Breaking Out of the Den of Thieves

Breaking Out of the Den of Thieves

By John Taylor; 2006 April 27

"The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth
gifts overthroweth it." (Prov 29:4)

Until recently most in the West hoped that progress, the advance of
civilization, would eventually solve all of our problems. The 20th
Century brought the bitter lesson that civilization is itself a force
of corruption; the more we developed the worse off we became. The
overall result is what we considered lately; the discovery by climatic
scientists in the 1990's that global warming is trapping heat and
global dimming is choking and darkening the planet, both at the same
time. The consensus is grim: overall heat is winning out over dimming.
In spite of the braking effect, global warming is proceeding with
unexpected alacrity. We are literally killing the planet with our own
excrement. We are in deep dish hoodoo. What is going on? How did the
forces of corruption become so overwhelming? Asking this question over
the past Ridvan week I cannot avoid trying to come to grips with the
idea of corruption. What does corruption mean, anyway? Here are four
dictionary definitions, from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,

Corruption: 1. impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle,
depravity. 2. decay, decomposition. 3. Inducement to wrong by improper
or unlawful means (as bribery). 4. A departure from the original or
from what is pure or correct.

By rights definition number four should come first, after which the
others follow. Which begs the question, what is pure and correct? Our
answer, developed on this essay blog since the end of January, is that
the Oneness of God, His Word and teaching, is the essence of purity
and correctness. Betray that and the forces of impurity, incorrectness
and corruption set in.

Jesus entered Jerusalem at Passover, a festival of purification. In
the temple an annual temple tax could be paid and pigeons were sold to
sacrifice within for the expiation of inadvertent sins. This departure
from the original purity of religious teaching explains why Jesus was
angry and overturned tables in the temple grounds where these
transactions took place. He declared that this was a house of prayer,
not a robber's cave (Matt 21:13). This may have been a reference to
Jeremiah,

"Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in
your eyes?" (7:11)

We can only imagine the indignation of Jesus, Who had taught the
parables of the Widow's Mite and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
The first parable teaches that the spiritual power of donation is
proportional to one's own sacrifice in giving, and the second that a
prayer will justify us only if we adopt a humble attitude; prayers are
not answered those who exalt their own righteousness and moral worth.
None of this can be bought or sold and to conduct transactions on holy
ground is to imply that they can be. This was tantamount to corrupting
the name of God.

What does corrupting the name of God mean? What does keeping it "pure"
mean? We have an insidious, almost genetic belief that God is out for
His own good in teaching us. He wants us to glorify Him, so He must be
Glory seeking, right? We are always out for number one in everything
we do, so why should not He be like that too? The fact is that He is
not, but we persistently think that He is, we cannot get our heads
around it. Our misconception of God's basic motive, that He is out for
His benefit, not ours, is given great attention in scripture. Take
this paragraph from the prayer that was my morning reading today,

"Purify, O my God, the hearts of Thy creatures with the power of Thy
sovereignty and might, that Thy words may sink deep into them. I know
not what is in their hearts, O my God, nor can tell the thoughts they
think of Thee. Methinks that they imagine that Thy purpose in calling
them to Thine all-highest horizon is to heighten the glory of Thy
majesty and power. For had they been satisfied that Thou summonest
them to that which will recreate their hearts and immortalize their
souls, they would never have fled from Thy governance, nor deserted
the shadow of the tree of Thy oneness. Clear away, then, the sight of
Thy creatures, O my God, that they may recognize Him Who showeth forth
the Godhead as One Who is sanctified from all that pertaineth unto
them, and Who, wholly for Thy sake, is summoning them to the horizon
of Thy unity, at a time when every moment of His life is beset with
peril. Had His aim been the preservation of His own Self, He would
never have left it at the mercy of Thy foes." (Baha'u'llah, Prayers
and Meditations, 197-198)

All these thoughts are part of my startled reaction to an article in
the May 2006 Scientific American about the self-help movement. Michael
Shermer's skeptic column in this science magazine is anti-religion,
but a Baha'i would agree with almost everything he debunks. This
month's column is called, "SHAM Scam; The Self-Help and Actualization
Movement has become an $8.5-billion-a-year business. Does it work?" I
will not reproduce it here since you can read it in its entirety on
the Scientific American website.

Shermer's point here is that the term "self-help" is an oxymoron. He
asks, "If you need to pay for someone's help, why is it called
`self-help'?" He notes that the vast majority of the buyers of self
help books bought another self-help book within the previous eighteen
months. Here is a multi-million dollar industry that thrives on its
own failure to teach people how to help themselves. I am reminded of
the studies of the revivalist movement that found that almost all of
the people going up on stage to be "saved" or "healed" had attended
the same kind of meeting the week before, the month before, and so
forth. If they are being healed and saved, why keep coming back?
Shermer ends his article by quoting a saying that Jesus Himself also
cited:

"Patient, heal thyself--the true meaning of self-help."

This invocation of doctors hints at how profoundly corrupt we are.
Even the wealthiest and best educated nations are slipping behind in
basic measures of health. Obesity is rampant; the average lifespan is
slipping fast. There is little interest on the part of patients to
heal themselves, and doctors take time only to sign a prescription
pad.

This I think is why the Baha'i Writings lay such heavy emphasis on the
term "arise," for you can only rise out of bed once in the morning. We
heal ourselves once, then we are healthy. There is no coming back
again and again, no repeated shelling out for cures that fail. When a
Baha'i reads and prays morn and eve, she does not need others to feed
spiritual nourishment, she gets it from the pure source. Covenant,
then, is another word for self-healing.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com