Advent for those deconstructing their faith - Day 13

Christmas is about the incarnation – God becoming flesh. But wasn’t God here all along and we just didn’t recognize Him? No wonder Jesus was always so exasperated with the Pharisees and the disciples. Hello! I’ve been trying to communicate with you people for thousands of years, what is your deal?!!?!?

I don’t know what I think about Jesus anymore. I thought that deconstructing my faith necessarily meant letting it all go, but now I’m not so sure. Other people tell me I need to “reconstruct” and I don’t know what that means or why I would need to do it. Why shouldn’t I just live in this wilderness wild and free for the rest of my life? Would that be so bad? I’ve firmly decided I don’t need religion anymore, and I’m pretty sure I’m over that old version of “God,” so what’s left to talk about?

The weird thing is that being here in this space where there is love and freedom and acceptance….. it reminds me a lot of what Jesus was like:

I find myself being angry at the rigid legalism I now see and the confidence and arrogance of others who are so convinced they have it right. I find myself thinking, “I need a bigger table!” because I’m wanting to invite in all those who have been outcast by society (ahem, the church) and show them love and kindness. I am wanting to reach out and support those who have been ostracized and oppressed and I am actually seeing the oppressed with new eyes and listening to their experiences. Jesus’ words and life are coming into focus through a now-wider lens.

He who has ears, let him hear.

But isn’t that, I don’t know, wrong or something? Hypocritical, maybe? Stupid? An indication of the remnants of my old ways? To say that I’ve left my faith and God has died but now I’m feeling like I’m understanding more of “God”? It seems like, in abandoning everything I believed, I’m now actually more able to believe what I was trying to believe. I said I believed that God is love, but I put all sorts of conditions and limitations on His love. I said that I believed God was kind, but then I claimed He would send people to eternal damnation unless they agreed to a certain plotline. I said that I believed Jesus paid the price for our sins, but then I stood by as myself and others were shamed for their failures.

Now, I am free to believe that everyone is worthy of love no matter how they are or what they are or who they love or what they believe to be true. I am free to let people live their lives in the best way they know how without imposing condemnation on them. I am free to believe that our choices do not define us and that we do not have to appease an angry god.

Jesus, when you said you came to set the captives free, is this what you were talking about? When you said that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, is this what you meant?

In ancient myths of nearly every culture, there is a story of a god abandoning his throne to come and dwell among the humans. Often, this god takes the form of a beggar or other common person to see if his worshippers will recognize him. Similarly, kings of old would sometimes surprise their new brides disguised as paupers, convinced that the true love of their would-be queen would see through the charade. Such ruse is a cruel trick, a luxury, a game – oh, to be a god or a king, hiding in plain sight, making fools of those who claim to know you.

This idea of abandoning one’s royal position to play the role of a humble servant is so pervasive among ancient peoples, it’s hard to un-see it when I look at Jesus. Is he just the embodiment of another myth? But what was the purpose of all those stories anyway? That there is value in setting aside the trappings of your life and seeing how others live? That the human experience is, in a way, more spectacular and multi-dimensional than living the life of a god? That walking in the shoes of another is the only way to fully understand who YOU truly are? That being human is the ultimate god-like experience? That gods can do whatever they want and we humans are just here for entertainment and to boost their fragile egos?

In most of the myths, though, the gods came to earth to teach a lesson – to reveal to humans the god-like qualities they already possessed and/or to illuminate how humans could be more (or less!) like the gods they worshipped.

So, if God became flesh in Jesus, emerging through his divinity to engage with humanity, even to the point of significant bodily suffering, then what lesson was that intended to teach us? That humans are divinity in the flesh? That we are truly spirits walking around in bodies? That life is not about right belief but a generous way of living? Could it be that when I let go of all the trappings of my ego – the pride, the power, the self-righteousness, the jealousy, the certitude, the self-aggrandizement – (i.e. abandoning my throne), I am actually more like “God”/Jesus than I ever was when I was trying so hard to be like him?

Could it be that this total losing of my faith means finding it?

This strange in-between place that has been so scary and unfamiliar, so outside of my comfort zone that I have described it as “wilderness,” is it possible that it’s really “the kingdom of God?” Is what I perceived as darkness really “the light of the world?”

Words to contemplate:

Lose Yourself!
Make a start with yourself
by abandoning yourself.
For if you do not begin by taking leave
of who you are,
everything you do or think you are,
[then] all you seek will be an obstacle
for you,
and you will be like one who has lost her way
and in wandering only becomes further lost,
so if you wish to find your way,
lose yourself!
Meister Eckhart, “Book of the Heart: Meditations for a Restless Soul” (as collected and translated by Jon M. Sweeney & Mark S. Burrows)