We made "religion"... but God called us to

About 25 years ago, the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” came out.  It was based on a Nikos Kazantzakis book by the same name.   I didn’t read the book, just saw the movie, but the movie seemed to me to be a “What if…” sort of movie.   “What if….” The standard Christian theology changed?   What if… Jesus hadn’t died on the cross for the sins of the world?   What if… Jesus really wasn’t the “Son of God”?   What would have happened to the whole story of church faith if the story turned out differently?  There’s a message in the beginning of the movie from Kazantzakis’ book that this story – “The Last Temptation of Christ” – was partly a result of the challenges and struggles the author was dealing with.

As you can imagine, the movie got slammed by many conservative religious folks.  Many shouted cries of heresy – which I sort of found interesting because neither the author, nor the director of the movie, pretended to have this version of the story be a replacement of the “traditional” faith we all know and love.   But still, the reaction from some quarters was at its basest level, a visceral challenge to a perceived attack of very closely-held beliefs.

So the movie has Jesus on the cross – the story we all know.  Here’s where the story takes the main turn right off the highway… whilst Jesus is on the cross, presumably dying for the sins of the world, and angel comes to tell him he is done.  The angel in the form of a child dressed all in white assures Jesus that God is very pleased with his sacrifice.  The angel lets him know that this was all a test of his faith… an elaborate one to be sure, but none-the-less, Jesus has indeed passed and is registered as a faithful steward – while he is not the messiah, he is indeed one of the righteous.

This is very reminiscent of God’s stopping Abraham’s hand just before he plunges the knife into his son Isaac.   In Genesis, God tells him to sacrifice “your son, your only son, the one you love” as a test of his love for God.  Just as he is about to kill his son, God stops him, telling him he has passed the test of faithfulness, and has Abraham instead sacrifice a sheep stuck in some thickets nearby. 

While the whole movie is interesting in its own right, one scene has particularly stuck with me all these years.    Jesus is returning home from somewhere with his family (here he is unabashedly married with children) when he hears a man we later find out is the Apostle Paul preaching, and his words get Jesus’s attention.   Paul preaches of the Good News of the risen Jesus Christ.        

In the midst of this, Jesus feels compelled to yell out;  “Did you ever see this resurrected Jesus of Nazareth?  I mean, with your own eyes?”    “No!  But I saw a blinding flash of light and I heard his voice!”    “You’re a liar!” says Jesus.    Paul then tells the story of Jesus coming to the disciples in the upper room, where the risen Christ lets Thomas see the wounds in his hands and feet.   ‘You’re a liar!” says Jesus!   “I’m Jesus of Nazareth.  I was never crucified, I never came back from the dead.  I’m a man like everyone else.  Why are you spreading these lies?”

At this point Paul pulls Jesus aside where they can’t be seen and says:  “Look around you!  Look at these people.  Do you see the suffering and unhappiness in this world?  Their only hope is the resurrected Jesus.  I don’t care whether you’re Jesus or not.  The resurrected Jesus will save the world – that’s what matters!”   “I don’t struggle to find truth – I build it.” says Paul…  “ If it’s necessary to crucify you to save the world, then I’ll crucify you!  And I’ll resurrect you too, whether you like it or not. “  

When Jesus complains about this, Paul says “You don’t know how much people need God.  You don’t know what a joy it is to hold the cross, to put hope in the hearts of men, to suffer, to be killed – all for the sake of Christ.   Jesus Christ.   Jesus of Nazareth.   Son of God.   Messiah.”   Paul finishes, “I’m glad I met you.  Now I can forget you.  My Jesus is much more powerful.” 

WHAT?!?!    Did Paul just “make up” Jesus?    Did Paul just invent some unreal…  inauthentic Jesus?

I remember a young couple we knew about 25 years ago.  The young lady was raised in a conservative Christian religion, and certainly brought some of this conservatism to the church we all went to.  I remember part of one conversation.   She once mentioned she didn’t believe in “Man’s laws or religion”, just in “the true biblical faith.”  She said this to differentiate not only her faith from other religions around the world, but also to distinguish her faith from other Christian traditions as well. 

