“Three Centers”
“Three Centers”
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Psalm 119:1-8 Mark 12:28-34
November 3, 2024, Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Year B rm
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
On the calendar, Reformation Sunday was a week ago. But we cannot live as if it could be something that comes and goes. The wake of history continues to rock the boat, wash ashore, and rebounds into the swirl of currents. Protestant churches, like the Presbyterian Church (USA), trace their specific roots back to the 1500’s and the Protestant Reformation in Western Europe.
Luther in Germany, John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, via France, John Knox in Scotland. In the 1500’s this movement of reform, of protest, was in the larger context of several wars and political unrest.
Ulrich Zwingli of Switzerland was no exception to this. He was one of the main, and yet lesser-known Reformers of the 1500’s. Ulrich Zwingli got his start in the town of Glarus in 1506 as a priest for the Roman Catholic Church.
He was such a strong supporter of the Pope at the time that he received a special pension every month. This worked great and helped him get involved in politics. He even joined the Swiss mercenary armies as chaplain, and they invaded Italy, just over the mountains, among other skirmishes. But then they lost one of those battles, this time the French invaded Glarus, and things got a little heated for people like him who supported the Pope. So, he moved down the road to Zurich, and as the fires of Reformation heated up, Zwingli was central to all the action, and his allegiance to the Pope waned.
Right downtown by the Lammat River, Zwingli Square and a neighborhood surrounds Grossmunster, the landmark 12-century cathedral where Zwingli preached. Just across the bridge there’s another church, Fraumunster, which started around 1200 and served as a Catholic Convent, that is, until Zwingli got the City of Zurich to buy it. That’s when, under his leadership, they took away all the artwork, the statues were removed, the icons eradicated, Zwingli had the place stripped down to a plain, bare, cathedral that basically features a raised pulpit, a feature that many churches inherit to this day.
As their leader, Zwingli insisted that people stop drinking, they needed to cease gambling and focus on the word of God directly from the Bible, and as rightly preached from on high by people like him. We’ve inherited that too, the part about preaching. That’s why I stand up front, at the raised pulpit, and talk. That’s why when we have communion, for example, it is always and without exception to be preceded by the Gospel rightly preached. Presbyterians do things decent and in order.
Zwingli was hardcore. He knew how to use power and position, he knew how to get what he wanted, and as a religious leader, it was in the name of Reform, for the sake of Christ. Like most in that time, he thought God was on his side, and there were sides.
One of the temptations is to idealize Reformers like Zwingli, and get stuck in a rearview mirror toward the good old days, whether they be the 1500’s or the 1950’s. “Once Reformed, Always Reforming,” is a Presbyterian slogan, a verbal attempt to inspire ongoing faithfulness as the Gospel, the Good News of God’s Love in the world, leads us forward.
500 hundred years ago, the political landscape in western Europe was a difficult context to navigate, very fluid. People like Zwingli, Luther, Calvin, and Knox, were intensely political. Entire towns and countries were fighting battles over which identity they would assume, Catholic or Protestant. Each side had to prove it was right, and in the process exclude, or kill, the other. At various levels, this has been the storyline ever since.
But this storyline is failed. The world suffers and needs healing this storyline cannot provide. The status quo church needs a new Reformation, one that connects compassionate unity with a deeper, more ancient, perennial Wisdom that cultivates the contemplative mind. Contemplatives practice dying to the self, letting things go. It’s a hard lesson, for in this there is much unlearning that takes place to help invite a new mind, an open heart, and engaged physicality that experientially learns to base life from God’s Living Presence in the moment. The training for such a three-centered awareness, heart, understanding, and strength, is difficult, involves suffering, but is infused with great love.
We hear about this in Mark’s gospel, as Jesus shares commands and laws, such as Deuteronomy 6:4 as he says what’s known as the Shema, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
Jesus then speaks of love, that we “shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” This has the three centers of awareness, the heart and soul, the intellect, and the energy of the body. This verse may resonate with us, but most of the time it gets derailed right away and our excitement takes us askew. In Western Christianity, we’ve been trained to interpret this verse dualistically, and doctrines support unexamined assumptions that defend this viewpoint.
For example, we assume separateness, that God is external, usually somewhere up there or out there. We assume our neighbor is separate, so we compare ourselves to them as we judge them according to our measurements and standards. It’s so easy to fool ourselves and fall into this because we think our heart, soul, mind, and strength are autonomous to everything and everyone else, and we claim the liberty of the individual as a sacred right and exclusive purveyor of truth, for God alone is Lord of the conscience.
We tend to like the divine part, called to love God, we’re good at focusing on the God part, we even put Jesus in the God category. The God verse is first, but then, just when we thought he was done, Jesus as a human being, throws in a second command, not separate from the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Did you notice the word, Protestant is mostly made up by the word, Protest? The word Reformation is similar as it insists on reform. In this protest and call for reform, Protestants and Catholics get blinded by the deadly game of comparing.
The church that gave us birth as Reformed Christians, got its start in life in the 1500’s by declaring what it is against, what it is not. The fuel for the fires of Reformation were an “anti-energy,” anti, against, and opposed, directed toward others who are different. It is through the subject-object-consciousness-of-dualism that political and religious boundaries were drawn, and the toxicity of this has continued for hundreds of years.
Even statements, or commands, like “love your neighbor as yourself” get picked apart based on any number of unexamined biases driven by ego-centric thinking. The ego keeps itself at the center and excludes anyone or anything that’s unknown or unwelcome. Christians go out of their way to claim their truth as The Truth.
