THE SIGNIFICANCE OF “IN”

“I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”(John 14)

I pray that that those who believe in me will be one, Father,

just as you are in me and I am in you.(John 17)

In John 15 Jesus described the Divine/human relationship to be like the relationship of a branch to the trunk or stem of a plant. The branch can not live unless it is in the stem. Read as a Buddhist text, this would be taken to say that the branch and the main stem are essentially one and the same thing. But Jesus was a Jew, and we must read Jesus’ statement in terms of his own tradition. Please note:

1. The stem provides life and the branch receives it.

2. Jesus describes subject and object with this metaphor.

3. In this metaphor, Jesus gives life, and his followers receive it.

4. A couple of decades later, Paul wrote that in him (Jesus) all things were created, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17). Christians can and should affirm the Buddhist teaching about the “Unity of all things” when the preposition “in” is added. In Paul’s theology from the New Testament, Jesus himself is presented as something like the hub of the wheel of dharma, to use Buddhist language. If this is an illusion, then it is the most powerful and world changing illusion in history.

Jesus favorite metaphor for God was Father. He referred to God as his Father and told us to pray to our Father. He also said, “I and the Father are one. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. This has a distinctly Buddhist sound, but since Jesus was a Jew, we must discover what it would mean to a Jew. As a Jewish text it suggests that father and child are two, not one, but the parents’ nature is in the child, and child’s identity is in the parent. When the mother leaves the room, the baby cries because the source of its identity has been lost. An adopted child cries with joy when the original parent has been found.

When a Buddhist meditates and enters into his own heart at the deepest level to find the true self, the Buddhist typically describes the experience as nothingness, emptiness, or void. There in the meditative state, he is alone, because he is divine, and there is nothing else. For him in the silence, he has found his peace. When a Christian meditates and enters into his own heart at the deepest level, typically the Christian describes the experience as fullness, and in that place of silence he is not alone, because Jesus is there. The experience of each validates what each believes to begin with.

The Buddhist politely shows respect for the Christian’s explanation in honor of the Christian’s sincere discipline to meditate, but for the Buddhist, the Christian experience is inferior, because the true identity is not yet self-achieved.  Perhaps in another reincarnation, the Christian will put aside the crutch of this illusion- this god, Jesus, and realize fully his or her own Divinity.

I suggest that both are fully mature religious experiences and should be taken as true, not only as the subjective experience of each devotee, but as objective spiritual truth. In deep meditation, the Buddhist finds himself alone because, in fact, he is alone, but the Christian finds someone else to be there with him, because someone else is there. Jesus said he would be there. A Christian explanation for the Buddhist experience is that the Buddhist lacks the capacity to recognize the One who is there, because that recognition is given only by Divine revelation, and Jesus is light that makes the invisible God visible. The Christian prays that the Buddhist will be given this revelation.

The religious quest is a search for the self. To search for the true self is really a Buddhist version of the western philosopher’s question “Who am I?” or the Hebrew Psalmist’s question in Psalm 8, “What is human?” The fundamental question, what does it mean to be human, is personalized in the religious quest.

The Psalmist found his identity in terms of relationship at two levels, first in a Creator, and second in a community that worships the Creator. The Christian stands in this tradition. Jesus said, “I will give you a Comforter, the Holy Spirit of Truth from the Father, who is with you and will be in you (John 14:17). For me as a believer in Christ, there is someone inside of me who is not me, but by whose power I may do all the works that Jesus did and even greater works, as Jesus said. This is the power that so impressed my language teacher.

ALL IS ONE

For the Buddhist, all is one and one is all, and the true self is found within the self. For the Christian, all are one in Christ. The true self is found in another in whom “all things hold together.”[4]

-The Meaning of Persons

So then what, after all, does it mean to be in someone else? The opening chapters of Genesis introduce the concept. “The man leaves his father and mother and becomes one with his wife.”[5] According to this prescription, a child’s original identity is in its parents, because relationship defines identity, and the child’s identity is defined by its relationship to those who gave it life.[6] When the child marries, a new identity is established in the heart of the spouse by a new relationship of equals that supersedes the old, without negating or diminishing it. The design of the Creator is that the primary identity marker will shift from parents to spouse. The physical umbilical cord that was cut at birth needs to be followed up by the cutting of the spiritual/emotional umbilical chord that bound the child to its parents who were its superior.[7] There is no longer superior and inferior to this new relationship, because the man and the woman have grown up, and now are identified by a relationship vested equally in each other. Similarly as a race of humans, our original, physical identity is in the earth, but the gift of God is a new spiritual identity in God that supersedes the old without destroying it. In the New Testament, Christ (God made visible) is like a groom, and we are like a bride to him. The identity of each is invested in the other.

