57. Some Tests of Discipleship

To quote a line from a pop song, Jesus is saying “it is not easy being me.” Or, more accurately, it is not easy being a son of God. The primary requirement is complete detachment – from home, from family, and from duty, custom and obligations. God requires a total commitment; no other relationship can supersede it or we will ultimately fail to do the right thing. For the scribes and Pharisees, power and prestige and wealth were primary, and as a result they were unable to see what was really required.

To have your hand on the plough while looking backward is to be split, not whole; distracted, not focused. To be in the kingdom of God is to be of ONE spirit – present, responsive, loving.

[See also “Some Costs of Discipleship” (Commentary 10-49), and “The Costs of Discipleship (Commentary 12-73).]

58. The Way of Eternal Life

Jesus is being asked what is required to inherit eternal life. What might the questioner mean by that phrase, eternal life? It is probable that he means some sort of post-apocalyptic, everlasting existence in Heaven. So Jesus asks him, what does the Jewish religion – the law – recommend? He answers: To love God totally – with all thy heart, soul, strength and mind – and thy neighbor as thyself.

This commandment to love all is in complete alignment with the perception that all life is one. So Jesus responds that he has answered right: This do, and thou shalt live. He does not say this do, and thou shalt have eternal life. But that thou shalt live. Thou shalt be fully human.

It could be also that Jesus was saying this do and thou shalt have eternal life. But the meaning would be different, referring not to an individual life, but perhaps the ongoingness of the human species. This do, and our species will continue.

59. The Definition of Neighbor

Jewish law says to love your neighbor as yourself. But in Jesus’ day, the definition of neighbor was a fellow Jew. If you were, say, a Samaritan, who as we know did not get along with the Jews, then the law did not apply.

Tribalism in Jesus’ day was rife. Like a high school campus, identity was built around what group you belonged to. Those inside your group were friends and neighbors, those outside were inconsequential at best, enemies at worst.

Once again, Jesus lifts the teaching to a higher level. The definition of neighbor transcends tribal boundaries. It is anyone who manifests God’s mercy.

60. Many Things vs One Thing

I bet we can all relate to Martha. How many times have we had the experience of doing work when others, rather than helping, are sitting around and enjoying themselves? It can make us resentful can’t it?

Well, Jesus puts responsibility back on our shoulders. Our state of being is up to us.

Earlier we looked at a passage where Jesus said, “let your speech be yea yea or nea nea, and whatsoever is more than that is of evil.” Jesus’ point was, don’t be split, be whole and of one spirit.

If you do not want to serve, stop serving. Or else serve and drop the resentment. But don’t serve and be resentful. Then you’re not taking care of the one thing that is needful: your spirit.

61. Elements of Prevailing Prayer

Wrapped up in this passage are many beautiful teachings that help to reveal the true nature of our relationship to God.

First, let’s look at the prayer that Jesus recommends. He starts by calling God “Father”. While today many would take exception to the assumption that God is masculine, let’s for now set that objection aside and try without prejudice to understand Jesus’ frame of reference. Then on your own see if the meaning of the teaching changes if you instead assume a feminine nature for God. 

Father,

By using the word “Father,” Jesus suggests two things: One, we are all “Sons of God”; it is not a relationship available only to a chosen few. Two, our relationship with God has a very personal aspect to it.  The father gives of his seed to make life, and the seed lives on in the offspring. Being a son of God is therefore a statement of our identity, and revealing the true nature of that identity is the purpose of all of Jesus’ teachings. 

Hallowed be thy name.

Hallowed means “whole”; so Jesus is saying, “Whole be thy name.” God is one-- one creator manifesting one spirit of love and mercy and compassion and forgiveness. 

Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.

The kingdom of God is here on Earth when we do God’s will. The knowledge of God’s will is available to us, but we must be the ones to manifest it here on Earth. No one else is going to do that.

Give us day by day our daily bread.

