“One Lump”
In the fourteenth century, the inspired, anonymous author of The Cloud of
Unknowing taught that God in Christ dealt with sin, death, forgiveness,
salvation “all in one lump.” It is a most unusual, even homely phrase, but for
me, this corporate and even mystical reading of divine history contributes
toward the unitive vision we are seeking, as we try to understand the Universal
Christ. Jesus by himself looks like an individual, albeit a divine individual, but
the Christ I have described in this book is a compelling image for this “one-
lump” view of reality. In the fourteenth century, the book’s author would’ve
enjoyed the last remnants of mystical holism before it was taken away by the
dualistic—but also necessary—ravages of the Reformation and the
Enlightenment. He reflected the more Eastern church understanding of the
resurrection as a universal phenomenon, and not just the lone Jesus rising from
the dead and raising his hands as if he just scored a touchdown, as is depicted in
most Western art—and even in a giant mosaic that looms over the University of
Notre Dame’s football stadium. (“Touchdown Jesus,” we used to call it.)
I am convinced that the Gospel offers us a holistic, “all in one lump”
understanding of things. Once you have a similar breakthrough, you will see
this idea everywhere in Pauline passages, expressed in different ways: “in that
one body he condemned sin” (Romans 8:3); “He experienced death for all
humankind” (Hebrews 2:19); he has done suffering and sacrifice “once and for
all” (Hebrews 7:28); or the embodiment language of Philippians, where Jesus is
said to lead us through the “pattern of sin and death” so we can “take our place
in the pattern of resurrection” (3:9–12). And of course, this all emerges from
Jesus’s major metaphor of the “Reign of God,” a fully collective notion, which
some scholars say is just about all that he talks about. Until we start reading the
Jesus story through the collective notion that the Christ offers us, I honestly
think we miss much of the core message, and read it all in terms of individual
salvation, and individual reward and punishment. Society will remain
untouched.
I think this collective notion is what Christians were trying to verbalize when
they made a late addition to the ancient Apostles’ Creed, “I believe in the
communion of saints.” They were offering us this new idea that the dead are at