"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 10:28. The New American Standard.
Sometimes I wonder if the biggest lesson I'll ever learn in life is how to disagree compassionately. I spend so much time sifting through the messages I hear from outside, and so little sifting through the quiet voice inside.
For the first century follower of Jesus, there was real physical threat. They had to make make cautious decisions as to where they would preach, where they would meet, and where they would sleep. There were real people with real agendas who wanted nothing more than to see these Jesus followers wiped off the face of the planet.
And, it was a very Jewish concept to believe there were two distinct parts of life - the body and the soul. For the Jew, the body was the seat of the soul, so it was extremely important to treat the body as a spiritual gift. And the soul was the seat of one's spiritual well-being. No one could alter another's soul except God.
And Jesus was willing to take this idea all the way to death, because he believed that his body was mortal and prone to attack, whether by natural causes or human causes. Yet, his soul was the thing that put purpose into every thing he did. And to him and his fellow Jews, worth came from God. And the soul was what drove home the idea of self worth.
Now, I try to stay out of the heaven and hell conversation as much as possible, because I have no proof to go off of. Sure, I can take the author's words literally, and automatically decide to live as if I'm heading to one or the other. But, what happens here on earth in my lifetime is what I find gives me the most fulfillment. And, I think Jesus places a ton of value into what happens on this earth. If he didn't, then the body and soul wouldn't have been so important to the theological aspect to Jesus's Jewishness.
I'm in the class of people who take heaven and hell to be byproducts of man's search for meaning. Since all we know - if we boil it down to black and white - here on earth is heaven and hell, why not project our experiences on Earth onto the afterlife? It's not wrong as much as it's a human way of dealing with life and death.
And Jewish tradition dealt with both just as any other tradition did and does.
So, what was Jesus saying to his disciples, and in turn, what does it mean for today's followers of Jesus?
Since bodily persecution was a real threat to the early disciples, Jesus wanted them to focus on the mission of restoration - of repairing the broken pieces all around them, and of seeking to devote their lives to take what Jesus taught them and use it to implement a process of what he considered God's mission on earth. Heal the sick. Serve the poor. Help people wake up to the spiritual realities inside and out.
Here in America, the message just doesn't fit for most of us. We don't wake up every morning wondering if we're gonna live long enough to pray tonight. We don't wake up wondering if we're gonna go to court and be charged with heresy. We don't worry about getting flogged for claiming God is the only King of this nation. But is that the case across the board?
I guarantee it isn't, but there's probably not many people in China or Africa or Afghanistan who are reading this blog. My audience is made up of people whose list of persecutors can all be found on Facebook friends lists or coworkers who are spiritually prejudiced, or people like me who are having a real tough go at swallowing any of the religious information that's coming at us 24/7.
And so, to make the above message make sense to me and my audience, I'll have to dumb it down a bit. A whole lot.
Maybe Jesus's 2015 American message reads something like, "Don't fear that person on Facebook who says something you disagree with. Remember your standing with the only One who matters when it comes to spirituality."
I believe we all have soul in common. We all go to bed at night, and just before the lights in our head turn off, there's that moment that we realize that even though there's another person (for a lot of us) sharing the bed, it all goes back in the box eventually right? In the end, am I gonna be worrying about what that person posted on my timeline? Am I gonna be trembling at the rehashed conversation I had with that coworker?
I don't think so.
Don't worry about what the bullies say. Don't worry about the fact that everybody says you're wrong. Don't worry about the fact that you keep getting accused of telling other people they're wrong simply by stating your belief systems.
What matters is much deeper, much quieter, and much more profound than external disagreements and theological debates. What matters is where you find your purpose. Where I find my purpose. Where I find life if I have any to find.
As I was taking a shower last night, the thought occurred to me that all these years, even through my ups and downs of being uber-religious and anti-religious, the draw of Jesus has been steady and unwavering. Whether it was the draw of his teachings, the draw of his works, or the aura of his theological points, there's always been something that has pulled me in to find out more.
And the more I line up with what Jesus did and said to do, the less I care about what other humans think about how I'm doing it.
And maybe it's the same for the avid follower of Mohammed. Maybe it's the same for the passionate follower of the Buddha. Maybe there are similarities there for the followers of Confucianism.
In Jesus's context, speaking to fellow Jews, his question was, "What's the status with your fear? Are you dreading what other people may do to you, or are you coming face to face with Ultimate Reality? Are you letting all those people steal away your joy, or are you finding joy in coming dangerously close to the God who loves you with terrible compassion?"
I have to admit, most of the time I'm not examining and nurturing my own belief systems, but weighing my beliefs against everybody else's. And that's a byproduct of the kind of fear Jesus was warning his disciples against. But who cares what everybody else believes? Don't they have the same God-given right as I do to believe what I want?
The question to ponder today I think is, "Where do I stand before the terror, the vastness, and the infinite mass of the universe? Am I falling to my knees or letting all the minions in my head tell me what to do and where to go next?"
Grace and peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment