Zacheus Was a Wee Little Man

It doesn’t seem to me unreasonable to say that what most people know of scripture and tradition—of faith and spirituality—comes to them from organized religion. The Bible for Christians is an excellent case in point. What either is collecting dust in some homes or being devoutly studied in others is a carefully edited (canonized) compilation of religious and theological thought that has been developed over millennia. But always there has been a group of “deciders” that have determined what stays in and what gets tossed. Using the justification that this is the “will of God” gives these people an air of indisputable power which is enhanced by the introduction of esoteric ordination that separates these from the commoners. Would Moses, Vishnu, Buddha, Mohammed or Jesus be worthy of lifting up if they were just ordinary human beings? Would priests, shamans, or ministers have any particular authority over the masses without the capacity to intermediate? All this is to say that what we received as developing children was carefully calculated to in some way maintain control and power by some over others. There is a reason, I think, why the human Jesus of Nazareth had to be replaced by the supernatural Christ: Jesus’ message that all are equal in the sight of God is dangerous and threatening to those who have elected themselves to the “chosen” few. This would be good cause for despair, except that those living right now are the beneficiaries of insights into the human Jesus that generations before us have been denied. So, on your next break from the computer, run down to the bookstore (I know, I know, you can do it on amazon.com) and pick up a copy of the Gospel of Thomas. It didn’t make the original cut, but from here on we can discover together a truer picture of the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Prince of Peace, the man Jesus of Nazareth.