The Worth of a Soul

I get so frustrated with our lesson manuals. I really have only thirty minutes in which to communicate something important to my kids, but the lessons outline what would take me hours to go through in a meaningful way. So we end up only talking about a fifth of it (or a twentieth) – but doing that well, making it live. Or we finally have to skim over patches of scripture, when every set of three words is so full of meaning, you could live on the discussion of it for years.

I hate it when I drive to the horses, and on the way home see something in the morning light that makes me want to grab the camera – which is at home. By the time I get home, the light has changed – it changes every nano second. But I tried, the morning after the last storm. And this is what I got. As an apology for all this serious copy, I stud it with straight-out-of-the-camera images of a rather magnificent morning.

Today, I find a pattern through all the “assigned” scriptures – but the manual doesn’t really seem to see in it what I, startled, do.

We are reading Matthew 11:28-30, which is the part about being laboured and heavy laden – then 12: 1-13 – which is where I started to see this interesting thing – that really kind of answered some of the questions that the first bit had started in my head. Then Luke 7:36-50 and 13: 10-17, which demonstrated what I was seeing.

In Matthew, chapter 12, the Pharisees (those keepers of the party line) berated Christ for allowing his disciples to pick corn as they passed through a field on the Sabbath day. The people had been hungry, and they ate the corn they picked. (Just as a side note, I probably would have said to him, “Ummm – they’re stealing somebody’s crop here.” But for them, the issue was that they were doing it on the Sabbath day.)

And here begins a series of lessons Christ offers the formula-bound authorities of Judaism (and the rest of us) concerning the entire direction of healthy thinking:

Breaking the Jewish Sabbath was against the law – the law of the land. Very against the law. There were serious consequences for doing it.

But Christ reminds them of historical times when the Sabbath has been broken – and conventionally accepted exceptions. But the kicker is his statement in verse 6: “…in this place is one greater than the temple.” Meaning that the temple and the law exist because Christ instituted them. That these things fulfill a function, but that they are NOT an end in themselves. They are only tools to a greater end.

And I think he means even more than that in some ways – after reading the rest of this, I think (and I hope I don’t go too far) that he means also this: the real need of a human being is greater than the temple or the law – but you have to be careful to understand exactly what I mean by that: the temple was instituted as a tool to SERVE the children of God in their mortal experience. And the first job of the people who were in charge of temples and laws was the nurturing and strengthening of the people these things were instituted for.

It was the next verse that knocked me back:

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

At first, this passage seems disjointed and difficult to understand. Remember that the King James bible was translated and “written” by poets and philosophers who thought and wrote in the English of Shakespearian England. The “But” is not a conjunction here (like and, or, but or nor). In that time, the “but” was often used as you would hold your hand up – like “wait – there’s more,” or as an “if only” indicating that there was something more coming, indicating that there is an obstacle either in circumstance or in your own head still in the way of your understanding. . . . if only you had known what this meaneth . . .

The astonishing, wonderful part is the middle phrase:

I will have mercy and not sacrifice. The “I will have” means, according to my understanding of language usage of that time – “this is what I require.”

He requires of his servants mercy.

Not sacrifice. And what does the word sacrifice mean here? We’re not talking about lambs and virgins on alters. You have to understand the parts of the word. “Sacra” is derived from the Latin root, “sacer” – sacred. The ending of sacra indicates function – sacra are the acts of sacredness – rituals, functions, the way sacred “things” are done.

The end of the word, the suffix – “fice” is derived (as we understand it) from the Latin for “to do, or perform.” (see this.)

(The use of “sacrifice” to convey the meaning “one person giving up something dear to them to benefit another” is first found in the late 1500s, although the word itself has been around for thousands of years.)

SSOOOO – what I’m saying is that his meaning seems to be:

“What I require of those who serve me is mercy, not a rigid adherence to the program. The program was made to serve the Children of God. They were not created to serve the program.”

Anyway, that’s what I saw in it. This does not indicate to me in ANY way that organized religion is counter-indicated. He is talking to the people who are his servants, who are supposed to be running the programs and teaching the lessons that will attract souls to light and heal them and make them strong and intelligent, and keep them in mind of their blessings so that they will love God and be grateful and generous and bless in turn.

The problem is that people who are called to SERVE too often begin thinking that they are called to be IN CHARGE. It is a human pattern to put the program first because programs are neat and clean and achievable, whereas working with the chaos and unpredictable nature of humanity is not. I believe that this is what Christ is reminding them. HE is the one who calls. THEY are the ones who are supposed to be serving his disciples.

In the 13th chapter of Luke, verse 14, I find this: the ruler of the synagogue indignantly castigates the Christ for healing on the Sabbath day (???????) – which is exactly the same kind of thing we’ve been talking about here. And he turns to the people and says, “There are six days in which men ought to work –“

This man just saw a woman who he KNOWS has been bent in half for years—suffering, unable to stand upright—healed by a word and a touch. Just healed. Just like that.

Amazing. Almost frightening – because the laws of earth just seem to have gone away. Breathtaking. Astonishing.

And all he can do is stand there and insist that the law says you can’t because it’s the Sabbath.?

Not the laws of earth. The Judaic law.

No wonder. No amazement.

The breach of the law is all he can see.

How does Christ bear it? How does God bear it? That the Children can be so myopic. And completely lose sight of the point of life? A woman’s suffering ended. And this “servant of God” was not astonished. Just ticked off.

In reading this, and seeing again how important we are to Christ, something that had been bothering my mind was put to rest..

Which is, I guess, one of the reasons why we’re supposed to read scripture. Reading the words and allowing the Spirit to explain them. Not a check-off-the-box requirement of a program. A tool of healing.

And that’s how I spent my pre-church morning.