Speaker 1: There is a trope in the media in society, and
this trope is something like, if you were a Christian,
you would be nice, and that Christians in some ways
accept everything. That Christians, that Jesus really was a hippie,
you know, it's a good way of thinking of it.
You know, that he was open and that he accepted everything.
And so there are aspects of the Gospel where you
see Christ acting in that way. You know, when he says,
let the children come to me. You know, when he
goes to those that have been dejected, that are impure
in the society where he is, when he goes to
prostitutes and to tax collectors, all these people that are
rejected by society, either because they are decadent or because
they are you know, let's say, people who work for
the government, for the for the oppressive government. This is
something people often forget about Jesus is that when he
went to the margin, he's when he talked to the
tax collectors, it meant that he was talking to people
that were in fact betraying their nation for Rome, you know.
And so that is the type of margin that Christ
talked to. And so of course Christ doesn't manifest these things.
But there is also a way in which this way
of talking about Christians is a what I call weaponized compassion.
It is a way to use Christian's vision of compassion
and of love in order to manipulate them and to
make them do what you want. And I don't think
Christians are called to be manipulated in that way, at
least when they can help it. And Christ tells us
to be, of course vigilant, and to be wise as
foxes and innocent as doves. And so there is a
few places in scripture where in some ways Christ reveals
how it is that this works, how it is that
Christians are inclusive, and in what way it is that
the Church and the Body or the Kingdom of Heaven
is open and inclusive. This is Jonathan Pejol Welcome to
the symbolic.
Speaker 2: World, greeting's friends, cosmographers, fellow symbolists. This is Joshua from
Eighth Day Books, inviting you to join me and studying
a remarkable cosmic coincidence. Why is it that writers, philosophers,
and prophets from many times and places have all told
us that contemplating the night sky makes our own souls
similarly more beautiful and more ordered. Hebrew and Hindu, Greek
and Chinese. They've all told us that looking up is
the same as looking in, and that we are as
much citizens of the sky as we are of earth.
In February, we will be looking at Pythagorean folk tales,
biblical wisdom, literature, and contemporary novelists to ask these questions.
It'll be a challenging course, but not technical. I teach
medieval philosophy and Renaissance literature, and I'm condensing a year's
worth of information into a few wonderfilled hours. Please join
me for some Plato, some poetry, and some practical skygazing,
all to help us pursue the art of imitating Heaven.
See you very soon.
Speaker 1: And so I want to read, of course, it is
the parable of the Great Banquet. I want to read
that parable for you and will look at how it
is that you know Christ manifest this. Now, there are
two versions of this parable. One is in Luke. And
what's beautiful about the wed in Luke is that the
one in Luke is really emphasizing this desire that Christ
has to move towards the margins right, and to move
towards those that are usually excluded those that usually aren't
invited and invite them to the great wedding feast, especially
as those who, because they're too important, don't seem to
be able to see the value of the wedding feast,
you know. And so, But the version in Matthew goes
one step further and then adds a little bit that
I think is important in the context of what it
is that I'm trying to help you understand. It is
in Matthew twenty two. So it says, and Jesus answered
and spoke to them and by parables, and said, the
kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who arranged
a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants
to call those who were invited to the wedding. And
they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out
other servants, saying, tell those who are invited, see I
have prepared my dinner. My oxen and fatted cattle are killed,
and all things are ready. Come to the wedding. But
they made light of it and went on their ways,
one to his own farm, another to his business, and
the rest seized. The servants treated them spitefully and killed them.
When the king heard about it, he was furious, and
he sent out armies, destroyed those murderers and burnt up
their city. But when the king heard about it, he
was furious, and he sent out his armies, destroyed those
murderers and burned up their city. Then he said to
the servants, the wedding is ready, but those who were
invited were not worthy. Therefore, go into the highways, and
as many as you find, invite to the wedding. So
those servants went out into the highways and gathered together
all whom they found, both bad and good. And the
wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king
came in to see the guests, he saw a man
there who did not have on a wedding garment, and
he said to him, friend, how did you come in
here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then
the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot,
take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called,
but you are chosen. Now. This parable is a little
different from the ones that we usually hear. You know,
usually people like the wooden luke because it's all about inclusion.
But this one is a little rougher, it's a little
more intense, And I chose it because, first of all,
it shows that the idea that Christ is a nice
hippie that just accepts everything simply not true. But second
because it shows a certain characteristic. Of course, people usually
use these parables and this particular parable to talk about
how in some way Christ came to Israel, came to Jerusalem,
came to the Jews, and presented the message of the
Kingdom of Heaven. But for that he was refused, and
not just him, but many of the prophets as they
brought the word of God, they were beaten, they were
killed for bringing the word of God to the people.
