The Gospel of Mary, Part 6

There's lots more to say about Mary and her Gospel, but this will be the last post on it for a bit because I think 6 posts gives us enough to chew on for a while.

PLUS.

The thing I want to share with you today is a tad radical, BUT also so, so FREEING.

Are you ready?

Buckle up.

In Mary 3:1 Peter says to Jesus, "since you have explained everything to us, tell us one other thing.  What is the sin of the world?"

There's a TON of mystery here, by the way, because the first bunch of pages of Mary's Gospel are MISSING and so we have no idea what the "everything" that Jesus explained to the disciples was all about.  

Did he tell them how the world was created?

Did he tell them what salvation was all about?

Did he tell them about the future?

Did he tell them about heaven?

Did he tell them how Dairy Queen gets their ice cream to taste so dang good?

... What was the "everything" shared with them?  Unless those missing pages are found, we'll likely never know, but it might be better that way because Jesus' answer to Peter was mind-blowing enough.

Here's what he said ...

"There is no sin."

Wait.

What?

That's right - "there is no sin."

There's no sin.

There's no sin.

There's no sin.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SIN.

Then he says this, "but it is you who make sin when you do the things that are like the nature of adultery, which is called 'sin'.  That is why Good came into your midst, coming to the good which belongs to every nature, in order to restore it to its root."

Hm.

So (follow me here) ...

There is no sin.

BUT.

We do make sin.

And we make sin not when we "disobey God", but when we do things that are like ... the nature of adultery.

For THAT is called sin.

Which is why Good (Jesus) came into our midst.

To bring good, which belongs to ... everything.

In order to restore it all to its root (its root Source).

Soooo, what's all this mean? Listen, I'm no scholar and I don't claim to know what on earth is going on here, but (take it or leave it, agree or disagree) this is how I understand Jesus' words and this is what I hear the Spirit whispering to me as I meditate on this story ...

"My dear Peter, there is no such thing as sin as you think of it.  Sin didn't come from any specific person or place.  It's got nothing to do with you doing something bad or your parents doing something bad or your enemy doing something bad. It's got nothing to do with disobeying me or disobeying my supposed commands or laws or whatever. It doesn't have anything to do with crossing a line or a boundary or even missing some sort of holy mark that I set up for you.

Nah. 

Sin (in that context) is not only irrelevant, it's non-existent.

Instead, sin is what happens when (like committing adultery) you live strictly according to your human nature while fully disregarding your divine nature.  Because, remember Peter - you are not JUST human, you are also divine for you are MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. You are made up of cosmic stardust, you are quite literally the visible appearance of God's mighty exhale into the universe. 

Sin, then, is what happens when you forget this ... when you forget whose image you were made in, forget how you were created to live, and forget who you truly are.  That's sin, my friend - it's when you commit adultery with your human nature and throw your spiritual nature to the curb while you're inside having a good time.

And me?  I am Goodness.  I am Good, Peter.  And I have come into your midst to remind you of who you are, to remind you of who you were created to be, to remind you of whose image you were made in, and to help you recover your true nature that is buried beneath the rubble and baggage of your life. It's time to stop committing adultery with your human nature and introduce it to your spiritual nature so that the two can become one and birth the fruit of love and grace and inclusion into your life so that you can live it and bring it into every facet of your life, your relationships, your community, and your world. 

Yes, Peter - THIS is what it means to be a human being who is walking in flesh that is empowered by the divine image that is planted in the deepest part of your being. Asking me to define the sin of the world is the wrong question; ask me, instead, how to live as a fully divine human being for this is how we will (together) eliminate sin forever."

I love this because in my tradition, the church has always been overly concerned with sin and made Jesus and faith in Jesus to be little more than an exercise in sin management - don't curse, don't smoke, don't have sex, and don't hang out with guys/girls that do. And if you struggle with any of these things then cast out the demons, get new friends, read your Bible more, pray more, and go to church more ... and just hang on as tight as you can because the end is near and Jesus will take us home to paradise where we'll be free of this world forever. 

Right?

Much like Peter, the church wanted to have a firm grip on the "sin of the world" so that it could abstain from it, make everyone within it abstain from it, and put forth a belief that strict adherence to some moral code would somehow get us into heaven and out of hell. 

Jesus, though, says this is the wrong focus and helps us shift our focus to realizing that sin is simply a manifestation of our adulterous relationship with our human nature and our tendency to hang our spiritual nature out to dry, our tendency to live so much from our human nature that we forget we have a spiritual nature, our tendency to flawlessly tap into our human nature while rarely (if ever) tapping into our divine nature ... the image of God that is planted deep within us. 

Jesus says he is the Goodness, the manifestation of The Christ or the Breath of God or the Image of God and the most perfect example of what it looks like to live as a human being who has tapped into the image of God within him and lives his everyday human life from that place.

In short, Jesus is a crystal clear mirror that God is holding up to reflect back to us the truth of who we have always been.

THIS is the root Jesus has come to restore.

THIS is the root he has come to unearth.

THIS is the root he has come to remind us of.

THIS is the root that so many of us have forgotten.

... And THIS is another reason why Mary's Gospel is so radical. God isn't interested in sin management or getting us into heaven when we die; instead, God is interested in helping us live as the divinely infused human beings that we are so that we can bring heaven to earth today.

Sounds like Good News to me.

Much love,

• Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE