of his using the language of mysticism that teaches the need to die before you die in order to find life, in the here and now.
A similar language issue is present in John 3:17. We’re mostly familiar with John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Then verse 17 adds, Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
The limits of English in these verses stand out in the words, Believes, Eternal, and Through Him. Trust would be a better translation than believe, because we tend to put belief in a cognitive, idea-based function. Trust, in general, still has a bit of heart and soul to it, knowing in your gut, leaning into a reality. Trust and faith, rather than agreement is what God is seeking for us.
Eternal is linked with life, and we jump right away to a linear understanding that sees this in terms of time. Eternal translates to us as without end. But rather than quantity, eternal life could be more about quality, and as a qualitative statement, be better translated in terms of fullness of life, or like Jesus says in other passages, life abundantly. This eternal life doesn’t have to wait until you die, but is a here and now, life as it’s intended to be kind of statement.
One of my study buddies, a retired Pastor friend talks about the words, Through Him as being an idiom, a way of saying something that is culturally specific. Since we are not first Century Romans, we lose out on what “through him” implies to those original people. He says that as an idiom, through him is not him as an individual, but rather through what Jesus taught, as in the Way that Jesus invites us to follow, a Path deeper into Christ Consciousness. The world is shown how to live in and through the message of Jesus, who embodied the Christ, and invites us to be born of the Spirit as we embody Christ as well. Indeed, through communion, in that sacrament we symbolize the gift of Christ living inside us, sending us forth into God’s world to love and share good news.
Or, we can view these passages as our golden parachute, our ticket to ride on the heavenly train bound for glory in the sweet by and by. Not to say we won’t have that, but to think that life’s goal is to be in a better place after we die misses the point of the Incarnation. Christ creates and permeates all things. Things. We are things, we are part of creation. Carrying the image of Christ, all things have a divine radiance, an energy. Even molecular scientists recognize this. Solid surfaces like the wooden table or the windows and doors are actually very spacious at certain frequencies. Electrons and neutrons and protons are subatomic particles that are in constant motion, with space in between. Christ Jesus coming through locked doors to eat fish shows us how this world is more connected than we realize, and it’s our failure to see, to awaken to this Unity, that Paul is encouraging the Christians in Rome to get past as he reminds them that we are children of God. Finding identity centered in Christ removes fear as we’re anchored in love’s Source.
Most of our Christian tradition focuses on some aspect of biblical truth, but at the same time is bound by cultural limits, narrow interpretation, or theologies that only glimpse part of the larger picture. Most of the time we tend to go along with this. For example, songs and stories that refer to God as He, we tend to sing with vigor and repeat through the generations. Yet we know that God is beyond gender, God cannot be limited by one gender expression, and there are many biblical references to God in other roles, such as a nursing mother. Even the Holy Spirit, called Wisdom, is female in Hebrew language. Especially after gaining an appreciation for gay and lesbian, transgender, bisexual, and other gender expressions and identities, using He as the only pronoun to talk about God simply won’t capture the fullness of the Divine Source or Being.
On this Trinity Sunday, we talk about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and as we use these terms what is intended is to communicate the relational nature of God. We could also use other modalities, such as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, or God Almighty, Christ, and Advocate. Ultimately, the Trinity is a mystery and any words, any terms, any names simply fall short because nothing can encapsulate the great I AM of God. Even the name, God, doesn’t work for everyone these days. Theologian, Paul Tillich referred to God as The Ground of Being.
How do you open yourself up to connection with love itself? How do you claim something beyond measure? How do you participate in mystery? How do you get past the limitations of a specific context, a cultural expression, a level of spiritual growth that has much to learn, and be content or at peace with where you are in that journey of faith?
One way is to activate your imagination. While some fearful people view imagination as a tool of the devil, more advanced levels of understanding and perception see the miracle of co-creating with God as simply living into our identity as ‘little Christ’s’ or Christians. This week, I needed some way to express in words, as limiting as they are, where I’m at spiritually. So I jotted down a few words to help me in reflecting on what God is doing in my life. It seems like it sort of turned into a poem, and I’ve asked one of my music friends to consider putting it to a melody of some sort. We’ll see what comes of that, but for now, I’d like to read the words as we come alongside Paul and his reminder to the Romans that God is at work in their lives; and the same is true for those readers whom John wrote to as he uses image and cultural expressions that made sense to them at the time.
Before I read them, however, I would also issue an invitation, perhaps a challenge, but certainly an encouragement, to activate your spiritual imagination this week. Write your own poem, or song, something that helps put down in words what you’re experiencing in your life, and how you sense God spiritually engaging you as a child of God. With that invitation to find your own voice, I humbly share my voice in these words, and I call it, A Song Called Integral:
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ.
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ.
I pray for desire to desire you, for awareness of Presence in me.
Open my eyes to see you in all, Godliness wrapped in all things.
Dissolve the lines I create for myself; boundaries don’t really exist.
Unity and Oneness is what I seek, my True Self in you found through love.
God before, God beyond, God outside time and space, yet as close as each breath that I take. Your gifts of life shared freely, received.
Awaken my heart to perceive.
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ, this I pray.
Though the journey is rough, your burden, its light.
Illumine my heart more each day.
In silence I find a peace so sincere, a gift with the Spirit at core.
All thoughts pass away, so together we pray as love, union, joy mingle free.
Inner demons awake, and my anger is peaked; no more shall I repress my pain. Acknowledged and felt, experienced and true, honest life is redeemed through you.
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ.
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ.
Replace my false self with truth that remains, grounded in Being and Source.
Show me the Way of Wisdom and Life, which knows no cultural bounds.
Eternal and fresh as each morning’s dew, held loosely like words of a song.
Illumine my heart, renewing my mind, translucent with light, goodness, peace.
Help me wake up, help me clean up, help me grow up, in Christ.
This week, as you dance with the Trinity, find your voice and let God speak. Claiming the image in which you are created, in Christ, through the unity of the Holy Spirit, may God be glorified, now, even as forever. Amen.