Fr. Richard Rohr uses the metaphor of a “cosmic egg” to explain how stories offer us meaningful connections to ourselves, one another, and the divine:
If we are going to be the rebuilders of society, we need to be rebuilt ourselves. A healthy psyche lives within at least four containers of meaning. Imagine four nested domes. The first is called my story, the second is our story, the third is other stories, and the fourth is the story. This is what I call the cosmic egg. It’s the unique and almost unconscious gift of healthy religion. Much of the genius of the biblical revelation is that it honors and integrates all four, while much of the weakness of our deconstructed society is that it often honors only one level at best. The whole/healed/saintly person lives happily inside of all of them.
The smallest dome of meaning is my story. The modern world is the first period of history where a large number of people have been allowed to take their private lives and identities seriously. There is a wonderful movement into individuation here, but there’s also a diminishment and fragility if that’s all we have. This first dome contains my private life. “I” and my feelings and opinions are the reference point for everything. This dome is the little stage where I do my dance and where the questions are usually, “How do I feel? What do I believe? What makes me unique?”
My story isn’t big enough or true enough to create large or meaningful patterns by itself, but many people live their whole lives at this level of anecdote and nurtured self-image, without ever connecting with the larger domes of meaning. They are what they have done and what has been done to them—nothing more. This self becomes fragile and unprotected, and therefore constantly striving, easily offended, and fearful.
The second dome of meaning is our story. This is the dome of our group, our community, our country, our church—perhaps our nationality or ethnic group. We seem to need this to contain our identity and security as social beings. It’s the good and necessary training ground for belonging, attaching, trusting, and loving. If we don’t have a supportive family, group or community with which we can bond, we create people who struggle to bond. Fortunately, most of us have multiple memberships: family, neighborhood, religious affiliation, country. These are schools for relationship, connection, and almost all virtue as we know it.
This second dome of meaning gives us myth, cultural heroes, group symbols, flags, special foods, ethnicity, and patriotism. These tell us that we’re not alone; we’re also connected to a larger story. We might understand that it’s fanciful, but it is shared meaning and that is important. Regrettably, a lot of people stop at the level of this shared meaning because it gives more consolation and security to the small self. In fact, loyalties at this level have driven most of human history up to now.
The Cosmic Egg: Other Stories and TheStory
Richard Rohr continues to explain the cosmic egg, focusing on the next two domes of meaning: other stories and the story. Read about the first two domes of meaning—my story and our story—in yesterday’s meditation.
The third dome of meaning is what I call other stories. The term “other stories” illustrates the significant but sometimes painful recognition that our story is not the only frame, not likely the most important frame, and maybe even a frame with a lot of shadow and bias. This is the great advantage of studying history, literature beyond our own language, anthropology, world cultures and religions, and experiencing some world travel, whether by opportunity or necessity. This is also the invitation modeled by Jesus to move beyond my story and our story, and to stand in friendship and solidarity with other stories.
As we encounter more and more of the world’s other stories, many people are broadening their wisdom, while others are broadening their fear. There is only one thing more dangerous than the individual ego or my story and that’s the group ego that insists that our story is the measure of all things and so seeks to label other stories as ignorant, dangerous, or inferior. It looks like it will take us some time, perhaps centuries, to resolve the human drive to exclude, to scapegoat, to judge, and to dismiss other peoples’ stories. Only nondual thinkers, mystics, and some saints seem capable of such universal capacity. [1]
The fourth dome of meaning, which encloses and regulates the three smaller ones, is called the story. By this, I mean the patterns that are always true. This is much larger and more shared than any one religion or denomination. All healthy religions would, on some levels, be telling the story, as the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council authoritatively taught. [2] For example, forgiveness always heals; it does not matter whether we are Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish. Forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true, although it reveals its wisdom in countless ways. It is part of the story. Also, there is no specifically Christian way to feed the hungry or to steward the earth. Love is love, even if the motivation might be different.
