Good Will Hunting. Jesus. And Sex.
Western Christianity has largely been focused on believing in statements about Jesus, but it hasn’t put much stock in trusting the person of Jesus and following the ways he taught and lived.
A precious baby born in Bethlehem. Son of God. Died on a cross. Resurrected from the grave. Great, fine, sure, we’ll give a nod to all that.
Non-violent resistance to the way of empirical values and forces? Forgiveness and love of enemies? And putting an end to the scapegoat mechanism? Uh, well, that seems naive and un-American.
We are part of something more than we are observing something. From the perspective of participation, we can recognize that most of religious and church history has been largely preoccupied with religious ideas about which we could be wrong or right. When it is all about ideas, we do not have to be part of “it”; we just need to talk correctly about “it.” We can avoid actually living out our beliefs and walking our talk.
The foundational spiritual question is this: Does one’s life give any evidence of an encounter with the divine? When we’ve experienced union and intimacy with the divine, what is our response? One of the first followers of Jesus, a guy named Paul, wrote about a life which has been upended by an experience with the Christ, as shown by the “fruit” of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).
One of my all time favorite movies is Good Will Hunting, which displays one of the most incredible scenes unfolding with Sean, played by the late Robin Williams, sitting on a park bench and describing the deeper depths of life for the brainy brilliant Will, played by Matt Damon. With heart and insight, Sean describes the difference between intellectually knowing life and the depth of experiencing life. Which is to give of yourself until it hurts, with no guarantees of rainbows and pots of gold on the other side. To love because you know she is worth dying for, and then watching her die because cancer steals her life. The stunning dialogue of the scene, then.
Sean: So if I asked you about art you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. Seen that...
You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, and you’d probably, uh, throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him gasp his last breath, looking to you for help.
And if I asked you about love you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. To know someone could level you with her eyes. Feeling like, God put an angel on earth just for you…who could rescue you from the depths of hell.
And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel and to have that love for her to be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. You wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term "visiting hours" doesn't apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.”
Because there is intellectual agreeing with ideologies and doctrines, and then there is the deepest truths meeting us in the sweat, tears, and dust of a real life.
In the Hebrew Scriptures there is a word, yada, which we most often translate in English as ‘know.’ This Hebrew word carries such incredible depth, stretching far beyond intellectually knowing the correct answers. The translation of the Bible known as the ESV, English Standard Version, begins Genesis chapter 4 this way, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.” Interesting, so Adam took a quiz about Eve, and she became pregnant? Uh, no. Our word, yada, is also a Jewish idiom for sex between a man and a woman. It’s about an experiential knowing, which is a transcendent soul expanding encounter with the deepest depths of life. This is a far different kind of knowing.
And that’s the invitation of the divine to each and every one of us.
To encounter the divine in a way that rattles the chambers of one’s heart, which echoes through a life consumed with love. A love that awakens the slumbering soul, summoning us to follow the life transforming way of Jesus. This kind of knowing is like wet sand on the fingers of our soul, which leaves behind tiny particles on every single person or thing we touch.
This kind of knowing can change everything. And I trust that it does, so I desperately pray we will awaken to this kind of knowing.
