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Sermon preached on 3rd September, 2006
The American College Chapel, Madurai, South India
Please pray with me as we stand. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that we would hear its message to us, that it would shape how we see ourselves, how we think about ourselves, and how we live our lives. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
JESUS THE GURU
The topic given for today’s meditation is ‘Jesus the Guru’. With teachers’ day coming round the corner how thoughtful have our church elders been to suggest this topic ‘Jesus the guru’ for this Sunday which is declared as Education Sunday. This is a noble attempt by them at contextualizing theology. By this I mean their use of the term ‘Guru’ in the topic. It is a task of constructing a theology that is relevant and meaningful to our Indian mindset.
Guru is a Sanskrit term. The concept of guru is common to most of the Indian religious traditions. Some of its common features are:
First, the word “guru” denotes a human being. A guru is fully human.
Second, a guru is always understood In some kind of relationship with God. The concept of guru is thus always theological.
Third, the idea of guru is invariably linked with the process of salvation.
Now let us see a little about the use of the word ‘guru’ in the Christian writings of our country.
The word “guru” is never used for Jesus in the Tamil Bible, but the Tamil Christian poets have used the term “guru” to refer to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Tamilian Christians also use the term guru to denote pastors or ministers of the church.
Subha Rao, an Indian Christian theologian, describes Jesus as a loving Guru, the “Gurudev”, or “Sadguru”.
Rammohan Roy portrayed Jesus as a divine teacher. Even the best among all others. But, we cannot follow Roy all through, for he was suspicious of Jesus’ divinity as ‘one in being with the Father’.
Robert de Nobili found the concept of “guru” as one of the models useful in bringing out the significance of Jesus. According to a Tamil Jesuit theologian, “De Nobili’s specific contribution to Christology seems to be his concept of Christ as divine guru”.
Bishop A.J. Appasamy, one of the leading Tamil Christian theologians of the Church of South India, finds the guru concept to be a workable starting point for an Indian Christology. He lists 9 qualifications required of a guru as found in an early Tamil grammar work called Nannool, These qualifications are:
1) Good ancestry, 2) love of humanity, 3) knowledge of God,
4) Possession of dignity, 5) clearness of thought, 6) gift of speech,
7) Power of consistency, 8) understanding of world’s ways and 9) lofty character.
For Bishop Appasamy, Jesus fulfills all these requirements prescribed by Nannool. But, at the same time he finds that these qualities are not adequate to describe Jesus. He is more than any of these.
Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya, another Indian Christian Theologian, also used the guru concept as the starting point for an Indian Christology. Though Upadhyaya does not use the term guru as such, he gives Jesus the position of a Teacher Universal, in which we find the concept of guru implied.
Lastly, I refer to Fr. Xavier Irudhayaraj, a Roman Catholic theologian, who is the only Indian Theologian, who has attempted to use the Saivite concept of guru, deliberately for Christological purposes. Fr. Irudhayaraj, even goes to the extent of constructing what he calls a “theology of the guru”.
A few Indian Christian theologians have dared to express their dissent on how the Church has neglected the guru status of Jesus and instead made him merely a God of worship.
Let us now reflect on the question ‘What does it mean to say’, “Jesus is the Guru”?
First, I take recourse to what Dr. Thomas Thangaraj has said on this question in his book “The Crucified Guru”. For Dr. Thangaraj the term guru can only be understood in relation to the term disciple. There can be no guru without a disciple, nor can there be a disciple without a guru. A guru is guru because a sishya sits at his feet.
Interestingly, the gospel according to Mark, most probably the earliest of the four gospels, begins the story of Jesus with John the Baptizer’s, recognition and announcement of the guruship of Jesus.
I read verses 7 and 8 from the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel,
“He [John] proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The fourth gospel, the latest of the four, presents John as pointing to Jesus and recommending him as guru to some of his own disciples. These disciples recognized the guru-ship of Jesus and followed Him to the place where he stayed and became His disciples.
The relationship between Jesus and His disciples entails two aspects.
First, it involves a community of proximity, i. e. of affection and love for one another - The love of the guru for his disciples and the love of the disciples for the guru. Second, the relationship implies a task or commission. – Sent out to proclaim and live out the message of the Kingdom of God - The disciples are now with a mission. That’s how we get the phrase ‘Christian mission’.
All four gospels portray these two aspects of the guru-sishya relationship.
Now let us reflect on the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus as a guru was first and foremost a teacher to his disciples. One, very significant thing about Jesus’ teaching was that his teaching was one of enacted words. His teaching was accompanied by his own acts which symbolized that teaching and made it concrete. For example, he washed the feet of his disciples and taught them the priority of love for and humble service to one another. Recording this incident, the author of the fourth gospel ends the story thus:
After he had washed their feet …. He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. (John 13:12 – 4)
The teachings of Jesus aimed at enabling the disciples to act out what he taught. The well-known parable of the Good Samaritan ends with Jesus’ injunction, go and do likewise. (Luke 10:37).
At the end of the collection of his teachings traditionally known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven……Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like the wise man who built his house on rock. (Matthew 7:21, 24)
In technical terms the teaching of Jesus was praxis oriented pedagogy.
What was the content of the teachings of Jesus?
