Thomas 21

(21) Mary said to Jesus: Whom are thy disciples like? He said They are like little children dwelling in a field which is not theirs. When the owners of the field come, they will say: Yield up to us our field. They are naked before them, to yield it up to them and to give them back their field. Therefore I say: If the master of the house knows that the thief is coming, he will keep watch before he comes, and will not let him dig into his house of his kingdom to carry off his vessels. You, then, be watchful over against the world. Gird up your loins with great strength, that the brigands may not find a way to come at you, since the advantage for which you look they will find. May there be among you a man of understanding! When the fruit was ripe, he came quickly, his sickle in his hand, and reaped it. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Wow! Speaking of conflation? We seem to have here echoes of so much of the N.T.

I'm thankful for Leloup; else I'd be wondering what in the world is Thomas saying here.

He points to Matthew 11:16:
11:16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,
11:17 And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

But that's about as clear as Thomas. Leloup sort of interprets it: Jesus is talking about the many who set out to follow him, but without grounding. They are like the stony or thorny ground. Their nakedness here denotes 'lack of Spirit' rather than what we think of as childlike innocence. They have tried to occupy a field that is not their's.

I must internalize this of course: I am the stony or thorny ground (I often wonder if I'm not the man Jesus was talking about in Matthew 22:1-14, the man without the wedding garment). There is that in me, as well as that of God. How can I deny it? I can only trust that God's forgivenness is greater than what this story suggests, and his healing goes on apace.

So perhaps we are all speckled birds. Like the New Englanders of old we need to prepare the ground, remove the stones and thorns so the seed can take root.

But perhaps the field where the little children dwell is "the kingdom of this world", or perhaps it is our field that we must guard against the thief who would come and take our valuables, the roaring lion (another name for the devil). Jesus wants us to remain faithful in the face of a multitude of temptations.

The 'man of understanding' is the Spirit when he takes possession of our heart, reaps all of our experience and glorifies it.

I'm so glad we have Thomas to fill out what we can learn in the four gospels.

Thomas 14a

With Saying 14a Thomas has conflated several verses from the synoptics; rather than reproducing them he seems to be commenting on them.

14a: Jesus said to them: If you fast, you will beget a sin for yourselves; and if you pray, you will be condemned; and if you give alms, you will do an evil to your spirits.

We all know there is good fasting and bad fasting, good praying and bad praying, good and bad forms of charity. Thomas here focused on the negative side of all these things.

Look at Matthew: "
6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
6:8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
6:10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.
6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

or 6:16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites , of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6:17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face;
6:18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.

or 23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."

This is all good preaching for we are encouraged to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. (I'm not at all sure that Meredith would approve of this, however it does appear that it was the modus operandi of Jesus, at least sometimes.

Thomas' Jesus thus shows himself here to be in pretty complete aggreement with Matthews' Jesus (and the others as well). His style is different: more graphic, pictorial rather than discursive. It's called the Eastern Gospel and apparently made a big hit with those Eastern Christians who spread all over Asia. Would to God that all Christians could see the power, the love expressed by Jesus with these and other thomasine sayings: they sound foreign, but they ring true.

A Quaker friend just called me to clue me in on Prof. Ehrman's PBS noon program re "Misquotes of Jesus' words". Like me I expect that he puts a higher valuation on Thomas than do conventional Christian: laymen or scholars.

(I'm anxious to read how Meredith expresses her heart re this logion.)

Thomas 9

(9) Jesus said: Behold, the sower went forth, he filled his hand, he cast. Some fell upon the road; the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on the rock, and sent no root down to the earth nor did they sprout any ear up to heaven. And others fell on the thorns; they choked the seed, and the worm ate them. And others fell on the good earth, and brought forth good fruit unto heaven, some sixty -fold and some an hundred and twenty -fold.

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Matthew 13:3-9 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
13:5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
13:6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
13:7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
13:8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
13:9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

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Mark 4:2-9 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,
4:3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
4:4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
4:5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
4:6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
4:7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
4:8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
4:9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

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Luke 8:4-8 8:5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

8:6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.

8:7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.

8:8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

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The synoptic accounts are pretty uniform and agree closely with what Thomas wrote. However all three of them continue the narrative with Christ's interpretation of the parable:

Luke: 8:9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?

8:10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

8:12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

8:13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.

8:14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.


In reviewing these passages two things come to mind:

The synoptics and Thomas are addressing different levels of consciousness and/or intellectual sophistication. As he told the story to the crowd, Jesus was aware that they would get little or nothing from it. Neither did the twelve until he explained it to them. The seed is the word of God, etc. In contrast Thomas seeems to take for granted that his readers will perceive the metaphoric import of Jesus' words.

