I want what you have -- an Indian parable, the Gospel according to John, and the Christian witness

This past Sunday the Gospel reading was again from the Gospel of John, and a homily suggested that in the reading sin is associated with failure to believe. It was left hanging for us to ponder.

Many of us have heard the idea that we have to "believe in Christ," but this has been reduced by fundamentalists to an intellectual assent to a proposition, namely, agreeing to a particular identity for Jesus. Does Jesus deserve the title of Christ? That is, a piece of God in a human suit sent to be killed for your benefit? If so, and you if you publicly say so, you get a ticket stamped to a future paradise after you die where you get to be just like you are now but with a spiffier physical body. And this is where many people today head for the aisles or close the door. That model of proselytizing has poisoned the well for a lot of common phrases used in evangelizing.

I don't personally think that's the message at all. I don't think the apostle Paul does either. What if instead to believe that Jesus was the Christ is to believe that we were meant to be who we are and are cherished for that. Not for what we do, the good or bad choices we make or their consequences, but for being ourselves. What if believing that Jesus is the Christ means that we can also move beyond the lines that divide us, beyond the religious and irreligious squabbles, the petty tribal politics that persist even in modern nation states, and into a state of being in which we can appreciate and grow from all circumstances in our lives. To be able to maintain a subtle joy in our hearts and expand our consciousness and conscience into a unity with our Source. Out of many, One, and out of One, many. A wealth of diversity in unity known as Christ.