Lecture XI

In ancient times the all-important factor in associations among human beings was blood-relationship. But men must now grow to the stage where the ties of real significance are of a spiritual, moral and ethical character. From this it follows that a community must mean something for an individual who has been a contributory factor in the founding of it. In the sense of Anthroposophy, we can say: the karma of the individual must be merged with the karma of communities. This will be known to you from what has been said in recent years. The idea of karma is not repudiated when I give something to one who is needy, nor when the karma. of an individual is shouldered for him by the community. The community can help to bear the fate of the individual. In other words, the following may happen in the moral sphere. A single member of a community commits a wrong. This will quite certainly be inscribed in his personal karma and be worked out in the great setting of world-existence. But someone else may come forward and say: ‘I will help you to work out this karma!’—The karma must be fulfilled, but the other person can help; whole communities can help the one who has committed a wrong. The karma of an individual may be so interwoven with the community that the community, regarding him as a member, deliberately shoulders§ the burden of his destiny, feeling for him and resolving that his lot shall be ameliorated. The attitude of the community may be: You, as an individual, have done wrong, but we will enter the lists for you; we take upon ourselves whatever will bring about the adjustment of your karma!—If ‘church’ is substituted for ‘community’, this means that the church assumes the obligation to take upon itself the sins of the individual, to share the burden of his karma. It is not a matter of what is to-day called ‘forgiveness of sins’, but of a real bond, an acceptance of the burden of sins. And the essential point is that the community consciously accepts this burden.