© 2000 Earl Jabay
© 2000 The Brotherhood of Man Library
| Fatherly and Brotherly Love | Volume 7 - No. 4 — Index | Jesus explained that he had purposely ignored the great men of Earth |
An understanding of the term “God-playing” as used by Rev’d Earl Jabay in his book “The Kingdom of Self” may be helpful to all of us in our efforts to fulfil the hopes of Jesus as announced in the Urantia Papers by their authors.
“Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men—the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you.” (UB 191:5.3)
If we are to effectively express the life lived by Jesus in our own lives, we certainly need to be free of even the remnants of the God-playing syndrome, which, one way or another afflicts all of us.
Jabay introduces us to the fact that “God-playing,” in its primitive form, usually commences on the very first day of our lives. The new born babe’s hunger soon strikes, occasioning the best it can do for an ear-splitting howl for help. The response arrives in the form of some strange object that is pushed into its mouth, provoking it to dribble and suck on this unexpected source of hunger-pang-relieving sustenance.
Then when the hunger pangs are satisfied, the baby lies back to reflect upon this remarkable power it has quite accidentally discovered within itself—the power to make the world jump to satisfy its wishes.
Soon though there appears a decidedly uncomfortable feeling from its nether regions. As this discomfort increases, it decides to again try out the only weapon it knows it possesses—an ear-splitting howl. Persistence is soon rewarded—and the baby is on its way to becoming another unchallenged ruler of all of its known universe. Surely it must be a god!
And so commences the war for dominance over others that is scheduled to continue throughout the remainder of its life.
This struggle to be number one is, of course, an inherited characteristic in babies that is essential for their early survival. The problem is that we continue to wage the struggle long after justification for it has ceased.
Rev’d Jabay illustrates his point with some examples of God-playing from real life. Two such examples refer to himself. His first recollection of “what he wanted to be when he grew up” was that he conceived of himself as leader of a military band. The fact that he had absolutely no knowledge of music nor any desire to gain such knowledge made no difference. He wanted to be the leader. Let others do the work.
In his next remembered foray into “grown-upness,” he conceived of himself as a minister of religion, a goal that he eventually attained. Later he realized that this was connected with his prior band-leading yearnings. A minister is also a leader.
It then dawned upon him that his choices for a vocation had been based entirely upon his own egotism rather than either his musical or pastoral abilities.
Some of the symptoms of more adult God-playing are listed by Jabay in “I am” statements—“I am power;” “I am right;” “I am above time;” “I am a messiah;” “I am the law;” “I am perfect.”
An example of a dastardly syndrome existent in all of us is our assertive desire to be right, and the failing that we have great difficulty in ever admitting that we were wrong.
Two friends, Jabay says, got into an argument about the pronunciation of the word “prerogative.” One of them had pronounced it as “perogative” and had been corrected by the other. This of course irritated the corrected one immensely and argument waxed fierce—until the correcting one rushed off to the adjacent shop to buy a cheap dictionary. On return, he waved it triumphantly while declaring his victory.
But his now ex-friend was fighting to preserve one of the deepest convictions we can have about ourselves—the “I am right” syndrome. He stormed off while rejecting the authority of cheap dictionaries and declaring he only accepted the word of his Websters’ unabridged version—which was conveniently unavailable at the time.
God-playing has been the source of many of the major tragedies of history, brought about by men like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and many others. But if we could summate the actual damage to humanity due to the God-playing of ordinary individuals like you and me, that sum would far exceed the damage caused by the spectacular examples of recorded history.
The requirement that we live our lives as Jesus lived his is fraught with danger, particularly if we see ourselves in leadership roles rather than that of humbly serving “as we pass by.” Prominent in the article that follows is an extraordinary statement made by Jesus at the time when he was first gathering together those who later became his apostles: “Jesus explained that he had purposely ignored the ‘great men of earth.’” (UB 141:7.8)
Apparently the task carried out by Jesus in his revelation, and now to be continued by this new revelation in the Urantia Papers, could be carried out effectively only by the “ordinary” men and women of Jesus’ day. More and more, it is beginning to appear also that this new revelation can only be made effective through the actual lives lived by the modern equivalent of the same kind of “ordinary” folk.
Most of the “great men of earth” who belonged to the society into which Jesus was born lacked the qualities required from those destined to become his followers. And though Jesus despised no man, nevertheless he drew his apostles and other dedicated followers from humble fisher folk and even outcasts of society such as tax-gatherers and prostitutes. God-players were not welcome on his team.
Jesus was fond of making comments such as, “He who would be greatest among you, let him first be the servant of all.” This type of qualification was not at all a part of the make-up of the “great men of earth” of the Jewish populace of that day. They had a quite different outlook upon life, one we would now term as an acute egocentricity. Jesus described them in this way:
“Furthermore, these self-centered rulers delight in doing their good works so that they will be seen by men. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their official robes. They crave the chief places at the feasts and demand the chief seats in the synagogues. They covet laudatory salutations in the market places and desire to be called rabbi by all men. And even while they seek all this honor from men, they secretly lay hold of widows’ houses and take profit from the services of the sacred temple. For a pretense these hypocrites make long prayers in public and give alms to attract the notice of their fellows.” (UB 175:1.9)
Jesus lived his life as a revelation of the nature of his heavenly Father—a God of love, mercy, and compassion. Jesus lived for people like you and me. And Jesus died for people like you and me.
At his death Jesus had only a handful of distressed and distraught followers. He left no written record of his life. All that remained on record was the merest sketchy outline of what he said and did. Yet millions upon millions of people have tried to emulate that life in the two thousand years that have elapsed since his death.
We now have a full and unsullied record of that life and death. What are we going to do to make it known to the men and women of the third millennium? In the words of our old friend, Billy Shakespeare:
“That is the burning question.”
Is spirit of self-forgetfulness—desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. (UB 3:5.13)
| Fatherly and Brotherly Love | Volume 7 - No. 4 — Index | Jesus explained that he had purposely ignored the great men of Earth |