And that Christ, of course, would would be the ultimate
version of that. And for that reason, then Christ, in
some ways his message will move out from Israel and
into the into the gentile nations in order to call
them to the wedding feasts, in order to get them
to also participate in the Kingdom of Heaven. But then
Christ adds another detail, which is that you know, the
servants go out into the streets and they you know,
they they they send the they invite people that are
random the people that are on the side of the streets.
But you imagine people that are poor people that usually
don't and get invited to wedding feasts, you know, But
then when they come, when one of them comes, he
forgets to where he doesn't wear a wedding garment. And
the best way to understand that is, in some ways
he doesn't conform to what is expected of him at
the wedding feast. And then because he doesn't conform to
what is expected of him to participate in the wedding feast,
then he is thrown out into the outer darkness. And
which you notice is that in fact, his situation is
worse than the one that would have been before. That is,
if he just stayed on the road and not accepted
the invitation to the wedding feast, things would have been
difficult for him. But now that he has come, and
now that he has accepted the invitation, but he has
not conformed to what was expected of him at the
wedding feast, now he is thrown out and is in
a worse situation than before. And so this is really
a good way of understanding the Kingdom of Heaven, you know.
And so when we talk about the Kingdom of Heaven.
We really are talking about the way that Heaven gathers
the world together right into a in a coherent whole.
And so although it of course applies eschatologically, it kind
of applies to the entirety of all things. Sometimes the
best way of understanding it is seeing how it applies
at a more local at or at a smaller level.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And there are cases that can help us understand this parable,
I think particularly now, right, so a good example of something,
especially towards the last part, especially in terms of the
story about immigration, you know, because there is an entire
polemic about immigration and about in some ways how nations
Christian nations, there are nations that at least used to
be Christian somehow have to accept everything, like they just
have to be open to everything and invite people over
and let people come into their country and just accept
whatever it is that they bring here, whatever culture, whatever
thing that they bring. And I think that, you know,
this parable is a good example of understanding how that
simply isn't possible, like that that actually not only is
it not right, but it's not it's not something that
is possible. And I'll explain why you know, in terms
of both the question of immigration and also the question
of the wedding feast. And so why is it that
the servant has to confirm where his wedding garment at
the wedding feast? And you know, why does it such
a big deal? Why don't they just let him hang
around at the wedding feast without the without the garment.
And the answer is because if you do not conform
to the thing you're participating in, and if too many
people do not conform to the things they're participating and
it will cease to be what it is. You know,
if you if you participate in a meeting, but during
the meeting, you're doing something else besides the meeting, and
if too many people do that, at some point, it's
not the meeting anymore. At some point it's become something else,
if you know. I've talked about this in terms of
the in the Symbolic World Masterclass as the knitting group,
the cosmic nating group is that if you organize a
knitting group and then you invite people to come to
the knitting group, but the people that come don't want
to knit, and what they want to do is, I
don't know, they want to play music, or they want
to write poetry or whatever else there is they want
to do. Then at some point it's not a knitting
group anymore, is it. It's something else. I don't know what
it is, but it's definitely not a knitting group, you know.
And so that is why it is important when you
enter into a body, that you conform to the body, right,
and so in some ways, in terms of Christianity, what
this is suggesting is that yes, we are going to
move out into the gentile nations, we are going to
invite all people to come and enter into the body
of Christ. But you have to conform to the body
of Christ in order to be in the body. If
you enter into the body of Christ and then you
do not conform, then it will be much worse for
you in terms of your soul and in terms of
everything than it was even before that you enter it
into the body. And so how does this apply to
the question or the story of immigration. It's the same thing. So,
you know, there are actually examples of this, perfect examples
right now in Canada, you know, because let's say there
are certain aspects of the social fabric in our society
that the people that were born here, the people that
grew up here often don't want it, do you know.
And they're a good example is agricultural work. And so
one of the things that happens that the farms they
you know, they try to hire people that are from
here in order to work on the farms, and that's
become harder and harder to do. They then started to
at least try to get students, you know, during the summers,
young people that are healthy and strapping and you know,
and can handle a hard day's work, and so they
invite them to come and work for the farm. But
that's becoming harder and harder as well. The students just
aren't interested. It's not worth it for them. They find
it too difficult. There are all kinds of reasons why
they don't want to do that. And so for that reason, again,
our government has set up a whole system to invite
people from South America to be able to come during
the summer and during the fall in order to work
the farms. Right, and so you can see it's very
similar to this idea of this participation in the wedding bank.
