Episode:Jesus in Galilee—Crisis and Consequences (Part 8)

Jesus in Galilee—Crisis and Consequences (Part 8)
Broadcast on	April 9, 2019
Episode #	438
Study of	[Paper 155:3-4, p. 1727]

Jesus repeatedly taught his apostles that no civilization could long survive the loss of the best in its religion. And he never grew weary of pointing out the great danger of accepting religious symbols and ceremonies in the place of religious experience. His whole earth life was consistently devoted to the mission of thawing out the frozen forms of religion into the liquid liberties of enlightened sonship.

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Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Religious Tradition, Ecclesiastical Authority, True Religion

Summary by Kermit

Commentary after Review

Reflecting briefly on the Master’s command: “Cease your useless yearning and go forth bravely doing that which concerns the establishment of the kingdom,” we suggested that it was a call to find genuine free-will. In so doing we are liberated from the antecedent causation of external world events and forces, becoming authors of our own character instead of remaining a passive mindal system waiting on external impressions to move us one way or the other. Successful execution of this free-will faculty is further enabled by going beyond sight, using our innate insights to recognize the realm of the outer life in terms of its potentialities wherein the substance of reality is found.

155:3. At Caesarea-Philippi

Concurrent with the evangelists baptism of adversity in Chorazin, Jesus and the apostles, save Peter, were having a similar and trying time in Caesarea-Philippi. The less than enthusiastic reception to the gospel shown by the citizens of Caesarea-Philippi is understandable in light of their history of devotion to the Greek god Pan, attested to by numerous shrines to him.

We noted the passage: the “kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink but the realization of the spiritual joy of the acceptance of divine sonship.” This passage is taken from Paul’s letter to the Romans, but in customary fashion the midwayers take liberties with their citations. This led to a further discussion concerning the nature of the text of the 5th ER. A student of the revelation encounters serious difficulties when engaging it as a sacred text, as a fetish. To approach the truth of the revelation requires approaching it from an objective viewpoint acquired through the use of the insights of the innate mind endowments of the Holy Spirit.

Our authors characterize this sojourn in C-P as a truly great and testing adventure for the apostles. This spurred a discussion of the meaning of adventure as something coming from without and usually with rugged and challenging circumstances.

The apostles while not extending the kingdom through their recruitment efforts did have highly profitable daily conferences with the Master. They learned that the Jews were spiritually stagnant and dying. They had crystallized truth into a creed, a boundary line of self-righteous exclusiveness instead of serving as signposts of spiritual guidance and progress. Today we see truth referred to as a subjective possession—my truth—rather than an objective cosmic reality.

Truth cannot be defined with words, only by living—this is often uttered on SoS. With the 5th ER of truth, consisting of so many words, what then are the words if they are not truth itself?: suggestions, clues, signposts of spiritual guidance and progress to be reflected upon from the vantage point of our higher mind (upper domain) possessing creative and life giving power.

Jesus also taught the apostles the value of regarding their fellows in terms of their potentiality in both time and eternity rather than their actuality. Further, that souls could best be taught to love the unseen God by first learning to love their fellows whom they can see. From this enhanced perspective the Master’s pronouncement: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me.” is liberated from the old wineskin wherein your brethren are merely fetishes or repositories for the spirit of Jesus.

Jesus imparted many other lessons to the eleven during this time. Jesus pointed out of the grave danger of allowing a sense of sacredness to become attached to nonsacred things, common ideas, or everyday events. He further warned how when religious longings were only material, the advancing knowledge of the material world would eventually deprive them of their faith in God. Religion which is spiritual is never derailed by scientific progress. Religion that is wholly spiritual in motive leads to a life more abundant, filled with high purposes, touching transcendent values, superb motives, soul comforting sustaining hope, and courage for daily living and unselfish serving.

Jesus repeatedly taught that religion was essential to the establishment and maintenance civilization, something which we address frequently on SoS. Listen to the archive of this entire section for the deeper details of our discussion.

155:4. On the Way to Phoenicia

This section is the preface to our reading tonight. Detailed geographic description of their journey to Phoenicia set the scene for one of the most remarkable addresses which his apostles ever listened to throughout all their years of association with him.

