Both And - Sermon from Dec 28, 2008

Advent and Christmas have been celebrated. New Years is around the corner. We are in a liminal space - an in-between time. At this time we tend to look back and then look forward. Some of us look more in one direction than the other.

I spent my Christmas with my family. I got to talk about some really interesting things. One of those conversations had to do with the artist Escher. Escher is an artist who is most famous for his mathematical drawings. One of his pieces is a Mobius Strip with ants on it.



My brother and I talked about the marvel of Escher's art and especially about the Mobius Strip. We discussed it with his 10 year old daughter. She was intrigued. We explained that although the Mobius Strip appears to have 2 sides, it really only has one side. As you look it, you can see that the inside is the outside and the outside is the inside. Unlike a simple loop, you can trace your finger around both the inside and the outside without lifting your finger.



John the Baptist says that Jesus was later than him, but ranks ahead of him because Jesus was before him. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says that we must make the two into one, the inner like the outer, the outer like the inner, the upper like the lower, and the male and female into a single one so that there is neither. We are to make eyes in the place of an eye, a hand in the place of a hand, and so on.

I can't think of a better example of this than the Mobius Strip. What is this thing? It's simple really, and yet the mathematical implications are quite complicated. All this is, is a loop with a half-twist. A loop on its own has an inside and an outside. You can trace the inside with your finger, but you must pick up your finger to trace the outside. Add the half-twist, and the inside becomes the outside and the outside becomes the inside. The two sides become one side.

The loop, or a circle, already has no beginning and no end. The non-linear way in which John the Baptist described himself and Jesus might be seen in the loop or the circle. Then Jesus, as Thomas relays it, adds a half-twist.

This could be our life. We could be like the Mobius Strip - no beginning, no end, the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner. There's a mystery to it. I think this speaks of our spirits and our bodies; our brains and our thoughts; our life and our death; us and our Divine Beloved. It speaks to the year ringing out and the year ringing in.

This is a metaphor for wholeness - for being complete. The sacred call to give ourselves to wholeness infuses meaning into what might otherwise be a lesson in futility. This strip doesn't go round and round for no reason. We are not spinning our wheels. We are fusing our spirits with our bodies. We are considering the relationship of the Holy Spirit with our spirit. We are looking ahead at the New Year and looking behind at the past and seeing that with our loving Creator one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. Time and eternity twist into one another just as our spirits twists into our bodies.

This is encouraging. The faith that we are living is embodied in us. It is in our hands and our feet and our eyes. We do not need to make either/or choices, we can make both/and choices. When we make the male and female into a single one so that the female is not female and the male is not male, then we don't have to live by the crazy rules that our society lays out for us saying girls should act this way and boys should act another way. When the upper is like the lower and the lower like the upper, then we can abolish the hierarchical systems that are used to mis-distribute wealth, power, and education. We can be whole people and we can create societies that are whole. We need to remember that our half-twist is what creates our wholeness.

In a few days, when 2008 is in the past and 2009 becomes our present, let's also remember that we live in eternity right now. We carry the Sacred in our bodies, just like Jesus took flesh upon his Sacredness. We are born of the Spirit just like Jesus was born of a Woman. It's a mystery, and it lives in the half-twist of ourselves. It is our glorious faith that we embody.