Good News, Indeed!

I am not exactly sure how I ended up reading Lamentations.  There are a lot of other more readable choices in the Scripture.  I have not read Lamentations nearly as many times as I have Genesis or the gospels.  Nonetheless, I found myself immersed in its five chapters the other day.   These words written by Jeremiah speak of Israel getting what it deserved for its unfaithfulness to God.  The picture the Old Testament prophet paints is not a pretty picture.  But, it is also a word in which Jeremiah speaks of the people getting from God the grace and restoration they do not deserve.

Of all the verses the most intriguing were the last two which read, "Restore us to Yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored, renew our days as of old--unless you have utterly rejected us, and are angry with us beyond measure."  What a frightening note with which to end.  For God to be angry with us beyond measure is surely a terrifying thing to consider.  Jeremiah seems to be of the opinion that if such is true, there is no hope and only every reason to despair. 

The one thing we keep finding as we read these Old Testament prophets is a strong word about God's displeasure with unfaithfulness.  Yet, even in the midst of all those frightening words about judgment, there comes those other words about the steadfast enduring love of God.  No matter how far the people remove themselves from His will for them, there is always mercy to be offered and love to be given.  It is not a word which gives us permission to sin, but a word which assures us that no matter how great we come to understand our sin, "...He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness."  (I John 1:9)  Good news, indeed!

A Misused Book

The Bible is a book often misused.  I have heard of a preacher or two who have used it as a magical sermon starter on Sunday morning as they opened it up on the pulpit and put their finger on the verse for the day.  And, of course, most anyone can go to the Scripture with an idea and find a verse which gives their idea divine authority.  Someone could go to the verse where David smite Goliath and decide that God wants us to kill our enemies instead of loving them. 

 

And while it may be a trade secret kept from the laity, it is tempting for any preacher to use the Bible only as something for preaching purposes instead of something for personal spiritual growth.  It would seem that any preacher would be a real student of the Scripture, but it is far too easy to simply turn to it for preaching purposes.  Such is as much a misuse of the Word as deciding that killing an enemy is a good thing with God.  It is always wise to be asking ourselves why we are reading the Word.  We may be doing a good thing for the wrong reasons.

 

There are many good reasons for reading the Word.  To be immersed in the Word of God speaks of a heart hungry for God and His ways.  To be immersed in the Word speaks of a believer who desires for life to be lived according to the will of the Father who brought us into being.  To be immersed in the Word speaks of a soul longing to sit in the presence of the Holy One and to hear whatever it is that might be heard from His Holy Spirit.  When we use our reading of the Word to point others toward our reading accomplishments instead of the One whose name is on every page, we have missed the point of opening the book and we might want to close and start again praying for a new and right spirit. 

The Most Unexpected Surprise

There are many unexpected surprises when the pages of God's Word is opened.  Some might think it is going to be a dry read, one so heavy with big theological words that it will be impossible to wade its waters too long.  Others might figure it to be some ancient writing that belongs only in the history shelves at the library.  And, of course, there are those who expect its characters and heroes to be such saintly people that they surely are never able to step out of church and into the real world. 

 

Surprises do indeed abound.  The very first book is full of the stories of dysfunctional families.  There is another which is a whopper of a fish story.  Of course, there are more than just a few war stories, a number of good love stories, and a big long section of prayers that often ring the notes of poetry.  The further along we go, the more surprised we become as we run into the story of an adolescent couple parenting the One sent from God.  There is nothing like it in all of history.  The story of the One sent from God has stories of miracles, healings, and even restorations from the dead.  And, if someone really likes surprising unexpected endings, there is a hill called Calvary and a tomb that was emptied after being filled with the dead.

 

It is no wonder that the book has always been such a best seller.  It is no wonder that so many turn to its pages for inspiration and encouragement.  It is no wonder that new readers pick it up every day and that old readers like some of us can never get enough of what we find on its pages.  What we find on its pages is not just entertaining reading, but the very Word of God.  What we find is a Word that is not just read, but one that is heard for within its pages we hear the Word of God speaking to us.  This must truly be the most unexpected surprise of them all!

