A lot of people do not want their crown. They want their religion to tell them what is true and what to do. The church has often colluded with its people to persuade them that the main purpose of the church is to rain down guilt and self-reproach for ourselves, honor and glory to Thee . . . Yet I defy anyone to find one word from the gospels where Jesus himself demands such of the faithful.
The Dalai Lama expands on a truth deep in a mother’s love: “One reflection that arises from the agreement of all the major religious traditions on the centrality of compassion is that it reminds us [that] because we have all been nurtured in a womb, because we are all born of a mother, affection is in our basic nature.”
Can a new thing be said about Easter? I don’t think so. Were there a new thing to say—a new twist—whose twist? Whose gospel? Mine? And yet repeating old thoughts is just slogans, which are not worth saying twice. Are we then stuck? Throughout its ages, religion has very often gotten stuck in its old thoughts and power has always been the sticking point . . .
Will Christianity pass away? Will some other religion or philosophy take its place? You hear such questions from time to time . . . A scripture says that “nothing will be impossible with God.” On the question whether God will keep God’s savings in the church forever, we might better err on the side of caution.
When is temptation temptation? Is it when someone plans to sway you to do a thing which would turn you from your path? This is the cartoon we continually conjure about temptation—an evil spirit clad all in red, intending harm. But this is foolishness, or worse, for no one sure where his happiness lies is tempted by persuasions. Is it when we fall from our path, when we know that what we are about to do is not right, but we do it anyway? That is another cartoon diversion from seriousness . . .
Is not this your transfiguration: “Now that I have felt him, I can see him?” Jesus is not visible except to the inward eye, the feeling eye. There was nothing there for all to see. The gospels are plain-spoken in this–some saw him as devil, some as disturbed, some as miscreant, some as master, some as transfigured in the light of God, some face to face. Never suppose that your faith, and your deepening faith, depends on some fact yet to be pinned down, or on your forlorn acceptance of some assertion that seems to you contrary to nature. Faith is not a thing so small. It is a feeling for life that gives sight to the blind.
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