This week, we are exploring the Wisdom tradition in Christianity. This tradition has largely been eclipsed by the doctrinal and dogmatic approach to both scripture and practice.
“Cynthia Bourgeault explains that the goal of the Wisdom tradition is not mystical vision as we usually think of it. Instead, it is a sort of x-ray vision. It’s a way of seeing through what we perceive of the physical world with our five senses, to find the deeper meanings that go beyond the obvious. It’s seeing patterns and connections in events that at first seem to be random or accidental. It’s recognizing when events that happen at the same time have a connection to each other, even though on the surface they look like mere coincidences. …The Wisdom way, Bourgeault explains, recognizes a divine energy running through all of creation. It sees that qualities such as attention, will, prayer, and love have a real impact even though at present they aren’t measurable.”
(https://www.connectionsonline.org/blog/2021/1/26/wisdom-tradition)
About Jesus, Marcus Borg says. “”Jesus was a sage, a teacher of wisdom. Regularly addressed as ‘teacher’ during his lifetime by followers, opponents, and interested inquirers alike, he has been hailed by subsequent generations of Christians as more than a teacher, as indeed he was…. He was a teacher of a way or path, specifically a way of transformation. His teaching involved a radical criticism of the conventional wisdom that lay at the core of the first-century Jewish social world.”
Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings,
and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
When we think of Jesus in this way, it helps us to understand some of the stories about him that may be problematic, especially John’s eucharistic passages. If we assume that the teaching involves becoming viscerally connected to a process of global dimensions and importance, then we can see why Jesus would ask for a total commitment of heart, body, mind, and soul: our heart for where we place our passion; our bodies for the work of healing the world; our minds for our willingness to continually be transformed by the education of the Spirit of Jesus; and finally our souls for yearning into the mystery of the Divine that is both exhilarating and terrifying. Jesus is inviting us to be disciples of the Way, which has the power to ignore cultural barriers, and the compassionate strength to draw all people into a vision of the reign of justice and peace.