Quantum Christianity: The People of God
Acts 2:1-21
Sermon preached Sunday, May 15, 2005
By Rev. Patricia Pearce with Jamie Arrington
Over these past several weeks here at Tabernacle we have been delving into the series that I am calling Quantum Christianity, and we have been looking at the discoveries in quantum physics and engaging in a conversation between quantum understandings and Christian teachings. This is actually the last Sunday of the series and it is appropriate that it be today, Pentecost, and you will understand more about that in a moment. But last week I talked about how it is that Yeshua preferred the title for himself, Son of Man or Human One, the Human Being. This was his chosen title, not referring to himself as the Christ but instead he took on this generic name -- the Human One -- and in so doing he transcended his own ego orientation and he took on a collective identity. He understood himself to be one with all of humanity and he understood himself to be one with God. There was no separation. He embodied this understanding of complete and unbroken oneness, which is what we have been learning quantum physicists are discovering, that the universe is an unbroken whole. That there cannot be, that there indeed is no separation between the scientist and the experiment. That there is an interaction between observer and that which is being observed. That any notion of separateness is only an illusion in our minds.
We also talked about how ego-mind affects us. How we tend to live our days perceiving of ourselves as an 'I', a separate entity moving through the world, distinct, special. But this ego-identity is an illusion, there is essentially no separate 'I'. That this form that is embodied is simply part of the whole that is the universe.
Now this is troublesome for scientists because they know that they can no longer have the safety of sitting on the sidelines and watching what is happening. You see, there are no sidelines anymore. There are no sidelines and what I want to suggest to you is that Pentecost is to classical theology as quantum physics is to classical physics. That in the Pentecost story we see an account of the people experiencing oneness, that their perceptions of differentness and divisions are gone. They find themselves in this moment and in this experience in which they know that they are interconnected that there is no separateness.
Now, ego-mind. We talked a little about ego-mind last week. But what I want to suggest today is ego-mind -- that notion of there being a separate 'I' who is special either because I am uniquely awful or I am uniquely good and better than others, both of those are manifestations of the ego-mind -- what I want to suggest is when that mindset takes hold at a societal level it becomes empire-mind. Empire-mind is ego-mind acting out within a society and on a global scale. And what I want to suggest is that our society is particularly susceptible to empire-mind because we are steeped in the illusion of individualism and we often perceive ourselves as special, as more gifted, as better than other nations. And so we enter into this illusion of separateness on a global scale that manifests itself as domination. And you know what? It's all illusion, because we are not separate and more and more the people are waking up to that fact. Why? Because we have to. Why? Because the challenges that face us now cannot be solved by any one group of people. They have to be solved collectively, and so we must relinquish ego-mind/ empire-mind if we are to move into an experience of God's shalom and in order to release the latent possibilities for a positive future of peace.
Now in this Pentecost story that we just heard in Acts there is this sort of unusual thing with these tongues of fire. That is sort of an odd image, tongues of fire resting on the people's heads.
Jamie, what are you thinking? (Jamie says, "That the tongues of fire are resting on my head in this Presbyterian/ United Church of Christ and I am having a Pentecostal experience.") [Patricia continues...] and you know what? The tongues of fire, okay... No One... Yeshua identified himself as No One, as everyone, as the Human One, No One. We have this No One from Galilee -- he was a no one. These tongues of fire… I think it is enlightening if you will forgive the pun to know that in that day the coins of that time had an image of Caesar on them, a bust of Caesar, and what do you suppose is resting on Caesar's head? Tongues of fire. You see, he was the representative of the Roman empire's god-- the Invincible Sun -- and so tongues of fire surrounded him. Hmmmm. The emperor as the embodiment, as the representative of the divine, as the one who had the authority to exercise power. Well what does it mean when the tongues of fire are not just on Caesar's head? What happens when the tongues of fire are on the people's heads? You see there isn't any separateness.
Empire-mind wants us to believe that there is separateness, wants us to believe that power belongs to the few rather than the All. And in this Quantum Christianity series we have been talking about how it is that in fact we exercise power simply by our thoughts, by our prayers, by our actions, because we are one with this whole, with this unbroken wholeness that is the universe. We are not separate from it so that everything that we do, say or believe, our thoughts, our energy, our consciousness has an effect on the whole. We are not powerless.
Now as I mentioned last week, what happened in the Christian tradition? Although Yeshua insisted on the people not crowning him, on not worshiping him what happened in the Christian tradition is that we made it all about him. What happened was this ego paradigm, this ego understanding became imposed on the religion and in fact the earliest doctrines, the Nicene Creed for instance was written at the insistence of Constantine, the emperor who converted to Christianity and made Christianity the religion of the empire. Interesting fusion. But if we go back to this Pentecost story we understand that any notion on an imperial religion is an illusion. Any religion that promotes any idea of separateness is based on illusion.
Do you want to get up here Jamie? Come up here.
P: Maybe it is time that you and I preached.
J: Amen.
P. Ready for that?
J. Yes, are you also ready?
P. Feel the Spirit
J: Amen
P. So why do you suppose… why do you suppose the doctrines and the tradition wanted to have this notion of separateness, that it's all about Christ, that it is contained, that the power of God is contained in him?
J: Because it would give the people too much power, it would set the people free, it would set fire in the people
P: Go, go, go
J: It would release the love in the people, because love covers a multitude of things, it's the fire of love, the power of love and within love there is no separation.
P: and God is Love
J: God is Love
P: God is the All
J: We are in Christ and we are all in Christ. We are one
P: And Christ is No One, Christ is us, Christ is everyone, you are Christ
J: You are Christ
P: You [pointing to the congregation] are Christ.
You see it's all about damage control. It's all about damage control. Oh, my God this guy from Galilee look what he has done. He has become everyone. He has freed the people from the illusion of separateness. What are we going to do?
J: So no longer do we have control, no longer do we have power …
P: Uh oh. That's big trouble.
J: Yes.
P: What if the people have the power? What if all the people…?
J: If we allow them to be separate, if we allow them to be individuals there is no power that allows them to become one
P: So if we can keep them in this individual mind… I saw a bumper sticker on a cab on my way to church and this is empire-mind taken to it's absurd… what's the word? Extreme. An army of one. An army of one. And you would think of army as the one place with an empire where we get out of individual thinking, right? We understand that we are in it together. But an army of one?
So what's next? The People of God. I put that down as our title today, The People of God, and it's not the possessive "of", like the "dog of my friend", but it's like the bowl of clay, the people of God. That we are made of God.
J: We are God. He is in us and we are in him
P: No separation.
J: We are one.
P: Unbroken wholeness.
J: We are one. One what? One Lord, one faith, one baptism. The fire
P: Of the spirit
J: The fire
P: of the spirit
J: THE FIRE
P: of the Spirit! We are one.
J: We are one.
P: And let no one deceive you. Let know one lead you to believe that you are separate from God and that you are separate from other beings. For so it is that we are one and we are the people of God.
J: Of God. We are the people of God.
Congregation: We are the people of God.
We are the people of God.
We are the people of God.
© 2005 by Patricia Pearce. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