A petition to receive what we need to serve God, and no more. It puts money in its place. No need to be a multi-millionaire or billionaire. In fact, at best wealth is a distraction from what is really important, and at worst, it prevents others from getting their daily bread. It brings to mind an earlier teaching: “What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world but loseth his own soul?”

And forgive us our sins; for we ourselves also forgive every one who has wronged us.

This hearkens back to Jesus earlier teaching on forgiveness. As we are forgiven, so we forgive. When we are conscious of God’s love, we cannot help but reflect it back to others.

So ends the prayer. Then Jesus goes on, providing additional insight into the nature of God.

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father give good things to them that ask him?

This section brings to mind a famous speech given by John F. Kennedy in 1962, in which he sets out the goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade -- well before we had any idea how that could really be accomplished. It was in today’s parlance a BHAG: a big, hairy, audacious goal. But we sought and knocked and asked, and the universe revealed to us its secrets, and the mission was accomplished. 

The same process holds true for our religious journey. Whatever we need to know to be able to love God with all our soul, mind, heart and strength, is available to us if we seek, knock and ask.

All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.

Does this mean if I pray for a million dollars, or a really nice car, or a house in the Bahamas, and believe that I’ve received it, it will be so? Hmmm...that seems doubtful.

The condition here may be that we pray for what we need, not what we want. And when praying for what we need, Jesus may just be recommending that we have an attitude of faith. Believe that you will get the answers you seek, and you will.

62. Limitations of Exorcism

It seems that by this time Jesus had had a fair amount of experience curing mental illness, and he observed something in the process: That in being healed, if you do not fill the vacuum with something better – say a particular purpose for your life – you can suffer a relapse more sever than the original illness.

63. Basis of Real Relationship to Jesus

This is similar to an earlier teaching where Jesus says that “whosoever does the will of my Father, the same is my mother, and brother and sister.”

[See also “Basis of Real Relationship to Jesus,” Commentary 7-33.]

64. Effects of the Mission of Jesus

Jesus’ ministry is taking place at a time when a major confrontation with the Romans could erupt at any moment. Tensions are high. Disagreements as to how to deal with the Romans are heated. Into that situation Jesus brings a powerful and controversial message bound to inflame the situation even further.

Some of us can think back to the tumultuous days of the Vietnam War. It was impossible to be neutral about the rightness or wrongness of that conflict. And whatever stance you took, it was guaranteed to align you with half the people you knew – both inside and outside your family – and alienate you from the other half.

65. The Signs of the Times

Jesus is admonishing his people to pay attention and to start making links between cause and effect.

It’s hard to read this passage and not ask: what are the signs of our times? They are reported on daily. Global warming. Deforestation. Depleted oceans. Species loss. Ground water pollution. World hunger. Terrorism. Weapons of mass destruction. The list goes on.

But not all the signs are negative. There are communication networks that span the planet and create possibilities for global dialogue. There’s new information that validates our common evolutionary history and the interconnectedness of all life. There’s greater human maturity and wisdom. And there’s a blossoming realization that to survive, we must all learn to get along.

As we read the signs of the times, which future will we choose to nurture?

66. Warnings of National Disaster

Pontius Pilate was the Roman procurator in Judea, and we can conclude from the passage that he was responsible for some pretty brutal punishment of the Jews, presumably for resisting Roman rule.

Jesus instructs his listeners not to view Pilate’s actions as isolated events, brought about by especially egregious behavior on the part of those punished. In fact, just the opposite should be concluded: That unless the Jews cease their antagonism toward the Romans, all can expect a similar end.

67. Teaching About Reliance on Wealth

Jesus message here is pretty clear: the measure of our life is not in how much we possess, but in how rich we are toward God. In other words, how conscious we are of life’s larger purpose and meaning.

It’s interesting that our culture preaches exactly the opposite message. Each of us is hammered daily with snake-oil assurances that our self-worth can be found in what we wear, own, live in and belong to. And what’s really scary is how quickly these messages have gone global, driving the ambitions of billions of human beings around the world and bringing our life-support systems to the brink of collapse.