Sporadic

When I left home for Young Harris College, my Dad gave me a copy of J.B. Phillips translation of the New Testament entitled, "The New Testament in Modern English."   What Bible reading I had done prior to that gift was done while wading through the King James Version that accompanied me through my adolescent years.  It was much later in my adult years that I learned that this Biblical translation was started from a bomb shelter in London during World War II.  What I spoke of as "The Phillips Translation" was my first exposure to the modern renderings of the ancient story.

As a young believer Bible reading was at best sporadic.  While I was not always satisfied with sporadic, it became a pattern that was hard to shake.  One of the things that helped me move beyond sporadic was a suggestion that at the end of each reading, I write down the month and date in the margin.  This enabled me to know when I returned whether I had been away a day or a week or even longer.  As much as anything it was a tool which helped me to be honest with myself.  With the date of my last reading staring me in the face, it was hard to fabricate what was obviously not true.

There is nothing wrong with such helps.  There are many things we can do to encourage ourselves to be more regular in our reading of the Word.  What works for one may not work for another, but whatever it takes to develop the habit, or pattern, of daily systematic reading is more than worth the effort.  Habits can be bad, or good.   On the positive side once the habit of daily reading is established firmly in our life, sporadic will not likely be the thing that describes our treatment of the Word.   

The Living Word

When it is affirmed that the Scripture is inspired by God, it does not mean that the writers sat down with their pen and the Holy Spirit took their hand to write the words.  They were not literary zombies, but real flesh and blood men who took to the task of writing through their own set of experiences, their own intellect and reasoning, and whatever biases they carried with them.  They did not lose control of themselves, nor did some invisible ghostly spirit take over their bodies.  Instead they were men who wrote under the influence of the Holy Spirit. 

 

The Holy Spirit did indeed use these human writers to pen a Word that transcends every other word ever written by men and women like us.  Each writer was chosen because of the unique contribution his writings would make to the whole collection of writings about the work of God in the world.  Writers who lived in different times zones, different places, and whose view of God was their own wrote as the Spirit gave them inspiration and then the Divine Author worked to bring these words together in a way that came to be known as Holy Scripture. 

 

When I was a young man in seminary learning things about the Word that were supposed to give me a clearer understanding of what was authentic and what was an add on, I figured I knew more than I really knew.  Now, after so many decades of living with this Word, I am amazed at how much more there is to learn and how little I really know.  One of the things I have come to understand about this Word we call Scripture is that it was brought into being by the One who has created everything including me and as a small part of that creation I am in no position to figure out what the Inspired Spirit had in His mind and heart when He was doing this work of creating the Living Word. 

The Greater Problem

Reading the Scripture is not a problem for most of us.  Our plan for daily reading may go awry more than we would care to admit, but most of us still get around to reading a fair portion of it on a regular basis.  A greater problem than not reading it regularly is the problem of not reading it rightly.  Of course, just calling the words and notching the number of chapters on the spine of the book is an example of not reading it rightly.  Another, more serious example of not reading it rightly has to do with the attitude with which we read. 

The Word says about itself, or more appropriately, the Holy Spirit says about the Word, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."  (II Timothy 3:16-17)  Some folks do not like the word, "all."  Some folks want to pick and choose what all includes which is usually a way of reading with a buffet line attitude.  What looks good is a part of what all entails and what does not fit into our view of the work is dismissed as irrelevant, archaic, or nonsense. 

Now granted there are some things which might cause us to scratch our head more than one time as we wonder why they were included, but it seems the real question to ponder has not to do with what is included or omitted, but why.  As the second question guides us, we are not as likely to  see ourselves as the one who has the final vote on what the Word is saying.  And, after all, if we are not reading to hear what the Word of God is saying, then we are surely reading for all the wrong reasons. 

