DaVinci Code

Easter 6 2006
“The DaVinci Code” opened in theatres this weekend. Yes, the book dares to suggest that there are misdeeds in church history. Yes, it does suggest that the existence of certain sacred orders within the Catholic church are covering up “the truth” about Jesus. Yes, it does build an elaborate conspiracy theory with “evidence” from actual historical artifacts like DaVinci’s “Mona Lisa”, “the Last Supper” and the temple church in London. All of these things can be explained away or, with the stretch of the imagination, considered possible or even valid. Have you looked at the painting of the last Supper? The person seated beside Jesus is strikingly feminine. That the person is Mary Magdalene, the wife of Jesus, is the book’s claim. Could it be? If so, is it possible that Jesus wed Mary and had children? Is it possible that the church has kept this secret for 2,000 years as a means of accruing wealth and social control? Is it possible that the church is corrupt and the truth lost? Let me weigh in on this matter before someone asks me about it. I read the book when it came out, cover-to-cover in a couple of days. It was one of the most engaging, fast-paced mystery rides I’d ever taken in a fictional novel. Oh, right. It is fiction, isn’t it? Dan Brown is no scholar refuting biblical tradition and theology. He is a writer and a half decent one at that. He got 40 million copies of his book sold and read. He got a movie deal and a lot of buzz from a good mystery. So, why all the fuss?
The fuss is not about DaVinci or the priory of Scion or Opus Dei or Mary Magdalene or “Jesus’ blood line” or Dan Brown. The fuss is, at its heart, a crisis of faith of the highest proportion. The fuss is not that the book may cause a faith crisis, but that a faith crisis already exists which the book potentially fuels. It reveals that 21st century western people are incapable of discerning the truth from fiction, God from an idol, Jesus from DaVinci. The fuss is over authority. Who can say what scripture really means? Who can tell us the truth? Who can tell us what is faithful and heretical? Who can define Christianity? Is it the church? The Pope? Anybody with a pen and a penchant for storytelling? The crisis is that people are longing for mystery and revelation of the divine kind, but don’t know where to find it. People are longing for a touch of Jesus’ life, a sign of God’s presence and truth. People are hoping for a new vision of the world, in which institutions governed by corruption are exposed and brought down. People seek a vision of a world in which faith and hope and love abide. A world where Jesus is known fully and we are fully known. And loved. If that is not the compassionate mission of Jesus carried out by his faithful followers, I don’t know what is. So, see the movie. The book will be better, though. They always are.
with love, PM

"A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it." Mary karr.

"The United States goes around the world telling countries that a few more nuclear warheads are dangerous and immoral---whil it has 12,000 nukes of its own" Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek, April 17).

No telling what you might hear

Frederick Buechner writes:" When a minister reads out of the bible, I am sure that at least nine out of the ten people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to hear read. And I think what most people expect to hear read from the bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson---something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen---and maybe you have to forget that it is the bible being read and a minister who is reading it--there is no telling what you might hear!