WOULD YOU LIKE TO DANCE?

 

J.S Mill

The story is told about the famous British philosopher, John Stewart Mill. It seems that he kept having a recurring dream, one that he sensed was very important. But each morning, when he awoke, he could never remember what the dream had said. So one night, as he went to bed, he put a pen and a sheet of paper on his nightstand, hoping to capture the message. 

When he woke up the next morning, he remembered to look at the paper, and sure enough, there was the message captured in four words: “Think in different terms.“

In the gospels, the Pharisees are stuck inside of their system of ideas, the series of laws and regulations that assure them of God’s favor. So they, of course, cannot recognize or accept Christ for who he is — they simply cannot think in different terms.

In the first reading at mass this morning (Saturday), we see Paul addressing this very issue of thinking in different terms. It reads in part: 

“consequently, from now, on we regard no one according to the flesh, even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor.5)

I happen to be rereading Richard Rohr’s book on the Trinity, “the Divine Dance,” in which he proposes that we Christians need to see the mystery of God very differently from the way we are used to doing. We have to let go of the model of the power pyramid, with God the Father at the top, like the pagan god Zeus on Mount Olympus exercising power and domination on everything below.

Rohr challenges us to let go of that image in favor of an older one, that of the Divine Circle dance, of the three persons of the trinity, who invite us to join in the dance with them. In this model it's all about relationships, and there is no room for domination, mastery, punishment, or terror. I recommend the book if you have not read it already, especially since I can’t even scratch the surface of Rohr’s ideas here.

But let me offer a footnote from the new American Bible for the passage quoted above: “The death of Christ described in 2 Cor 5:14-15 produces a whole new order and a new mode of perception (verse 16). “According to the flesh“: the natural mode of perception, characterized as "fleshly," is replaced by a mode of perception proper to the spirit. Elsewhere Paul contrasts what Christ looks like according to the old criteria (weakness, powerlessness, folly, death), and according to the new (wisdom, power, life)….“

If we look at the world with the eyes of the spirit, everything changes. Hardship, suffering, even death, all take on a new significance. All of our human efforts appear very different through this new lens. You may recognize this as the "Paschal Mystery" that's at the center of our Easter Faith.

This past week's feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and  the Immaculate Heart of Mary make so much more sense if we "think in different terms:" Instead of from the starting point of a God who is all powerful and who dominates everything in creation, begin with the Trinity, a God who is relationship, three divine persons engaged in a circle dance of love to which we are all invited.