The biblical tradition takes all four domes seriously: my story, our story, other stories, and the story. Biblical revelation is saying that the only way we dare move up to the story and understand it with any depth is by moving through and taking responsibility for our personal story, our group story, and other stories. We have to listen to our own experience, to our own failures, to our own sin, to our own salvation, and we’ve got to recognize that we are a part of history, of a culture, of a religious group, for good and for bad. We cannot heal or honestly examine what we do not acknowledge.
TODAY IS THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
The season of light ends soon — there are only two more Sundays in the Epiphany cycle. Ash Wednesday is March 5, the beginning of Lent.
This year, the contrast between epiphany — the manifestation of God’s dominion of love — and evil — the iron grip of hierarchical domination of power — has never seemed more obvious or pointed. In both the scriptures and in the headlines.
The birth of a Child, the Prince of Peace, opened the way for a contest here in the world. Love and light spread, yes. But not without resistance from the powers that rule this world.
Where are we in this struggle? Following the Star, journeying a different way home toward a Dominion of Love? Or, do we remain subjects of Herod and Caesar, pawns cowering under their murderous schemes of Domination of Power?
Epiphany has raised the spiritual and theological stakes. As it is written in John 1, “in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
To extend the biblical metaphor, the light is brighter than ever. The darkness deeper. We live on the edge. Do we keep lighting candles and walk into the territory we can’t quite see? Or not?
The lectionary today — readings from Psalm 1 and Luke 6 — draws clear lines between God’s dominion and worldly domination.
Psalm 1
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Luke 6:17-26
Jesus came down with the twelve apostles and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”
This week, every sermon in America wrote itself.
Here’s a tweet from Elon Musk (quoted on Bluesky by Bruce Wilson, who writes on authoritarianism and Christianity, to make sure readers get the point), wherein the man now running the United States government (and who is illegally dismantling food and medical assistance programs) calls the poor “parasites.”
Contrast that with Jesus in Luke 6. Almost as if he’s subtweeting the world’s richest human:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
and don’t forget his follow—up:
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.*
As we say in my church, “Here endeth the reading.”
Pretty much says it all.
* * * * * *
When Christians think of the Beatitudes, they usually recall the version found in the Gospel of Matthew:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
No doubt about it, but Matthew’s got a gift for poetry. He placed this sermon on a hillside, making this Jesus’ central teaching in what is called the “Sermon on the Mount.” Indeed, the setting matched the prose. There’s a lyrical lift to Jesus’ words — the couplets elevate readers, freeing our souls to spiritually soar. We find ourselves up on that mount with Jesus, eagerly awaiting the blessings coming from heaven to those denied them here on earth.
Luke is blunter. There’s no rhapsodic rhythm in his words. Indeed, Luke’s Jesus delivers the truth straight up, like a good scotch:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
In Luke’s account, Jesus isn’t on a hill. He has just come down from a mountain and is in a “level place.” New Testament scholars call this the “Sermon on the Plain,” in contrast to Matthew’s mount. The stage is flat; any sense of hierarchy — that “up” and “down” of human social structure — is gone. All the characters are standing equally with Jesus. We don’t soar. Instead, we look at Jesus face-to-face: Blessed are you who are miserable right now because the kingdom is with you.
And it wasn’t enough for Jesus to insist on this seemingly elusive reality. He added that oppressors aren’t really as powerful as they believe:
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Nothing is as it seems, Jesus insisted. The playing field of human relations is far more equal than we think — and in God’s kingdom, the poor are blessed and the rich are cursed.
Blunt, even kinda brutal.
And “blessing” and “woe” aren’t vaguely spiritual words whose import is only about some distant, promised reward or punishment.
“Blessing,” μακάριος (makarios) in Greek, means happy, fortunate, or favored. I wrote about the Beatitudes in Grateful:
Blessing is not just happiness, but favor. In the Christian scriptures, the word specifically means God’s favor, often called “grace” or “abundance.” “Favored are the poor” or “Gifted are the poor” would be equally valid ways of making sense of makarios.
