Peter shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. But Simon of Cana asks him about this and says, ‘What are you thinking, then? If the Lord has foretold it thus before us, then it will certainly come to pass thus, and we now know how to take this matter and how to conduct ourselves in it!? Why should we then make doubtful movements with our heads and shrug our shoulders?’
Peter says, ‘Dear brother, my head-shaking and my shoulder-shrugging mean something quite different from what you seem to understand of me through them.’
Simon says, ‘What, then, dear brother?’
Peter says, ‘Look, the Lord’s word and deed are holy. How happy all people on earth could be if they already had this teaching and lived according to it!? But if so, that, this and the other (?)—O, when will this teaching become the holy common possession of all people on earth!? And if, besides, the Lord will allow this and that to happen (?), what will this teaching look like in a short time!? Truly, it will thus happen that this most precious food for the soul becomes food for dogs and swine in the end!? And see, brother, that is what makes me shake my head and shrug my shoulders!’
I say, ‘Peter, leave that alone! You will do what is laid upon you to do; you need not concern yourself further with the effect. What will come, and in all the depth of wisdom and love must come in one way or another, is known only to the Father, and also to the one to whom the Father wishes to reveal how, when and why all this is permitted to happen.
‘But if you enter a great workshop of an artist and see many different kinds of tools, do you know how the artist uses them to produce a work? You will doubtless also shake your head and shrug your shoulders there; but through this you will not become clear about how the artist uses his many and various tools and how some work of skill is brought about through them!? But if the artist wishes to explain it to you, then you too will know it as the artist has explained it to you.
‘But I tell you this: God is above all artists, and the greatest art is to form out of oneself an independent, freest life in countless individual beings! This certainly also requires endlessly diverse spiritual tools; and you, like Mary and all people, are likewise different works and tools for this one purpose, which the Father in heaven alone understands how to use most wisely.
‘Therefore concern yourself with nothing beyond that to which you are called; then, as a proper tool in the Father’s hand, you will render the proper services.
‘Or is the winnowing shovel above the one who uses it as a tool for cleaning!? If it is serviceable, wheat, barley and grain are cleaned with it; but if it is not serviceable, it is made so or thrown into the fire. But if the Father has made you a winnowing shovel, then remain what you are, and do not wish to be a pot as well. Do you understand this!?’
Peter says, ‘Lord, that is somewhat obscure. It seems to me as though I understand it; but when I think further and seek the ground, then I do not understand this mysteriously sounding image. How can one be work and tool at the same time, and how am I a winnowing shovel?’
I say, ‘Is not every tool in itself already a completed work of its kind before the artist uses it, so that the artist may use it to produce another work or to carry out some task in a fitting way!?
‘But I said that you are a winnowing shovel in the heavenly Father’s hand because you and the other disciples are now being instructed by Me to raise people to the true knowledge of God.
‘The people of the world are like wheat, barley and grain; but so that this living grain—that is, these worldly people—may be cleaned of their chaff and their filth, and then brought as wholly pure grain into the Father’s eternal barns, you are now being transformed into proper and living winnowing shovels through which the Father in heaven will clean His grain. Do you now understand this?’
Peter says, ‘Yes, Lord, now the matter is entirely clear to us. Only we would now like to know as well, since You always speak of the Father in heaven as of a second person, while ever since Sychar we have always quite secretly considered You to be the Father too, who then You really are? Are You perhaps also a winnowing shovel or some other tool in the Father’s hand?’
I say, ‘First I am the One who I am; but then I am also the One who does not appear to be what I am! I sow and reap as the Father sows and reaps, and whoever serves Me as a winnowing shovel serves the Father equally; for where the Father is, there is also the Son, and where the Son is, there is also the Father. Yet the Father is above the Son, and the Son goes forth out of the Father; but no one knows the Father except the Son alone and the one to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him. Do you understand that?’
Peter says, ‘Lord, no angel understands that, let alone us! But if You wished, You could surely show us the Father sometime!?’
I say, ‘You are not yet mature enough for that now; but the time will soon come when you will be mature, and then you will all also see the Father.’
At these words Mary and her helpers come and announce to us that the morning meal is ready. At once the tables are laid and the meal is brought in.