"Top Gun"

His grand conspiracy with Hebrew prophesy was playing out right on schedule. He knew it. "He took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated and spit on. And they shall scourge Him and put Him to death."

So promised His destiny . . . and His response? "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings, but you refused . . . and Jesus wept."

A little Matthew . . . a little Luke . . . revealing a great heart spilling over with compassion for the numbing ignorance embraced by a humanity blind to His vision, deaf to His teachings and insulated by false doctrine from the saving Grace of His invitation to spiritual mastery.

While the Holy Pretenders of His time dedicated their days to mind-numbing nit-picking over the intricacies of a religiously correct orthodoxy, He dissected their spiritual impoverishment with a scalpel so keen His fellow clerics saw no options beyond defending their insolvent orthodoxy with the lethal irrationality of religious fanaticism.

Not much has changed. What would Jesus himself do if He were in human form today responding to the latest round of lethal fanaticism? Would He be one of the 88% of Americans the most recent CNN poll exposed as being in favor of a "military response?" Now there’s a pregnant euphemism. The possibilities are endless. George W.’s daddy orchestrated a "military response" against Iraq nine years ago just a few days before he left office. He too must have thought of the air strikes as a Christian version of a "holy war." On the completion of the mission he announced, "The skies are safer and the message is clearer today because of the courage of those young air crews that did the Lord’s work yesterday."

Let’s hear it for the Lord’s work!

Can’t you see Him now about His Father’s business . . . Top Gun Jesus, throttle wide open blasting His F-16 through the sonic barrier, mach I, mach 2, scanning the electronics array, picking up His target, relentlessly closing in, effortlessly matching every move of his spiritual brother’s frantic attempt to preserve his earth identity. Sensing lock-on, His finger moves to the launch button just as the signal fills the cockpit. He flips the switch and the Sidewinder leaps from its mount, quickly closes on its prey, then disappears in a glorious fireball of the Lord’s work.

Top Gun Jesus confirms another kill, joysticks into a tight, climbing turn back to His carrier singing, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" while Tom Cruise revels in the glory days when he spilled fictional blood in Hollywood for the Grand Old Flag.

And so it goes from the tragic to the frivolous to the sublime. Human beings subjected to the many faces of a rationalized indifference disguised as everything from "Holy Wars" to the "Lord’s work." The same kind of perverse justification that legitimatized the murder of the gentlest soul on the planet 2000 years ago simply because He exposed a less than clear understanding of His Father’s Law for the archaic confusion it was . . . and continues to be to this day.

It’s time for Him to stop weeping over us, folks. It’s time for us to gather on the common ground of His liberating Truth and challenge the role we’ve been so carefully groomed to play; self-absorbed Ebenezer Scrooges with nothing finer to do than grease the wheels of a cruel commerce that has long forfeited any claim it may have once had on our loyalty in nobler times. As Jean Houston so succinctly put it, " our work will involve putting economics back as a satellite to the soul of culture rather than having the soul of culture as satellite to economics." Righteous!!!

It’s time for us to wake up and live the simplicity of His Gospel of non-worldliness so impeccably it will inspire all who come our way to join us in a powerful renunciation of the bankrupt notion that life’s meaning and purpose can only be computed in the cold calculus of fame, fortune, power and physical beauty. That’s the tyranny that can take us all down.

That’s the real terrorist stalking the planet. It’s the tyrant that has driven us to systematically transform our fresh water, our atmosphere and our oceans from exquisitely evolved systems designed to support earth-life into repositories for the poisonous by-products of a reckless commerce hell-bent for the bottom line.

It is the tyranny of Third World countries locked in the chains of economic slavery by the terrorist nations that set the agenda for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the obscene demand for "structural adjustments" they make on every recipient of their malignant beneficence. ("Structural adjustment" means "significantly cut your investment in the health, education and welfare of your people. Also, cut back severely on subsistence farming and convert to cash crops for export so you can pay us back.")

And how can it be that after being on the books of every tribe out there for thousands of years the power brokers currently setting the agendas for every nation on the planet still leave little doubt that they are basically out to lunch regarding a helpful set of universal spiritual insights we know here in the west as a "Truth that sets us free?"

The answer might lie in the recognition that most of the world’s religious institutions seem to be far more preoccupied with their particular theological point of view than they are with holding their congregation’s noses in "the Truth that sets them free.". This demand for orthodoxy, in and of itself, contains the seeds of much of the mischief upon the land. Discord, dissension, elitism, enmity, hate and hubris, not to mention evangelical zeal to dominate and control the religious dialogue are inevitably divisive when driven by institutionalized arrogance masquerading as divine revelation.

Considering the state of the planet today and the condition of its humanity, it seems a travesty for any of the world’s major religions to claim their followers were making even modest progress toward an authentic spiritual awakening in the spirit of the Golden Rule that is common to all religions.

Not being my primary spiritual path, I can’t speak to what the Buddha or Mohammed or Krishna or Lao Tsu might be inclined to say if they were here today bearing witness to the lethal folly of a few lost fanatics making a travesty out of a faith that, at its soul, is consummately beautiful. But, I’ve got a hunch Jesus might begin by indicting the current leadership of His church as "Blind guides and hypocrites straining out gnats and swallowing camels."

Next, I can see Him rounding up the rest of us, taking us back up the Mount and reminding us for the umpteenth time that its real tough to worship God (What’s Happening Now) while having a simultaneous love affair with Mammon (What’s Missing In This Picture). After that, He’d probably sigh, mutter "oy vey," and wonder if we were ever going to catch on in numbers large enough to create the critical mass required for the quantum leap out of materialism into mastery . . . out of consumerism into community . . . out of terror into love.

Will you join me in a prayer that come this Thanksgiving, we will experience the Grace of gathering around our tables grateful for the gift of wisdom that inspired the movers and shakers in this drama to practice the superior strategy of mercy and allow the warmth of their love and compassion to shine upon the good and the lost and let the soft rain of their cleansing tears of forgiveness bless the lives of the just and the unjust. Thus and only thus shall the cycle of violence be broken and the lamb lay down with the lion.

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving . . .

© 2001 Rev. Chad O'Shea

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