pure mind

A few years ago I saw a commercial for some internet service provider that showed a huge variety of people using their computers: an elderly black man, an urban white kid, as Asian woman, you know. It reminded me at first of that chapter in Revelation where there’s an uncountable throng of people from every tribe and nation and language and nation (really, it did. I’m not just trying to sound religious). But then the tag line came. It was something like, “Imagine a world of pure mind.” I guess they meant that in such a world race and age and gender wouldn’t be barriers, but I wasn’t interested. No thank you. I’m pretty content with the corporeal world, thanks very much. I like having a body. I like seeing black and red and brown and white people. I really do. I like men and women and children. I’m a big fan of the sun. What would the world of pure mind be, anyway? No beer, bread, wife, kids, long distance runs, skiing, sage, fresh cut grass, lilac, rain, television, cars, oak trees in autumn? I have no idea of the religious or spiritual background the people who wrote the copy for that commercial, but for a Christian, wishing for such a world borders on heresy.
I know, St. Paul said that in Christ all those things like position, ethnicity, gender are wiped out. But he also said, “Christ is all and is in all.” In Christ, our differences are blessings, not curses.
It seems like a lot of us who claim Christ and his faith want to be so “spiritual” that we despise the material world. We hope to float off into the ether of that world of the mind. Despite the assertions of the so-called creationists, the two creation stories in Genesis aren’t trying to teach us science; they’re trying to tell us something about God. God creates. God loves what God creates. And, when God’s creation begins the spiral into non-being, God redeems. Even the stories where things get broken, God is actively redeeming. As C. S. Lewis said, God loves matter; he created it!
Jesus, according to Christians, is God enfleshed. Jesus didn’t seem to be human; he was human. He ate and drank and slept and went to the bathroom. When he prayed, the gospels say, he, “lifted his eyes up to heaven.” He healed with words, with touch, and even with spit. In Jesus, God got physical. Faith is physical.
In the early centuries of the Church, people just assumed that faith was to be acted out. That’s not because their Greco-Roman culture encouraged it. A lot of their contemporaries were looking for a religion of pure mind, a future of disembodied bliss. It’s actually understandable. If you live in a world where every day is a struggle for survival – where bread and water don’t come pre-packaged, where things like diarrhea can kill you, where fleas are a given – why would you imagine this life can go on and be a good thing? The choice is between two hopes. First, maybe you hope to enjoy this life as much as possible, then die quickly. O, you might hope to tough it out through this veil of tears, this land of walking corpses, then (maybe, depending on a lot of factors beyond your control) you could float off into the ether of disembodied spirit. Christians broke that mold, much to the amusement of their neighbors.
There’s an interesting story from before the time of the Greco-Roman Church. In the story Jesus met some lepers in the territory between Samaria and Judea. These lepers were a colony of rejects from both communities, living in the no-man’s land. Some were Jews, some were Samaritans, but all were lepers. I’ve read that sometimes lepers wore bells to warn unsuspecting passersby that they were in danger, not only of contracting an ugly and debilitating disease, but, more importantly, of becoming ritually unclean, which really puts a damper on the old social life.
When they saw Jesus coming along, they recognized him as the teacher-healer-prophet-holy man he was coming to be known as (I’m not sure where they got their information, since no one would go near them). They yelled at him, “Jesus! Bar-David (Son of David)! Have mercy!” They either wanted some money and food, or to be healed. Jesus sent them off to “a priest” (he didn’t say which kind – Samaritan or Jewish, two very different types), without touching them. As they went, the found themselves whole, healthy, and cured. One came running back, threw himself at the feet of Jesus, and thanked God. Jesus said, “Get up. Your faith has saved (or healed, or restored – the Greek means all three) you.” His faith was not just believing in Jesus; it was demonstrated physically. His faith was physical.
In the same way James (probably the brother of Jesus. If you read his book, he sounds a lot like Jesus, which makes sense if they’re related, if James grew up in the same house as Jesus) says good actions (like feeding and clothing the poor, welcoming strangers, or not showing favoritism) are the soul in the body of faith. Isn’t that interesting? Faith, which seems so intangible and spiritual to me, is the body in James’ analogy.
In our church in CB South, we are very aware of our bodies. Part of it might have something to do with living in the mountains, where even the average person is something of an athlete, but there’s more to it than just that. We take the theme of creation and re-creation seriously. Jesus came not to “save our souls”, but to redeem creation.
That informs our corporate prayer. When we gather, we light candles for each continent on a world map. Sometimes we pause in worship for silent prayer for the needs of the world, but sometimes we just leave the candles burning on the map. Sometimes the candles burn all the way down and the wax runs like mercy over Asia or North America or Africa. We set up a station for lighting candles and praying for friends, neighbors, family. We burn incense as a reminder that prayer burns and pleases God. We have used sand and rocks and paper as media for prayer because faith is physical.
Occasionally we gather only to pray. We sit in silence, listening like the Quakers do for the voice of the Light. We stand with our arms stretched out, cross-shaped, as we pray for our community. We lay face down on the floor in submission to the One True God. We anoint people with oil and lay hands on the sick.
Too much Christian practice moves toward shutting the body down, ignoring it and hoping it will go away. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for our desires, it won’t. These dry bones are destined to rise again. These throats are called to sing to God. The Christian hope is “hope of resurrection to meet with reward” (St. Patrick), and it’s only in light of that hope that Christian self-discipline makes any sense. We deny ourselves now, not because the body is bad and the soul good, but because everything now is subject to corruption, and we are living into the new age. Fasting and other disciplines anticipate, in their own way, the kingdom feast at the resurrection of the dead.
My friend Judy was called by God to walk across the country as a prayer and witness. So she did. She told me that once she felt impelled to raise her hands out like a cross. She argued with God, since she was in plain view of the highway. She was afraid of being embarrassed. God insisted and Judy relented. Faith is physical.
I was asked once to participate in the leadership of a “prayer meeting” for a group getting ready for an evangelistic effort. It was a typical “prayer meeting” in the modern evangelical sense of the word. In a two-and-a-half-hour meeting there were three speakers and a video presentation, lots of singing, and then the two other pray-ers and I had fifteen minutes to split.
I asked the assembled to form into several groups. Each group had a specific prayer focus for the upcoming event. To give shape to their prayers, I asked one group to kneel in humility, one to hold their hands up asking for help, one group to stand with their palms out toward the walls to pray for the community, one group to hold their wallets to promise and ask for financial help, one to stand cross-shaped. About a third of the people followed the directions. For the rest, prayer was evidently mental (or verbal at best).
When we allow our selves to become integrated, holistic beings we come closer to being what God has designed us for. We are not alone, but are part of communities. Communal prayer brings us to that. We are not spirits trapped in “soul cages”, but physical beings, in the image of God. Physical prayer reminds us of that. I think we need to expand our understanding of what prayer is in order to encompass our words and actions, our relationships and our work, our thoughts and our desires. As we do so, surrendering to God each part of ourselves, we’ll grow in grace, not shrink. And isn’t that the whole point of the Christ journey?