The Gospel in Brief

Chapter Eight LIFE OUTSIDE OF TIME

And therefore only life in the present is true life.

THIS DAY

To the apostles’ doubts regarding the sort of reward they would have for renouncing mortal life, Jesus answers:

For a man who has understood the teaching, there can be no rewards. First of all, because the man who leaves behind his loved ones and his belongings in the name of this teaching obtains one hundred times more loved ones and more belongings. Second of all, because a man who seeks rewards is pursuing a situation in which he has more than another person does, and this practice is especially repellent to the fulfillment of the father’s will. For the kingdom of heaven there is no such thing as more or less: all are equal. Those who seek rewards for goodness are like workers who would demand more pay for themselves than for others paid by their master only because they consider themselves to be more worthy than others. Reward and punishment, debasement and exaltation, do not exist for someone who understands the teaching. No one can be higher or more important than someone else. Everyone can fulfill the fathers’ will, but in doing so, not one person will make himself more senior or important or better than another. Only kings and those who serve them can think this way.

According to my teaching, there can be no elders, because he who wants to be better should become the slave of all. This is the essence of the teaching: man is given life not to be served, but to offer his whole life in service of other people.

In order to not think about rewards and exaltation for yourself, you must understand that the meaning of life is in the fulfillment of the father’s will; that what the father has given away should return to him. Like a shepherd leaving the whole flock to go search for the one missing sheep and like the woman who tears apart everything to find the lost kopeck, likewise, the activity of the father manifests itself to us by pulling toward itself all that formerly belonged to it.

You must understand what true life is. True life always manifests itself in the phenomenon that what was lost returns to its place, that what has fallen into a sleep awakens. People who have true life return to their source; if they have true life, they are incapable of rating, as the custom is, who is better and who is worse, but as participants in the father’s life, they can only rejoice at returning what was lost to the father. If a son falls from the path and wanders from the father but then repents and returns to the father, then can the other sons really be envious of the father’s joy and refuse to rejoice at the brother’s return?

In order to believe the teaching, in order to change your life and fulfill the teaching, external proofs are unnecessary. One does not need the promise of rewards, but a clear understanding of what true life is. If people think they can be all-powerful masters of life, that life is given to them for the lusts of the flesh, then it is obvious that every act of sacrifice for another will seem to them a deed worthy of a reward and without reward they will not do anything. If the share croppers, who forgot that they were given a garden on the condition that they give the fruit to the master, were required to make their payment without any reward, they would chase out the payment collector. And if he were to keep reminding them about the payment, they would kill him. That is how the people who call themselves the masters of life see things and they do not understand that life is a gift of knowledge which requires the fulfillment of its will. One must understand that man can do nothing on his own and that if he gives away his mortal life for the good, then there should be no thanks or reward expected. You must understand that, in doing good, a man does only what he is obligated to do, what he cannot leave unfulfilled. Only by understanding his life in that way can a man have enough belief to do true acts of goodness.

The kingdom of heaven, which I preach, is based on this understanding of life. This kingdom of heaven is invisible, it is not the sort of kingdom that exists somewhere and could be pointed to. It is made up of people’s knowledge. The whole world has lived and still lives by old traditions: they eat, they drink, they work, they marry, they die and right alongside this, within people’s souls, the kingdom of heaven lives. The kingdom of heaven is people’s knowledge, like a tree in springtime, growing up out of itself.

The true life of fulfilling the father’s will is not the life that has passed or the life that will be, but life right now. And therefore, you must never become weak for living. People are positioned to preserve life—not the past, not the future, but the life that they are presently living—and in it to fulfill the will of the father. If they exit this life, not having fulfilled the father’s will, then they will not return. They are like the nightwatchman, positioned so as to watch through the entire night, who fails at his job if he falls asleep for even one minute, when a thief may approach. And therefore a man should bring all of his strength to the present hour, because only in that hour can he fulfill the father’s will. Fulfilling the father’s will is good for all people, since his will is the welfare of all. Only those who do good live.

