{"id":19858,"date":"2021-02-22T09:37:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T14:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19858"},"modified":"2021-02-22T10:29:09","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T15:29:09","slug":"learning-the-wisdom-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19858","title":{"rendered":"Learning the Wisdom of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Z8fWD_JpIFg\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>Although we cannot be a part\nof Jesus\u2019 original \u201cseminary of life\u201d as the disciples were, contemplative\ntheologian Beatrice Bruteau (1930-2014) proposes that we can learn the wisdom\nof Jesus by drawing closer to him, eventually coming to live out of the same\nconsciousness he shared with God. She writes:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[Jesus as teacher] wants us to experience his\nfreedom. . . . He wants us to enjoy his self-realization, his union with the\nSource of Being, whom he calls Father. It\u2019s his own interior experience that he\nwants to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means that the rest of us are to have\nthis kind of experience. Whatever is reported of Jesus, therefore, is to be\nreplicated in us. Just go through the Gospels and find out what he is like.\nIt\u2019s a revelation of what is in store for you, what is expected of you, what is\npromised to you, and what you in your profoundest reality always already are.\nWhat he experiences in his consciousness, we are to experience in ours. We are\nto enter into his very heart, the center of his being. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Entering into the heart of Jesus means also\nentering into our own heart, the center of our being, the core of our\nexistence. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus, as disciple-maker, calls himself the\nWay, <em>hodos,<\/em> a road\n[John 14:6]. The road is something you can walk on; it gets you from here to\nthere. Jesus is such a path. The passing from depth to depth on the way into\nhis heart corresponds to a passing from depth to depth in our own heart, where\n\u201cheart\u201d means the core of our existence, not just the seat of the affections.\nWe can walk on this road which is Jesus first by petitioning him, then by\nstudying him, later by imitating him, and by dialoguing with him. But after we\nhave practiced these disciplines for some time, if we are to enter his heart,\nwe must get into his own consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In order to share Jesus\u2019 consciousness,\nBruteau suggests that we take the Beloved Disciple who \u201creclined on the breast\nof Jesus\u201d at the Last Supper [John 13:23] as our model.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In order to move closer to the heart of Jesus,\nwe \u201clean back toward\u201d him by sinking back into the depth of our own\nconsciousness, sinking down toward the center of our being. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each deeper\nlevel that we sink to . . . brings us closer to the heart or center of Jesus,\nbecause it is bringing us closer to our own center. . . . As we move back and\ndown and in toward our [own] center, we are overlapping, so to speak, with the\nreality of Jesus more and more, as we come to corresponding levels of his\nbeing. . . . We are coming to know the Sacred Heart from the inside. . . . And\nour \u201cinside\u201d is coming to be more and more coincident with his \u201cinside.\u201d His\nHeart is becoming the heart of our heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Seminary of Life<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>To understand the world knowledge is not enough, you must see it, touch it, live in its presence.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Teilhard de Chardin, <em>Hymn of the Universe<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suppose a superstar of knowledge moves into your house as a boarder.\nWith three PhDs after his name, he sits at your supper table each evening\ndispensing information about nuclear physics, cyberspace, and psychoneuroimmunology,\ngiving ultimate answers to every question you ask. He doesn\u2019t lead you through\nhis thinking process, however, or even involve you in it; he simply states the\nconclusions he has reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We might find his conclusions interesting and even helpful, but the way\nhe relates to us will not set us free, empower us, or make us feel good about\nourselves. His wisdom will not liberate us, it will not invite us to growth and\nlife; indeed, it will in the end make us feel inferior and dependent. That\u2019s\nexactly how we have treated Jesus. We have treated him like a person with three\nPhDs coming to tell us his conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not the path to wisdom nor is it how Jesus shared his wisdom\nwith those who wanted to learn from him. Rather Jesus teaches his disciples\nthrough his lifestyle, a kind of \u201cseminary of life.\u201d He takes them with him\n(Mark 1:16\u201320) and watching him, they learn the cycle and rhythm of his life,\nas he moves from prayer and solitude to teaching and service in community. As\nCynthia Bourgeault explains in her book <em>The Wisdom Jesus<\/em>, he taught as a <em>moshel moshelim<\/em>, or a teacher of wisdom.\n[1] He doesn\u2019t teach his disciples mere conceptual information as we do in our\nseminaries. Rather, he introduces them to a lifestyle and the only way he can\ndo that is to invite them to live with him. He invites us to do the same (see\nJohn 1:39).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut the crowds got to know where he had gone and they went after him.\nHe made them welcome and he talked to them about the kingdom of God and he\ncured those who were in need of healing\u201d (Luke 9:11). Can\u2019t you just see the\napostles standing at Jesus\u2019 side, watching him, noticing how he does things:\nhow he talks to people, how he waits, how he listens, how he\u2019s patient, how he\ndepends upon God, how he takes time for prayer, how he doesn\u2019t respond\ncynically or bitterly, but trustfully and yet truthfully? Can you imagine a\nmore powerful way to learn?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luke tells us that Jesus walked the journey of faith just as you and I do. That\u2019s the compelling message of the various dramas where Jesus needed faith\u2014during his temptation in the desert, during his debates with his adversaries, in the garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross. We like to imagine that Jesus did not doubt or ever question his Father\u2019s love. The much greater message is that in his humanity, he did flinch, did ask questions, did have doubts\u2014and still remained faithful. This is the path of wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"267\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-9-500x267.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19861\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-9-500x267.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-9-300x160.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-9-768x409.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/image-9.png 1906w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although we cannot be a part of Jesus\u2019 original \u201cseminary of life\u201d as the disciples were, contemplative theologian Beatrice Bruteau (1930-2014) proposes that we can learn the wisdom of Jesus by drawing closer to him, eventually coming to live out of the same consciousness he shared with God. She writes: [Jesus as teacher] wants us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19862,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858\/revisions\/19862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}