-Clearly Two and Clearly One

Jesus introduced the wedding theme in John 14. He said “I go to prepare a place for you, and when I return, I will take you to be with me,” he said. The disciples would have recognized these words to be the ritual words of a groom-to-be at an engagement party. These words would be spoken in response to the bride’s acceptance of his marriage proposal. The groom-to-be would then immediately go to build a place of residence and upon completing the house, come back for the bride with great ceremony and take her home, after which a wedding feast would be given.

Jesus continued the discourse through the end of chapter 14, explaining about the Father and the Holy Spirit so they would be prepared for his absence, but the disciples didn’t understand. Then realizing how little they understood, he began again with a brand new metaphor. “I am the vine, you are the branches,” he said, “and the Father is the gardener. Abide in me, (and when my Holy Spirit enters into you) abide in him.” This still points back to the courtship metaphor with which he had opened the discourse. After the first night together, the couple-in-love comes together again and again in renewal of the marriage covenant.[8] They abide or live in each other. Later with this understanding, Paul commanded his readers to be filled with the Spirit, again and again in a renewed covenant with God in a renewed filling of the Spirit.[9]

After the resurrection the disciples began to understand. When God gave the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the marriage of heaven and earth had been consummated and the Kingdom had arrived. When John finished writing Revelation, the book ends with the Wedding Supper of the Lamb, finishing the canon of scripture with a metaphor taken directly from Genesis 2 and used by Jesus in John 14. The Bible that began with a physical union on earth reveals a cosmic marriage of heaven and earth in the end, where two become one eternally, and still forever remain two, each knowing the self by means of the relationship to the other. This is where Biblical theism leads us.

The founder of the Ricci Institute in Taipei, Yves Raguin, wrote in The Depth of God,[10] “The Father is the Father in the depths of the Son, and the Son is the Son in the depths of the Father. Without the Father there could be no Son, and without the Son there could be no Father.” In the same way, without the bride there could be no groom, and vice versa. This is the degree to which God has bound himself to his creatures in Jesus Christ.

THE MEANING OF LOVE

In his first epistle John wrote, “God is love.” Ontologically, love is what God is. Love underlies existence itself. There are three dimensions of love revealed in Jesus’ comments of John 15.

1. Commitment

Following the vine and branch metaphor, Jesus interprets the meaning. He says that to abide in the vine means to abide in his love, a love which comes from the Father. The question that divides theists and non theists is this: Is love a feeling induced by chemistry and biology, or is it something deeper than the natural order? Is there someone out there who is not us, but who can love us? Genesis implies it was God’s design that each human child would be born out of the love of a man and woman for each other.

This arrangement is preeminently the “Image of God.” Love demands an object, and a living, growing love will multiply the objects that are included. This arrangement reveals a God of love who created something other than God in order to love it. The Biblical story is reveals a God whose commitment of love never dies, and who keeps covenant with his people, even when they reject him, just like a mother with a disobedient child.

2. Sacrifice

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Love is costly. Someone has described the commitment of Biblical marriage like this. I give everything I am and have to you in exchange for everything you are and have, including my own physical body. This is an equal exchange, even when great disparity of wealth is involved, because 100% = 100%. One life given for one life received is costly, but fair. The Christian understanding of Jesus‘ incarnation and death is that in Christ, God gave all of heaven in exchange for all of earth, an earth that humans were put in charge of, but squandered away for the deception of short term pleasures. Translated into Buddhist language we might say for the illusion of short-term pleasures.

3. Nurture

Jesus said, “I do not call you servants any longer, but friends, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but….I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you.”[11] Under Jesus tutelage, the disciples were growing from mere students into trusted friends, friends who would do the work their Lord had done, and even do greater things greater than he.[12] The lover always invites the beloved to a deeper intimacy and encourages the beloved to a higher status of accomplishment. This what the Holy Spirit does in a life that is lived by faith in Jesus.

Love in Community-

Buddhists and Christians share a common concern for the unity and wholeness of life; but Christian faith is far more optimistic about the social order, and that optimism comes from a history of hope rooted in a theistic tradition where the world is real, not illusion, and where everything God made is good, despite all appearances to the contrary.

The birth announcement in Luke promised that Jesus would bring “Peace on Earth.” The community that finds its identity in Jesus is the hope and foundation of that peace. This community consists of all people whose identity and purpose is found in Jesus Christ and in each other as one body, rather than in race, religion, family, nation, or career.

