Take up your cross?

This morning's homily at Epiphany reviewed the Transfiguration. It got me thinking about what Our Lord really expects from us. When He was asked that question, He said that we were to Love God with all our heart, strength and mind, and our neighbor as our self. But he also said if we were to follow Him, we had to take up our cross.

The cross He carried he died on. So, I believe His commandment is plainly that we are to die for Him. Nothing less. The dying He intends is dying to self, first and foremost. But not that alone. When we are born of the Spirit, we are new creatures. We come to know that we are His and, over time if not immediately, we grow to know what He created us to do. That is our cross. Once we know, we are to pursue His path for us, not our own, we become slaves to His purpose. We follow Him and serve Him only. In doing so, He will take care of our needs. He reminds us that He takes care of the birds and the grass, and will take care of us as well. A slave depends on his master for everything. And, a good slavemaster provides.

This is our task. We must only and always serve Him. We have been called to a simple life of sacrifice. It involves taking up our cross, on which we will die, and it leads to Resurrection and eternal life.

Sweet.

Do we all worship the same God? Is it this one?

Someone asked me to support a "peace forest" as a sign of solidarity with all world religions. In the church we attend, from the pulpit I hear reference to all people "worshiping the same God in different forms". In a time when polls show that a plurality of Christians in America believe that there are more than one means of salvation, a peace forest to further blur the distinctions between religions is troubling. I'm afraid that we will reap what we sow.

I spent thirty years in Eastern religious pursuits, trying to do the same thing. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, my "master", and the Shankacharya tradition, the trunk from which Buddhism grew, were my context. Maharishi had encouraged me to broaden my devotion to God beyond the biblical Catholicism I followed his blend of science and Eastern religion closely. I was fascinated. I became a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, the Science of Creative Intelligence and later a Governor of the Age of Enlightenment (a practitioner of Patanjali's yoga sutras) -- a siddha. I spent three hours a day for decades in meditation and spiritual practice. I attended six weeks long advanced training classes of in Fairfield, Iowa to deepen my meditation experiences and add advanced techniques to my routine. I attended classes at Maharishi International University given by faculty from Stanford, Cal-Berkeley, Temple, MIT, and the most liberal of the small liberal arts campuses in America. Eventually, in an attempt to solve my intellectual dilemma, I pursued and was granted a Ph. D. myself from Kansas University in geography that focused on the role of consciousness in geographical knowing, dedicated to Maharishi. I've got some bona fides in this area.

Married to an ardent Methodist woman, I went to church and Sunday school throughout this time. She went to seminary and became a Methodist pastor. At her suggestion, I took a 34 week intensive bible study offered through Cokesbury called Disciple Bible Study. There, after a close reading of the scriptures and the following year of teaching the same course to others, I discovered the full truth of Jesus Christ and the Trinity, stopped my meditation practices and Vedic studies and followed Him. I have accepted the reality espoused by the apostles who saw him dead and resurrected. He is my Lord and my God. I am His disciple and a disciple of none other. He is the one True God-man, the fleshly expression of the Triune God. Buddha and Mohammed were men. Hinduism makes everything and everyone a god. Judaism and Christianity are the expression of the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Mohammed altered the Torah to create his doctrine of salvation by works alone. In doing so, he abandoned Yahweh.

We live in a time of syncretism and heresy for the sake of harmonious cultural relativism. The bumper sticker composed of the symbols of world religions to form the word "coexist" is the tune we are asked to march to in America. It is no harmony. It furthers the impression that all religions are equally true and keeps dialog civil at the cost of abandoning the Great Commission. How can you make disciples of all people when you are busy kow-towing to their mistakes. With this "peace forest" approach, we place Christ in the context of the primacy of peace, subordinating His message. But, Jesus came to bring a sword. He came to turn brother against sister, child against parent. He would not like us making an idol of Shalom. He is a jealous God, and would burn that forest. Remember Elijah on Mt. Carmel?