As the group prepared to eat lunch under the shadow of an overhanging ledge of rock near Luz, Simon Peter asked Jesus why they fled their enemies instead of confronting them. But Thomas interjected his own question regarding the differences between their religion and that of their enemies. Jesus chooses to speak to Thomas’ question concerning eternal matters as opposed to Peter’s concerning present actualities.

Notes by Brad

• The outer life drives us inward. Cease your useless yearning.
  • So what if you know what the (outer life) useless yearning is, but you don't know how to cease it?
  • First, note that self-assertion versus free will.
  • Don't retreat from the outer life. Simply don't be a helpless victim of it.
  • Be a genuine freewill being. An originator of the character of yourself.
  • Engage the outer life when needed. Stand unmoved by it when needed. Stop being a helpless victim of antecedent causation.

• Want to be popular at parties?
  • Is your goal to be a human, or an animal? A human is truth-coordinate and people will be drawn to them. An animal wants someone to go home with that night... which is a different priority—a scheme.

• Caesarea-Philippi also was known as Paneas, a tribue tot he Greek god Pan.
  • So it's tough ground. A secular town, from the Jewish perspective.
  • Plenty of heathen raging here, knowing not the truth.

• "The kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink" is from Romans in the New Testament.
  • Well, okay. But it's not a literal translation.

• We need infinite advent! True adventure.
  • The literal meaning of the word adventure, rooted in advent. "Coming to you from the outside"
  • As in a call to adventure, engaging something outside your comfort zone.
  • Perhaps the apostles here were learning, through adventure, they had been leaning too much on Peter.
  • They've been existing, but not really living.
  • Perhaps not unlike Luke Skywalker after his Jedi mentor dies, and all he's left with is being well-nigh depressed, and having to live on his own.
  • What if: we all start at zero real living (hint: we do, despite your delusions of being innately divine).
    • If so (and it is so), what we need is infinite advent!
  • What an adventure! What a romance! That doesn't mean it will be comfortable and pleasant.
    • So don't be so quick to think this oft-quoted line means it will be pleasant—luxurious.
  • And you want a philosophic adventure, not a merely carnal or merely emotional adventure.
  • Face the adventure with courage. Don't try to escae it with old fossilized (dead) outer-life institutionalized religions.

• In co-ordinating your mind, can you be courageous? Can you love truth instead of the objects in your mind?

• Have you said "my truth" lately?
  • If so, you have "formulated as a boundary line of self-righteous exclusiveness."
  • And the words in this 5th ER are not "the" truth. They are "signposts of spiritual guidance and progress."
  • Reflect upon the words, instead of putting them on a holy altar. Then, you might obey the truth.

• The real substance is the potentiality, not the actuality.
  • See your neighbor as personality potential, rather than an actuality.
  • Learn to love the potentiality of your neighbor, not so much the actuality. The eternal aspect of your neighbor, not the temporal part.
    • If you do this, you begin to have insight into loving God.
  • Stop thinking fetishistically: that giving a cake to your neighbor means giving a cake to God. It isn't literal this way.

• This author reports an experience visiting University Church of St Mary the Virgin, from the 1200s
  • Overpowering emotions and feelings, yes. But don't turn that church into a fetish sacred object. There is grave danger in that (a lot of material gravity to pull you down).
  • Keep looking upward. Coordinate the feelings with the higher, top-down truth of the cosmos.

• Consider: secularists who say "the Earth is sacred," are actually being evolutionary fetishistic religionists.

• Worth while: A worthiness in time.

• A true religious experience produces feelings. But feelings do not produce a religious experience.
  • If you're in a church having feelings, don't ASSUME you're having a religious experience. Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. Challenge that assumption.
    • If you're still in the old wineskins, you likely are just having feelings. Any religious experience is, at best, unconscious.

• Can you avoid a fetishistic response to the first paragraph of section 4? A travelogue of the steps Jesus walked?
  • Without seeming cold and heartless?

• "Let me answer Thomas' question instead of Peter's."
  • That is, let us discuss eternal matters first (what makes our religion different?), instead of temporal matters (should we be fighting our foes)"
  • That is, get yourself planted properly in eternity first. Then let that eternity shine forth, be brought down into time.