gospel of Thomas 68

Jesus said, "Blessed are you when you are hated and persecuted. Wherever you have been persecuted they will find no place."

I feel I may be missing something with this saying of Jesus. He seems to be extolling the virtue of being hated and persecuted. And perhaps this is partly because he was hated and persecuted: by the Jewish priests, the rabbis, the people in power.

Every great master is hated and persecuted by those with a vested interest in the status quo: by the authorities, by the people who like to wield power – political, religious – it makes no difference.

So a master, or a mystic, and Jesus was both of these, is always hated by those in authority. But why is this a blessing? Certainly it is an indication that one is heading for freedom, for those in power do not want other people to be free. It is impossible to wield power over one who is free. So that is one reason why Jesus may be saying, to be hated and persecuted is a blessing.

And another reason is, if one is hated and persecuted by those around one, then one can take no comfort in society. It no longer becomes a place of escape. We often use our social interactions as a way of avoiding God. One only has to look at what happens to a devout seeker when he becomes sexually involved with someone else. Usually, all his religious practice goes out of the window, and all his energy is put into romance and sex.

And the same goes with less intense social interactions: the chit chat, the coffee bars, the alcohol, the parties – you know it all. It's idle entertainment that takes us away from the intensity of life. So if one is hated and persecuted, then of course, one doesn't even get invited to the party, so there is no way to avoid our spiritual quest.

The second half of this saying is even more obscure to me. Jesus says, wherever you have been persecuted they will find no place. I'm not sure who they are. Are they the people doing the persecution? Is Jesus saying the people who do the persecuting won't find their way to heaven? It might well be. If so, I think Jesus was having a bit of an off day. He'd probably just been persecuted again, and was taking some comfort in the fact that those idiots in power are never going to find God – neither the politicians, nor the priests who are abusing their position of authority.

But perhaps you can find another interpretation of this saying.