Abutting the Dimensionless Kingdom

There must be any number of ways to get from the premise from which I must start to the ideas I must relate, so I will try for the simplest.

As to the premise, idolatry must be avoided, including even any conceptualizations we hold of the Divine.  Jesus says that blasphemy against the conceptualizable "Father" and "Son" aspects of the Divine will be forgiven.  Apparently that which is conceptualizable about the Divine is in potent measure to be reckoned provisional--and in potential idolatrous.

Idolatry resides as well in any assignment of the Divine to a context.  Jesus describes the absurdity of distinguishing between the gift and the context provided by the altar, and in a more generalized and elevated sense, Jesus describes the abode of the Divine only in the dynamic process of throwing open--and beyond conceptualization--every possibility.  Heavenly houses within a greater house, an eternity of taking turns in Abraham's bosom--these are not descriptions, but rather the defying of description of any creaturely-conceptualized context that might frame in blasphemous presumption the Divine.

At points such as this, I have been tempted to believe that piety would necessitate a contention that we are all a part of God--each of us an infinitely small part of an infinitely large God--since to ascribe to ourselves independent existence would be to place ourselves (however meekly) on conceptualizable dimensions in contradistinction to God.  Our being very, very, very, etc. small would make God no more than very, very, very, etc. big.  This limiting notion of "bigness" will not serve, of course, to describe the limitlessness of God.

Jesus, however, describes our existence in proper proportion--that is, without proportion.  The difficulty of persons--or of humanity, or indeed of all Creation--existing at all in proportion to a proportionally "bigger" God is a difficulty that does not appear in the teachings of Jesus.  As taught by Jesus, all time is as one with this dimensionless moment, all distance is as one with this dimensionless place.  Elijah might not be eternal, as the ineffable Divine might reckon such things, but Elijah existed in time and therefore in all time.  We might never have the necessary mustard-seed of faith to command a mustard seed to scoot over a tabletop, but no greater or lesser faith would be required to fling the mountains of Ararat into the sea.

I have come to see the development in my conceptualizations of our experience-lives as they relate to the teachings of Jesus.  At first I considered "arcs," such as the insistent, overlapping cycles of nature and our individual natures.  Then I reckoned such things in a more internally-organic way, as "tendrils," with which, tentatively, we reach out successively even as circumstances and stimuli press us forward.  Then I thought of those issuings-forth from us as "seed-pods," tendrils thickened between their tapered fores and afts by the amplitude of our engagement.  Those successive conceptualizations of our experience-lives have become in my analysis more and more internally insistent--and more and more mounted upon our proclivities to attempt to actualize ourselves within time and space.

And yet Jesus tells there is neither time nor space.  This dimensionless realm is the kingdom of God.  I cannot begin here to address the many aspects of the kingdom--or, rather, the many aspects of our lives that must dissolve in the focus of the kingdom.  It is all I can do to state an inescapable implication of Jesus' representation of the kingdom as dimensionless: that our strivings in the creaturely realm of time and space are characterized not merely by sinfulness, but also by its adhering counterpart--madness.

Thoughts--experiences spread over the dimension-templates that we demand exist--are delusions.  Words--experiences packaged and delivered across the breadth of our communal presumptions--are ravings.  Emotions--experiences leaping at us before we are ready for them and coloring endlessly our responses to endless new experience--are demons.  None of this is in opposition to the contention that thoughts, words, and emotions can be genuine or true.  What is opposed here, however, is the notion of a rationally-based faith or--perhaps, more importantly--the notion of a self-consciously "foolish" faith that can be furthered by rational argument.

Jesus leaves us with our devil-fraught experience-lives abutting the dimensionless kingdom of God.  That is the earthly set-up, and nothing else.  To cede our lives of travail to the flounderings of hopefully-better-than-completely-mad devotion to easing the travails of others (who, presumably, are yearned for by the kingdom) is the directionless true path to that ever-present kingdom which is found by the yearning for it.