 

 

Soul Blessings

Green must be God's favorite color.  But, it is not just green that He likes so much, but all the different shades of green.  To look around is to see John Deere Green on my tractor as it waits under the shelter.  Then, there is early Spring green foliage on the pecan trees which holds forth promises of things to come.  A much lighter almost see through it green hangs on the grape vine as the not yet grapes are ripening.   One of my favorites is the rich lush knee deep green which grows in the hay field that will provide foliage for the cows in winter. 

Green is such an inviting, comforting, and nurturing color.  It is a divine color which calls to open ourselves to the abundant life giving blessings of God.  When we think of green and God in the same thought, we remember that most memorable verse, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures..."  (Psalm 23)  There may be no mention of color in the words of this Psalm, but it comes forth with such force that we can smell its freshness, sit midst it in awe, and know from deep within us that it is one of God's givers of life.

It is to such a place that He always seeks to take us.  It may be that the place we find ourselves is a place where the life giving green is hard to find, but we can always know as we catch glimpses of it that God is caring for us with a hand that provides lush rich abundant blessings.  While glimpses of green may prompt many thoughts from within us, it is surely a reminder to us to be grateful for the way God blesses our souls.


 

A Scampering Tortoise

I found a scampering tortoise in the yard today.  Certainly, the adjective scamper does not seem to belong to the tortoise and its kin long known for being slow.  Most of us learned our first lesson about this shelled creature from the story about the race between the tortoise and the hare which teaches the lesson that slow can beat speed if it is steady and persistent.  So, when I reached down to pick up the tortoise to get him out of the way of the lawn mower, I was surprise at the speed with which he scampered away.  Finally, I snagged him and got him re-located in a safer place, but there was surely nothing slow about his escape plan!

 

All of God's creatures can speak a word to us and this scampering tortoise reminded me not to judge others by their appearances or my pre-conceived notions about them.  Everyone is different because God makes everyone different.  When one of us is made, the mold is cast aside.  But, it is not just the physical appearance that is different, but also the essence of who we are that makes us such a unique soul.  To look at others through any other lens is to look with blurred vision and little appreciation for the way each person is so wonderfully made.

 

So often we want others to fit into our own pre-conceived notions.  We do not always have the time or the desire to explore the things within another person which are surprising and unexpected.  Having others fit the mold we have made for them gives us a sense of being more in charge of our life and the lives of others than is ours to possess.   What God has always intended is for us to see that each one around us is His creation, the object of His love, and one unique to the Kingdom's work in the world.  The mold we make for others is much smaller and always puts us out of step with the plan of God for our life and the lives of others.

Out of Sync

There are times when our life seems out of sync.  It is a strange way to describe the inner life, but it is a way of speaking of our life being lived in such a way that it seems that each step forward somehow seems to miss the place it would normally fill.  To be out of sync in our inner life is like not quite being in the space which is allotted to us.  It is not easy to come to this awareness since our first inclination is to look to all the external stuff which may be messing up the way we are able to live.

 

But, there is something deep within in us which longs for the presence of God.  It is not enough to be strong, and independent, and confident.  There are those moments when such things cannot provide for us the sense of inner well being that we need to live.  When life seems out of sync it would seem that the inner self would be the first place we would look, but instead, it turns out to be the last and only explored after all the external causes have been exhausted. 

 

The Word of God is constantly inviting us, encouraging us, calling us to draw aside in stillness with God.  The urging of the Word affirms that what the soul within us needs is an intimacy with the Creator.  When we experience this sense of being out of sync with life, the cause may indeed may be more a spiritual problem than one which can be figured out by a self-help program or a counselor.  What is true for most of us is that we were not created to live as we live.  Our insistence with our way instead of God's way means we are out of step with the present moment intentions of the Creator and the lost well being can only be restored by the solitude and the silence. 

Risking Everything

One of the most well know parables of Jesus is surely the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25:14-30.  Three slaves are given differing amounts from their master.  Two take what is given and manage it to show increase while the third being fearful does nothing.  The first two are praised when the master returns while the third is not only chastised, but also is stripped of what was given.  At its heart it is another parable about the Kingdom of heaven.  And like other parables, there seem to be no end to the ways it has been handled and mishandled from the pulpit and the teaching podium.

