Jesus on the Gridiron

Last week at Beaverton’s Washington Square Mall, I spotted a young man wearing a football jersey that prominently displayed the name of…not of Marcus Mariota, Russell Wilson or, heaven forbid, Tom Brady… but of Jesus Christ.

To be exact, the black jersey read in bold, white letters...

           Jesus
               1

No team affiliation was indicated put I presume it was broadly Christian.

I’m not a Christian although I am a Quaker, and like all Quakers, I take the historical Jesus seriously.

I should quickly add that most of my fellow Quakers consider themselves Christians and accept the Jesus of Christianity and of the Bible. Therein, Jesus is number one, or 1 ... and the Son of God.

I also believe that the words of theology, including those of Christianity, should not separate us. We are of the same spirit. It resides beyond words. It resides in silence.

So here I am in the Washington Square Mall, a vast cathedral of consumption, and my attention lingers on the young man sporting his “Jesus 1” football jersey.

Long after he passed by,  I couldn’t let go of the image of him, his jersey and the vision of Jesus playing football.

On the gridiron, Jesus had to be a quarterback. (Team doctors, servants of the injured, don’t have numbered jerseys.)

I assumed that if Jesus wasn’t calling the signals himself, they were being signaled in from the sidelines from his coach. Presumably that would be God, The Father.

Bear with me but I should add here another theological aside. I’m a “non-theistic” Quaker…I’ve dropped traditional notions of “God” (including "God the Father") from my spiritual life. Because of my experience with “God” (and, yes, my own Father, and myself as Father) these notions distance me from what we share.

I have come to call this shared oneness “spirit” though no word does it justice. It is beyond words and borders and…goal posts.

Back on the field, Jesus, our first-string, starting quarterback, is huddling with his team and about to call the play.

Set on victory, the fist-waving crowd yells and screams. The stadium rocks. It resounds. A few — many mothers of the players — pray.

All wonder… “What will Jesus call? What will Jesus do? What is God’s command?”

The young Jewish rabbi in the huddle pauses, looks each of his mates square in the eye and says: “This game is dangerous. It is hurtful. It breeds false values. It is devoid of love beyond the love of fame and temporal victory.” He pauses and adds, “Blessed are the meek.Their names shall not be emblazoned on football jerseys.”

Then he calls the play: “Cast off your protective gear! Head for the exits! Leave the stadium. Do good work!”

And so they race off the field leaving jerseys, helmets, shoulder pads and athletic “scholarships” behind them.

Among the jerseys on the field is one that reads “Jesus 1.” Someone sees it, picks it up and sells it to a young man in Beaverton.

Listening to Being

Recently I’ve played with the idea that I live in a spiritual bubble. Perhaps we all do. The contents are a swirling mess. Kind of like this study of mine. Bits and pieces everywhere. I keep moving ideas around.

Shuffling books and their partially tapped wisdom.

I also have in the mess notes to myself. Journal entries. To do lists.

Also, artifacts. A hand-warmer in a velvet pouch, a quill pen housed in a glazed jar, a magnifying glass, a typewriter (no, two typewriters with more, many more, in the basement), a teal ‘60s-vintage Hermes crank adding machine, slide rules.

Someday stuff. Saved for someday when I can let go.

My spiritual bubble is not “someday.” It is now. Recently I’ve been full of questions.

Being a Quaker invites them.

Quakers turn life’s (and death’s) largest questions back on the individual. No shortcuts here. At least among “unprogramed” Friends. No priests or prophets, no dogma or sacred texts. Oh sure, you can refer to whatever you like, but the questions are yours to answer in your own way.

Quakers must find their own truths. And once found, we work to live by them.

So here I am with my messy, joyous spiritual Quaker bubble.

These days my questions spin around whether I’m a Quaker atheist, a Quaker non-theist (is there a difference?), a Quaker Christian (I think not), a Quaker follower of Christ’s teachings (before the spinmeisters got to them) or a Buddhist Quaker (we Friends have more than a few of those.)

Or maybe I’m all of them. Or none. Maybe the whole “label thing” keeps us from our truth.

I’m a firm believer that putting names on things, whether tangible or intangible, makes them “other.” Sucks the spirit right out of them. Keeps us from absorbing them, and them from absorbing us.

We could use some mutual absorption these days. Not more self-absorption, but self-less absorption. The label-less kind. I find it in the silence of Quaker worship when I banish words from my being — and just be.

Some Friends say they “let go and let God.” I stop with “let go.”

That’s when the bubble bursts and the membrane between “my” spirit and Spirit dissolves. My being flows into Being. Timeless, spaceless Being. And I realize, it has always been this way. The bubble was just another label.

The bubble-label needs to burst with those around us too. How about regularly scheduled spiritual perception checks? Every 3,000 miles or every week or every day. As the operating manual says: “Whichever comes first.”

Share the messy joy of it all. Perhaps that’s why Quaker Friends worship together. Why we worship in silence, without words, without labels.

We listen in stillness to Being.

We can, and should, talk later.