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Prayer
Christ, today, help me to see some measure of you in every person I meet and help me treat even those who have brought harm to me as persons of sacred value. May I also stand, even when opposed, for justice, to defend the right of every person to fair treatment, freedom, and sacred dignity. Amen.
Story
Word spread across the countryside about the wise Holy Man living in a small house atop the mountain. A man from the village decided to make the long, difficult journey to visit him. On arriving at the house, he saw an old servant inside. "I came to see the Holy Man," he said to the servant. The servant smiled and led him inside. As they walked through the house, the man from the village looked eagerly around the house, anticipating meeting with the Holy Man. Before he knew it, he had been led to the back door and escorted outside. He stopped and turned, speaking to the servant, "But I want to see the Holy Man!"
"You already have," replied the wise, old man. "Everyone you meet in life, even if they appear plain and insignificant, see each of them as a Holy Man. If you do this, then whatever problem you brought here today will be solved."
Comments
The mark of a spiritually mature person is the capability to see the Christ in either friend or foe. Sin is the denial of that of God already within us each. Every one is holy, in the sense of a divine, innate goodness within, even if it is denied and suppressed by the person. In Christian thought this is sometimes referred to as Original Blessing, and it can be referred to as Original Goodness. This Original Blessing is linked with the theological idea of the Image of God.
Salvation entails Grace restoring the Original Blessing. While separation from God defaces the Original Blessing, the Original Blessing, the god-seed within, is not annihilated within. Therefore, that of God, or Original Goodness, is within one you might call a great sinner. Therefore, you can recognize that and treat that person as such, which entails never treating another person as an object, only as a subject. When we see and feel the God-seed within even our foe, we can no longer be content with objectifying that person or people. With the realization of this truth, all war would cease.
But, why is it so hard for many Christians to treat each other and persons outside their faith as holy persons? Two teachings are problematic in this regard: total depravity and original sin.
Total depravity says that every person is born totally depraved, unable totally to respond to Grace, devoid of all goodness. Basically, this teaches we are born junk. What a sad and pathetic teaching. The Jews did not believe this, Jesus as a Jew did not believe this, and the Scripture does not teach it. Total depravity is a teaching of fundamentalist religion.
Original sin, connected often with total depravity, is a largely foreign teaching in world religions, including much of Christian faith. Islam, Native American religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jesus Christ, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the universal Church until St. Augustine in the Fourth Century does not teach original sin. Is that not ironic, that original sin has come to play such a decisive and negative role in much Christian religion, mostly in the West, even though it was not believed in by the faith it grew out of and was not known to Jesus Christ, the founder of the Christian faith? That is, Jesus Christ, as a Jew, would never have heard of the concept original sin.
Therefore, by affirming the doctrine of Original Blessing, or Original Goodness, and an innate capability to sense the Grace of God and through Grace respond to Grace, we offer a healthier and more Christian way of viewing persons and ourselves. Both of the above teachings need to be dismantled for the hindrance they are to a view of persons that honors the Image of God within us all, what I refer to at times as the seed of God or, again, that of God within us.
Because we each come from God, as created by the Universal Energy and Mind, Wisdom, we reflect the Triune God in being and communion. The Greek Orthodox Church teaches, and I agree, that the perfection we move toward is not a return to a primal state, as though perfect Paradise is behind us and we are trying to recapture that experience and state. That regressive view of faith is unfounded. Rather, there is no perfect state, no Paradise, within history, to return to, but we are evolving through Grace and growing toward deification, or Christian Perfection, indeed, toward a fullness realized in the future that has never been actualized as part of human history or personhood, except in Jesus Christ, the God Man.
Therefore, every person is a holy person in that, regardless of how evolved he or she might be or not spiritually, there is still that of God within that is the potential to arrive at, through Grace, deification. Everyone you meet is potentially a fully deified Person. This needs to guide how we treat each person as embodying sacred dignity and worth.
Prayerful Reflection
Do you treat yourself as a Holy Person? Explain.
Do you treat other persons as Holy Persons? How?
Spiritual Exercise
Browse the web for materials explaining deification, or theosis, and study some of them.
Pray to see and treat as holy someone whom you have trouble loving and expressing respect to.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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