It was the reign of God. That too, a gracious God. Jesus’ own identification with the marginalized people in society, such as the tax-gatherers and harlots, signifies the grace of God in forgiving and accepting the sinner while judging and condemning sin. A new order of relationships is made possible by the coming of the reign. This new order is characterized by justice to all and peace and reconciliation with one another.
But the community of Jesus and his disciples was seen as a threat to the existing order by both religious and political leaders. This community questioned the authority embedded in religious institutions such as the temple and synagogues, and in the political offices of the Roman rulers. It came into conflict with the established religion and political power. This conflict ultimately led to the arrest of Jesus and his death on the cross as a religious and political criminal.
The Guru was put to death.
What Jesus taught and did could not but lead to such a resolution of the conflict because death is the logical end of the imperial and religious systems of this world. Yes, imperialism in the garb of religion and religion strutting as a political force will certainly spell death of the poor and the powerless. Hence, the death of Jesus and millions of poor people all through the history of the world.
God’s rule according to Jesus is alien to the rule of Caesar with its empire, enslavement and exploitation. His actions, attitudes and conceptions undermined the foundations of the existing systems and pointed in new directions. Mammon or money is a master opposed to God and God’s only rival according to Jesus. The Kingdom of God is a force which changes history in favor of the poor.
We only know that somehow love of money & wealth will make things difficult for us to enter the kingdom of God. But with the help of the metaphor of the Camel and the eye of the needle Jesus effects the passage from the “difficult” to the “impossible”.
So according to Jesus, it is impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God
Jesus’ attitude to wealth and poverty, in an unequal social order is graphically summed up by Luke:
“Blessed are you poor; the reign of God is yours”
In the act of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus attacked the commercial practice regulated by money which had turned the temple into a den of thieves. A different temple is needed, a temple open to all peoples without discrimination. A different economic system is needed, an economic system which is without exploitation and plunder of the many by the few.
In Jesus’ analysis, the temple and the class structure it supported were the main source of oppression and the chief obstacles to the realization of the Kingdom of God.
The temple had political power subject to Roman imperial power. The chief priests besides being cult persons were also treasurers of the temple, holders of various public offices and rural magnates. Jesus called peoples attention away from priests and priest-craft, sacrifice and temple. What God requires is mercy and justice, not sacrifice.
The kingdom of God has a strong egalitarian structure. It goes counter to the class structure and class ideology of the empire and the temple-state. The very basic conception of God as Father of all the people under-cuts the grounds of class division, emphasizes brotherhood and enjoins equality.
In all this, we find Jesus re-reading the scriptures and re-interpreting traditions. He did this on his own authority and demanded that his reading be accepted.
Such is the teaching of Jesus, the guru. What happened to all this? Palestine saw the disciples of Jesus giving up everything to follow Him, but the Hellenistic (Greek) church went the other way. It was less radical and more urban and middle class. It followed the way of the world. The original vision of the kingdom that Jesus taught and practiced gradually became dim till it got totally obliterated.
The Jesus of the gospels, who was economically and politically powerless, got slowly transformed into the Christ of religious dogmas and doctrines. He has now become a royal object of worship – a symbol of imperialism. He is so much tamed that he could easily be made a silent witness and even a legitimizer of man’s mastery over man. His power is now seen as the power to increase the wealth of the rich and the might of the mighty.
Christianity has finally compromised itself with power and wealth. The Graeco-Roman culture made it attractive to intellectuals and the politically powerful upper classes. Slowly, Christian institutions came to embody the values of capitalism. Thus, by a curious development, the good news of liberation preached by Jesus, the guru of freedom, gave rise to structures of unfreedom. Institutionalism in the form of the church in history has disfigured his true image and neutralized the revolutionary force of his teachings.
That trend continued. “The temptations Jesus overcame in the desert, his disciples succumbed to, all too easily.” says Sebastian Kappen, a Roman Catholic theologian, “
Now Jesus and Caesar have come to terms. God and Mammon have become sides of the same coin. In our lives, Jesus has agreed to speak to Herod and perform for him; and Herod presents Jesus with royal velvet robes and both are happy. They do not call each other as fool or fox. There is peace. Not the peace that flows from the dignity of the guru whose scorned compromise and risked his life. But it is the peace of conformity to the culture of Mammon and Caesar, money and politics.
Yet the story of Jesus the guru did not stop with his tragic death on the cross. It was followed by a nexus of events known as Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost.
There is still hope for the church to experience these same events. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the true church of Christ will once again come back to life. The poor will once again speak up. The voice of protest will be heard once more and the call to freedom from all oppression and exploitation will once again be heard ringing. It is criticism once more of priest and prince, temple and bank. Though feeble and slow the culture of life is steadily gaining ground. The struggle against death, power and money is starting afresh in the communities of the poor, the world over. Above the dark storm clouds of political oppression and commercial exploitation, there is still the silver lining, the work of the Holy Spirit in the form of silent revolutions on the side of the poor and the crushed. I am here referring to the different movements of freedom and liberation emerging in the different parts of the world.
True to the words of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is now our Guru. Do we have the will to listen to the voice of the Spirit of God reminding us of the life and teachings and works of Rabbi Jesus, the Jewish revolutionary Teacher Universal?
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Hymns
1) Through All the Changing Scenes – 81
2) Blest are the Pure in Heart – 214
3) Lord, Speak to Me – 397
4) Be Thou My Vision – 391
Readings
1) Proverbs 2 : 1-12
2) St. Luke 4 : 31-44