![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, Verses 14-15 reads
Sayings
In the verses that follow the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives a series of short teachings. Each is very important by itself, and so for the rest of this week, I'm going to go through them one at a time.
I don't get into so-called "historical Jesus" or modern "Biblical criticism" scholarship, because my experience is that these things tend to reflect the prejudices of academics more than anything else. But I feel like one modern idea is worth mentioning, and that is that the gospels of Matthew and Luke were compiled using the narrative Gospel of Mark and another document, now lost. That lost document is a sayings gospel, usually referred to as "Q."
Again, most academic ideas about Christian origins are half-baked when they aren't willfully hostile, but this is one that seems to me to have some merit. In the first case, one can very easily imagine passages like this compiled into a document of sayings like the Daodejing or the Pythagorean Aphorisms. In the second case, we actually have an intact Sayings Gospel, the Gospel of Thomas.
Forgiveness
Jesus opens this section by reminding us if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven by the Father.
Here are three things to takeaway from this:
First, we are once again being taught the law of karma. Everything we do has consequences, and everything we do returns to us. We are punished not for our sins, but by them, and rewarded not for our good works, but by them as well. And in the exact same way, by granting forgiveness, we are ourselves forgiven.
But why do we need forgiveness?
Remember that to be united to the Father is to be made Whole. The Father is True Being, and in uniting ourselves to Him, we become what we are intended to be.
As God is Being, and God is Good, true good is the same as true being. Evil, in a real sense, does not exist. When we do evil, we remove ourselves from being and remove ourselves from existence!
Here is another way to see it-- the Nous is the Eye of the Soul, by which we perceive God and spiritual realities. Evil deeds and habitual sin act like a crust that gradually forms over our soul, firming and hardening until it blocks out the light entirely. In order to return to the light of God, we need to remove the accretions of evil built up around our souls. That is what forgiveness is.
None of us is separate. When another sins against us, it affects us-- and holding onto our anger or resentment at the sin affects them. To exist at all is to have something of God within us. By forgiving others, we participate in the creative work of God himself, helping them return to the light of True Being. By participating in the energy (energeia, action, grace) of forgiveness, we open ourselves to receiving forgiveness.
Recovery
People in recovery from addiction are often taught to be mindful of their resentments. Holding onto resentment leads the addict to pick up a drink or a drug. How does this work? Addiction is a spiritual illness, regardless of its physical components. By releasing resentments and practicing forgiveness, the addict himself is freed, and no longer has to compensate for the pain by dissolving his mind into intoxication (this is a form of non-being, of course).
The truth is, though, that "Addiction" is actually a sub-set of "Sin." When we sin and reject God, by whatever means, we dissolve back into non-being. Notice that this is also a type of hardening-- Life is energy, one of the three primary powers of the Cosmos, and living things move. All sin attempts to become habitual, and so to become addiction; and forgiveness is always an act of healing. Forgive others, participate in the creation of the world, and watch yourself become divine.
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Sayings
In the verses that follow the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives a series of short teachings. Each is very important by itself, and so for the rest of this week, I'm going to go through them one at a time.
I don't get into so-called "historical Jesus" or modern "Biblical criticism" scholarship, because my experience is that these things tend to reflect the prejudices of academics more than anything else. But I feel like one modern idea is worth mentioning, and that is that the gospels of Matthew and Luke were compiled using the narrative Gospel of Mark and another document, now lost. That lost document is a sayings gospel, usually referred to as "Q."
Again, most academic ideas about Christian origins are half-baked when they aren't willfully hostile, but this is one that seems to me to have some merit. In the first case, one can very easily imagine passages like this compiled into a document of sayings like the Daodejing or the Pythagorean Aphorisms. In the second case, we actually have an intact Sayings Gospel, the Gospel of Thomas.
Forgiveness
Jesus opens this section by reminding us if we do not forgive others, we will not be forgiven by the Father.
Here are three things to takeaway from this:
First, we are once again being taught the law of karma. Everything we do has consequences, and everything we do returns to us. We are punished not for our sins, but by them, and rewarded not for our good works, but by them as well. And in the exact same way, by granting forgiveness, we are ourselves forgiven.
But why do we need forgiveness?
Remember that to be united to the Father is to be made Whole. The Father is True Being, and in uniting ourselves to Him, we become what we are intended to be.
As God is Being, and God is Good, true good is the same as true being. Evil, in a real sense, does not exist. When we do evil, we remove ourselves from being and remove ourselves from existence!
Here is another way to see it-- the Nous is the Eye of the Soul, by which we perceive God and spiritual realities. Evil deeds and habitual sin act like a crust that gradually forms over our soul, firming and hardening until it blocks out the light entirely. In order to return to the light of God, we need to remove the accretions of evil built up around our souls. That is what forgiveness is.
None of us is separate. When another sins against us, it affects us-- and holding onto our anger or resentment at the sin affects them. To exist at all is to have something of God within us. By forgiving others, we participate in the creative work of God himself, helping them return to the light of True Being. By participating in the energy (energeia, action, grace) of forgiveness, we open ourselves to receiving forgiveness.
Recovery
People in recovery from addiction are often taught to be mindful of their resentments. Holding onto resentment leads the addict to pick up a drink or a drug. How does this work? Addiction is a spiritual illness, regardless of its physical components. By releasing resentments and practicing forgiveness, the addict himself is freed, and no longer has to compensate for the pain by dissolving his mind into intoxication (this is a form of non-being, of course).
The truth is, though, that "Addiction" is actually a sub-set of "Sin." When we sin and reject God, by whatever means, we dissolve back into non-being. Notice that this is also a type of hardening-- Life is energy, one of the three primary powers of the Cosmos, and living things move. All sin attempts to become habitual, and so to become addiction; and forgiveness is always an act of healing. Forgive others, participate in the creation of the world, and watch yourself become divine.
