The Esoteric Gospel of Matthew 12:1-14

 The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 12, Verses 1-14 reads: 

 

 

1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.
 

2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

 

3 But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;

 

4 How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests?

 

5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?

 

6 But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.

 

7 But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.

 

8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

 

9 And when he was departed thence, he went into their synagogue:

 

10 And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him.

 

11 And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?

 

12 How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.

 

13 Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.

 

14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.

 

The Machine Stopped, But No One Noticed

Imagine a town built around a nuclear power plant. Every household has at least one family member employed at the plant. At work, the employees wear personal protective equipment: hard hats, safety goggles, gloves, steel-toed boots. Over time, the culture of this community becomes thoroughly built around the power plant-- weddings, birthdays, even funerals, all take place at the plant. Everyone wants to work at the nuclear plant, and so even those who don't work at the plant go about in hardhats and safety goggles and so on.  

After a while, the plant itself ceases to function. Funny enough, though, no one realizes this. After long centuries, the cultural activities centered around the plant have become the point. Engineers go to work and oversee machines that no longer function. Welders and machinists repair pipes through which nothing passes. Reactor operators press buttons in prescribed sequences handed down from long ago, totally unaware that nothing at all is happening. And everyone dresses in hardhats and safety gloves and goggles and steel-toed boots, despite the lack of anything very much to be protected from. Indeed, the dress code is enforced all the more rigidly, now that it is an end unto itself, rather than a means. 

This is what superstition is: the continued use of spiritual practice-- or, far more commonly, fragments of spiritual practices-- whose meaning and purpose is no longer understood. Very often, the practices are in fact useless, because the Power which animated them has departed. 

In Jesus's time, many of the practices of the Jews have degenerated into superstition. Moreover, it's quite likely that the Power of YHVH had indeed departed Jerusalem, as demonstrated by the temple's destruction just a few decades later. 

The Man Came Around

Let's go back to the defunct nuclear power plant.

Suppose that, one day, a man turns up who claims to be the plant's owner. Along with a trusted crew of engineers and workmen, he manages to restore power here and there and get parts of the plant up and working again. 

He quickly becomes quite popular. One day, he and his engineers are sitting around the plant's cafeteria, eating lunch. Because they're in the cafeteria, they have their gloves and hardhats off, and they don't bother with goggles. 

The Board of Safety that runs the plant are upset. They're used to screaming at people to put their hat and gloves on, even if they're at lunch, or in the bathroom, or outside smoking a cigarette. And here's this jerk that claims to be the plant owner, sitting around eating a sandwich with his bare hands! When they ask him just what he thinks he's up to, he calmly replies that gloves were made for man, and not man for gloves, and in any case this is his plant and he'll do whatever he darn well pleases. 

The Board of Safety are not pleased.

The Trouble With Abraham

If I didn't have a deep and abiding love for the Christian religion, I wouldn't be writing these posts. That much should be obvious. That said, Christianity has a problem, and it's one that it shares with the other Abrahamic faiths, for the most part. To understand that problem, let's go back to the nuclear power plant. 

Suppose that when the plant was built, the Board of Safety demanded that the town use it as its only source of energy. When some people refused, the employees went out and destroyed every coal-fired power plant, every hydroelectric plant, every windmill and solar panel they could get their hands on. After that, the Board of Safety insisted that nuclear was the only possible source of energy, that no other energy source existed, and that any claims by anyone to have produced energy from any source other than nuclear was a lie. Several other nuclear plants were built, but after a few centuries, rivalries grew up between the different Board of Safety. So that now, each Board of Safety insists not only that nuclear is the only possible source of energy, but that its own plant is the only possible source of nuclear energy. Other nuclear plants are schismatic frauds, which only seem to produce energy to the foolish or malicious. 

In such a situation, it would become impossible to determine whether a plant was working or not, because it could no longer be tested. If Plant B seemed to be producing enough energy that people in the surrounding territory could turn the lights on in their homes, what of it? We already know that Plant B is a schismatic power plant, and Plant A is the only true nuclear power plant. So the idea that nuclear power allows people to turn lights on is merely a superstition. In fact, it's probably pure paganism, since those wicked people who make use of coal-fired power plants make similar claims. No, the proper way to judge a nuclear power plant is whether it adheres to the same Manual of Safety Procedures yours does-- or whether it's obedient to your Board of Safety-- anything else is mere superstition. 

The Circle is Unbroken

Much of CHristianity, then, is in a similar state to the Judaism of Jesus's day, with the added difficulty that many churches not only cannot judge the efficacy of their practices, they have in fact prohibited themselves from doing so! Indeed, much of Christianity largely consists of people going to the defunct nuclear power plant every Sunday to share coffee and sandwiches in the old cafeteria. 

This is why I say that we can always judge the conditions of our own souls, as the soul is the sum total of our thoughts, emotions, and actions. If we fail to do so, we wind up like Pharisees, performing actions we don't understand for reasons we've never known, or else we wind up treating spiritual practices as if they didn't matter at all.