The sense of the Beatitudes is not “If you are poor, God will bless you” or “If you do nice things for the poor, God will bless you.” Nor is it “Be happy for poverty.” Instead, “Blessed are the poor” could be read, “God privileges the poor.” If you are poor, you are favored by God. God’s gifts are with you.
As is the case with us today, people in the ancient world thought that the rich were blessed. Indeed, the word makarios itself had a more popular, slangy use: It also meant “god” or someone who was “elite.” Basically, a blessing wasn’t just something you had (or might get), it was who some people were. They were the Blessed. Caesar was makarios.
Today, you might say that Elon Musk is Chief of the Blessed. God-like. The makarios.
Again, from Grateful (with two relevant asides):
The “Blessed” were the big shots of the ancient world, the upper crust, those who lived above all the worries of normal existence. The poor, “the losers,” had to live with shame. Even back then, the blessed were the rich, not the poor. [An added aside: you might even say that the poor were “parasites.”]
In the Roman Empire, the world in which the Beatitudes were first preached, the richer and more powerful you were, the more valor and virtue you possessed, the closer you were to the emperor at the top of the social hierarchy, the more blessed you were, the more blessings you could seize for yourself, and the more blessings you could (if you chose to) bestow on those beneath you. [An added aside: typically “blessings” were bestowed to control underlings.]
When Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor,” he overturned the hierarchical structure of blessing.
But maybe Luke thought that Matthew was being too subtle. (Luke was written after Matthew.) And so, Luke lowered the sermon from mountain to plain — and made his point plainer, too.
Blessed are you who are poor…Woe to you who are rich.
There’s nothing “spiritual” or uplifting here. This is worldly, tough, prophetic.
“Woe,” οὐαί (ouai) in Greek, is an interjection of grief or a denunciation. In the New Testament, Jesus used it to pronounce judgment on the wicked. The explanation of this term in Strong’s Greek Lexicon is chilling:
In the ancient Near Eastern context, expressions of woe were common in both secular and religious texts. They were used to lament misfortune or impending doom and were often part of prophetic literature to warn of divine judgment. In the Greco-Roman world, such expressions were understood as serious pronouncements, often linked to the moral and spiritual failings of individuals or societies.
Blessed are you who are poor…Woe to you who are rich.
Again, there’s nothing “spiritual” or uplifting here. This is worldly, tough, prophetic.
It is a holy denunciation. From Jesus himself.
Jesus repeated warnings like this throughout his career with harsh rebukes and threats toward the rich. This is one of the major themes in Luke’s gospel. He began his book with Mary’s prophecy of the rich being cast down, it runs through Jesus’ parables about Good Samaritans, rich fools, and sending the privileged away, and ends with Jesus’ poorest followers sharing meals of gratitude to overcome their grief.
Luke’s next book, Acts, opens with the early Christian practice of communalism — “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.”
The poor are NOT parasites. It is among the poor that the commonwealth of God is made manifest. The poor are favored by God. The poor are closest to the heart of all compassion.
We can have political and policy discussions about how our societies — especially societies shaped by some vague commitment or memory of biblical ethics — treat the problems of poverty, inequity, and poor people themselves.
But there’s no question about how Jesus saw the poor. Or how he treated them. Blessed are the poor; woe to the rich.
That’s the Bible. Jesus got these “radical” ideas from the Hebrew scriptures. Ancient prophets, like Jesus, warned that societies who neglected or abused the poor stand under God’s judgment. Leveling the economic playing field between the rich and poor was the intention of Sabbath. Jesus was born among the poor; Jesus was poor. His teaching challenged the hierarchy of wealth and power. The early church was built on common property. Period. Full stop.
Any teacher or leader who denies this, denies the Lord. Any politician who believes that the poor are “parasites” clearly violates the central moral teaching of Jesus — and a political movement based on such beliefs puts a nation in jeopardy of God’s judgment.
That’s the politics of woe, the politics of the wealthiest man in the world, the politics of MAGA — demeaning and abusing those whom God favors.
The poor are not parasites. Blessed are the poor.
Nothing could be clearer.
Here endeth the reading.