 

As we read the parable and chew on it awhile, it is not a hard reach for us to see that each one of us has been given a life to live by the Creator God who has brought us all into being.  And as individual creatures within the creation, we find our circumstances different from others around us.  What serves as a common denominator is that we have all been given our life and we must all choose how that life will be lived.  The two affirmed as good in the parable are those who hold nothing back, but risk everything.  There is no element of controlling fear in their lives as we see in the life of the third slave. 

 

How do we live our lives?  Those who seek life in the Kingdom are those who are willing to risk everything God has given for His purposes.  Those who seek life in the Kingdom do not allow the possibility of failure to be an immobilizing deterrent.  The first slave in the parable was given five talents and the second was given two.  They risked it all.  We have been given one life.  Are we willing to risk it all for the purposes of God, or are we like the one talent slave whose fear caused him to waste the opportunity given to him by his master?

Peregrinatio

When the ancient Celtic saints took pilgrimages, they did not travel to Jerusalem or some religious shrine, but to the place to which they were taken by the Holy Spirit.  They spoke of their destination as the place of their resurrection, a place to which they went for the love of Jesus.  Generally, they traveled in a coracle, a small round vessel made of animal skins stretched across a wooden frame and sealed with pitch.  The coracle had no oar.  The pilgrims trusted the wind and current to take them to the place where God called them to go, to settle, to live, and to die.  They traveled not to a destination, but to whatever.

Peregrinatio is the Latin word for the Celtic pilgrimage.  The peregrinatio is a powerful image of what it means to live abandoned to God.  As a boy I learned to sing the song, "I'll go where You want me to go..." but as I got older I wonder sometimes if I did not go too much of the time where I wanted to go.  When the Celtic monk put his foot into the coracle and trusted God to take him where He was calling him to go, we see a new definition of what it means to be completely abandoned to the will of God. 

Of course, none of us are going to build a coracle and set out, but the image of the Celtic pilgrimage speaks to us about what it might mean if we could trust the wind of the Spirit to take us wherever He wanted to take us.  The trite phrase, "Let go and let God" would take on a whole different meaning for us if we embraced the image set forth in this ancient spiritual practice.  Understanding where God wants us to go is not always defined by geography, but much more often it is defined by a life style which does not look back, or ahead.  Perhaps, to travel the road with Jesus without a destination in view speaks to the meaning of faith more than any journey to a holy place. 

The New Holy

There was a time when it seemed that the church was a sacred enclave in a secular world.  To step into the sanctuary was to step into holy ground and to step out of it was to step into what some writers would refer to as the profane.   There are even those prayers of consecration which set the church buildings and the ground upon which they are built apart declaring them to be holy.  Perhaps, wearing the clerical robes and the ordination of the Bishop gave me no logical choice to view the world in any other way. 

 

However, something happened on the way to retirement.  No longer was I so immersed in all the sacred rituals and symbols of the holy.  All of my life what I called the sacred space was one step away, but upon retirement what was once sacred space was far away and, in a sense, no longer so accessible.  What I discovered early on was the way the world was not a profane place, but a holy place.  My image of the church once limited by walls and ritual became as high as the sky and as broad as the horizon between east and west, north and south.  The world of creation became an unbounded cathedral where every square foot was holy. 

 

More and more I am coming to understand that there is no place where I can put my feet that is not holy ground for every time my foot touches ground it touches something which is a part of the creation of the Father who brought it into being and declared it good.  And in that cathedral as wide as the earth and maybe even the universe, there is no lack of visible things which bring to mind how the Creator is present and at work in the midst of His people.  It has truly been an amazing journey for this sojourner who once saw and experienced the holy so differently. 

Holy Cud Chewing

In these retirement years on the farm, a small herd of cows has kept company with us.  Having never  been around a cow in all my life, there has been much to learn.  One of the things I have learned about cows is that they have one stomach but four separate compartments which causes many folks to say a cow has four stomachs.  Practically speaking, this is true.  Like massive lawn mowers they eat the grass in a hurry.  It goes into one of those stomachs and after a time the cows take a knee on the ground, bring up the undigested grass, and chew their cud. 