The Unaccountable Blessed Moments

It can be a tiring thing, to try to study the Gospels.  True, it can be a comfortable and soothing experience, to allow oneself to be carried along by some preacher's fair-flowing distillation of the "gospel message," as though the foundational premise of true religion was not the existence of God or the horror of being lost, but rather the assumption (particularly ludicrous in the scope of Jesus' teaching) that the test of salvation is found in whether one's life has been put together thereby.  Jesus spent much of his earthly ministry tearing people's lives apart.

The most glaring example of fair-flowing distillation of the "gospel message" is the absolutist Protestant cant about salvation by "faith alone."  The preacher can spend months on the radio cherry-picking and glossing-over passage after passage so that the listener given over to "faith alone" need merely gulp down the rancid milk of a manipulated theology.

The fatuous nature of the "faith alone" contention is highlighted in a gospel story (or, in unsparing analyses, a set of gospel stories) traditionally held to be that of The Rich Young Ruler.  Jesus' recountings of the story (and its linked postscript about the Camel and the Eye of the Needle) flit and waver between the salvific binary of Eternal Life and its lack, on the one hand, and the notion of "becoming perfect" (as ancillary to salvation) on the other hand.  This story is not truly suited to the radio preacher, who has little to gain from frankly presenting the true gospel message, which consists of fragments of apparently-discernable theology that grind and jostle against fragments of other countervailing, apparently-discernable theology.

This is the phenomenon that I have chosen to refer to as "trodden shards."  Reality, if it is to be understood as Jesus presents it, must be seen as a shuddering concretion of apparently homogenous (or at least internally quiescent) crystallizations, grinding more or less vigorously against other elements, from the equally-crystallized to the almost-pulverized.  We can see the playing-out of this physical metaphor in The Story of The Rich Young Ruler.

We see the man go away saddened "because he had great possessions."  In one camp of gospel interpreters, it is held that the man refused to "do" what he had to in order to be saved--but do not we all (in notions of works-based salvation) fall short in some measure of the "doing" scale?  In another camp of gospel interpreters, the man simply misunderstood the "how" of salvation--but does not the notion of God's sovereign election (for how else could saving faith be reckoned not the believer's accomplishment?) render the man's aversion to shedding his wealth immaterial?  All we really know is that the man went away saddened, and that Jesus, while proclaiming the dangers of wealth to salvation, says that all things are possible with God.

But do these limited textual elements constitute all we can "know" about the rich man's situation?  Sure, he went away sad, but might not sadness beset him even if he resolved (like the parable's defiant son, reconsidering and going to work in the vineyard) to do the work of his master, in this case Jesus?  Is it really so easy to divest oneself of great wealth, particularly if in numerous and disparate holdings?  Many decisions would have to be made (including the decision of the point at which he no longer possessed wealth of note.)

To whom in particular should he sell his holdings, given that such purchasers would become the effectual lords of their new employees?  (And this is to say nothing of the notion that the rich man was a "ruler"--possibly so under the Romans merely contingent upon being wealthy and therefore influential.  What would prevent his erstwhile "subjects" from being oppressed--and despoiled--by their new rulers?)  And how easy can it be really to distribute great--though necessarily finite--wealth to the poor?

And could the Rich Young Man really cease to be what he was, and become merely a follower of Jesus?  As Jesus presages in the Parable of the Unjust Steward, the Rich Young Man might well possess a potent store of good will among the people, making it impossible for him to experience internally the abject deprivation of Jesus' followers.  Conversely, the Powers That Be, fearing the residue of his influence, might assign to him the intended fate of the resurrected Lazarus.

I present the above as the merest example of The Trodden Shards.  There is much that is good and much that is evil--and much that is understandable and much that is not.  The fairest presumption would be that existence, to us, would be a clashing jumble of parts.  Instead our religion--as distinct from that of Jesus--is intent on smoothing over our existence any number of concocted sheens.  Even the theologians' favorite--that ours is a "broken" world--is a farcical bait-and-switch.  The "world" itself (as we know it and as we have ever known it) has always been broken.  Was the world "whole" in which Eve (and possibly other female creatures) were intended to feel only a modicum of birth-pangs?  Was the world "whole" in which the serpent was permitted to slither about?

