A House Without Walls

As stated in my previous post, I will attempt to give an alternate understanding of John 14. Why John 14? This was another section of scripture that was quoted at the funeral I attended which is quoted at a lot funerals for people within the Christian tradition, particularly of the evangelical persuasion. If you are part of a community that values the prospect of everlasting life in paradise above all else, this section is what you are basing that belief on.

First off a disclaimer; I don't know shit. Maybe, everyone else is right and I'm wrong. Could be. And what I'm offering is only one possible explanation of many. But, it seems to me, given the context, it has some merit.

To understand where I am coming from I need to explain one of the fundamental goals of mysticism. All traditions, Christian and otherwise have their mystics; for Christians it's people like Augustine, Theresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart, and even C.S. Lewis. Muslims have the Sufis like Rumi. Buddhist have ... well Buddha ... but others as well. etc. The thing to understand about all these mystics is that their ultimate goal - the reason they are called mystics - is that they are so in tune with God that there is no distinction between them and God. Here are a couple of Sufi quotes to give you the idea;

The Beloved gives us the water of life,

which cures every illness.

In the Beloved's rose garden of Oneness

no thorns survive.

I have heard it said that there is a window

between one heart to another.

But what supports the window

if walls have ceased to exist?

 Rumi

Remove me from myself ,

so that all that remains is you, Beloved.

Take my life so that I can stand in your Presence.

Let all that remains be you.

Hallaj

Nothing exists but you, Beloved.

You are my speech. You are the silence of my mind.

You sleep with me. You walk the path with me.

There is nowhere I can go where you are not.

I have disappeared. Only you remain.

Bulleh Shah

Back to John 14. The key section here is the one where Jesus says that in his father's house are many room, and he goes to prepare a place for [his disciples].
If you start reading this section at John 13 and keep reading to the end of John 17 you get a better idea of what this section is all about. There are two things that Jesus keeps harping about throughout these 4 chapters; One is that his disciples need to follow his example, and the other is that he and the Father are one; if you've seen Him you've seen the Father and vice versa. There are also some mentions of the Holy Spirit coming after he is gone so they know what to do when he's not there.

But it isn't about going to heaven.

To try and get a little clarity on John 14:2, I think you need to jump all the way to John 17:24-26

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

In John 14:2, and throughout these 4 chapters, I think Jesus is speaking as a mystic. He is saying, in parabolic language, that as he and the Father are one, so the disciples are to be as well. That he wants them in the same place (relationally speaking) as he is where there is no distinction between God, or Jesus, or them. When he says to them; "In my father's house are many rooms ... I go to prepare a place for you" he is saying come live with me in complete union with the Beloved where you disappear and only the Father remains; where not only the windows between you and him disappear, but also the walls.

Transcendent Bullshit

I must admit that prayer has confused me for some time now. I used to pray on a semi-regular basis, as any good evangelical would. If I was honest though, most of my prayer life surrounded asking for things like safety of loved ones, direction in life, good weather, or a hollandaise sauce that didn't suck. Oh, I'd add the requisite praise section so I didn't piss off God. And of course the, I'm-so-sorry-for-my-sins bit, just to make sure I ended up in heaven. After all I didn't want to end up like my neighbour who has blown my driveway every winter, all winter, for the past 23 years, but doesn't call himself a Christian. But, basically I was just asking God to do things for me. I didn't see anything wrong with this as most of the sermons, or books that I came across on prayer seemed to be about how to get God to do stuff for you.

Then I started down my current spiritual path that questioned everything, including prayer. I quickly became disgusted with my prayer life. How can I pray for safety, when others who pray just as hard are killed? How can I pray for food when others in the world are starving? Do I deserve it more? Or, more importantly, do they deserve it less? What about those that are riddled with cancer, did they not pray hard enough? I quickly stopped praying. I loved God too much to pray with such disrespect. Plus, any God that I could control with prayer wasn't worth worshiping.

There is so much discussion, controversy, and opinion about prayer - everyone seems to think they have the answer - that I'm starting to think that, like all things that have a lot of conflicting opinions, nobody's right. I wonder if we've missed the point entirely. What if prayer has nothing to do with the content of your prayer like praising God, or asking forgiveness, or manipulating? What if it doesn't matter if you're a health-and-wealth pentecostal, or an ascetic living in the desert? What if it does matter if you're speaking in tongues, or reciting the liturgy, because that's not the point.

What if the only point to prayer, no matter how you do it, is just to keep us connected to the divine? To make us realize that there's something other than ourselves out there. That there is something transcendent to aspire to? That there's more to life and living than just us? Maybe when you pray for something, and you get it (and I have, or so it seems), maybe it's just coincidence. Maybe it would have happened if you had prayed or not. Maybe that's why people pray for food and still starve to death, or pray for safety and still get killed, or pray for healing and still end up in a pine box. Maybe the tapestry illustration is just bullshit, but that's ok, because through it all we've remained connected to the transcendent - to something beyond ourselves.

There's a story about some famous guy - I forget his name - but, apparently he said, "I have so much to do today, I couldn't possibly get it all done without 3 hours of prayer". Perhaps he just wasted 3 hours of his day that could have been spent more productively. Or maybe, like a Buddhist, he spent 3 hours transcendently connected to the divine, and whatever happened that day would have happened anyway.

The Complicity of the Church

You have probably heard it said that Satan's greatest trick is convincing people that he doesn't exist. But I wonder if he hasn't pulled an even faster one. One that actually gets some people into heaven, while keeping the majority out. One that has permeated the entire Church, and is so ingrained into Christianity, that very few people would even think of questioning it. Think about it: At least some people will question the existence of Satan, but very, very few Christians will question what actually drove them into heaven.