With that is the king sends their invitations to the
people that are usually come to the wedding bank its.
But those people aren't interested. Of course, in this variable,
it's even worse. They they actually treat the envoys of
the king roughly and kill them. But let's say, not
particularly in the case of the farmland, let's say, but
what happens is that because of that, then the invitation
moves out into more and more further out from what
it usually does. But you know, if if you invite
someone from South America to come here, then when they come,
we expect them to follow our laws. We expect them
to not act in ways that would transgress our own
social cohesion. And if they do, then it's completely normal
that we eject them like this is a completely normal thing,
because in some ways, in order for them to participate
in the body, they have to be part of the body.
They have to act in a way that is coherent
with what is expected of them in the in the body.
So this is, of course it's the case in all
levels of the question of immigration that it should not
be weird for countries, for nations to expect from people
that come to their nation to participate in the social fabric,
to in some ways wear the wedding garment. That is
where the clothing where, the behavior where the social norms
you know, of the nation that they're joining. You know,
without that, then what is happening? Then the problem if
you don't at some point expect that people that are
coming from the outside in order to join your nation,
then it won't be your nation after a while. And
at some point, just like in the knitting group, if
people come and decide to paint or decide to do something,
at some point it will no longer be what it is.
It will become something else. It'll move towards chaos at first,
and then that chaos will be potential for something else,
will be potential for some other identity that will come
and scoop it up and be able to in some
ways in force it's kingdom on the world. So you
can see that the parable is really an image of
there's really an image of everything, right, It's it's an
image of how all things function. And so if you're
building a car, you know, and certain materials aren't available
to the building of the car, then you're going to
kind of move out and see if there are other
materials which you usually would use that would be available
to make the car, but you those materials have to
conform to what a car is supposed to be, right
Like you can't make a card of jello. At some
point there's no way that it can fit. But it's
completely normal of course too, if you're trying to make
something or create a type of cohesive whole that if
the usual things that you use in order to make
that hole aren't available, then you start to look out
into potential for things that could possibly be integrated into
that hole in order to continue to make it. And
in some ways, you could you could think that this
is a kind of opportunity, especially if it's a good kingdom,
it's a wonderful opportunity for things that usually aren't included
in the kingdom to participate. But in some ways they
have to still have to prove their worth. They still
have to conform to the body, okay. And so you know,
this was just a small meditation to kind of help
you understand how you know, a body functions and how
it is that Christianity, although it does in fact, you know,
reach out to the ends of the earth, that it
does in fact give the opportunity of all people, of
any person to participate in the body, no matter where
you come from and no matter what your situation, there
is a point that it is expected of you, of
the person that enters into the body, to conform to
the body at least to some extent, or else it
isn't right. And so you could see this in all
kinds of ways. That is, if you say you're a Christian,
but you don't have the creed, you know, and you
don't believe the things that Christians believe, and at some
point you're going to be ejected. You're heterodox. You're going
to be ejected if you say you're a Christian but
you commit all these crimes, and you do all of these,
you commit all these moral, immoral acts. In theory, you
should at some point be excommunicated, that you should be
excluded from the body until you make up, until you,
at least to some extent, are able to conform to
what is expected of a Christian in order to be
in the body. And so you know this idea that
Christians are just infinitely nice, and this weird idea of
this postmodern idea of radical hospitality, that in some ways
you have to be open to all things and that
you should let all things in. That is definitely not
a Christian vision. And not only is it not a
Christian vision, but it is a road map to chaos,
and it is a road map to self destruction and
to death. And and that is you know, it's not
that in some ways, you could say Christians are not
sometimes subject to that right too, in some ways a
kind of death. But it is even in terms of martyrdom,
Christians are not supposed to look for their own death.
They're not supposed to act in ways that will bring
about their own destruction, even though they know that sometimes
they will be persecuted or that that destruction or that
violence will come to them. There is a clear uh,
there's a there is a clear canon in the in
the church, and there's a clear way of seeing it
in the Church that you should never look for your
own martyrdom. You shouldn't act towards it. And that is
that is actually a form of weird. It's like a
form of weird perverse pride to you could call it
virtue signaling in the modern sense, you know, when you
do something like that. So hopefully this was useful in
helping you understand. Don't forget that if you love these videos,
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thanks everybody for your attention. Hope this was useful and
I'll talk to you very soon.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
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