The early Bible writers must have had extraordinary imaginary powers. You could say they were the theoretical scientists of their day. Theoretical scientists are the scientists who make up the stories practical, also called empirical, scientists will either prove or disprove.
Somehow the Bible writers knew that humans have a dual nature. On the one hand, we have an urge for self-preservation. That is the one that enables us to instantly respond to attacks either by fleeing from the scene or by fighting back. Fear is the driver behind this behavior. On the other hand, we have this other urge to care for one another. Compassion is the driver here. This “discovery” of the fear motive explains why the world is so chaotic and messed up. Compassion does the opposite. It calms things down and leads to peace and tranquility.
Along came a powerful priesthood. They discovered that people living in fear are easy targets for exploitation so they came up with the concept of original sin, the idea that Adam’s sin and resulting fear is somehow passed on to the next generation automatically. If they could convince people that they had the solution to their problems, they could control them and most importantly, control their purse strings.
That worked well until the Anabaptists came onto the scene. Infant baptism does not save you, they said. Baptism is when you as an adult make the conscious decision to follow the Way of Christ, to surrender to God. Given the financial implication, it is no mystery that long and bloody wars have been fought over this question.
The Christian answer to the messed up world is, of course, love and compassion. The God Jesus knew is nothing but love and compassion. We now know that we humans have the extraordinary capacity to override our natural instincts and respond with compassion instead of fear. We must love one another.
That means, among other things, that we must quit hoarding power and wealth. If everyone were to do that, there would no longer be any room left for fear. Jesus' instruction not to worry, would be entirely achievable. The world has enough resources to provide for everyone’s physical needs. We have within us the capacity to care for everyone. Doing that becomes even easier as fear and suffering is eliminated, but we must take those first baby steps ourselves.
It isn’t easy because it involves becoming aware of how what we do and say impacts the world around us and to deliberately adjust our behavior, to override our natural instincts. When Jesus says to love one another, he means for us to do our best to enhance the lives of the people around us, the opposite of what people motivated by fear do.
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