Before saying anything of our own, let us establish the proper context:
“And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” (Matthew 19:29-30.)
...Harsh, provocative, challenging, even confusing words! For a believer who accepts faith as knowledge, an irresistible temptation arises to take Christ’s words literally and calculatingly, and to start selling off one’s earthly assets: houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, lands, converting them into a stock in the afterlife. Just like another shrewd business deal, and just as amoral, but, in a certain sense, infinitely worse than a regular Caesarian business deal: Thus trading in God’s property makes it utterly immoral, an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, the dreaded guarantee of an eternal damnation!
One cannot buy God’s Grace by literally forcing oneself into poverty, pain, and deprivation, for the reason that a mercantile interest may hide behind such actions. The Gates of Heaven are closed to the merchants of the afterlife, shaking their alleged salvation IOU’s in St. Peter’s face… So, what is the true meaning of the first and the last?
I have always thought, even as a little child, that the last had nothing to do with being poor, as opposed to being rich, socially underprivileged, as opposed to being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth, or being physically or mentally sick, as opposed to being healthy, etc. To me, it was always a matter of attitude and demeanor. One did not have to mortify one’s flesh, like a flagellant, which to me constituted an inordinate preoccupation with the flesh, quite the opposite of its intent, turning a virtue into a vice. For me, the right approach meant to be indifferent to material matters, to channel your energies toward things worthwhile. I guess, in my previous life in Russia I could afford all kinds of eccentricities, because once you are known to be at the top, you can never be mistaken for a beggar, even if you start panhandling in the street. People like myself could indeed well afford to be genuinely humble; it’s what I call “humility of the silver spoon.” Alas, should one’s circumstances suddenly change, pragmatically demanding arrogance, rather than humility, as a better means of adaptation, it’s probably unrealistic to expect that one’s inbuilt attitude to life would change accordingly, on the strength of those external circumstances alone…
The point of my preceding tirade was to emphasize that I see the virtue of “the last” not in one’s deliberate withdrawal from the world, nor in a loud renunciation of every perk and privilege granted to him by life (my willingness to renounce them all had proved that I was indeed capable of such renunciation), but in being unpresumptuous, “unposturing,” yet caring so little about these things that, by the same token as I would never seek them, nor would I seek to deliberately relinquish the advantages of my status and material possessions, for the sole ulterior motive of becoming "the last."
Ending this entry on a note of sheer psychology, and to be quite honest with myself and with my reader, I’m not too sure, however, if at all, that were I to have been born without that precious silver spoon in my mouth, I would have developed into the naturally humble person which I genuinely am. After all, paraphrasing Karl Marx just a bit, the original Dasein, and not just some ‘primeval’ Bewußtsein, is most certainly responsible for quite a few permanent fixtures in every person’s psyche.
“And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.” (Matthew 19:29-30.)
...Harsh, provocative, challenging, even confusing words! For a believer who accepts faith as knowledge, an irresistible temptation arises to take Christ’s words literally and calculatingly, and to start selling off one’s earthly assets: houses, brethren, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, lands, converting them into a stock in the afterlife. Just like another shrewd business deal, and just as amoral, but, in a certain sense, infinitely worse than a regular Caesarian business deal: Thus trading in God’s property makes it utterly immoral, an unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit, the dreaded guarantee of an eternal damnation!
One cannot buy God’s Grace by literally forcing oneself into poverty, pain, and deprivation, for the reason that a mercantile interest may hide behind such actions. The Gates of Heaven are closed to the merchants of the afterlife, shaking their alleged salvation IOU’s in St. Peter’s face… So, what is the true meaning of the first and the last?
I have always thought, even as a little child, that the last had nothing to do with being poor, as opposed to being rich, socially underprivileged, as opposed to being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth, or being physically or mentally sick, as opposed to being healthy, etc. To me, it was always a matter of attitude and demeanor. One did not have to mortify one’s flesh, like a flagellant, which to me constituted an inordinate preoccupation with the flesh, quite the opposite of its intent, turning a virtue into a vice. For me, the right approach meant to be indifferent to material matters, to channel your energies toward things worthwhile. I guess, in my previous life in Russia I could afford all kinds of eccentricities, because once you are known to be at the top, you can never be mistaken for a beggar, even if you start panhandling in the street. People like myself could indeed well afford to be genuinely humble; it’s what I call “humility of the silver spoon.” Alas, should one’s circumstances suddenly change, pragmatically demanding arrogance, rather than humility, as a better means of adaptation, it’s probably unrealistic to expect that one’s inbuilt attitude to life would change accordingly, on the strength of those external circumstances alone…
The point of my preceding tirade was to emphasize that I see the virtue of “the last” not in one’s deliberate withdrawal from the world, nor in a loud renunciation of every perk and privilege granted to him by life (my willingness to renounce them all had proved that I was indeed capable of such renunciation), but in being unpresumptuous, “unposturing,” yet caring so little about these things that, by the same token as I would never seek them, nor would I seek to deliberately relinquish the advantages of my status and material possessions, for the sole ulterior motive of becoming "the last."
Ending this entry on a note of sheer psychology, and to be quite honest with myself and with my reader, I’m not too sure, however, if at all, that were I to have been born without that precious silver spoon in my mouth, I would have developed into the naturally humble person which I genuinely am. After all, paraphrasing Karl Marx just a bit, the original Dasein, and not just some ‘primeval’ Bewußtsein, is most certainly responsible for quite a few permanent fixtures in every person’s psyche.
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