Multiplied by several billion, a value system that preaches laying up treasures upon the earth simply cannot be sustained by the earth.

So what does Jesus recommend? That we lay up for ourselves treasure in heaven. Make the relationship with God primary. It is the one relationship that is permanent and that no one can take from us. It hearkens back to Jesus’ parable about building a house upon rock, rather than sand.

And what does it mean to make the relationship with God primary? We have been given the requirements: To love God with all our soul, mind, heart and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The commitment to love must be total -- no man, having put his hand to the plow, and turning back, is fit for the kingdom of God. See our own humanity clearly. Deal with our anger and resistances. And do right by everyone, even our enemy.

It would seem that as we become more conscious of all that has been given to us we cannot help but be overwhelmed with gratitude. And if anything best describes what it means to be rich toward God, it is the feeling that “my cup runneth over” – so much so that there is no possibility that we would yet greedily clamor for more.

Understanding, appreciating and being satisfied with how much we’ve been given are what growing up is all about. Teenagers often have little appreciation for all that has been done for them. The take it for granted. But one day, when they’re older, they look back and say, how could I have been so blind?

Perhaps we as a species are on this cusp between adolescence and adulthood, where finally we can see that we have been given more than enough, and can now turn our attention to what we can give back.

[See also “Teaching About Reliance on Wealth” (Commentary 12-67), “God vs. Mammon” (Commentary 13-75), “Relation of Possessions to Eternal Life” (Commentary 14-85), “The Rich Publican of Jericho” (Commentary 14-88).]

68. Saying on Light and Darkness

“The lamp of thy body is thine eye” – how clearly do we see? Perception is everything.

When the eye sees clearly that there is one spirit of which we are all made – God’s spirit of truth and beauty and goodness, to borrow from the Greeks – then the light will extend to our whole body. We will in totality respond to the will of God.

But if thine eye does not perceive clearly, if it does not see “what spirit ye are of”, then thy body is full of darkness. In our ignorance we will do terrible, hurtful and harmful things. To the planet, and to each other.

69. Limits of the Kingdom of God

There are two passages where Jesus refers to entering by the narrow door, or the narrow gate. Other passages convey a similar constraint:

“If thine eye be single.”

“Anyone who is angry is in danger of the judgment.”

“Love God with all your soul, mind, heart and strength.”

None of these statements leave much wiggle room.

In today’s anything-goes world, where we assume the right to do what we please as long as it does not “hurt” anyone else, how do we interpret such a teaching? Well, it forces us to rethink our rights in terms of our responsibilities. Someone once put it this way: “Love God, and do what you want.” The meaning: If you love God, you will automatically do the right thing.

The gate or door is narrow because there is ONE spirit to manifest: the spirit of love and mercy and compassion. It is the sprit that leads to life.

When Jesus says ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets, and yourselves cast forth without, what does he mean? Perhaps he is saying that Jesus’ generation has broken “the golden thread” – they are not fulfilling their potential as God’s chosen people, to bring the light unto the world. The thread will be passed on to others, who come from the north and south and east and west.

[See also “Discourse on the Kingdom of God” (Commentary 7-34), “Time of the Kingdom of God” (Commentary 13-79) and “Essential for Entrance into Kingdom” (Commentary 14-84) and “Time of the Kingdom of God” (Commentary 14-89).]

71. Teaching in Criticism of Anxiety

Jesus understood that as human beings, we have a true, created nature – just as birds and flowers and everything else in creation have a true, created nature. Fulfilling our true nature is a natural outcome of meeting the necessary conditions for growth. For plants, that would be good soil and the right amount of rain and sunshine. Importantly, and one of Jesus’ points in this passage, everything we need to fulfill our true nature has been given to us – it’s embedded in the fabric of reality.

