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Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Matthew 7.21-23

Not everyone who calls me "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly Father.

When that day comes, many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in your name perform many miracles?"

Then I will tell them to their face, "I never knew you! Out of my sight, you and your wicked ways!"

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This was always one of my favorite passages, probably because 'Jesus as worship-object' always seemed alien to me. God, yes.

'Doing God's will'? Well, that probably would depend on what that will was. It was much later when I discovered Stephen Gaskin: "It's not complicated or unusual or weird to know what God wants. God wants justice and freedom and health and happiness and equality for everyone. If you know that's what God really wants, you'll help out along those lines." I would certainly have resonated with that, not yet realizing how unattainable that was in the current state of human consciousness and misorganization. Mainly, that is, in the prevalence of fear and faithlessness -- because faith is so hard to maintain without hope, and hope so hard to entertain for people who live with misplaced faith, or none. Faith 'in the name of Jesus,' for example.

I also liked the parts where he'd say, ~"If you want to call me 'Lord', then try to understand what I'm saying, what I mean!" Maybe I'd discovered Mark Twain a bit too early, or listened too much to my atheist earthly father -- but the inconsistencies and evils of standard 'Crosstianity' [GB Shaw's term] were clear enough. But then I was still working on whatever it was Jesus did mean -- although I feel that some of my grade school teachers really did understand, and though I knew they were right about "Two wrongs don't make a right," I didn't like to hear it about whichever retaliation I wanted to do just then!

And why would Jesus care whether people did thing 'in his name,' anyway? It does make more sense to me since then, of course -- analogous to someone acting 'in the name of The Law!' -- although that too, of course, could be said by people who weren't behaving all that legally.

But I was still thinking of 'The Kingdom of Heaven' as 'a nice place for dead people.' And that wasn't at all what Jesus meant!

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 6, 2015 at 1:55pm

This should be read with Matthew 25:31 to 46. Together they say it all. Of course if you are hard of hearing or just don't trust the NT try Micah 6:8

I think WWJD could be supplemented by WDLR - Micah 6:8 since I equate the Lord with Love I would read it "What Does Love Require"

Some Christians in the evangelical church believe "Once saved, always saved" but Paul says he is working out his salvation daily. This whole journey is a "heart" thing. It's got to be in the right place or you'll end up in the wrong place. Works isn't evidence of faith but lack of works is a pretty good indication of a lack of faith.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 10th mo. 6, 2015 at 10:48pm

In the fiction (and much of the history) I read, piety was very often associated with a kind of sanctimonious cruelty... so I read this passage as reassurance that that wasn't gonna work. But then there's still the tendency to be judgmental, which I certainly wasn't over (& still find to be a tough one!) -- that made this sort of passage appeal to me.

But if anyone reads this with a mind to earning a cushy afterlife vacation, towards not ending up in an eternal goat-pen -- Then even your passage, James, about ~ When I was hungry you clothed me, etc etc -- has its awkward side. One never quite makes it. A person can do Good Work after Good Work, even blush sometimes to catch oneself impersonating a Good Person -- Yet if we suddenly got a call to report for The Final Exam right now, God might well ask, "What have you done for Me lately?"

But what this passage really represents, is part of a long description of what it takes to be able to live under God's manifest jurisdiction -- as is.Not putting on some 'virtue' or other, but recognizing your fellow humans as yourself, so you can act accordingly, can not take yourself too serious...

Beliefs about Jesus might help you prepare; but they aren't what you need, so much as 'realizing' -- ie understanding and making real -- what he's talking about throughout.

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 7, 2015 at 10:12am

I think there is an inherent awkwardness built into the Bible. Probably there to safeguard against pridefullness. I have after too many years realized that if my understanding doesn't line up with "Love" or self denial I probably am wrong. Of course I'm still working on "Love" since I don't want to be an enabler. :)

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 10th mo. 7, 2015 at 10:41am

That 'inherent awkwardness' is likely not added to prevent human pride -- but becomes a feature (not a bug) because of the inherent difficulty of communications between God and us.

That is, we've got a lot to learn; we've got wrong-headed ideas about what we need to learn and how we need to learn it; God needs multiple means and a long incubation time to let us grow enough that much of God's meaning can stretch our heads to fit...

So, yes, we also need some protection against the pride that -- in fact does leave people thinking they've understood when they've only picked up the sugar coating.

But it's also a teaching style that 1) provides different strokes for different folks, as needed and 2) results from the fact that the authors themselves were still working it all out and maybe settling for heuristics.

[The concept of 'heuristics' gets used in computer programming, in contrast with 'algorithms'. 'An algorithm will get you to the right answer every time -- but may well take the lifetime of the universe or longer. A 'heuristic' is really not sound, but it gets you pretty quickly to an answer that's probably good -- and can be tested once you have it.]

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 10th mo. 7, 2015 at 11:38am

sounds about right to me.

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