Jesus said, “Whoever is not ready for all suffering and deprivation in the flesh has not understood me. Whoever labors for the best in mortal life destroys the true life. But whoever destroys his mortal life by doing my teaching will receive true life.”

And at these words, Peter said to him, “We have obeyed you here, we have discarded all of our cares, all of our belongings, and have followed after you. What sort of reward will we have for this?”

Jesus said to him, “Everyone who has given up his home, sisters, brothers, father, mother, wife, children, and land for my teaching, receives one hundred times more sisters, brothers, land and anything that he needs, and apart from the things of this life, he receives life outside of time. There are no rewards in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven itself is a goal and a reward. In the kingdom all are equal: there are no first, there are no last.

“Because the kingdom of heaven is like this: The master of the house went out in the morning to hire workers for the garden. He hired workers for one grivna a day and entered the garden and made them work.

“And again he went at lunchtime and hired some more and sent them to the garden to work and toward evening, he again hired more and sent them to work. And he agreed to pay each of them a grivna.

“It came time for payment and the master commanded for each to be paid the same. First, those who came last, and afterwards those who came first. And now, the first saw that the last were also being given a grivna. And they assumed that they would be given more than that; but the first were only given a grivna.

“And they took their money and said, ‘What is this, they only worked one shift and we worked all four, how is it that we are being paid the same? It is unjust.’

“And the master came and said, ‘What are you griping for, have I offended you somehow? I am paying you what I hired you for. Wasn’t our agreement for a grivna? Take your money and go. But if I want to give the last the same thing that I gave you, do I not have the power to act on my own? Or is it that you saw how kind I am, and then became jealous?’

“In the kingdom of heaven there are no first and there are no last—it is the same for all.”

Once, two of Jesus’s students, Jacob and John, came to him and said, “Teacher! Promise that you will do for us what we ask.”

He said, “What do you want?”

They said, “We want to be equal with you.”

Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. You can live just as I do, you can purify yourself from mortal life just as I do, but to make you the same as me—that is not in my power. Every man must enter the father’s will of his own power.”

Having heard that, the other students became angry at the two brothers for wanting to be the same as the teacher, to be the most senior of the students.

Jesus called to them and said, “If you, brothers John and Jacob, asked me to make you the same as me in order to be the most senior of the students, then you have made a mistake. If, however, you, other students, are angry at them because these two wanted to have seniority over you, then you are mistaken also. In this world only kings and rulers count who is most senior, so that they can govern nations.

“But among you there can be no seniors and no juniors. Among you, in order to be greater than another, you must become a servant to all. Among you, whoever wants to be first must consider himself last. Because this is the will of the father concerning the son of man, that he live not to be served, but to serve all others himself and to give away his mortal life like a ransom for the life of the spirit.”

And Jesus said to the people, “The father seeks to save the one that perishes. He rejoices in him just as the shepherd rejoices when he finds his one missing sheep. When one goes missing, he leaves behind the ninety-nine and goes to save the missing one. And if a peasant woman loses a kopeck, then of course she’ll sweep out the whole hut and search until she has found it. The father loves his son and calls him to himself.”

And he told them another parable about how it is impossible to elevate yourself by living in God’s will.

He said, “If you are called to lunch, then you should not sit at the head of the table. It may happen that you will take the seat and someone more respected than you will arrive, and the master will say, ‘Get out of there and leave it for he who is better than you.’ Then you will be even more ashamed. It would be better for you to sit in the very last space instead. Then the master will find you and call you to a respected place. Then you will have honor. Likewise, in the kingdom of God there are no places of pride. Whoever elevates himself, in doing so will lower himself; and whoever lowers himself a bit, by doing so will elevate himself in the kingdom of God.

“There was a man who had two sons.