 

Ruminate is what the process of cud chewing is called.  In a monastery the monks might prefer the word "meditate," but I have become partial to "ruminate."  Recently as I was reading "The Book of Creation"  by J. Philip Newell, I ran into some cud chewing words, "We are created out of the essence of God, not out of nothing...To say that we are made in the image of the divine is to say that what is deepest in us is of God...This perspective in the Celtic tradition leads to a reverencing of human nature.  No one is to be regarded as an object, for at heart each woman and man is a holy mystery."  Like a cow chewing her cud, I have been chewing on these words for some days now.

 

Practically speaking what has happened is that I have found myself looking at people differently.  I see some unknown person crossing my path for a moment and I find myself saying within myself, "That one has the essence of God."  It has been a perception shattering journey through the day as I hear myself quietly saying these words about someone I do not know except as a stranger whose path has crossed my own.  Over and over throughout the days these words, "That one has the essence of God" is heard in my heart.  The next thing which might happen is that I might start saying it to the man who looks at me in the mirror each morning.   

A Place of Repentance

For nearly fifty years now I have been using a daily devotional guide which contains the writings of Oswald Chambers.  The readings which comprise  "My Utmost for His Highest" were put in book form by his wife after his death in Egypt.  As I have become acquainted with the heart and spirit of this man of God, I am sure he never would have thought that he would be remembered and read by so many a hundred years later.  Always this one book has been kept in the place where I draw aside for moments of quietness with God.

 

Oswald Chambers has a way of saying unexpected things that cannot be laid down once the book has been put  back in its place.  A few days ago one of his readings spoke, "Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world.  God plants His saints in the most useless places.  We say--God intends me to be here because I am useful.  Jesus never estimated His life along the line of greatest use.  God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is."  There are times when the words of Chambers are like the Words of God convicting me and showing me who I have been and who I am. 

 

I think about Hudson Taylor in China, or Mother Teresa in India.  I think about Pastor Smith who spends a life long ministry in the midst of a congreation of a few instead of the masses in a mega church.  I think of people in churches across the span of my years who often wondered about their purpose.  I think of the many who our culture would never declare to be a success; yet, who seemed only to be motivated by serving Jesus in the place where they were put.  I think of the many I have known who often seem discontented and looking ahead to another more useful place.  I regret that I have not always seen every place as the place where God thought I could be useful.  When I read Chambers and see myself as I really am, I am even more thankful for divine mercy.   

A Slippery Fish

While we have heard a thousand preachers explain all those strange Biblical customs of days gone into history books, they still seem like strange unknowable creatures.  Some of the practices and customs described are so out of our experience orbit that we have to re-orient ourselves each time we find ourselves reading about them.  The parable of ten bridesmaid is a teaching of Jesus which is filled with difficult to understand customs although each part of it was surely common knowledge to all those who heard Jesus speak it into existence. 

 

What we do get is that the parable is about the Kingdom of heaven.  And what we do get is that the world is filled with people who are foolish and wise, people who are prepared and unprepared, and people who live complacently and people who live expectantly.  And, of course, the parable ends with a warning that the Kingdom about which Jesus preached will come fully upon us at the time of God's choosing.  "Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."  (Matthew 25:13)  If this Kingdom parable has a bottom line, this final word is it.

 

Figuring out the Kingdom of heaven and wrapping it up in a neat theological package may seem like a thing which can be done, but it is more like a slippery fish.  Just when we think we have it securely in our hands, it has slipped away.  After all, how can we figure out something in its entirety which has already come, is present in our midst, and yet, still to come.  It seems that this parable is simply a reminder to us that God has not finished His stuff yet and the best thing we can do in response to this benevolent and unpredictable God is to live always ready for whatever it is that is ahead. 

