In Whose Name?

Don: Last week we discussed whether a faith community is essential to the individual’s relationship with god. At the end of the meeting, the question was asked: Did Jesus’ statement that “Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name” imply that only Christians can have a relationship with god?

Scripture gives hundreds of different names for god, one of which is Love, which prompted Alice to suggest that Love was what was meant and that this puts everyone in touch with god, not just Christians.

Here are some passages that seem, on their face, to suggest that something Christian, something distinctly related to the theology and understanding and particularly the belief in Jesus is important, and others which seem to have a much broader application.

There are some seminal verses that make the case, accepted by many, that salvation as recorded in the scriptures is the private purview of the Christians. Notice that in all of these passages it is the name of Jesus rather than the person that is referred to.

Philippians 2:9-11: For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This suggests that a universal belief in Jesus is required.

Acts 4:12: And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

Ephesians 4:4-6: There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

This is a singular concept of god. But he immediately qualifies that:

Ephesians 4:7: But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

Against those are such passages as the one in which Jesus talked about sheep that were not of this fold, which suggests that god’s net is much broader than Christendom.

John 10:16: I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

1 John 2:2: …and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

This too suggests that whatever the propitiation of the sins is and does, it is a blanket covering, for everyone, not just Christians.

1 Timothy 4:10: For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

Again, this gives the idea that the sacrifice of Jesus is a tonic for everyone, not just believers.

If we consider the economy of salvation in the three parables of Luke 15—the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and the Lost (the Prodigal) Son—from the perspective of the Lost, rather than from that of the Seeker of the Lost, then we have to ask: Who is a coin? Who is a sheep? Who is a son? In all three, there is a big difference in what is lost, but the conclusion to each is that there is great rejoicing over the recovery of the lost sinner. So the coin, sheep, and son each represent certain kinds of lost sinner. Who can the coin represent? A coin cannot lose itself; it can only be lost through someone else’s carelessness; it cannot help in the process of being found; and it has no knowledge or awareness of itself being lost.

A sheep is a bit more complex. It perhaps does recognize that it is lost. Perhaps it can get lost on its own. Perhaps it can deliberately leave the flock, though it’s hard to know what runs through a sheep’s mind. But its departure would probably not be malicious, or premeditated, which was the case with the Lost Son. The sheep may be powerless to get back on its own, but it could bleat to alert others to its location.

So we go from absolutely no intentionality in the case of the Coin to absolute intentionality on the part of the Son, with the Sheep somewhere in between. But in all cases, there seems to be equal and equivalent graciousness and industry of the Seeker in seeking their return.

So what are the differences between the Lost, who do they represent, and why do they get equal treatment?

Harry: I think we who read the bible tend to view ourselves as sheep, though not the lost sheep and certainly not the lost coin. But until the bible was assembled, at about the time of the council of Nicaea in AD 325 one could have no such singular point of view. Before then, with so many disparate communities and books, you might not think of yourself as a sheep of one large flock; but to god, there are no disparities, and he seeks us at his will, not ours.

Michael: I wonder if there is meaning in the disparity not just in type of sinner but in their numbers also? There are 100 sheep, ten coins, two sons.

Don: Perhaps there is. Perhaps it is in the ratios?

David: It seems obvious (especially after Don has analyzed things for us!) that the Coin represents those who have never heard of Jesus, never had the opportunity. But the analysis is a little bit worrying in that it suggests that God is selfish; that he is less concerned about the well being of the lost than he is about his own joy at recovering things that he loses. I don’t recall anything in the parables to the effect that god is overjoyed just for the sake of the saved.

Harry: The bible was not given to us ready-made on a golden platter. It has many errors, misspellings, mistranslations, unknowns (such as authorship, in most cases), accretions, etc. Its imperfections do not bother me and I regard it as a holy book because it was written for people who are seeking god, and seeking god is a Good thing.

The past 30 days have been extremely stressful at work. Our employees are by and large street people. If I have to let them go, I know I am sending them back to the street or to “the system.” I am taking away so much from them, and I feel their pain. As we took up our discussion of community in this class, I again asked myself: “What do I believe in?” And the answer was: “I have many beliefs, which can and do change, but I have a singular and unchanging faith in Goodness.” I believe that faith is shared by everyone, no matter their religion or lack thereof.

This week I asked some of my employees whether they belonged to any church or community group. One told me he did not belong to a church but belonged to a Moose Lodge, and he did so because it provided him with a sense of community and he liked the goodness of the people there. Another employee told me he belonged to a fishermen’s group, but not to a church. He did so because he felt comfortable with the group and because he felt good about the occasional charitable events they organized (fish-fries, for example.)

I myself come to this class because we share a common faith in Goodness. Jesus is not so concerned that we believe in god, but rather that we seek the meaning of Goodness, because that is what changes lives, prevents war, removes selfishness, and tames the ego.

The question “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” was a very selfish question. It had nothing to do with Goodness, which is the whole point of the kingdom. It’s what connects us to god; it’s where I place my faith.

I was trying to explain this to a non-religious person at work who took me to mean I did not believe in god. I said I had faith in god because god was Goodness, but as for belief, there are too many versions of god to believe in! There’s the bible version, the Koran version, the Buddhist version, and so on. But they share the common thread of Goodness, and Goodness is what we all seek. Jesus taught Goodness, not religion! He taught how to find Goodness in community so we could bring the kingdom of god into being. Goodness is god.

