BECOMING CHRIST
May 27, 2001

TEXT: John:17:20-26
Ben Kingsley starred as the main character in the 1982 motion picture, Gandhi. He spent months preparing for the role, visiting the various Indian locales Gandhi had frequented. He even learned to spin cotton thread on a wooden wheel while holding conversations as Gandhi did. The physical resemblance between Gandhi and Kingsley was almost startling. After filming a scene in a village south of Delhi, Kingsley stepped out of a car, and an elderly peasant knelt to touch his feet. Embarrassed, Kingsley explained that he was merely an actor playing Gandhi. "We know," replied the villager, "but through you he will surely live again."
That was the prayer of Jesus, that he will live again through the lives of his followers; that the world will see Christ in us; through our unity and through our love.

How do we get into the mind of Christ and experience the presence of God as Jesus did? How do we achieve that mystical sense of unity with God that the great mystics of the church tried to achieve, to really know God and feel God's presence?
office that allows him to en In the absurd comedy, Being John Malkovich, a puppeteer finds a door in his ter the mind of and literally become the famous actor, John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Imagine being able to actually walk right into someone's brain and to experience life though their eyes. It’s an amazing concept. You live the life of another person before getting tossed out and find yourself on the New Jersey Turnpike. Someone once said, "The two greatest things I have learned in life are: God is God and I am not." And yet Jesus says,"I and the Father are one," and that Jesus' desire is that his followers may also be in Christ and in God, so that all may be one.

Perhaps another way of asking the question is, "How do we get inside the mind of Christ in order to experience the nature of God as Jesus did?" How can we see the world as God sees it, and understand the nature of human suffering and the power of redeeming love?

The answer, of course, is not just to see, or to understand, but to be the Christ. It is one thing to have an intellectual understanding of a person=s experience, but it is much to actually live the life.
In the newsletter, Net Results, a story is told concerning the distinguished pastor Dr. Dale Galloway, who is now on the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary. Dr. Galloway was responsible for building from scratch a 6,400 member church in Portland, Oregon, called New Hope Community Church.

Galloway tells the story of a single mother who belonged to the church along with her son. She was involved in a women's group at the church. One of the members of that group said, "Donna, you look yellow. Have you been to a doctor?" Donna said that she couldn't afford insurance. The group took up an offering and sent her for a checkup. The doctor found a serious problem with her liver. Without a liver transplant in the next six weeks, she would die.
Doctors told her that specialists at a hospital in Texas could perform the operation for $140,000. (This was ten years ago.) The situation appeared to be impossible.

The women in the small group went to talk to the pastor about whether the church could do something for Donna. The pastor was troubled. They were completing a building addition and were $400,000 in debt. He was convinced that the church was financially tapped out and he was losing sleep over money as it was. But as he prayed about Donna's situation, he was convinced that the church had to help. A lay leader whose business was known across the city agreed to be honorary chair of the effort. It would be called "Save My Mom." Another person volunteered to give the next six weeks working full-time on the project.

That Sunday, the pastor shared the need of this mother with his congregation and was shocked when $60,000 in cash was given. The next day, the pastor received an invitation to testify before the Oregon legislature with Donna about the issue of people who couldn't afford insurance. A major newspaper took a picture and ran it on the front page. People started bringing jars of money from bars. Kids brought in their allowance. TV stations joined in the publicity. The effort raised $220,000 in seven days, and Donna, check in hand, went to Texas for the transplant.

A decade later, when people talk about that church, they do not talk about their new building. They talk about the love, the caring that mother received. That's how Jesus wants us to be. Jesus wants people to know the nature of God through the way in which God's people live and treat others.

Eknath Easwarn, the Hindu philosopher, writes about the projections we make on those we love. He says that most of us never really see the people we live with. What we see is an image, or caricature, of the person that we form in our own mind. We do not interact with that person, but with idea of that person that we have created. You are different from my perceptions of you, just as I am different from the way you perceive me. We only give each other partial information and on that basis we are supposed to form a concept with which we interact.

What Eswaran has said about the projected images we hold of our friends, also holds true for projections of God. People say, "I'm angry with god." They may have some a reason: a serious illness, a death, loss of a valued job, the betrayal of a friend, or some other misfortune. But who is the god you are angry with? A god who punishes people, or worse, toys with them and their well-being is not a God who is worthy of our worship and love. Perhaps that god is worthy of our fear and our attempts to appease that god, but not worthy of love and worship. We form caricatures of God; we create God in our image, and then react to this God which have created. If you are dissatisfied with God, then change your mind. Your response to God will depend upon the kind of god you have.

Marcus Borg speaks of students who tell him that they no longer believe in God. "Who is the god you don't believe in?" He asks. "After all," Borg acknowledges, "there are many gods I don't believe in. To the Greeks who believe in Zeus, to the Indians who believe in Indra, to the Persians who believe in Zarathustra, to all these, I'm an atheist." In fact, what Borg finds out from his students is that the very god in whom they don't believe is the projection of the god they don't want to believe in.

So where is the God we do want to believe in? How do we become the Christ in whom this God dwells? How do we get into the mind of Christ and experience the nature of God?

Do you remember the character Celie, in Alice Walker's classic novel, The Color Purple. There is this in a letter to Nettie: "She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church, I brought with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God."
We come to church to share God. Each of us brings our concepts of God to this place, and here, in this community, we determine how God will be manifest to the world by what we do. We can become what we intend to become.

There is an old story about two brothers. They were likable young men but they had a little bit of a wild streak. It got so wild that they began earning their money by stealing sheep from the local farmers. As happens to all thieves, one day they were caught.
Rather than kill them, the villagers decided to brand the two brothers on the forehead with the letters S. T. for "Sheep Thief." The action so embarrassed the one young man that he ran off, never to be heard from again. The other brother was so filled with remorse and repentance that he chose to stay and try to reconcile himself to the villagers whom he had wronged.

At first the villagers were skeptical. Most of them wouldn't have anything to do with him. But he was determined to make reparation for his offenses. Whenever there was sickness, the sheep thief was there to help care for the sick person. Whenever there was work that needed to be done, the sheep thief showed up to help. It made no difference whether the person was rich or poor, the sheep thief was there to lend a helping hand. Soon he was an integral part of the community, never accepting pay for anything he did. His life was totally lived for others. As a consequence, he was a friend of all and became very well respected.

Many years passed and a traveler came through the town. As he sat at the sidewalk café eating his lunch, he noticed the well respected old man with the strange brand on his forehead, sitting at a table nearby. It seemed that everybody in town stopped to pay their respects or share a kind word. Even the children stopped to play or give and receive an affectionate hug. The stranger's curiosity was peaked and he asked the café owner about the old man. "What does the strange brand on his forehead stand for?"

The café owner, a contemporary of the old man, thought for a moment then said, "It happened so long ago that I don't rightly remember. But I think it stands for Saint."
It's not what we do, it is what Christ does in us and through us when we become the Christ to others. What we envision is what we become. The perception becomes the reality. Put the image of Christ in your heart and you will become the Christ in whom God lives and becomes known to others.

-Harry Serio