The Better Choice

I can understand why the ancients might have gone out on the night of the full moon and danced under its spell.  Of course, it is not just the ancients who are guilty of such a practice as I know of a contemporary or two who have dared this nocturnal dance as well.   Sometimes it is impossible to see what God has put out there to bless and just be a spectator.  The other evening while spending some time on a lake, I found myself out trying to catch a fish as the sun was starting to be serious about dropping below the horizon.   It was a spectacular scene and an incredible blessing for this old soul at the end of the day.

 

It was also one of those moments when being a spectator seemed like the wrong response.  While I did not do some evening spiritual jig out there on the shore of the lake, I did put down my fishing for a spell.  As I watched all the colors rippling across the water and cascading across the sky, I was glad to be outside and not watching through a window.  I felt caught up in the beauty of the blessing and had the feeling that somehow I was becoming a part of all that was unfolding around me in that special moment between the light and the darkness. 

 

God's blessings are abundant all around us.  Some of them do indeed seem to fill a canvas as big as the sky with more colors than any human artist ever thought to paint.  Some of those blessings come as laughter from the distant echoes across the water.  And others come through the people and the circumstances which are as common and ordinary as the sun running its course day after day; yet, which also every now and again reveal something truly extraordinary and spectacular about the way God is making Himself and His blessings known to us in the midst of all we do.  Maybe praying quietly at the end of the day is not really enough.  Maybe dancing would be better!

An Upside Down World

By the time Jesus got through with the third parable that day, those chief priests, elders, and religious leaders must have had the feeling that they had been hit in the head one time too many.  They made the mistake of questioning Jesus' authority as He was teaching in the Temple.  (Matthew 21:23)  Before the dust cleared they were surely reeling.  The parable of the two sons, the parable of the wicked tenants, and the parable of the wedding feast came in such quick succession, there was no time for breathing, or thinking.  They knew at the end of the confrontation that things had worked out nothing like they had anticipated. 

 

Those parables still expose the folks who think they have it all figured out and who bask in the light of being in charge of what other people think.  Self righteousness makes folks think they are better than others and Jesus made it clear that the Kingdom did not really belong to such people, but to those who society declared to be of little value.  While reading the three parables a story of Flannery O'Connor came to mind.  "Revelation" is one of her short stories which ends with the self righteous Mrs. Turpin caught up in a vision which reveals her, her husband, and all those like her who figured they were better than others at the tail end of the procession marching toward glory. 

 

The tail end was not where the chief priests and elders were accustomed to walking.  They were the front of the line, head of the table, kind of people.  The Kingdom of heaven turns things upside down.  It did when Jesus was defining it through His ministry and it continues to be the same way in our day.  If our world has not been turned upside down since we set out to follow Jesus, it may well be that we only talked about following Jesus, but never really got around to it. 

A Leaf in the Wind

Since shortly after early Spring bud break the green leaf now brown on its edges had hung tenaciously to the branch on which the Creator had placed it.  Drawing its life from the roots down deep in the soil and nourished by the sun rising and falling high above, it had joined with others making a deep lush foliage which soared high in the sky.  But there came a day when tenacious was replaced by tenuous and soon it fell prey to a wind which sent it falling to the ground and then across the field until it lay far from the place of beginning.  Where it ended was in a place of resurrection where it would soon be a part again of all that gave life. 

Unlike some things of the creation we hold tenaciously not to the branch which is given life from the Root, but to other things which promise purpose and fulfillment only to give us a life filled with emptiness and regret.  As surely as a single leaf has a purpose which carries it from beginning to death and resurrection, so do even the least of us.   What is required of us if we would end up void of the emptiness is to affirm the place where we have been put, the purpose for which we were put there, and a willingness to go where the Wind moves us. 

It is not an easy journey.  In the beginning we had ideas that it would be easier than it has proven itself to be.  Obedience to Christ is what put us on this road of faith and it is the only thing which takes us to its end and beyond.  Obedience puts our first foot on the road and it is what carries us to the place of our own resurrection. 

A Blind Hog

A friend often refers to the way we find truths by saying that even a blind hog finds an acorn once in awhile.  Sometimes in my reading and searching the Word, I end up feeling like the blind hog.  Maybe others have had the experience of reading the same Word, considering the same stories, and meditating on the same images over years and years only to suddenly find something never seen.  Maybe I am not the only one who has had this happen, but if so, I claim it!