I think she meant she believed there was out there an “authentic” faith, one that wasn’t “invented” by people, one that wasn’t sullied or tainted by the human experience…  and that it could indeed be found in the words and precepts and customs and traditions of the bible.   Maybe she was expressing an unspoken belief, assumption…  longing perhaps, (maybe a need?)  that “true religion” be something that is not only bigger than us, but that comes from outside of us, from something wholly other than us.   Maybe for some it’s this belief of the origination of faith apart from the human experience that makes “true religion” authentic.

This of course was presupposing the bible stories and traditions were themselves protected from the soiling human experience.    She was looking for a faith or a religion that came directly from God, without human “interpretation”, and assumed – perhaps because she had placed her faith in the bible – that the bible (the stories or the words on the pages) had been able to traverse the passage of time, travelling from heaven, through at least three thousand years of time, and ending up as particular version of the bible she had in her home… all without being in any way changed through its journey.    

She didn’t understand that (aside from the biblical stories themselves being changed, and edited and adapted over time) there IS no religion that came directly from the heavens, untouched or untainted by human hands (or experience… or need…  or hope).   EVERY religion has human origin.  EVERY religion is centered within some culture or people, or even multiple cultures or peoples.      

It’s interesting how we value things artistic and creative as authentic.   We don’t deny that art is formed by human beings.  But we also don’t deny that art can be influenced by something deeper than the human being, something grander than the human being – something deeper and grander that is itself interpreted through the human experience of the artist.    Call this “something deeper” a “muse”, or an influencing intelligence.   And we would never deny art as “authentic”.

When done well, art calls forth something from us we perhaps didn’t know we had.  Artists can help us see life from a different angle, inspire us to reach for a new vision, help us tap into a deeper spirit.    Artists may indeed be the shamans of our secular world, using the creative forces of life to mold and shape life-experience into a new journey, interpreting “normal” life through the sacred lens of Art.    

If we can potentially conceptualize art and artists as valid in their own rights, as authentic even, then why would seeing “religion” in just such a way be so far-fetched?   Why does the idea that “religion” could also have as its birthplace the same human experience that informs our art, the same human journey, sound so inauthentic?    If religion is nothing more than our human attempt to make sense of the sacredness that exists around us – our attempt to interpret life through the lens of the sacred… then why can’t religion be nothing less than that either? 

No one would deny that when done well, religion also calls forth from within us our best, our most healthy, our most generous, compassionate and enlightened selves.   Maybe religion, when done well, helps us interpret our human experience through a lens of sacredness.  Maybe when done, religion, faith, partners with us to shape our lives for the better.   As we interpret life through its lens, we cannot help however to also interpret it through the lens of our lives as well.        

Is “religion” a human construct?  Yes it is.  It IS a human creation in the sense that religion, any religion, comes from the cultures and customs and beliefs within which they sit.    It cannot be surprising that any religion would reflect the values and language(s) and music and customs of the culture from which it sprang.   All the integral parts that make up this thing called “culture” is the operating system for this thing we call “religion”.  There has never existed, nor will there ever exist, a “religion” separate from a culture.  And religions, like people (on the micro and macro levels), indeed adapt to their environments.    

As the physical and social and cultural environments change, the religious customs and traditions change as well... beliefs and practices change.    And yet, For some people (like the young lady from our former church), the words “authentic” and “Man-made” are like oil and water, they cannot seem to co-exist when it comes to their preferred religion.   

Why does the thought that humanity, through our consistent and persistent innate desire (and perhaps need) to call upon the stars, the spirits, the creative energy of the universe, invalidate religious authenticity?  Why are so many of us threatened to even entertain the idea that we as humans have always established practices and customs and beliefs that reflect our understanding of this deeper creative force permeating our existence?  Particularly when it comes to our religion? 

It is because if we think we have had any influence in creating religion, then perhaps we might also have had a hand in creating “god”.   And maybe this is the more distasteful side of the Paul dialogue with Jesus in the movie.   Maybe what’s so shocking about Paul in the book and movie is that he makes the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith pretty fast!   And because of this speed, it looks that much more manipulative and fake.    It seems manipulative at best to think your faith was “created” out of whole cloth.   And if our “faith” has been “invented” out of nothing… then perhaps our “god” has also been created!    And it would then follow… an invented “god” is really no “god” at all!   

Perhaps in our devotion to God, we fail to make a distinction between our deeply held (and perhaps unquestioned) religious convictions and practices (through what we call “religion”) with the belief in a God – something the young lady in my story did not do.  Maybe we have so conflated the two ideas – Religion and God – because of our tendency to invest emotionally and psychologically in both, that if we were to question the “authenticity” of our religion, then we would automatically be challenging the existence of our God.