I find it fascinating that Jesus appears to have had the same trouble communicating spiritual truth to people whose psyches were wedded to materiality. That's still the main problem between psychologically oriented and materially minded people.

Here, as so often in his words, Jesus points out the disparities among people. The disparities he focused on were in terms of the will.

Gospel of Thomas Studies

Reviewing the 114 sayings of the Gospel of Thomas in Friendly Scripture Study we found 49 of them closely similar to verses in the synoptic gospels:

49 of the sayings appear to be comparable to similar verses in one of the four gospels: 2, 9, 14a, 21, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 54, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68,69, 71, 72, 73, 76, 78, 79, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 96, 102, 103, 104, 107, 109,

Let's look at one of them here:

(2) Jesus said: He who seeks, let him not cease seeking until he finds; and when he finds he will be troubled, and if he is troubled, he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All.

This one of course closely resembles two verses in Matthew and Luke:

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Luke 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
11:10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

The Matthew and Luke versions of it seem like a simple promise: God is there, waiting for us to ask, such as 'give us this day our daily bread' [spiritual nurture]. Or look for his/her presence, and you will find it: I perceive that the first time I really looked (at the age of 30) I immediately experienced God's overwhelming presence. Knock: Jesus tells us in Revelation 3:20: Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Knowing about and trusting these promises certainly makes life easier and happier.

Thomas takes for granted that we may seek until we find. He goes into particulars about what we find:

Twyla gave an excellent take on this saying last September. She made it very real; it's almost like the Lord was thinking of her when he said it. Not only that, but she elicited created responses, especially from Meredith. If we could all take the whole Bible (and Thomas) personally the way she did it here, it would take on a life and excitement beyond anything we have imagined. To live the Bible! It's God's personal message to each of us; that's why it's called the Living Bible; in a magical way it speaks personally to every generation for the last many milleniums.

As George Fox said, "we know what Jesus and what Paul said, but what dost thou say?" and again, "Let Christ be your teacher." The Living Christ makes clear to us the Living Word.

Living Communally

My dear friend Twyla asked me in Reflections of a Happy Old Man if I had ever lived communally. Many or most of her questions tend to lead to a post, so here it is:

Communal living! Ah! an ambition of Ellie and me for many years. We read all the books, dreamed of it, then in 1973 it became an actuality (briefly). We had decided to move to D.C. to be a part of the wonderful church that I've written about often in the past two years.

We had visited the Church of the Savior from our home in Winston-Salem often enough to decide it was our next adventure. A small commune, convened at his home by Dave Dorsey (six people in fact), invited us to come in. We moved with our three boys.

Conditions were rigorous. The primary problem was schools. Three boys to go to three schools. The two younger ones were (relatively) satisfactory, but Paul had to go to Wilson High School with a handful of other white kids surrounded by a sea of black faces.

It was too troubling, and I sent the family back after a month. (I've seen lots of idealistic parents exposing their children to the rigor of their ideals, and I don't approve of it, generally.)

The church had just bought two apartment buildings in Adams Morgan, two or three miles north of the White House. They had been fashionable in a bygone day-- the Ritz and the Mozart. Solid black tenants. One brave white girl was trying to live there.

It came to me that I should, too (really drunk with the ideals of that place). So I requested an apartment. Gordon Cosby and Terry Flood, the manager of the project, must have thought I was an impecunious rural southerner (they were right!); they expected me to live their gratis and give them my labour. Such was not my intention; I paid my rent promptly (not that impecunious!).

It was scary, on the ground floor, easily accessible from the street; I've always been the cautious type. What was I getting into. Muggings, knifings, killings were very common in that neighborhood. Well I managed to get an apartment on a higher floor.

And then: One Sunday after the service I was invited to eat at Louise's apartment on Connecticut Ave. (she was an elderly women in my mission group). She gave us a pleasant meal. A young boy named Jim Cregar was also her guest (young for me at that time meant the thirties).

Jim had finished in Statistics at Berkeley and was pursuing a higher degree at G.W. (Like droves of young people at the C of S. he had come there for the same reason we did, because it was an easily recognizable Christian Church, and they were not so common in those days, any more than now.)

I was flabbergasted when Jim proposed to move in with me. Pleased, delighted: I reasoned that two would be much less dangerous than one.

