Jesus was right to have wept before Jerusalem
August 6, 2011
Jesus is right. No wonder he wept before Jerusalem, the den of man-on-his-own.
The difference is between spontaneity and calculation. With spontaneity we share immediately and even with gusto. With calculation we pause and look at our advantage.
Now calculation also enters in to the discipline of spontaneity. Spontaneity gives us the impulse which is good. And then the calculation enters in as we consider how best to implement that object of the impulse.
So there is an object of the impulse and we accept it and then go about fashioning it according to the moral law (seeing things from Jesus’ perspective).
It is interesting that there is a echo of this also in the natural interactions within the species, a way of reacting based on a spontaneity of impulse.
So how do we make this jump from total reliance upon the spontaneity of impulse to one of love (of Jesus)? There is only one way and that is the moral law of universal dignity. Compassion for all life but dignity for the human. The from-animal or of-animal.
According to Gandhi we have the answers to all possible problems and only need to share. This implies a impulsive spontaneity which is then acted on and implemented (in a rational way).
Part of the effect, I think, will be this. We will provide a socialist world to the children and the education will have to do with the need for self motivation and to work to the best of one’s ability. And of course we would want to find the talents hidden in the soul (a friend of man observed that Joan of Arc was a genius tactician and simply had the opportunity to call awaken and call forth that genius). It’s like learning that you love Beethoven’s 9th, but you first had to hear it in order to recognize this capacity within you. So it seems that our goal as Christians would be to promote a socialist world and to lead children (via a decent and intelligent environment) to reveal their talents (and not requiring a war as was the case with St. Joan).
So: first the moral law of universal dignity (our first and most important step away from the animal kingdom of natural feelings). Then the Christian faith of universal love. Then socialism among the Christians (to the extent possible) and raising their children, like the Germans do their own, to do their very best, namely they have a dignity (and not for reward, except praise [but then to give that up for the sake of Christ]). The, according to the Wesleyans, these children will experience eventually a joy in giving (perhaps after they are grown, and which can only hinted at now) which will give them sufficient reason for a belief in the stories of their sacred scriptures.
The fundamentalists, I guess it is, give us promise for an ability to form a commune which is large enough to be meaningful.
So the task of the Christian church is the establishment of a socialism under Christian principles, and to go ahead and raise the children as though it existed universally, but then cautioning them about that world of the free market.
Socialism implies spontaneity in sharing, while the free market implies calculation in sharing. So greed is the disease of the human soul that keeps us from the world of Jesus and Gandhi. And maybe greed is built on fear (having more than enough in order to be sure about the future). And so it is fear that must be removed. Hence again: socialism. The promise of socialism is loss of fear.
When Adam and Eve sinned, then, it was fear that arose and a fear-driven need to hide and be secret and stifle spontaneity. That’s then when death entered and the deterioration began.
I don’t see any way around it. Socialism is the only rational (hopeful) way open to the Christian.
And I guess it will have to begin by the church creating and promoting the commune and figure out how to interact with the free market. And promote membership in the commune. Eventually all people of a like spirit would be invited even if the beliefs might differ. So one day it might end up as a people with a common orientation reciting the creeds as a connection to that revolutionary who made it possible, Jesus and his moral religion. And using the expressions in common speech as the Arabs do.
So finally then Jesus wept for he saw this world and eventually knew that it would exist on the earth and that all the people of Jerusalem would miss out on that joy due to their fear and then the greed and makes it impossible and ruins all spontaneity and turns it into calculation. And that’s the brakes to creativity as in “brain stormingâ€. It will be, says Jesus, and you will miss it. Because you are afraid. And because I love you so I weep for you and what you could have had.