OH! 'If your eye offends thee, pluck it out' I get it now! Thoughts on church and unleashing, restoring humanity
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I'm not a position to provide an inventory to myself. Maybe someday I will be, of the Scriptures, the words attributed to Jesus; the teachings attributed to Jesus; the 20% I felt I didn't fully 'get,' that I could not attribute to nonsense made up by John, just a handful of things, but this 20% that I felt were beyond my full grasp, as to Jesus' intended meaning. There are very few left, if any, now, that I don't 'get.' I can't name one, off hand, nor is my knowledge that authoritative yet, unfortunately, to speak with full accuracy.
But clarity regarding the Scripture, 'If your eye, if your right eye offends, pluck it out,' that's a paraphrase, doubled or tripled for me in its meaning for me this morning, which is a great gift.
The 20% of his teachings that were escaping me in their fullness, that's now two or 3%, have come to their fullness for me only as I've walked the path, more than a decade now. I could see pictures of a Milan, I could be presented with a map of it, but it was only upon going to Milan that it came to its fullness in my understanding. It's only in progressively and totally embarking upon and living each breath the truths that Jesus taught that the details begin to fall into place. Couldn't happen any other way.
'If your right eye offends thee pluck it out."
So in recent years part of the meaning fell into place for me - our nervous system is a virtually infinite universe of possibilities. There's nothing mystical in that phrase. If it seems so it's only because our language of psychology is so primitive, so inadequate. I, this person called Loving, sitting here, could be an ax murder, I could be a rapist, I could be a pedophile, I have, this individual sitting here, I have all those capacities, and an infinite variety more. One of those capacities is the capacity to 'be' Love, to be immediate family to everyone born and to be born. You have that same capacity, you have that same infinite variety of options as to who you can be.
So in recent years it became clear to me, that what Jesus was referring to, in total I suppose I thought, was to find those capacities within ourselves that we were indulging, and if they were not that of being family to others, our neediest, or if they distracted from being family to our neediest, to pluck them out; to radically and totally 'surgically' amputate any connection from them, amputate any influence they had, redirect attention, ferociously and relentlessly to the capacity that is loving.
The doubling or tripling of meaning beyond that interpretation, that came to me this morning, came as the every Saturday and Sunday church over on the west side of town, in Georgetown, among the most over-privileged areas, came is they do every morning between seven and nine on Saturday and Sunday, bringing a brownbag breakfast and a cup of okay coffee, usually hot. It's always two people driving their own car, it's not always the same two people, but it seems to be a crew of about six that rotates, or so, on our end of town.
They are genuinely kind; I'm hypersensitive to that, always have been . Genuinely kind. I wouldn't say saintly, but genuinely kind.
Several weeks ago, after my weekend encounter, one of the days that they come, it hit me that they were being, to we homeless, the entire Gospel; at least all evidence I could see was that they were being the entire Gospel, which is to say they were 'being' 'family' to us. And it occurred to me I should go to that church one day in the event that they allow people to speak during the service, and that I should tell them that. And then I thought that would really be unkind because I'd have to make other comments that were not an affirmation of the church.
But this morning when I saw them bring breakfast I chose to tell that to the two that were here.
The first thing I told them was that it was clear to me that the entirety of the Gospel is, 'we are all immediate Family; get on with it,' to which one by nodding and the other in words said that 'I totally and completely agree,' and she seemed to be speaking broadly and inclusively of her view. But I said 'that's not my point. My point is that to me, to my eyes, you guys are being Family to us, we homeless,' to which one of them started to cry. And she said 'thank you for that confirmation.'
I added, I said, 'I'm no fan of what calls itself the church.' These are Episcopalians by the way. 'My brothers and sisters all, within 200 years the church reconstituted what Jesus taught, remade Him in our own image, and thereby have kept the real crucifixion going for 1800 years,' to which one of them aggressively agreed and the other showed no sign of discomfort or disagreeing. And I further said, 'unless we reconstitute Jesus in His true form, and His true teachings, it's over now, it's all done,' and I think with one, the crying continued, in affirmation, in resonance.
Subsequent to that encounter I reflected further on what calls itself the church, the horrible Apostles Creed came to my mind. Do we have an apostles of Einstein Creed? What utter rubbish. It's so obvious that we don't want to do or live what Jesus said. We want to be in the proximity of it, but we sure as hell don't want to do it; so let's step one or two or three or 10 orders of magnitude away.
But I thought of these breakfast people that are showing such goodness, and thought of how to understand what a church should be; what practices should be, what activity should be, and should there be such a thing. Yes; if there should be medical school; if there should be a Marine base; if there should be a Navy SEALs base, yes there should be a church.
And the Scripture I've cited here came to my mind; I thought of the apostles Creed which I find dreadfully offensive, not that I've studied it in detail, I find it to be all dogma. But the test for the individual, or for what calls itself the church, (and fore everyone and every group concerned for Humanity) should be - does it move, effectively and powerfully and inclusively the individual and the group toward being Family, or not?
A church wouldn't just come and mantra – 'I'm family to everyone, immediate family to everyone, get on with it….' No, there would be other practices, there would be ways; just like a 100 meter sprinter does other things in preparation to be effective than just 100 meter sprint. He or she goes to a gym, and has a myriad of exercises all of which are pointed exactly to running that hundred at the greatest possible speed. Similarly there could be a variety of things in what Jesus would recognize as church.
But if the activity does not do that, does not move powerfully, reliably, accurately toward Universal Family, it should be plucked out for the life of it, for the hope of it. Should the apostles Creed be plucked out? I suspect so but I haven't studied it. But that's the test. If conceptually and in truth and fact and experience the activity, the practice, the teaching… aggressively, powerfully, reliably moves one toward being immediate family, or the group toward being immediate family, to everyone, it's of the Creator. If not it should be plucked out.
And so with every part of our life. The scantily clad women? No, sisters. No, no, no. That does not move us toward being brothers and sisters, Universal Family; that moves into the head and flesh, out of, away from the Heart, brotherhood. Desiring 'sexiness' of our female friends as I did most of my years of unwitting hideous existence, brothers? No, guys, that goes. The frequenting restaurants, the frequenting almost all of our movies, almost all of our Disney which are ultimately about sexual relations; they are; the beautiful alluring female that dazzles the driven wild and stupid male...? No, friends. Is that where King and Gandhi lived? Well, it might be where King lived, to a degree. It's not where Gandhi lived. It isn't where Teresa of Calcutta lived. Did they really have inferior lives? No, actually, they had Life. We're the ones, we that spend 99% of every day as not Universal Family, it is we that don't have Life.
So in all aspects of our lives, if it is of 'being immediate family' to our global neediest, or moving us in that direction, it is of the Creator. If not, for the joy of it, as you would pluck out cancer, (in anger? No), as part of Life, pluck it out.