 

While reading "Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire"  written by Christine Valters Paintner, I came across a sentence or two which brought forth the hog image.  She was writing about air or the wind and said, "Wind is the only one of the four elements that is invisible....Air is also the medium of sound waves and thus language and communication.  It is connected to voice, our ability to speak of what is most precious to us and to communicate with others."   Thinking of the wind as the Spirit has been a frequently considered image, but never have I been caused to think of it as did this author.

 

The Wind of God is the means by which His voice is heard in our world.  It is the means by which the Holy Word is heard in the innermost part of our being.  It is the language which communicates with the soul in each one of us.  There are numerous references in Scripture to the Word of the Lord being spoken, but somehow I have never made the connection that the Voice of God  was communicated through this Holy Wind which is constantly stirring everything around us and within us.  Just call me an old blind hog who has found another acorn. 

Freely to All

Agricultural practices have changed a lot in my life time.  One of my first jobs for which I received a daily wage was handing tobacco at the barn after the mules had gone to field and returned dragging a sled filled with that money crop.  I was somewhere around ten or twelve years old at the time and for my before sunrise to after sundown labors, I brought home three dollars.  But, it is not just the wages which have changed.  Today's furrows are not plowed straight by a mule and the man behind it, but by a GPS device inside a huge air conditioned tractor. 

Another thing different is the way the farm powered by many, many hired hands is now done so by fewer men and rolling machines which have taken their place.  The parable of the vineyard lifts up a practice which has been largely replaced, but was still present until not so long ago.  So many of the small towns centered in rural areas had places, maybe a corner store or gas station, where men who wanted to work gathered in the morning to wait for a farmer who might come seeking more hired hands.  The parable of the vineyard found in Matthew 20:1-16 is told in such a setting.

 

But, the point Jesus is making has nothing to do with agricultural practices, but the way God gives grace and mercy.  If we come to Jesus thinking that we are going to be more blessed because God sees us as being more deserving, we have come to the wrong conclusion about how God is at work in the world.  The fact that I have been a follower of Jesus since I was a young man does not put me in a place of receiving more mercy and grace from God than the old timer getting ready to get into his deathbed.  God gives not according to what we have done in the span of our years.  Neither does He give according to what we might think we deserve.  He gives freely to all as He pleases. 

Shared Knowledge

We like the idea of grace.  We like even more the reality that grace is freely given.  Like a stream of water that comes from deep in the earth and flows a long journey to the sea, so do we regard grace as being inexhaustible and ever present.  For most of us the person of Jesus epitomizes grace.  But, then we come to a parable such as the one found in the last part of the 23rd chapter of Matthew.  It is the one known as the parable of the unforgiving servant.  As Jesus tells the parable, He talks about a slave who owes more than he could possibly pay in a life time who is forgiven his debt  by his master. 

 

And so, how does the slave express understanding of the grace given to him?  He finds a fellow slave who owes him a much lesser amount and threatens to have him cast into prison if the debt is not paid.  When the master hears about it, he says, "Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?"  (Matthew 19:33)  He then rescinds his offer of grace and cast the ungrateful slave to be tortured.  The parable ends with Jesus leaving the parable and saying, "So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from the heart.  (Matthew 18:35)

This harsh word brings to mind some of the words of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray as well as some other words about reconciliation from the Sermon on the Mount.  (Matthew 6:12, 5:21-26)  For those who are intent on following Jesus forgiveness is not an option, but an imperative.  We either forgive or we choose to start walking a different way than the way Jesus is walking.  How do we know if there is someone we need to forgive?  We surely know their names.  They are the ones we cannot look in the eyes.  They are the ones we avoid.  They are the ones whose name causes us to start thinking about the words they need to hear from us.  Is there someone we need to forgive?  God knows and so do we. 

