“Defining Self-love”

Presenter: Dick Stetler – November 29, 2021

 

    When people have a reversal in their flow of life, they often have trouble navigating the changes that suddenly appear e.g., the unexpected loss of a loved one, the news that there is a malignancy, or orders that send families to a military base in another country when their teenagers are in their junior and senior years of high school. 

    The gospel writer of John described a moment of self-doubt when Jesus found that his teachings were too difficult for some of his listeners to understand. They decided not to follow him anymore.  He questioned his faithful disciples if they also wanted to abandon him.  (John 6:66)

    At the end of Jesus first message to members of his synagogue, they rose up in anger and attempted to severely injure him because of what he was saying. They had no tolerance for his words so they drug him out of their sanctuary and attempted to throw him over a cliff.  Fortunately, he was able to escape.  (Luke 4:29)

    We must teach ourselves how to take responsibility for our choices even if we make a mistake with a hasty judgment. We are all students that must understand that such occasions will occur.  Hopefully, we are eager to learn better responses going forward with our lives.  Our responses will mature when we keep in front of us the thought and emotions that we are loved by our Creator. Self-love enables people to learn from their responses and become willing to make course-corrections that enhance our spiritual growth.  

    Self-loathing never ends especially when we allow others to inspire us to descend to their level of responses.  When we allow that, we bring a halt to our personal growth.  There is a massive difference between failing and being a failure.   Everyone may fail when they experience a drama that they have seldom encountered. We learn a new skill when we greet every change with a life-enhancing response. 

    There have been numerous occasions when Christianity has failed miserably to communicate accurately what Jesus taught.span style="mso-spacerun:yes">  What Church leadership began to do is teach their interpretation of what he taught.  Lay people had to learn to grow more loving even when the Church’s conclusions were totally opposite of what Jesus taught.  Institutional religion quite often fails to lead people to grow spiritually. 

    In the centuries that followed Jesus’ departure from the physical world, history records nightmare after nightmare by the Church that set aside love in favor of power and its use of fear. Today’s Taliban in Afghanistan has not engaged in anything more cruel than what Christian leaders have done.

    In the year 311, Emperor Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians and granted enormous favors to the Church. Yet he ruthlessly suppressed non-Christians, even murdering members of his own family. So that there would be no less than a thorough cleansing, he postponed baptism to the moment prior to their death.

    In the year 800, on Christmas morning, the Pope crowned Charlemagne "King of the Romans" and declared that the Holy Roman Empire was ordained by God. While trying to convert “the heathen" of northern Europe, Charlemagne beheaded 4,000 Saxons who would not submit to the yoke of Christianity.

    Martin Luther has been hailed as the author of the Reformation. He praised God for God's loving grace, however, when the Peasants' War broke out in 1525, Luther penned a savage tract entitled, Against the Murderous and Thieving Hordes of Peasants. In his tract, Luther advised "Everyone who can to smite, slay, and stab the rebels as they would a mad dog."

    On August 24, 1573, the Pope entered the Sistine Chapel and sang an exultant "Te Deum." The occasion for his celebration was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day when fanatical Roman Catholics slaughtered 10,000 Protestants in the streets of Paris.

     Jesus’ message was not complicated. There was no theology connected to his teaching of the Golden Rule and its all-encompassing attitudes.   He grew unhappy with Judaism and its protective war god, Yahweh.  He literally walked away from obedience to the Laws of Moses by teaching the Hebrews how to respond to others differently by allowing their spirits to be governed by a loving spirit.   

    Once Christianity evolved into a political machine that had control over the lives of believers, it ceased to echo the message of Jesus.  The Church’s leadership was more dedicated to making others conform to its orthodoxy.  The Will of God was defined by the tyrannical authority of men. 

    When William Tynedale translated the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible into English, he was credited for being the first person to give the Scriptures to the common people.  For doing this labor of love, he was betrayed, tried, and convicted for a crime against the Church.  He was tied to a stake, strangled to death and burned.  His sin was giving people the ability to read the Bible for themselves instead of being told by the priesthood what they had to believe, what they had to give to the church, and which rules they had to obey as followers of Jesus Christ.

    The point of all of these illustrations is to learn that if the Church can lose its way, as it easily can do, so can normal men, women, and children.  We need to remind ourselves of the Golden Rule every day. Remember, we are all spirit-beings regardless of how people define themselves.  We are the ones who judge ourselves, not our Creator.

    A lot of people could relieve themselves of misery, anxiety and stress over whether or not they will survive the process of dying.  None of us ever needs saving by believing in certain paths to salvation.  It is sad that very few people understand this, particularly pastors and the leadership of the Church.  Their concept of God remains too small.  They have given God human emotions. Our Creator would be insane to allow us to be in any danger of being lost eternally. Each of us incarnates into this world risk free.   

    Think about this.  Would any loving parents allow their children to play in an environment filled with poisonous snakes and pits of quicksand?  Over and over again, a radically different message to understand is that yes, our Creator is that kind, loving, understanding, and forgiving.  Once we graduate from the material world, we are the ones who have to consider how we responded to all the foreign symbols that we encountered while living in our physical forms.

    All of us do graduate from what we may have considered to be the university of hard knocks. Others among us understood Jesus’ message and knew their role to teach others what works and what does not by sowing their seeds without recognition or being praised for doing so. The law of consequences is understood by only a small number people. (Matthew 25:29) This law is only applicable in this world regardless of what else is being taught by the religions of this world.  

    It is totally the responsibility of everyone to choose their path regardless of the theories they hold about the purpose of their being born. Such personal beliefs are as many as there are people.  We miss the mark when we blame the outcome of our lives thus far on anything, e.g., our society, our ethnicity, or the pecking order we faced in our families.  No one twisted anyone’s arm to behave or develop attitudes in one particular way or another.  

    Each person communicates who they have become during all the changes in their lives. When we love ourselves, we accept all challenges to our lives as opportunities to grow spiritually by polishing our own stone.  Jesus chose kindness, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness as he continued to move forward to being crucified. 

    Because of how we have chosen to define ourselves, such a path is hard to understand or imagine. Jesus understood that all of us will return to the realm of our origin intact as the spirit beings we are.  Our amnesia will be gone and we will find rest and peace as we go over our memories from our brief adventure. Our short journey is over until the next time we incarnate.  This experience is what we call the grace of God whose energy consists only of loving energy. When we adopt loving energy as the keystone of our personality, we can endure every challenge that enters our stage.