I - LEAVE to THE DEAD the care of burying THEIR DEAD II - I have not COME TO BRING PEACE, BUT dissension

I )- Leave to the dead

SOURCE: The Gospel according to Spiritism, chap. XXIII - items: 7 to 11; Luke, IX: 59-60; and XII: 49-53; Matthew, X:34-36

7 )- And He said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God (Luke, 9: 59 & 60). 8 )- What can the words leave to the dead the care of burying their dead mean? The previous considerations show primarily that in the circumstances in which they were proffered, they could not have contained a censure for the one who considered it to be a devotional duty of children to bury their dead. Therefore we have a more profound meaning here, which can only be perceived with a more complete knowledge of spiritual life. Life in the spiritual world is in effect the real life, the normal life of a spirit. Terrestrial existence, being transitory and passing, is a kind of death when compared to the splendors and activity of the spiritual life. (). This is what the man could not understand for himself. Jesus taught him by saying: Do not worry about the body, but think first of the Spirit; go and teach about Gods Kingdom; go and tell men that their homeland is not to be found upon the Earth but in Heaven, because the true life exists only there.

II )- I have not come to bring peace

9 )- Think not that I am come to send peace on Earth: I am come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a mans foes shall be they of his own household (Matthew, 10: 34-36). 10 )- I am come to send fire on the Earth; and what will I, it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three (). Luke, 12: 49-53). 11) - Could it really be that Jesus, the personification of gentleness and goodness, Who never ceases to preach the need to love our neighbors, could have said: I come not to bring peace, but the sword; to separate the son from the father, the husband from his wife; I am come to set fire to the Earth and am in a hurry for this to happen? Are not these words in flagrant contradiction to His teaching? Is it not blasphemy to attribute to Him the language of a bloody and devastating conqueror? No, there is no blasphemy nor contradiction in these words, because it was He Who pronounced them and they are testimony to His great wisdom. (). CONSIDERATIONS: Usually I try to extend the study to considerations and considerations, but in this study, I think that Allan Kardec made that for me, and so well better than I, and I think I can not increase much, however, as we are living one century after Allan Kardec, let us together consider if times changed much, from Jesus to Kardec or from Kardec to us. There are many spiritual considerations for us to meditate, the Spiritists no longer receive so many persecutions, the Spiritists are already more respected and even consulted, but I think that the sword indoctrinary of Jesus is still used or interpreted nowadays in several ways, there are amongst men many divisions, much monopolization, much fanaticism, and much dogmatism. And, as, many say to be Jesus that saves us miraculously and many say to be the doctrine that Jesus brought the one that saves us, just there it is enough for us to see the divisions there are, and thereabout we go, it is as the truths are revealed and the veils lifted up that the light reaches us and with the light the understanding. The desire of goodness, the desire that others accept us and hear us, without the prejudices, that usually exist, without aggression that there was in the past, many expects from a spiritist or a religious person, a saint, a sanctified, a miracle maker, a person to whom God separated, to use His power, miraculously, but nature does not give jumps suddenly. The evolution is slow, our progress is more or less slow, then we are all debtors to God, indebted, seeking in the ways the Master drew for us, the happiness, the will of God, and the goal that He determined for us. There is nobody superior to anybody - because there is always somebody above us, or in knowledge or in virtues, and above all men there are Angels or Pure Spirits and there is above them, God, that is the supreme
1

Studied at Joana dArc, on 02/ 02/ 1999.

intelligence primary cause of all of the effects, (The Spirits Book, I chap. Q. 1) infinite, be in kindness, mercy, tolerance, understanding, love or pardon, God is above all without any contesting, therefore let us be how humble possible, because we are still very much far from the aim designated by God. And, let us leave the sword of hate then, the sword of slander, the sword of revenge, the sword of selfishness, the sword of pride, the sword of fanaticism, or other swords, if there are any, aside, and let us embrace our Master and His Gospel and try to grow with Him in love, with the realistic goal of loving God above all things, because In Him we live and have our being and it is Him that sustains us with His Love. (Acts, 17: 28). Then Jesus, when bringing us love in His doctrinaire essence, knowing that man would not receive him willingly, he advised that with the doctrine He would bring division and disagreement, because men love more darkness than light, (John, 3: 19, 20) and thereof become separated amongst those who already see spiritually and those who are blind and stubborn. May then God permit His Light to shine and His Will be done among men, as formerly, today and forever.