There we started our commune, soon joined by two older men:
Byron Marsh was a 'fallen' Lutheran minister-- I say 'fallen' ironically; what I mean is he had gotten to be too much of a Christian to fill that role any longer. He had decided to give a month of his time to Jubilee Housing. He became the maintenance man for the next couple of years.

Byron and I had wonderful relations, a great deal in common. Another member of our group was John Claggert, just a common, run of the mill Christian idealist. He was a poet; I thought his life was a poem. (Both of these men lost their marriages in the pursuit of Christ, and I suspect most of the congregation thought I was heading in the same direction, but once again, Ellie and I had no such intention.)

There was a problem with garbage collection at the Ritz; the procedure they had devised had fallen apart; we took on that assignment.

Eventually we decided to have a retreat. Conrad Hoover, the church retreat master, joined us. (Conrad later disappeared in the direction of Belmost Abbey, just west of Charlotte. I looked him up and found this (must be the same man.)

Conrad Hoover told people that he was impressed with our retreat; we were not exactly what he expected of us.

Time came to do the garbage; our visitors had other things to do. I resented that (the old Martha syndrome cropping up again).

One night, going home from Potters House I was mugged by a group of kids. I instinctively resisted; they got me on the ground and removed my valuables, then ran.

This was just too traumatic for me. I moved back to the Servant Community (with Dave Dorsey) and spent the next 20 months or so. Soon Jim and Byron followed over there.

This was the nearest thing to "regular communal" living I have experienced. Jim and I used to tell one another "community is hell". Well it does have its ups and downs; it pays to be young, etc. etc.

In June Paul finished high school (in Winston-Salem; he's still there). We had bought a house in Arlington, and Ellie came up with the two younger boys. I have to tell you it was a tremendous relief to me to take possession of that house-- away from the danger of inner city living. For the next ten years in fact I used to breath a sigh of relief after work (in D.C.) as soon as I got off George Washington Parkway into Arlington; it was the best of Middle America, where I belong.

Thanks Twyla was inspiring this long tome. Perhaps someone else may also read it and find meaning. (It was lovely for me this morning to get that news of Conrad Hoover.)

Confessions I

My relationship with Quakers goes back a long way
although it didn't get intense until 1983.

The ancestral trace is impeccible going back 301
years before the above date: James Clayton,
blacksmith from Middlewich in Cheshire Co. and
Jane, his wife were on the passenger list of the good ship Submission, one of Penn's fleet that came to
the New World in 1982. Instead of the expected
port in Delaware the ship made port at Choptank,
on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake.

Choptank lies on the western side of the Eastern
Shore near the headwaters of the Choptank River.
The very headwaters, I believe lie in Kent Co. DE
not far from Dover.

However this little group of Quakers were scheduled to go to what became Bucks Co. PA, and my people made the journey, a distance of some 100 odd miles, on foot. There they settled and were in the first roster of a Quaker Meeting (it must have been the Falls Meeting). I think this happened some time before Penn got established in Philly.

(Years later in the Gainesville FL Meeting I met
John Burton. whose forbear, John Burton (I) had
also been there; we became good friends. That
first generation of Claytons and Burtons had had
dealings in Kent Co.)

James Clayton I presumably died in PA, but three
of his boys, James, John, and Jonathan, settled in
a more highly developed subdivision which became
Kent Co. DE (It was at that time part of PA).

James II, my ancestor, married Mary Bedwell,
daughter of Robert Bedwell, a member of the PA
Assembly. (My gx Bedwell grandmother came from
more illustrious forbears than James Clayton:
William Bedwell was one of the Translators of the
KJV of the Bible.) Robert, a VA planter, bought
land in Kent Co. DE ca 1670 and moved there 10
years later. (We Claytons have always been noted
for marrying up.)

As long as I'm dropping names my second cousin, 8 times removed was Joshua Clayton, first governor of the State of Delaware. He had been an officer
in the Revolutionary Army and briefly joined
George Washington's staff (according to reports
Washington picked him out for a conference with
some Tory generals due to the spendor of his
uniform).

(A later Joshua Clayton, my ggg uncle, had a
distinguished mining career over most of the
Western States and died as the result of an
unfortunate stage coach race and wreck on the road to Helena, Montana.)

Getting back to Quakers: at some point back there in the misty past the Claytons became Methodists. They were part of a stream of Quakers who became Methodists about that time. One of them had "married out of unity" and thereby automatically ceased to belong to the Meeting. In the 19th Century American Quakers almost "married out of unity" out of existence, but lately, as we know, they have become a bit less exclusive.