BUDDHA, CHRIST, AND THE HUMAN FAMILY

In the ancient patriarchy, a man never really was allowed to leave home emotionally as Genesis 2 prescribes, and the entire family structure suffered. A healthy, differentiated self, in voluntary intimacy with others was rarely achieved.

Siddhartha was born into this system. For Buddha, as for any royal family member, there would be political implications attached to every personal decision, often making authentic interactions with others difficult, if not impossible. The attempt of Siddhartha’s father to isolate him from affairs outside the palace reveals how repressed and isolated the young prince was. When he realized his true situation, he found it necessary to abandon parents, wife, and child in order to learn who he really was. What would normally be a shameful act became for Siddhartha a necessary step of renunciation to find himself and obtain enlightenment.

Jesus experience is somewhat parallel. His family also attempted to dominate him. At one point Jesus’ family came to take charge of him because they questioned his sanity, but Jesus refused to meet with them. He said, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus’ primary relationship was now in a new community of those who do God’s will. The Jewish family system, less restrictive than Siddhartha’s Indian palace, gave Jesus the power to cut that emotional umbilical chord without having to abandon his family permanently, as Siddhartha had done. Jesus’ mother was present at his death, and he was able to show her kindness, even while he was dying. After the resurrection, his brothers, James and Jude, became his ardent followers.

When Buddha left family and home to achieve enlightenment, under the Bodhi Tree he found himself within himself in reference only to himself and became the Enlightened One. This was not an exercise in narcissism. The goal was to escape the pettiness of life in society, and find integrity as a whole person. Then he taught his disciples to do the same. Having found himself within himself, he still required a community of reference outside himself. Buddhists see this as a free act of benevolence, not as a necessity for Buddha. One who follows Jesus will find this understanding of self to be inadequate.

Unlike Buddha, Jesus did not begin with himself. He began with his Father in heaven. With his identity secure in the Father, he could then build his community in that reality. He did not teach his followers to find themselves in themselves, but rather in him and his community, and he told them to pray to the Father. Jesus said, “Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will find it.” Buddhist writers sometimes reference this text, but inevitably leave out the words, ‘for my sake and the gospel.” Jesus taught his disciples to find themselves, not in themselves, but in a new relationship to himself and his gospel.

Earlier I said that Buddhists and Christians have a different idea of what we are. The Buddhist sees the self to be ultimately divine because “all is one.” For the Christian theist, the self, that is, the I has meaning only in relationship to the we, and God is the Other in whom humanity finds its identity and the meaning of existence.

Still the Buddhist notion of our Divinity is not entirely wrong, and there is a hint of this concept in John’s writings. He wrote, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! … Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he (Christ) appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”[14] The implication seems to be that the child grows up to be what the parent is. The child will never be the parent, but the child’s identity will always be in the parent, and the child will become like the parent. We too will become like Christ, who is the visible manifestation of God, our Father in Heaven.

In summary then, we can say positively that Buddhism has much to offer for integrating the individual self, but it cannot integrate the human race. It is only for the individual. On the other hand, following Jesus holds the promise for integrating the entire race of humanity through the cross. In the cross God, through Jesus, identified with humanity in its suffering, and took responsibility for it. We become one with him when we identify with him in his suffering and take responsibility for our part in making his sacrifice for us necessary. We do this when we confess our sin, accept the offer of forgiveness in Jesus, and begin to take responsibility for those around us, as Jesus did for us. Jesus said, “What you have done to the least of my brothers, you have done to me.”[15] We identify with Jesus and become one with him when we make ourselves one with all those he loves in their suffering. That is how we take responsibility.

BETWEEN TWO OPTIONS

Presenting the Minority, Biblical View

So what will convince the non-theist that actually there is someone out there who made us and loves us and to whom we are responsible? Jesus gave his answer in John 17 as follows: “I pray…that all of them (those who believe me) may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me….I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

Jesus calls his followers to God’s community of love. But it is not mere words about love that will be convincing. The unity must become visible by love. After washing the disciple’s feet Jesus said, “You will be identified by all people as my disciples if you love one another.”[16]

Peace and Unity in Love-

Near the end of John 14 Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I don’t give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or afraid.”

The world today is crying for peace,and Buddhists today are increasingly involved in social causes. Kenneth Kraft writes in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, “For those interested in religious ethics, the emergence of a “Western” Buddhism offers potential new sources of knowledge and insight. … we can no longer overlook the experience of Westerners who are attempting to unify Buddhism, ethical concerns, and social action in their daily lives.” [17] Books like Bernie Glassman’s Bearing Witness, A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace provide one good example of how American Buddhists are facing this issue.