But as a species, we have lost touch with that truth. As we moved out of jungles and into civilizations, we have created cultures – made up of customs and laws and belief systems -- to help us get along and increase our chances of survival. While this has had many benefits, it has also created a fundamental problem. We have mistaken the map (culture) for the terrain (reality). We have made the mistake of believing that our enculturated self is our real self. And so we have become over-identified with our clan, or religion or nation, and not enough identified with the underlying reality that gave birth to us and all we see around us. We see our enculturated identity as something to fight and die for, when in truth our enculturated self is like clothing, to be put on and taken off and changed as the situation demands.

This mistaken understanding of who we are leads to anxieties and pre-occupations that are neither necessary or healthy. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Understand the true requirements for life to continue, and fulfill those. From that, everything else follows.

72. Teachings at the Table of a Pharisee

This passage is about motivation. Why do we do the things we do? For approval? Acceptance? Status? Jesus would say that such motivation is doing things “that they may be seen of men.”

What would be another motivation for our actions? In an earlier passage, Jesus instructs: “Do these things in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall recompense thee.” Why does Jesus recommend that motivation? What is the recompense we can expect?

Doing things for God is by definition acting for the good of the whole: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” When we do things that lie outside our ego-driven interests, we expand the boundaries of our identity and establish a more conscious relationship with the larger system of which we are a part, with God.

73. The Costs of Discipleship

The language is extreme, but the meaning is clear. To enter into the kingdom of God, we must first detach completely from everything temporal. The religious scholar Huston Smith noted that the one teaching common to all of the world’s great religions is this concept of detachment – of renouncing all that we have; of surrendering completely to the will of God.

Why is this a condition, or a cost, of being a disciple? Using today’s language, Jesus is talking about an evolutionary leap in consciousness, and like all evolutionary leaps, it cannot be made halfway. Creatures cannot adapt to the land if they never leave the water. Or master the skies if they never leave the earth. A relationship with God is an environing relationship; it molds us spiritually, as the Earth has molded us physically. But for the environing to work, we must submit completely.

And to what are we submitting ? A will greater than our own that permits us one response: To love all. That means we cannot love some part of creation more than we love the whole of creation. If we do, both will ultimately perish. Look at the Israelis and the Palestinians. Each is acting in what it perceives to be its own best interest, but the outcomes serve the interests of neither. Only when each acts for the good of both will a true resolution be possible.

Attachments always place the interests of some part above the interests of the whole, and as a result threaten the existence of both. Detachment places the interests of the whole above the parts, and serves the well being of both.

[See also “Some Costs of Discipleship” (Commentary 10-49), and “Some Tests of Discipleship (Commentary 11-57).]

74. Parables on the Worth of Sinners

All of us can understand the desire to reject those who do not fit in. Think back to that Petri dish of tribalism: High School. There was always an in-crowd, and the in-crowd always rejected the misfits. It was the only way to remain the in-crowd, right? If you associated with the misfits, you could no longer claim to be the in-crowd, and being the in-crowd was central to your identity. This kind of thinking goes on everywhere in our lives: We define ourselves as much by those whom we reject as those whom we accept.

For Jesus, there was only one tribe to belong to, and it was called the kingdom of God. All were welcome to join that tribe if they met the conditions for entrance: Love God with all your soul, mind, heart and strength; love your neighbor as yourself; love your enemy.

The scribes and Pharisees, in their rejection and condemnation of sinners, were clearly not interested in the kingdom of God -- otherwise they would be helping sinners see what they needed to do to gain entrance. Instead, the scribes and Pharisees were interested in the “kingdom of men” and the ego gratification that came with feeling pious and superior to the sinners. In other words, they were interested in protecting their limited, egocentric identity at the expense of an identity based in God – which, if anything, is defined as an attitude of compassion and inclusion and mercy toward all.

Jesus perceived that the kingdom of God is our primary, collective identity, and that the survival of the Jews, and eventually of all humankind, depended on people gaining entrance. That is why when one who is outside the kingdom (a “sinner”) enters in, there is reason for all to rejoice.

