gospel of Thomas 79

A woman from the crowd said to him, "Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you."

He said to her, "Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.'"

 

I like this woman. I like her comment: Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you. She was honouring Jesus – she's pleased that he is here, giving his teachings, a wise one. But I love this feminist twist: we'll pass the honour to the mother. For without the mother, Jesus would not have come into being. And he would not have grown up to be the person he is. So the woman in the crowd honours the mother of Jesus, the womb which bore him, and the breasts which nourished him.

It's a feminist statement. She'd probably had enough of all this patriarchal language that the Abrahamic religions are so full of. She was having a little dig at Jesus, I think, for continuing to use that sort of language. That's my feeling anyway: a subtle tease.

But if she was teasing Jesus, I think Jesus missed it. Let's look at his response: Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. There's that word father again. It was almost certainly such language that led the woman to honour the mother. And God is not the father: God is father and mother combined.

In fact, comparing God with parents at all is dangerous. God is all that is. God is the creative energy of existence. Human parents are almost invariably completely messed up. So by comparing God with a father, or a mother, we run the risk of associating all that messed-up-ness with existence. And we would be wrong to do so. For existence, it turns out, is not messed up at all. Existence is beauty. Existence is perfection. Existence is.

Coming back to Jesus' words: Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. The word of the father is not written down in a book, you won't find it in the Bible or the Koran. The word of the father is truth. And truth comes to us directly, in the moment – not mediated by priests, teachers, masters; not written down by scribes. Truth is here in the moment; coming fresh, unknown; revealed in our innermost being, whenever we are silent enough to listen. So blessed are those who have listened and who do listen, and who respond from that inner wisdom.

Jesus continues, For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.'  He's saying that our feelings for each other – for other human beings – go up and down. One day we love someone; the next day we hate them. One day, we want to be around a particular person; and the next, we can't be far enough away.

This is the nature of human interaction. It's always a love-hate affair. We may try to focus on one side or the other. But in truth, both those human emotions are ever present in us. And that's why Jesus is really saying, don't expect human beings to give you a truly fulfilled feeling. Human relationships are not where ultimate fulfilment is to be found.

That's why we need to undertake the spiritual journey, and find truth.