While we may indeed look to find culturally appropriate and meaningful ways to worship and honor our interpretation of this deeper Holy Presence… do not confuse the desire to honor and worship this Presence with the Presence itself.   The desire to honor and worship the Holy Presence is indeed culturally dictated – it has to be.  Is has always been that way.   We as humans have no other way to do this except to look to our cultures.   But the Holy Presence… that has always been there!      

While religion per se is indeed a human construct… the Spirit that supports and undergirds and sustains it, is not.  We, as a species have been reacting to something innate in us… since the beginning.   We as a species have been responding to a voice that calls us… that has always called to us – perhaps from both within and without – and will always call to us.  “Religion” then is just the vehicle by which we express our response to that cosmic call.      

I believe in God!  For me God is real!   And yet I cannot prove the existence of God.   All my proof is circumstantial.   Even so, I’ve heard too much, felt too much, seen too much, and experienced too much to NOT believe there is something grander than me… grander than all of us.   

There is something holy in us… call it the “God gene”, that has always called us to look up – to reach our vision and dreams and hope up to the stars- the milky way galaxy our ancestors saw every night above their heads… the vast expanse of the universe up there. 

 There is something holy in us that has always called us to look around – to the power and strength and wonder and mystery of the expanse of the universe around us.  There is something in us that has always called us to look within – inside, into our hearts and souls and spirits and minds… the vast expanse of the universe within.  And it’s a part of us – it’s within us – to look for hope for tomorrow.

Perhaps the Paul in this story, the Paul that sprung forth from the mind of Kazantzakis (and movie), was so over-exuberant in his desire to bring hope to people, that he created a Jesus he thought people needed to believe in.   We might say this was manipulative.   Even so, for this Paul, God was real!    Even he seemed to believe in this new Jesus.   For Paul, God was bigger than any man, including, as expressed in the movie, the man called Jesus. 

Why was God so real to this Paul?  Why was Paul so persistent and insistent in making sure this “Christ” was made real to the world?   Because this “Christ”, this reflection of that inner voice, spoke so loudly to Paul so as to bring him hope in a hopeless place.     

What the movie doesn’t express is the political and societal life under the Roman Empire in that place and time.  The Romans had a death-grip on the Jews of the Judean world!    As said the Romans:  “We’ll let you alone…  so long as you follow our rules!  Resist and you will be crushed!   Don’t resist!”   For a people living under the thumb of an oppressive empire, where was their hope?  What was their hope?     

“My Jesus is much more powerful!”   Was he saying… “My Jesus can better provide hope”?         

We need hope.  I don’t mean “Hope” in the “I hope I get a pony for Christmas” kind of hope.  I mean Hope as an integral part of the human experience.   Yes it’s true, in our regular lives, the need for something to life for is buried under the normal life-activities.   But come a challenging time – a time that strips all the “normal life-stuff” away – that’s when we grasp for that which provides us with a will to survive…    and live…    and hope for a sunrise from the darkness of the night.   

I remember hearing a story of survivors of the Nazi Concentration Camps in Easter Europe during World War II.   Those horrific conditions, those many inhuman assaults, affected everyone, those with hope and those without.  But some witnesses said some people had just gotten to the point where they lost the will to live.   The light of life had gone out.  In those deplorable and soul-crushing conditions, they just felt they had nothing left to hang on to.  

No doubt hope is a powerful thing!   But for human beings, I think losing Hope – dropping hope – is the choice.  Having hope is the default.   We’re born with the capacity to have hope!    We look for what brings hope.   We reach for what brings hope… and meaning.   That’s what we do as a species. 

We look for meaning.  We have always looked for meaning.  We make sense of the world around us, looking for meaning in it.   This desire to find something to Hope for, something to live for, to find some meaning in the chaos, randomness, chance of life, seems to be evident in the earliest religions, in the earliest peoples.     And that’s what “religion” – in its best expressions – directs us towards.  

Religion at its best, directs us towards that deeper, persistent, existent authentic God...  that creative force that undergirds religion.  It is this creative force, this deeper intelligence, this authentic God, that infuses Hope into us - through our religious practices, and customs, and devotions.  We believe in God...we have Hope in a new and better tomorrow... because we're human.  That's what we do!