“The younger said to the father, ‘Father! Give me my inheritance.’ And the father gave it to him. The younger took his portion and went to a far-off place and wasted all of his holdings and became impoverished. And in that far-off place he wound up in a pigsty, and was so hungry that he ate the slop with the pigs.

“And he began to think of his living situation and said, ‘Why did I separate and leave my father. Father had an abundance of everything. All of father’s workers eat well. But here I am eating the same food as pigs. Let me go to my father, fall at his feet and say: I am guilty, father, before you and do not deserve to be your son. Take me on though, at the very least as a farmhand.’

“After thinking this, he went to his father. And when he was still just beginning to approach, his father instantly recognized him from far away and ran to meet him, embraced him and began to kiss him.

“And the son said, ‘Father, I am guilty before you, I do not deserve to be your son.’

“But the father would not listen and said to the workers, ‘Quickly, bring the very best clothes and the very finest boots, dress him and put boots on him. And run, catch the fatted calf and kill it, we are going to celebrate this: That my son was dead, but he has now returned to life, he had gotten lost, but now he has been found.’

“The older brother came in from the field and as he drew near, he heard that music was being played in the house. He called a serving boy and said, ‘What sort of celebration is going on in there?’

“And the boy said, ‘Have you really not heard? Your brother has returned and your father is rejoicing. He commanded us to kill the fatted calf to celebrate the return of his son.’

“The older brother was offended and did not go into the home. But the father came out and called him.

“And he said to his father, ‘Father, how many years now have I worked for you, not missing a single command, and you’ve never slaughtered the fatted calf for me. But my younger brother left the home, and he gambled away all his estate with drunks, and yet you have now slaughtered the fatted calf for him.’

“And the father said, ‘You are always with me, and everything that I have is yours. And you ought not to be offended, but to rejoice that your brother, who was among the dead, has returned to life; he was lost but he has now been found.’

“A master planted a garden, labored over it, arranged it, did everything so that the garden would produce as much fruit as possible. And he sent some workers into this garden, so that they would labor, gather fruit and, according to their agreement, pay him for use of the garden.

“The master is the father, the garden is the world, the workers are people. The father sent his son, the son of man, into the world so that people would give the father back the knowledge of life that he placed inside them.

“Time passed and the master sent one of his workers to collect the payment. The father had not ceased to tell the people that they were obligated to fulfill his will. The workers chased off the master’s messenger empty-handed and they continued to live, imagining that the garden was their own, that they themselves occupied it by their own grace. People have chased off the reminder of the father’s will and continue to live each for himself, imagining that they live for the joys of mortal life.

“Then the master sent to them again, this time sending some of his favorites and even his son to remind them about their debt. But the workers had become completely foolish and imagined to themselves that if they killed the master’s son, who had come to remind them that the garden was not theirs, then they would finally be left in peace. And so they killed him.

“People do not love to be reminded that there is a spirit that lives within them and that it is eternal, but that they are not eternal; and so they killed, as much as they could, the consciousness of that spirit. They wrapped the grivna they had been given in a handkerchief and buried it in the ground.

“What could the master do? Nothing but drive out those workers and send in others. What can the father do? Keep planting until fruit is produced. And this very thing is what he does. People have not understood and still do not understand that this consciousness of the spirit within them, a consciousness they suppress since it inhibits them, is actually the essence of their lives. They discard the rock on which everything rests.

“And those who do not take the life of the spirit as a foundation will not enter into the kingdom of heaven and will not receive life. In order to have faith and receive life, one must understand one’s condition, and not wait for a reward.”

Then the students said to Jesus, “Multiply our faith within us; tell us something that will make us believe in the life of the spirit more strongly and not long for mortal life. Look how much we must give, we must give away everything for the life of the spirit. And you say yourself that there is no reward.”

