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Sunday, December 26, 2004
Sunday School
I'm not a big fan of Christmas, as I've written in previous years, so I am tempted to write along those lines again, but I've decided instead to give a summary of a "sermon" I delivered about three months ago to my tiny congregation. There is nothing remarkable about my having given a sermon; most of us in the congregation take turns in giving a Sunday message. What some might consider a deficiency in spiritual leadership, we like to think of as low overhead. Anyway, here it is:
In the book of Genesis, God curses Adam and Eve (after the fall) with toil, suffering, and death. These curses are consistent with other ancient mythologies. In the Mesopotamian myths, for example, the gods create human beings to alleviate them from their heavy burden of work. Hard toil, it would seem, is our lot, and happy we are to have moments of respite. The Sabbath is a great blessing.
I do not take any of these stories to be historically accurate and, more importantly, I reject the spirit behind them as well. Work and suffering are neither curses nor the consequences of sin. I would say instead that our capacity for suffering comes from our nature proper, not just our fallen nature. We have evolved as creatures who feel pain more acutely than we feel pleasure, and for longer periods of time too. We tire of particular pleasures all too quickly, but it is very difficult for us to become desensitized to the things that make us suffer.
From the perspective of evolution, this design feature of our psyche is largely a plus, in that our sensitivity to pain keeps us constantly working to improve our conditions. I'm guessing that a creature that is easily self-satisfied would be at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Pleasure is essential, else we would probably not strive after anything at all, but fleeting pleasure is probably best.
In short, nature has designed us for survival, not happiness.
Nature, then, is not enough, and must be overcome. Nor is our condition a consequence of sin so, whatever the benefits of avoiding sin might be, we should not expect that avoiding sin will solve for us the problem of our unhappiness.
Jesus saves. This is the gospel, the good news. Whether you accept the news or not, however, there is a point that should be observed, namely, that there is an interest in this good news at all. That good news should be at the forefront of the Biblical narrative runs contrary to our nature, for it is our nature to be more sensitive to the bad news than to the good. Consider, for example, the nightly news. The great majority of its stories will be about things gone wrong or things about to. Some news sources make a conscious effort to include positive stories as well, but it is not natural for writers to look for those stories, and these are not the stories readers want most either. Frankly, such stories rarely seem very serious. We call them "feel-good" with the assumption that anything that feels good can't be too important for us to pay attention to.
Somehow, the gospels pull off this good news. Somehow, our mind/soul/brain/psyche (you name it) is drawn to them seemingly in spite of its own evolution. Whatever we may think of the good news itself, we should learn this about ourselves.
I must confess that I am as skeptical about the Biblical account of the world to come as I am about the Genesis account of its origins. If the good news were simply the hereafter, I don't think I'd be very moved, if for no other reason than that the problem of happiness seems just as much a problem for that world as for this one. If the gospels cannot say more than that there is life eternal, why should I believe that to be anything more than an extension to our suffering?
Christianity is often credited with introducing, for better or worse, a linear notion of time, i.e., that our existence finds its meaning in something that lies ahead of us. I am drawn instead to the vision of the Christian mystics, who take very seriously Christ's claim that the kingdom of God is in our midst. God became incarnate, meaning that the world to come has already been made real, if only in one person. Even when Jesus speaks of his return, the point of emphasis is that each of our moments count, because you never know when He will return like a thief in the night. Sufficient is the day.
The hope I take from the gospels is of the possibility of joy. Joy is an affirmation of what is. Joy is not identical to pleasure and can coexist with pain. You can rejoice at a funeral, taking stock of a life well-lived and which continues to bear fruit after its passing. Joy is eternal, not because we only find our joy in the permanent, but because in joy we triumph over our natural temporality, that restlessness which forgets the past, devalues the present, imagining that the next pleasure will be the one that finally satisfies us.
Eddie 4:46 PM
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