Drunk with the World (The Gospel of Thomas)

This episode explores the twenty-eighth saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways."

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Transcript

This episode explores the twenty-eighth saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways."

A lot of people have been drunk at one time or another, especially when they were younger. Some have not. I have a brother in law who boasts of never having tasted alcohol. There are many who come from strict religious backgrounds who have never had an alcoholic drink, much less been drunk. 

Back when I was in college I was drunk quite a few times. That is not uncommon in college. I have not been drunk since college. For many years as an adult I would have an occasional glass of wine or a beer; never more than one. I have not had a glass of wine or a beer in years. These days I do not even drink caffeine any more, much less alcohol. I do not like the way such substances affect the mind or body. I prefer to be as clear-headed as possible. 

I remember what it was like to be drunk. So I can appreciate the metaphor that Jesus is using in this saying. He is using drunkenness as a metaphor. He is not talking about being drunk with alcohol. Jesus was not a teetotaler, as much as some Christians would like to make him into one. Jesus is talking about being drunk with the world. He is speaking about being drunk on what Hindus and Buddhists call maya, the illusion of the world. 

The vast majority of humans are drunk on the world, even if they have never tasted a drop of alcohol. A reader of my blog recently posted the opening words of a Wordsworth poem as a comment: "The world is too much with us."  I looked up the poem, and the next few lines are also relevant:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

People have given their hearts away. People are intoxicated with the illusion of this material world. So much so that they cannot see clearly. Jesus says in this saying, “My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see....” He is saying that humans do not see reality as it really is. 

Alcohol drunkenness dulls our physical and mental senses. Spiritual drunkenness dulls our spiritual senses. There are lots of ways that people can be drunk on the world. They can be drunk on possessions, seeking more and more things, intoxicated with material wealth. Others are addicted to success or fame or celebrity. People are addicted to sex or emotional attention from others. They can be drunk on experiences. Some people are experience junkies, traveling the world looking for the next adrenaline rush produced by risk-taking. 

Some are drunk on power. Political power or miliary power or personal power over their employes or family members. Some are drunk on the feeling of power that weapons give them. Some are drunk on religion. Religion is a powerful drug. Marx famously called religion “the opium of the people.” I am no Marxist but he was right in this instance. I look at my many of my evangelical or Reformed friends now and I see that they are drunk on religious tradition. Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day were drunk on religion.

The mass of humanity are drunk on one thing or another. Think of the power of Jesus’ metaphor for a moment. Imagine the whole population of the earth - eight billion people – drunk and stumbling through life. That is an accurate picture of the state of humanity. I am amazed that we are still alive as a race and that the earth is still inhabitable. 

Anyone who is not drunk is looked upon as dangerous. Like in Plato’s allegory of the cave. The one person who escaped the cave of shadows and returned to tell others was seen as dangerous. That is why Jesus was executed. He was trying to get people to sober up.

A listener to my podcast emailed me a while ago and said that for him the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous was a way to awakening. I am not into programs of any type - I advocate the Wayless Way – but he has a valuable insight here. There are a lot of parallels between addiction and spiritual lostness. I saw that myself when I served as pastor of an urban church in Massachusetts. Half my congregation was in some type of 12 Step program. We had more people coming to 12 Step meetings at our church than we had church members. They brought valuable spiritual insight. 

 Let me get back to the saying of Jesus. He said, “I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty.” That is an interesting statement. He found them drunk but not thirsty. He is meaning that they were drunk with the world, but not thirsty for true drink – the water of eternal life that Jesus talks about elsewhere. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Spiritual thirst is a sign of life. We are meant to be thirsty for eternal life. But Jesus said he found that people were so saturated with the world that they were no longer thirsty for the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus continues, “My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty.” That last part is important, but it can be confusing. “They came into the world empty, and they seek to depart from the world empty.” 

This part of the saying takes some explanation. When he talks about being empty, he is referring to being empty of the Spirit as opposed to being full of the Spirit. There is another use of the word empty or emptiness which is good, being empty of the world. But here he is talking about being empty of eternal life. 

Jesus is saying that people do not really want anything to change. They do not really want what Jesus is offering. They do not hunger and thirst for Jesus’ words. They do not want their spiritual cup to “runneth over” as the Shepherd psalm says. 

The main reason why people do not wake up spiritually is because they do not really want to wake up. If they really wanted to, they would. That is the situation of humanity. Some people put on a good show of wanting liberation, but it is just a show performed by the ego for other egos. Because if they really wanted truth, they would see that there is absolutely nothing standing in the way. But they do not want that because they know that would be the death of the ego. It would mean dying to self, dying as a self. And that is the one thing they will not contemplate. So they medicate themselves on the elixir of the world.

Jesus was talking about this to his disciples one day – especially when it came to worldly wealth - and the disciples replied to Jesus, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus answered, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Put another way, it is all about grace. That is true to my experience. That is why I end every podcast with the words “grace and peace to you.” 

Grace means there is nothing we can do. The ego is nothing and can do nothing. It starts off empty and seeks to end life empty, as Jesus says. It does not want to be filled with God, because then it knows it will die. That is what the cross is about. That is why Jesus said that anyone who would be his disciple must deny themselves (their self), take up their cross and follow him. Only when the self is seen as an empty nothing, can we see the Kingdom of God. This is an act of grace.

At the end of the saying Jesus gives us a little hint of something we can do. Even this I think is the grace of God, but at least he gives us something to do while waiting for grace. Jesus says, “But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways." So he tells us to shake off the wine. Like a dog shaking off water after taking a dip in the lake, we can shake off the wine of the world. We can’t do much, but we can shake. 

Maybe that is part of what the early Shakers did. We have some historic Shaker villages here in New Hampshire. I used to go to retreats at one of these places. Beautiful buildings. The Shakers got their name because they shook with the Spirit. Like the early Quakers who quaked with the Spirit. But maybe it was also referring to the same sort of thing that Jesus was talking about here. 

Jesus talks about shaking the intoxication with the world. Like when we are sleepy or in a daze and we shake our heads to get back to normal consciousness. We might not be able to do much to wake up, but we can shake. Or maybe it is the Spirit who shakes us, like the Shakers. I don’t know. In any case, only when we shake off intoxication with the world and sober up by the grace of God, will we wake up. Then, Jesus says, our lives change.