I went to church and Sunday school for the first time since September or so (a few weeks after being released from the Austin State Hospital). The main reason for my absence was that I was drinking excessively every day, pretty much all day. The beer was a substitute for the marijuana that I had quit bowing down to criminals in order to obtain. Many would say, why didnt you just take the pharmaceutical medicine that they were attempting to obtain a court order to force you to take? The reason is, that those medicines are bad. I take good medicine. Soon, I will be able to grow my own and use it without having to commit crimes in order to do so. It has bothered me for some time now how people laud me for my intellect and talent and yet when it comes to choosing what to put in my own body, they feel that they or a Godless doctor know better. Nothing is evil that goes into the body. Its what comes out that is evil - greed, anger, envy, hatred, malice... The main sermon was on miracles. The pastor explained that there are 36 specific miracles attributed to Jesus in the four gospels. He said 6 of them are specific to Johns gospel and 7 specific to Lukes. He said there is only one miracle that is described in all four gospels - the miracle of the 5 loaves and 2 small fish feeding a crowd of 5000. It seems to me that Christians often consider it to their credit when they believe in inexplicable things without questioning them. They refer to this practice as faith. Kirpal Singh said, It is of no credit to an intelligent human being to believe in something without questioning it. His point was, that through questioning, larger, more profound and life changing Truths can come from stories such as these than come from accepting the stories as proof that your side has the most miraculous leader. Or specifically, proof that the man in question was and is the Son of God. If I remember correctly, it was during the time of this miracle that Jesus was talking to his disciples and is said to have gotten fed up with them because they could not understand what he was saying. They kept on considering his words literally and he is said to have called them all Fools!. I always notice that and consider that he also said calling people fools put you in danger of burning in the fire of Gehenna. Anyway, he got fed up and said, You fools, I speak to you in parables so that you can understand what Im saying but you are misunderstanding because you take it all literally. Jesus said, Man does not live on bread alone. Coming from a man who fasted for forty days, Im sure that providing a nice lunch for the crowds was not a major concern. If I had been there, I would have fed my disciples the bread and fish to give them strength as I reviewed the lessons that I wanted them to go out into the crowds to teach. Maybe one small bread fragment in a disciples hand would be a good visual aid to begin an explanation of what Jesus meant by Man does not live by bread alone. And the numbers 5, 2, 12, and 5000 are probably significant to a one time student and then Master of Jewish numerology/mysticism. If Jesus made the crowds full, it was not with bread and fish. It was with the gift of Living Water as he told the Samaritan woman at the well. John 4:13-14 - “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:32-38 - “I have food to eat that you know nothing about. “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” Jesus spoke in parables. When his disciples recorded his stories decades after his death, they may not have been as good as him at it but they would have continued in this tradition. As Bob Marley said, Them belly full, but we hungry; A hungry mob is a angry mob. A rain a-fall, but the dirt it tough; A yot a-yook, but d yood no nough. I think a yot a -yook, but dyood no nough translates roughly as a lot of food but the foods not enough. The miracle is salvation. Knowledge of God. Being brought out of the darkness into the light. Understanding that this is not all meaningless. The pearl in the field of inestimable value. The tiny seed that grows into a tree and brings forth much fruit. The Kingdom of Heaven.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:43:28 +0000
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