That Which Holds Power and That Which Does Not

I was recently reading through parts of the Gospel of Thomas, a non-canonical Gospel, when I once again found myself halted by one of the sayings contained therein:  "Jesus said, 'Whoever has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy.'"  (Gospel of Thomas saying 56)

What does that mean? 
I find that though it is outside the Biblical cannon, it does seem to relate well to the Christian witness as well as what Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call "costly grace."

With that in mind, I would offer this observation:

There comes a time within everyone’s life where there is the potential for disillusionment. Usually this disillusionment manifests itself as a ‘mid-life crisis’ or a crisis of identity. Something that has defined one’s identity in a fundamental way is suddenly called into question. That something may be a particular political party of government, or it could be a religion, a particular belief system, a job, a relationship, or it could be as simple as one’s appearance. Whatever it is, there comes a point where“the way it is” lacks the luster and vitality to keep you enthralled within its folds. And for a moment of time, the world seems to totter on the brink of collapse. And when that moment arrives, a choice has to be made: do you leave it, or stay?

If you leave, then you run the risk of having to walk away from the very things that made you comfortable. You will face the challenge of having to walk away from the very things that made you comfortable. You will face the challenge of having to re-define who you are and what it is that you really believe in.

But if you stay, you run the risk of forever wondering if your choice to stay was because you were too afraid of putting your security blanket down. Like Linus Van Pelt from the comic strip Peanuts, if you leave your security blanket for too long, you begin to go through withdrawals until you finally have to have the blanket in order to survive another minute. Also by staying, you run the risk of knowing that the diamond in your hand is nothing more than polished glass. Time stands still and in an eternal instant, a decision has to be made.

 

(If you haven't seen the movie "The Matrix", by the way, I would encourage you to do so, as this theme is found laced throughout its wonderful story.)

In the Gospel of Thomas we find this situation laid out all too well. Whoever comes to know the world will find a carcass, and whoever finds a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy. What does this mean?

First, one must understand what a carcass is. A carcass is the dead body of a once living thing. It no longer possesses the qualities that made it ‘alive’. It is simply a shell. Jesus said that whomever comes to know the world will find a carcass. A carcass? Well, quite frankly…yes.

Think about Oskar Schindler.  He didn't set out to be a humanitarian (which he did become) but instead set out to be wealthy.  And he was a member of the Nazi party.

But there came a time when Oskar Schindler would see the ferocious brutality with which the Nazis were exterminating the Jews.  He saw firsthand that the Nazi party was no longer a gateway to wealth for himself, but instead it was the consuming fire of damnation itself.  At that point, Oskar Schindler became a transformed man who sought to save the very people that his party, the Nazi party, sought to kill.  In so doing, his original goals were lost, as was his identity.

When Oskar Schindler saw the atrocities the Nazis were committing under the legitimating eye of the ruling government, he no longer saw the living entity of the party that promised him wealth, but a rotting corpse that beckoned him to damnation.  He knew then and there that he had to change – and form that point on, until the end of the Second World War, he knew the Nazi party for what it was.  And in that knowledge, the Nazi party was no longer worthy of him.

Such is Jesus' claim about the world in this saying from the Gospel of Thomas.  The ‘world’ can be anything that one basis their life on or around.  What Jesus is implying seems to be that when an individual realizes that what matters is not the material, then no longer is that person bound to it in any fashion – it is no longer worthy of them.

The world might be nothing more than a carcass, an empty shell.  The challenge, then, is twofold.  First the challenge is to see the world for what it is.  Can the beliefs and institutions that so dominate our lives be nothing more than a carcass?  Can they be seen for what they are – dead?  No longer living – incapable of providing anything other than a malodorous presence that reminds us that there is nothing left but a shell – does this force us to seek out something else?  Something better?  Something different?  Does it force us to face the fact that the truth is out there and not within this particular bastion of blissful ignorance?  Yes indeed.

From here the second step is the choice of leaving or staying with the world, knowing that either decision will extract a heavy toll.  But how can we live with something that has no life?  Do we not bury the dead so that life may continue?

The world is a carcass.  Jesus knew all too well that at some point we would have to confront that fact.  In fact, just having celebrated Easter, we see Jesus put to death by a violent system of oppression in the Roman Empire.  Yet in that death, we see what has life and what has nothing but emptiness.  And in confronting that fact, we might come to the realization that what dominates us has no life, and that we deserve better – we deserve the truth.  And in that realization, the world is no longer worthy of us.