(105) Jesus said: He who shall know father and mother shall be called the son of a harlot
We are asked to choose between familial obligations and the gospel. And yet we are not called harlot's for returning to father and mother -- we are called sons of harlots. Idolatry was often referred to as whoring -- yet our faithlessness is seen as the product of harlotry and not the harlotry itself.
This is a saying that subverts my attempts to reason it out logically. Like a kōan. Maybe I need to worry at it live with it a while let something flowing under the reasoner unpack it for me.
To know. To gnaw on. To be intimate with.
If we do not separate from out families -- then our families are to blame. We become the children of harlot's just as those who know God are the children of God. We share a substance. We have allegiances. Ties that bind. Obediences. We bear a family resemblance to the one who bore us.
And maybe Jesus is just having fun with us. Turning our expectations on their heads. Its those whose parentage is unknown whose parentage is questionable. But no -- the first become last and the last first. And it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom.
And somehow -- as well -- Margaret Fell. We are thieves. We are all thieves. We have taken the words of scriptures but know nothing of them in ourselves.
We locate the authority for our deeds outside of ourselves. I locate the authority for my deeds outside of myself.
5 comments:
Of course we know that Jesus was called the son of a harlot. Some interpreters suggest that he makes an ironic reference to that here. He knows father and mother (heavenly father and earthly mother?); and he certainly was called the son of a harlot.
Leloup "There's a real possibility that this logion contains a copyist's error: Coptic:
m'porne-of whore; m'prome- of man. The next saying speaks of the son of man, so re Rudolf Kasser: "a gnostic who knows his divine Father and Morther will be called a Son of Man."
This is certainly the hariest saying we've looked at, and I admire David for tackling it. His ideas are certainly as good of Leloup's.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Larry. I thought I took a lot of words just to say, hmm .. I'm not sure what this means.
The zen koan idea is sorta not my own -- though i don't recall where I heard it. Thomas was supposedly the disciple who journeyed to India so maybe came into contact with more oriental approaches to spirituality. No idea how accurate the theory was or whether it means anything in this particular case.
Without studying it, I always took the verses about choosing between family and God as a kind of hyperbole indicating that we need to have our priorities straight -that God is even above family.
I never thought the idea was that we normally need to make that choice...
I have to agree with you, Paul. I don't think Jesus is calling us to make a choice except to choose God as our first priority.
It has worked wonderfully well in my life, making it possible for me to love family better than I could otherwise.
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