And at this, Jesus told them, “If you could have the same faith as your assurance that a giant tree will grow from a birch seed, if you could believe similarly that within you is the single embryo of the spirit, from which true life will develop, you would not need to ask me to multiply your faith within you. Faith does not consist of believing in something amazing, faith consists of understanding your own condition and understanding where you can turn for salvation. If you understand your own condition, then you won’t wait for any rewards. You will believe in what has already been entrusted to you.

“When the master returns from the field with his worker, then of course he does not immediately sit his worker down to the table. But he commands him to gather the livestock and prepare him some dinner and only then does he say to the worker, ‘Sit down, drink and eat.’ The master does not think to thank the worker for doing what he was supposed to do. And the worker, if he understands that he is a worker, is not offended, but works, believing that he will receive what he deserves.

“Likewise, you should fulfill the will of the father and work from the premise that we are worthless workers, that we are only doing what we are obligated to do, and do not expect rewards, being satisfied that you receive what you deserve. You do not need to worry about this in order to have faith that there will be a reward and that there will be life; it cannot be otherwise. You must worry that you do not destroy this life and you must not forget that it was given to us so that we bear its fruits and fulfill the father’s will.

“Therefore always be prepared, like servants waiting for the master, to immediately, as soon as he arrives, open the gate for him. The servants do not know when he is to return, whether it will be early or late, so they should always be prepared. And if they greet the master, then they have fulfilled his will, and that is good for them. The same is true in life. Always, in every minute of the present you must live the life of the spirit, not thinking about the past or the future and not saying to yourself, ‘Only then or there will I do this or that.’

“If the master knew that a thief was coming, then he would not sleep. Likewise, you must never sleep, because the life of the son of man is without time, he lives only in the present and does not know when the beginning and the end of his life are.

“Our life is the same as the life of a slave whom the master has left in the position of seniority at his home. It is good for that slave if he always does the will of the master. But if he says, ‘The master will not be coming soon,’ and forgets to do the master’s business, then the master will return by surprise and will throw him out.

“And so, do not despair, but always live by the spirit in the present. Time does not exist for the life of the spirit. Look after yourself so that you do not become bitter and do not grow dim with drunkenness, gluttony, or worries, so that you do not miss the time of salvation. The time of salvation, like a net, is cast over all people; it is always present. And therefore, above all else, live the life of the son of man.

“The kingdom of heaven is similar to this: Ten virgins with lamps went to meet the groom. Five were smart and five were stupid. The stupid ones took their lamps but did not take any oil. But the smart ones took their lamps and some oil in reserve. While they waited for the groom, they began to doze off.

“When the groom approached, the stupid ones saw that they had only a little oil remaining. And they went to look for a place to buy oil, but while they were out, the groom arrived. And the smart virgins, who had oil, entered with him and the doors closed behind them.

“The virgins had needed to go and meet the groom with their lamps, only for this purpose. But they forgot that it was not just important that the lamps burn but that they burned at the right time. And in order for them to burn at the right time, they needed to be burning constantly. Life exists only to elevate the son of man, and the son of man is always present. He is outside of time, and therefore, when serving him, you must live outside of time, strictly in the present. Therefore, make your efforts in the present, in order to enter into the life of the spirit. If you do not make the effort, you will not enter. You will say, ‘We said this and that,’ but there will be no good deeds and there will be an incomplete life. Because the son of man, like the one spirit, appears for each person according to how he served him.

“All people can be divided according to how they serve the son of man. By their actions they can be divided into two groups, just as the sheep and goats are in the flocks. Some will remain living and others will perish. Those who serve the son of man are the ones that will receive what has belonged to them from the beginning of the world, the life that they preserved. They preserved this life by serving the son of man. They nourished the hungry, dressed the naked, took in the traveler, visited the imprisoned. They lived by the son of man, they sensed that he was one in all people and therefore they loved him. But those who did not live by the son of man did not serve him, did not understand that he was one in all people and therefore they did not unite with him, so they lost the life he gave them and perished.”