75. God vs Mammon

There is probably nothing more urgent in the world today than to redefine our relationship to money. In our society and in much of the world, money is the final arbiter of value, the metric we use to measure the failure and success of our most critical decisions – from how we use our natural resources, to how we conduct foreign policy, to who we elect as our local, state and national leaders. Driving home the degree to which money has become our master, we have even renamed ourselves in its image, calling ourselves “consumers” and measuring our self-worth by our net worth. Through a powerful process of cultural mutation, we have become, as one economist put it, a new species: “Homo Economicus.”

Unfortunately, our economic selves are often at odds with our physical selves. For example, fearing the economic implications, we cannot bring ourselves to adequately address or even acknowledge the realities of global warming, deforestation, ozone depletion and a host of other life-threatening ills that have as their common root cause over-consumption. Trapped by our human-made cultural value system, we act as if our survival is more dependent on the artifice of economics than on the reality of a healthy biosphere.

This is why Jesus says you cannot serve both God and mammon: You cannot be free to see and respond to reality if you are already enslaved to the almighty dollar – or yen, or yuan, or baht, or euro or whatever.

Serve God, or serve mammon. One choice keeps our evolutionary possibilities alive; the other ultimately shuts them down. As a society it is clear what choice we have made. But it may not be too late to change our minds.

[See also “Teaching About Reliance on Wealth” (Commentary 12-67), “Relation of Possessions to Eternal Life” (Commentary 14-85), “The Rich Publican of Jericho” (Commentary 14-88).]

76. Parable on the Futility of Duty

The servants in Jesus’ parable lack freedom. When we operate out of duty or obligation we are like those servants – enslaved by the demands and expectations of our culture. This is not hard to relate to. Just think about all the things you do not because you want to do them, but because you feel you should do them. That is slavery. If you think about it long enough you’ll probably reach the conclusion that you operate in slave mode the vast majority of the time. But that is not how we are meant to live. We are meant to be free.

This is not to say that we should only do what we feel like doing; the point is to be aware of what we do and why, and to act out of conscious volition. Are we cutting two inches off the pot roast because that is how it was always done, or because the roast is indeed too big for our pan?

I remember talking to a friend of mine who said her goal was to own her home by the time she was 30. I asked her why she chose that goal. She could not answer. While most everyone she knew would say yes, great goal, she could not produce her own internal, autonomous reason for adopting it. She was driven by a cultural value system that had never been examined in the light of her own interests and priorities. Had she done so, she may have still kept the same goal, or she may not have. But whatever she decided, it would have been her choice; not an unconscious, inherited set of priorities.

When our choices are autonomous, they have lasting value. When they are not, disillusionment is often the result. Think about your own experience of acting out of duty, and ask yourself if the outcome wasn’t ultimately a loss of energy and drive mixed in with a good amount of resentment. Doing things out of duty is like running off of a non-rechargeable battery. We can do it for while but eventually we run out of energy and grind to a halt. This may be what depression is all about. But doing things based on an autonomous relationship with reality is like running off of an outlet: the energy supply never ends.

77. Several Sayings of Jesus

The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man entereth violently into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fall.

Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save a life, or to kill? What man shall there be of you, that shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man of more value than a sheep! Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.

This hearkens back to Jesus’ earlier saying: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Do not be a slave to custom and tradition. Choose to do what you do because it is the right thing for life. If the custom no longer serves a useful purpose, be free enough to leave it and move on.

He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.

Jesus seems to be saying that in the religious life, there is no middle ground. We are either aligned with God’s will, or we are not. Those who are aligned are serving the same power or purpose as Jesus. Those who are not aligned are serving some other power or purpose.

This is not an example of religious intolerance; it is simply stating the obvious. This may be more clear if we put it another way: We are either complying with the laws of reality, or we are rebelling against them. There are really no other choices.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.

Who were the false prophets Jesus was referring to? The scribes and Pharisees – those who professed to teach the path to God, but who in actuality preached irrational adherence to outdated rules and customs that, rather than serving the God’s will, served only their own egocentric drive for power, prestige and wealth.