But in Mark’s story, the scribe pulls a fast one. The inquisitive scribe calls into question the importance of his entire religious tradition. He quotes back the reality of God’s unity and the life-giving power of love to a transformed heart, soul, mind, and strength. He agrees with Jesus, the unitive teacher, and then points out that some of the most important aspects of religious devotion, like burnt offerings and sacrifices; these rituals are relativized.
Jesus sees this one scribe answer wisely, and it seems like a tone of relief and appreciation as he puts words to the soul-language-moment they share, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Not far. This is not geography, this is an observation of consciousness, of awareness. Maybe call it enlightenment, or illumination, or conversion. Unity, Love; these become the focus. Sacrifice and offering, as important as they are, can only get you so far because they reinforce the idea, the concept of separation, and they are external practices, outward symbols.
Inner transformation is where the energy is, the dynamic of union. That’s when “neighbor” is not external, or a separate other. “Yourself” is not individualistic, isolated, or disconnected. Through a unitive view, “Love your neighbor as yourself” says the same thing as “Love the Lord your God with all you are.” These commands, together, through experiential faith, express the divinity of everything. You and your neighbor are one because God’s image resides in both, the very image the first command calls us to love, the very unity involved as the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Part of the reason the world suffers is because people, including the Church, especially since the Reformation and the need to be proven right; people have forgotten or reject the contemplative mind in favor of dualistic thinking and egoic pursuits of the institutional church’s quest for power and control, or more recently, the church’s struggle to survive in an age of decline and closure. The tyranny of rationalism keeps us stuck in our heads, what Jean Gebser might call the deficient mode of the Mental Structure. But this is at the expense of our heart and strength, our soul and body. The separate, egoic, false self is allowed to run the show.
The world would benefit from a different way of thinking, a new structure of consciousness and spiritual perception, one that integrates efficiencies that are beneficial and minimizes deficiencies that lead to destruction from the anti-energies of fragmentation.
God’s Wisdom within the heart, mind, and body cannot be captured or contained, decent and in order, by systematic theologies, dogmas, and doctrines. While those teachings of the institutional church may help get us started, they only get us so far before they become stumbling blocks to the rich depth of our soul. To cultivate an open, beginner’s mind that trusts a qualitative connection with divine Presence, everlasting, unconditional love helps us heal and grow.
Did you notice that how the story from Mark begins sets the stage and shows the content of this lesson in the very drama of the story? The story is the lesson. The content shares a unitive mind while navigating the limitations of dualism. Jesus is sure to show us that a unitive perspective and practices that base life from wholeness do not mean that things will be easy or without challenges. Mark is sure to mention that “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked Jesus” his question.
The scribes and Jesus are disputing. The defenders, the educated, the power-brokers challenge Jesus, they question him, and Jesus answers them well. It’s good for us to remember that political fray is part of life; how we handle it, this is an invitation to wholeness.
Another aspect of this story that teaches the content of the lesson through the very framework that lesson challenges involves counting and measuring. “Which commandment is first of all?” asks the scribe, who came near, hears the others, sees Jesus. To come near, to hear, to see; this is evolution, the development of consciousness; all of these display a frame of reference, and lead to the subject/object format we typically get stuck at, which is egoic dualism.
The scribe seeks a hierarchy, a list, a comparison. “Which is first?” he asks. Jesus doesn’t reject this, doesn’t get upset, but meets him where he’ s at, but also broadens the lens of perspective. He meets comparison with compassion, and hierarchy with equality. Jesus embodies the very unity this lesson teaches. Jesus even seems to use the comparative, measuring, dualistic framework in his response. “The first is… the second is this….” But something more than words is shared in this encounter.
The scribe picks up on this “something more” as Jesus takes dualistic categories and reframes them through unitive consciousness. Jesus demonstrates a new mode of thinking based on wholeness and bringing together rather than separation to pick things apart. In other words, for the scribe, this lesson of Jesus, like most important lessons in life, this lesson is less taught, than it is caught. It is caught, not taught.
Through perception of three-centered awareness, this lesson seems to have a life-enhancing energy to it as the scribe says, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said” and he mentions being one, as through unitive consciousness the limitations of a three-dimensional, subject-object orientation of egoic thinking is dismantled, while trust of inner experience is celebrated. Jesus confirms the qualitative abundance of life and wisdom as he caps off this transformative moment recognizing the nearness of God’s kingdom, not in terms of location or geography, but of imminence, intensity, and expression.
It is in the Presence of this non-dual Master Teacher that everyone is affected. “After that, no one dared to ask him any question.” How could they? Their gig is up. The limitation of their thinking is exposed. Or perhaps, like that scribe, they are humbled and energized by Truth embodied and shared through love’s compassion.
Disputes, conflict, resistance, change; these are all part of life’s fabric and no matter how you try and iron out the wrinkles, even Jesus has disputes. Yet Jesus shows us there is so much more that connects life.
May we continue to learn deep wisdom on how to tap the Source of wholeness, the Origin of ongoing energy that helps us navigate disagreements based upon unconditional love, all-encompassing Presence, and all-pervasive divinity. As humanity learns lessons on how to live into the essential unity and integral wholeness of Christ in all things and all things in Christ, may we, like the scribe, open our hearts, our understandings, and our strength to what answers well even questions that have yet to be asked.
As we take our place in the biblical narrative, “once reformed, always reforming,” may we be open to the Spirit’s movement of Wisdom’s creative power and presence, as God is glorified, now and always. Amen.