David: Assuming it to be representative of society, your workplace survey would suggest that people see a community of faith in Goodness, and that is what they want to belong to. Yet in rejecting church as they apparently have, they seem to think that they would not find such a community in church, which is shocking because it is not what we have been brainwashed to expect!

Harry: I sensed in my discussions with my employees that the rules of religion made no sense to them. What does make sense to them is community and doing good. Church disguises goodness by ritualizing it.

Don: I see the bible as being a book primarily of questions, rather than a book of answers. We seek answers and direction, but in the teachings of Jesus, it is his questions that are far more intriguing, insightful, and thought-provoking. Wherever god shows up in the scriptures, he is usually asking questions. In the Garden, after the fall, he asks Adam: Where are you? And who told you that you are naked? He asked Abraham: Is anything too hard for the Lord? He asked a protesting Moses: What is in your hand?

It is a book of questions, a window into the way in which people throughout the ages have sought answers to the same questions we have today—basic existential questions such as what is god, how do we relate to him and to each other, and so on. It does have some answers too, but they are often much more based on who and where you are. In the three parables, the coin, the sheep, and the son are utterly different in terms of their awareness of what is going on, their ability to influence the surroundings that they find themselves in. It suggests that the graciousness of god is even deeper than we can understand. How an inanimate coin, utterly incapable of self-initiation, of losing itself, of doing good, of having a relationship with god, can be shown as much grace as a son is striking, and is a way of drawing God’s net around all mankind, no matter who you are, what your knowledge is, how sophisticated you are, what you understand about god, he is still interested in you and will spare no effort to find you. This is a portrait that is quite different from a god who loves Christians only and for whom Jesus is the only name that counts.

Jason: We all agree about goodness, grace, love, etc., but they cannot occur in a vacuum. They can only exist when they can be shared. As one becomes more spiritually mature, one becomes more attuned to goodness, grace, and love and therefore to community, wherein such blessings are manifested through involvement and sharing. The question is: How is community defined? If defined as family, then it is very easy to find and show goodness, grace, and love within your family. But the ultimate goal is global community, so that everyone treats everyone else as if they were close family. Harry’s employees have found a way to do that through non-church communities. Church should be capable of doing it. Church is the most obvious place to do it. But often it is not the place where it gets done.

I don’t think that a maturing relationship with god implies more individuality; on the contrary, it implies more community, so that goodness, grace, and love can be shared.

Harry: my company has been hit by financial setbacks, that require hard business decisions. So you make cuts and move forward, but the impacts you have on people’s lives are horrific. Many of my employees cannot “bounce back” if laid off. I am the end of their line. When you realize what you have to do in the name of something or other (in this case, business) to other people, you see how far we are from following the teachings of Jesus. We need to be able at an individual level to touch and spread goodness. We have to be able to get out of ourselves. I try to find another job for the employees I lay off. But many business managers are too distant, they don’t see the suffering, the torment, the fear in the faces of people they cause to be laid off. Community sets rules that skew the meaning of goodness, and make it harder.

Alice: Maybe we should seek one large community. Small communities—families, neighborhoods, churches—are separate. Goodness, grace, and love constitute the mortar that binds every human being into one body, one community.

The coin and the sheep are still, in effect, bound by the mortar even when they get lost. They get saved anyway, without having to do anything; whereas the son has to decide to come back—he is truly separated. So it’s better to be a coin or a sheep!

Don: Yes, it seems most desirable to be a coin! One has no responsibility at all, yet will be saved.

Alice: And some people have no idea about god, yet will be saved.

Harry: But they have goodness. They might not know god as he is taught in the bible, but if god exists at all, he exists in the heart, and that means everyone’s heart. So where there is Goodness, there is god.

Alice: But the coin has no feelings. To me, the coin represents people who worship money, and know nothing of god.

In Genesis there is a verse where god says his spirit will not reign over us for ever. What does that mean? Ecclesiastes says that man knows nothing and should just go about the business of enjoying life. So I take the wise Solomon’s advice and don’t worry about anything. Is that what god meant by saying that his spirit will not reign over us forever—that he will let us, rather than his spirit, reign while we are here on earth?

Michael: Jesus’ message was not to establish a new religion, because religion divides people into those who are right and those who are wrong. His message was for everyone; but to me it is clear that to be saved, you have to go through Jesus, who died for us. Whether that is the same as Harry says, namely, through Goodness, I am not sure.

Robin: The Book of Revelation talks about “nations” (plural) of people who are going to be saved. There appear to be no divisions, just “great multitudes.”

David: Several things said today confirm to me the power of the theory of process theology, whereby god is both a Being and a Becoming. It would explain God’s selfishness in wanting to have all these lost bits of him restored to make him whole again. The coin, the sheep, the son, are all parts of god the Being and they also contribute to his Becoming. Given that he is thus a singular body alone in the universe, he can be nothing other than selfish.

Jay’s comments on sharing and becoming more aware, more good, as we mature spiritually, seems to me to make us more god-like and that in turn suggests to me that we are a Becoming aspect of god.

Finally, Alice’s remark about seeking one large body rather than our many schismatic churches suggests to me that the one body we should aspire to join is the body of god, and process theology would surely say that as a Becoming and as Being this is what god must want above all else.