Unity is essential for peace. Every human leader wishes to unite his people. “Unite and be as one,” the politician, the military general, the athletic coach, the sales team leader, and the orchestra conductor all shout in unison, but they only succeed for a brief moment, after which chaos returns. Facing a common enemy, a country may unite for a moment, but only until the crisis passes. Common greed may unite the sales force of the corporation until the stocks are no longer rising, and then the rivalries resume. What power could possibly unite all people on earth permanently? The gospels declare that it is the love of God revealed in the cross, because when, like the Romans[18], we were also Jesus’ enemies, he died for us to reconcile us to God?[19]

The angels announced that Peace on Earth would accompany the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. Is this “Prince of Peace” the prince of a personal, private, religious peace, or can he bring public peace and unity to the world community? If Jesus is to be Lord of politics as well as religion, then there must be some evidence presented to show that this Jesus is able to make all humanity one.

PRINCE OF PEACE-

LORD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH-

LORD OF RELIGION AND POLITICS

1. The Religious Dimension

The role of a shaman or priest has always been to mediate the connection between ordinary people and the spiritual realm. The New Testament (especially the book of Hebrews) presents Jesus as the Great High Priest who has opened heaven and made God accessible to all. Because of Jesus, the spirits are no longer to be feared, and the Heavenly Father can be approached by anyone. Any believer can serve as priest to any other person who might feel estranged from God for some reason.

By the end of the 4^th century, Christianity had become the official state religion, and the church drifted back to the old priestly system. A monopoly of faith was enforce by the state; so that now the believer could only approach God through the mediation of the official church and its cadre of trained clergy. The universal access to God which Jesus achieved was now restricted and, in effect, taxed by the church. This was the religious sham which Calvin, Luther, and Zwingli confronted in the birth of Protestantism. Great freedom followed their efforts for the people of northern Europe.

2. The Political Dimension

The early church declared Jesus to be Lord over all. This was not only a religious declaration, it was as political, economic, and social as it was religious. Caesar, the emperor, could retain his title, but for those who followed Jesus, he was no longer the Lord, no longer a son of the gods, as emperors often claimed to be in the ancient world.

They understood that the law can not bring about a righteous society. The early church did not promote legislation against the evils of its time, but did insist upon purity inside the church. The oppression of slavery was accepted as normal to the outside, but inside the church this barrier to oneness in Christ would stop. Social class had to be left at the door of the church,[20] and inside the church, women began to move towards more equal participation in church life.[21] In this way the Church became salt and light[22] to its environment as it spread invisibly like yeast and buried seed.[23] In this way it created a social ferment that continues to infect the entire loaf of humanity.

Early in my missionary career I attended a lecture at Furen University in Taiwan given by a Jesuit Priest. I promptly forgot the name of the priest, but never forgot his message. He said that every person has three fundamental loyalties or identities- family, nation, and religion. For each of us, one of the three is primary, and the other two are secondary. When there is a conflict of between the values of any two identities, a person will chose the values of his or her primary identity at the expense of those values represented by the secondary identity. This insight is immensely valuable for understanding ourselves, but we must go one step further. For the citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, the King himself is the primary source of identity. It is at the point where Kingdom of Heaven values conflict with the otherwise legitimate interests of state, family, or religious systems that the world can see to whom we belong. And when they see us as one body in Christ by the power of the Spirit in fact as well as in doctrine, the world will have no choice but to recognize the One who has made us one in him.

CONCLUSION 

In the introduction I described how Dr. Kuschner had struggled with the problem of how God could be both all good and all powerful. The cross of Jesus resolves the problem for the person whose identity is in Christ. God’s goodness and love was displayed publicly in Jesus, who as King of the Jews forgave his country’s enemies before they had repented. He did this without any guarantee that they would repent- just his hope in the promise of God. In the life he lived and the death he died, the depth of his humanity revealed the power of his Divinity, a power sufficient to raise the dead. It is the demonstration of this power in the world by the Holy Spirit through the church as one body with one head, Jesus Christ, which will convince the world that God made the world and acts in it through his body.

If we put our confidence in Jesus and identify with him, then we receive his Divine Spirit through whom we are re-formed into people like him. His Divinity in us and our humanity in him will make heaven and earth one when all humanity has found its place in him. This true self that Buddhists and Christians both are seeking is found uniquely by faith in Him.