The very particles that comprise our very selves coalesce in wondrous beneficence and then are shattered apart in inevitable decay.  The magnificent processes that support our health and vitality nurse in their vitals conflicts that predestine us to death and decay.  The tantalizing and momentary insights we have are not merely partial and deficient--they are often contradictory.  To embrace such conflict--or, more properly, to seize upon the unaccountable, blessed moments of facing such conflict--is what it means to give up one's life.  And this is what it means for Jesus to grant us life more abundantly.

The Turmoil of Our Infantile Experiences

In a previous post I wrote, regarding God's warnings and stated punishments directed at humans in Genesis:

"Just what kind of 'punishments' are these handed out by God?  Cain, sentenced to be a vagabond upon the earth, becomes nothing of the sort.  Eve, of the greater pains in childbirth, exclaims how God has aided her through it.  Adam, sentenced to hard and bitterly unfruitful labor, finds sustenance for centuries, and if the ancient patriarchy pattern held for him, he spent more of his life sweating over his bed than over his crops.  And weren't they supposed to die, who ate of the tree?

"Jesus provides an explanation for this, and it is inherent in Jesus' casual use of the concept 'death.'  Within this framework . . . both the First Couple and their murderous first son died.  They were each thrust from the moral scenario they knew into an apparently--and therefore emotionally--more challenging one.  This is the punishment, but the lively and individualized nature of it does not sit well with Christianity . . . ."

Indeed, the "lively and individualized nature" of the truth about God's wrath is, in Jesus' teaching, a nature intrinsic to the very matter of sin and its remedy.  As foreshadowed in the numerous Old Testament relentings of God about things he has threatened--so hideously vexing to theologians who waste their lives on things like arguing for the "righteous wrath" of slaughtering Canaanite infants--God's moral examination of humans resides not so much in people being liable for prescribed punishments, but rather being responsible for digesting and acting upon the individual experience of acting wrongly.

It cannot be missed that Jesus sets great stock in persons being reconciled to each other, before they might presume to approach the realm of this or that sacerdotal relationship to God.  The very notion of vows or offerings to God as satisfaction for sin is ludicrous in even the merest moment of sober reflection, and Jesus' teachings are consonant with that realization.  Consciousness of guilt in the unbounded realm of the Perfect Infinite is the seedbed--whether or not God lays the seedbed, plants the seeds, or causes them to grow or fruit is a set of human conjectures that thrive precisely when we press away from ourselves the soul-saving gall of guilt.  The kingdom of God is the true realm, and its citizens know nothing but the kingdom, consisting of nothing in themselves.

It may be thought that I describe merely a self-delusional state in which guilty, damnable humanity promise themselves that they can will into effect their submergence into a mystical bliss of convenient, impersonal oblivion.  What then, it might be contended, of the ministry and divinity of Jesus?  Does not Jesus accuse humanity of sin, and prescribe a remedy?  In truth, Jesus' demands are as exacting as any concocted by theologians, but Jesus' remedy resides in the real-time experiences of persons--experiential moments as past-less and as primordial as the thought-writhings of the infant, and all the more so as the sin is horrid and its memory fresh.  The past is gone, and in the calculus of Jesus (excepting, of course, the possibility of amends to wronged parties) the past is irrelevant--what matters is the sin-resoundings of the present.

This is the pattern in the matters to which Jesus subscribes.  We are not so much as told in Genesis whether the sacrifices of Cain and Abel were meant as thanks, as pleadings for future blessings, or as propitiations for sin (or even if the brothers differed in their understandings), yet the theologians launch immediately into conjectures about whose sins were forgiven.  For all we know, nothing but Cain's downcast attitude counted against him, and it is this alone that God mentions.

