Full belief in “a newer testament, — the gospel according to this moment”
 |
| Picture source |
| —o0o— |
As happens a couple of times a year, last week, whilst standing in front of the church before the Sunday service of mindful meditation, music and conversation, a Christian of some unknown denomination crossed the road and pointedly asked me what I believed about Jesus and the Bible.
As I have always done, I politely answered that, as far as Jesus is concerned, I’m a great admirer of his teachings and example and I have come to understand him as being one of humanity’s great spiritual teachers. And, profoundly influenced as I have become by the teaching of the Japanese Yuniterian (sic), educator and interfaith pioneer, Imaoka Shin’ichirō (1881-1988), these days I now go on as say that I feel that the religion of Jesus was not Judaism or Christianity but was, instead, but one shining example of a creative, inquiring, free and liberative religion that, at it’s best, can simply be described as the gospel of creative love (造的愛の福音 zō-teki ai no fukuin); a love that is always radically open to the divine and the sacred in all people and places, including one’s enemies, in the lilies of the field, and in the birds of the air.
And, as far as the Bible is concerned, I said that I consider it be a fascinating, remarkable collection of books — often beautiful and wise, but also often ugly and ignorant — books that were written by many generations of very different humans as they struggled to figure out how the world is, or how they thought it should be, and to discern their own place in it. I added that I continue to take it with the utmost seriousness — both as an historian and as a person of faith — because, without a proper knowledge of it, it is impossible to understand why, for good and ill, our own present-day world is as it is. And, to conclude, I said that even as I continue to take it seriously, I did not see it as an authoritative collection of texts, primarily because too much of what it contains is as far away from being a gospel of creative love as it is possible to get.
Perhaps, not surprisingly, nearly 100% of the time, these kinds of answers ensure that the questioner politely makes their excuses and walks on. Although on this occasion, to the polite excuse was added the line that he was now going home to lie down! Whether or not it was my answer that precipitated his need to get horizontal I could not say!
But this encounter came back into my mind — especially in connection with my answer about the Bible — because during the week I had reason to revisit a passage from Henry David Thoreau’s remarkable essay of 1851 called “Walking” (towards the end of Chapter 1):
“Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours. There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament — the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern; he has got up early, and kept up early, and to be where he is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and soundness of nature, a brag for all the world—healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the muses, to celebrate this last instant of time. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Who has not betrayed his master many times since last he heard that note?”
It made me realise that, had my interlocutor last week pressed me on what was my own authoritative book — or to put it in more fancy theological terms, to ask me where I found the seat of authority in my own religion — I would have answered that I always find in this newer testament — the gospel according to this moment.
Now to many people — and almost certainly to my interlocutor — this would have been a way too vague and flabby answer. And I do understand this response because it can be hard to get an initial grip on in what consists this newer testament, this gospel according to the moment; after all one can’t nip into Heffers or Waterstones and buy a nice, solid copy of it to slip into one’s bag or jacket pocket as one can with a copy of the Bible. And so, today, I want to try my best to give you a tangible, non-vague and non-flabby answer to this question.
To do that, I need to start with the gospel of creative love which, I would argue, each of us intuitively knows when we hear it, or see it genuinely put into action.
Of course, we can come to know it anywhere, but I think we know it most powerfully and clearly whenever we find ourselves in some existentially pressing situation, particualrly those that come with a serious illness, either our own or another’s. Facing, perhaps impending death, someone in that situation will be called upon, or feel moved to say or do something that they feel is going to help everyone move through that moment as creatively, compassionately and lovingly as possible. And so, out of the silence, there comes a first word; for every new moment there there must always be a first word.
But how can we tell whether what we are saying, or hearing, is a first word of the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment, or some other kind of word?
Well, we can only come to know this by paying full attention to, and then being deeply mindful of, whether or not this first word is also being offered as a final Word (capital W). This is vitally important to ascertain because, in the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment, there can be no final, capital “W” Words, there can only be ordinary, lower case “w” words, words that, in principle can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon, and superseded. The gospel of the present moment always requires the next first word, and then the next first word, and so on, ad infinitum. This is because its words of creative love are always keyed to helping everyone in the current situation move on creatively, inquiringly, freely and liberatively to the next moment, and then the next, as God-or-nature natures and endlessly unfolds.
But, as I say this, please be aware that the words of the newer testament can sometimes take the form of old words found in the New Testament and, indeed, in all ancient scriptures; words that, from a certain point of view, are far from being new. But, as Jesus wisely reminded us, “every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings out of their treasury what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52).
I most memorably experienced the truth that the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment, could be brought out, treasure-like, from an ancient testament written for a long past moment, whilst I was sitting by the hospital bed of a Romanian woman who spoke no English at all, and who, it turned out, was within an hour of dying.
I was working as a Police Chaplain at the time, and a couple of weeks earlier the woman’s daughter had been in the Police Station trying to get some help with a complex criminal matter that her mother had come over to England to help her sort out. I simply happened to be on duty when the daughter came in, and because she was so clearly distressed and obviously a religious person, I was asked by one of the officers if I could offer her some kind of pastoral comfort. It was thanks to this encounter that she had my contact details. However, I was surprised when a couple of weeks later she suddenly called me to say that her mother had been hospitalised and, to everyone’s horror and astonishment, the seriousness of an ongoing health problem had been discovered. The daughter asked me if I would visit her mother in hospital; a request to which I was happy and able to respond. However, I was slightly nervous about making this visit because, a) according to most standard ecumenical metrics I am not a Christian, let alone a Romanian Orthodox Christian and, b) I spoke no Romanian.
However, there I was, by her bed and, by now, holding her hand in silence. And then, out of the silence gracefully came to me what I remain convinced was a first word of the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
Instantly, and despite having no English, she recognised the rhythms and cadences of the prayer and she quickly joined her voice with mine and we became one in the sound of this shared first word of the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment; or so I will believe unto my dying day. Then she closed her eyes, smiled, gently squeezed my hand, and let it go. An hour later she was dead.
But you still might ask, really, Andrew, where is the tangible proof that this was a first word of the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment?
Well, for me it was experienced in her smile, and the gentle squeezing of my hand through which, as a kind of silent first word to me, she gracefully gifted a powerful, and for me it turned out to be life-changing, expression of the gospel of creative love.
Trust me, my friends, the newer testament, the gospel of the present moment and creative love is far from being a vague and flabby thing. True, you cannot buy it from Heffers or Waterstones, but it is, in fact, everywhere present as the very foundation of life itself, a foundation that can be experienced through every true first word, every smile and every gentle squeeze of the hand.
Amen.
—o0o—
With profound thanks to J. L. Austin who once wrote that:
“Ordinary language” — which is the only kind of language we have available, “is not the last word: in principle it can everywhere be supplemented and improved upon and superseded. Only remember, it is the first word” (See J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1961, p. 133, emphasis in the original).
Comments