| Is Jesus God? Michael Morwood Tuesday, June 5th, 2001 |  |
| Is Jesus God? Michael Morwood Tuesday, June 5th, 2001 | |
Guest speaker Michael Morwood spoke to a capacity crowd of parishioners and guests at SJA's Hospitality Hall outlining a new look at Christianity in the Modern Age. It is my hope to humbly offer a summation of his thoughts. I think all would agree it was a compelling yet easily accessible address that offers a fresh look at the power of the message of Jesus of Nazareth.
Images shape our feelings. The bible and our catechism offer a story of the Earth and a firmament above. There is an image of a dome above the Earth through which the sun and moon travel. Furthermore this dome serves to separate Heaven from Earth, and consequently (especially due to the Original Sin concept from the Adam and Eve story) separates humankind from God. Because of this separation, God seems to live in another place, and Heaven is also somewhere else. There seems (so the story goes) to be no access to this "other place"...but that at our death there will be a judgement when we journey to that place.
Our tradition teaches that Jesus was God come down to make up for and overcome this inaccessibility. Jesus "won back" for us that which was lost due to Original Sin. Jesus, therefore, has to be more than human...for if He is not actually God, then we are not really saved.
But the images of our childhood can no longer always work within our faith. The Roman Catholic "institutional leadership", however, continues to uphold these images. The Australian church, and Mr. Morwood were confronted with having to affirm the concept that "Jesus' death is redeeming sacrifice and a perfect act for the remission of sins". We need to question if this view is the most satisfying look at the life of Jesus.
Within the revelations of modern science, when we look at Earth and the cosmos, we see in comparison that if we imagine the Earth sized as a grain of sand, then the Milky Way galaxy would be the size of the United States. Yet we know the cosmos consists of at least 300-400 billion similar galaxies. Morwood suggests we need to see God as the whole of the universe...we need to see the whole universe IN God. God comes to reality by Being. God comes to visibility in Being. We need to see Gods' infusion in all that exists. The world is charged with the grandeur of God (a quote credited to another author).
There are indeed things even God cannot do...He cannot make human life exist on Venus with its sulfuric acid atmosphere, searing temperatures, and crushing gravity. Yet on Earth the comets bring water, life arises, man evolves and strives to be human. Jesus of Nazareth emerges, and God can be revealed as infused in the life of this man. Jesus tells us by seeing God in ourselves, in our fellow man, and in all of creation that we can realize God; bring God to us; further live IN God.
The life of Jesus is the story of the human condition...a dream crushed. Like other life challenges like leprosy or blindness, the dream of Jesus is seemingly failed. This is the message of the cross...How could one still believe when life has brought you to crucifixion?! Despite this, the suffering Jesus remains steadfast and commends his life to God.
Following the life of Jesus, early Christians had an "AHA!" experience. They realized that Jesus lived in Love, lived in God, and God lived IN Him. Therefore "through" Jesus we could see God living in US. This was the message of Pentecost. Christians took seriously that people could see in Christians what Christians saw in Jesus. Baptism was an acknowledgement and commitment to live like Jesus...they were the Body of Christ. The sacrament was not a cleansing of Original Sin, but a celebration of the Christian image and imagination of Jesus and God.
The stories of the Bible and our catechism offer an image. Modern cosmology also offers an image. They are both an "imagination". We need a new image. A new imagination. We need to replace the image of a "chosen people" (and therefore selective salvation). We need to see Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, and all the other religious seers as all part of the same spirit. These various prophets address cultural differences, rather than salvation issues. This is God revealed to different cultures, not selective salvation.
The challenge to the church is to re-image Jesus. Break free of the judgmental Jesus. The challenge to the hierarchy is to then answer the question: Is Jesus really God? When Jesus is a Human story, not a God story, we can stop thinking of judgements and images of the resurrection and whether it really happened. We are challenged instead to, along with Jesus "Die into God's fullness".
It seems to Morwood that the Church today has rather "hijacked" the universe. Scriptures can speak from the ground up rather than down from heaven. We can revisit the scriptures from a contemporary view. And modern cosmology has effectively offered us a view of God IN the universe, Jesus IN God, and Jesus In us.
In conclusion, this reviewer found the concepts discussed above to be refreshing and most importantly reaffirming. Morwood is an engaging speaker with a healthy sense of humor. It was brought up that many Christians cannot tolerate humor when it comes to matters religious, and that is troubling. The thoughts of Mr. Morwood should not be seen as rejecting "all that we hold true and dear",
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