Tragically, of course, Cain responded horribly to the episode.  When accused by God of the murder, however, the tenor of the accusation comports pivotally with the notion that Cain did not understand what he was doing, and had to have it impressed upon him.  And even then, the fugitive-and-vagabond-of-unfruitful-efforts prediction does not come true for Cain--for all we know (as distinct from his squirming, finger-pointing parents) Cain might be the first truly "redeemed" personage in history.

And what except the facing-up to horrid crimes, contrasted with a conviction of the innocence of Jesus, saves the romantically-titled Good Thief?  The idea that the wretched man had a "saving faith" in Jesus as God in the flesh (or whatever churchly concoction of statements-of-faith the propagation of which the churches are apparently necessary for) is not supported by the text, and by contrast even the most eager and assiduous of Jesus' followers did not grasp "the faith" before the Resurrection.

The Good Thief owned up to his sinfulness.  Judas Iscariot owned up to his sinfulness.  We know that those men were in agony, as--in the recounted episodes--Cain and his father were in agony.  Adam's great sin (were we to call it that) happened in a state to which we cannot lay claim, and the tale of Judas does not pass without him being invaded by Satan and goaded by his Master.  And yet typically the theories of sin and redemption and damnation supposedly encapsulated by those harrowing stories have been formulated on quiet, classical writing-tables, even as the voice of Jesus beseeches us to look for truth in the turmoil of our infantile experiences, arising--as the wind--we know not where.

The infant is admonished for wrongdoing in committing some doing that he or she does not understand--there is no denying that.  By God's grace the infant accepts such correction.  By God's grace we also can address the necessity of confronting the misdeeds that have overtaken us.  It is in such situations, and not in stagey and retrospectively-curated salvation moments, that operate the essentials of Jesus' teachings.

The Long Day of Life

Jesus says that he has looked forward to sharing the Last Supper with his disciples.  Jesus tells Judas to bring about the betrayal quickly.  However, it seems scarcely that Jesus has earnestly desired these appendages of his hideous torment--neither does it seem that Jesus, who acerbically discounts his disciples' predictions of their own steadfastness, is rushing forward out of fear of losing his own nerve.  Jesus acts as though he is simply concerned about running out of time.

Jesus knew how to say no to people.  Jesus knew how to tell his mother where to live, and with whom.  And yet, when approached by his mother about the dwindling wine at Cana, he allows her to involve him--after he offers the insubstantial protest that his time had not yet come (and he might have eased the family's embarrassment by some hidden means.)  It does not take much for Jesus to allow himself to be rushed along.

And then there is the Jesus who seemingly lies to his brethren about presenting himself at a festival--and then seems incapable of staying away.  As I have written regarding the multiple temple-cleansings, there is cause to wonder if the smoothings-out of Jesus' story in the Gospels conceal a Jesus who made a habit of throwing himself against the expected lethal wrath of the authorities.  Why?

Perhaps Jesus was telling the truth when he declared that his incarnate self did not know the time of the End.  Jesus, it seems, was aware of the nature of God, but was struggling simultaneously with a human entanglement with time and place.  There is the curious, almost embarrassing episode in which--in a moment of great solemnity--Jesus calls upon God to glorify himself, and God responds that he has already done that, and will do so again.

The crux of the matter is the fact that time and space mean nothing in the substantive teachings of Jesus, even as his incarnate form struggled to translate that reality into human understanding.  The fields are always white with harvest--the notion of rhythms, of hesitations in God's ever-present benevolence, is a conceit of humans, not of God.  So also with judgment--the tolling of the End is witnessed by Jesus' generation because there only one generation of humanity.

And all of this has great implications for the denominations' versions of salvation economy.  Jesus asks his disciples if they can share his "cup" and his "baptism," and they are not promised a "cup" that might be less than a life's trials.  So also might we expect that "baptism" will be a life-long process.  The New Testament prates that Today must be seized upon as the day of salvation--with the implicit promise of a remainder of earthly days under some cloud of assurance.

The Gospels themselves, however, demand a life-long steward's vigilance under pain of unmitigated judgment--all through the long day of life, whether light or dark.