Walking in Blessings

It was near dark.  The sharp lightning and crashing thunder which had filled the afternoon skies had moved to other places.  All that was left of the summer storm was a rain falling gently upon the earth.  While it was still enough rain falling to get wet, I chose to walk to evening chores instead of driving the truck from place to place.  As we move away from childhood, it seems that rain is something to be avoided.  We run when caught in it and we shelter ourselves from it with round umbrellas.  Yesterday as dark fell with the rain, I chose to walk in it. 

 

Of course, the first sensations were the physical ones.  It felt surprisingly cold to skin warmed by a hot summer day.  From wet hair water literally dripped across the front of my face.  And, soon both shirt and pants became more than just spotted with the falling water.  With feet becoming more wet with each step, I moved from one chore to another.  Shutting up the chickens came first. Securing the garden from deer was next. The evening walk finally brought me to the pasture where a count was made and water troughs were checked. 

 

Somewhere along the way, the physical sensation of walking in the rain passed and it came to me that I was walking in the blessing of the Creator God who sent the rain to renew the earth and the souls of men and women like me who walked on it.  Suddenly, it seemed like a moment of baptism.  Immersed in the rain I began to understand that I was not only then immersed in the blessing of God, but always.  In every moment whether rain or sun, day or night, good times and bad times, I never walked without being immersed in the blessing of God. 

A Day of Blessing

Today God filled the sky above with rain
   and sent it falling to the earth.
The falling rain blessed the dry dirt,
   the wet dirt blessed the parched grass,
    the greening grass blessed the grazing cows,
     the filled cows blessed the watching farmer,
      the grateful farmer blessed the giving Father,
Who formed and sent the blessing of falling rain. 

Sinner or Insignificant

While most of us know the parable of the lost sheep opens up a trilogy of parables in Luke 15, it also shows up in the 18th chapter of Matthew.  It is the one about the ninety-nine being safe and the shepherd going out to find the one.   When we read either one of the two, it is almost possible to hear in the air George Beverly Shea singing, "There were ninety and nine that safely lay. In the shelter of the fold. But one was out on the hills away. Far off from the gates of gold. Away on the mountains, wild and bare. Away from the tender shepherd's care..."

Of course, a close look reveals that the two are significantly different.  The parable Luke tells us is one that is about the finding of one sinner while the one Matthew is about children.  In Matthew 18:14 we hear Jesus ending the parable with the words, "So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones be lost."  These ending words tie the parable into the beginning of the 18th chapter where Jesus responds to the question, "Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?"  pointing his listeners to a child among them.

There are many surprises in the Kingdom of Heaven.  No one would have ever picked a child as the answer to the question.  Those present that day would have pointed to some scribe, or priest, or, perhaps, even political leader with wealth, power, and status.  They likely would have responded in the manner we would respond.  It is not always easy for us to realize that this Kingdom about which Jesus spoke is for everyone.  It is for the least of all of us.  It is for those do not count according to the definition of our culture.  While Jesus died on the cross for all of us, it is also true that He died for each single one of us.  It matters not if we are sinner or insignificant.

The Nice Guy Image

Some folks really want Jesus to be a nice guy.  They want Him to be a real people pleaser and they will go to great lengths to portray Him as they want others to see Him.  Those who would re-make Jesus usually do so by either declaring He did not really say some of the harsh sounding things attributed to Him, or by giving His harder teachings a new softer, more palatable interpretation.  The parable of the net found in Matthew 13:47 is one of those which requires some work if Jesus is going to have their intended nice guy image. 

In the parable of the net Jesus moves from the dirt to the water and likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a net cast into the water which catches every kind of fish.  Some are deemed good and some bad.  At the end of the parable as the bad fish are thrown away, we hear Jesus saying, "So it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."  (Matthew 13:49-50)  This parable ends on the same note as does the earlier parable of the wheat and the weeds.  (Matthew 13:41-43) 

There is no good new here for those who want nothing to do with pursuing God.  There is no good news here for those who live as if they are at the center of the universe.  There is no good news here for those who live today and tomorrow and the next day under the influence of evil instead of under the rule of God.  All of us might wish things would be different.  All of us might like there to be a note of universal deliverance sounded here, but if we add it, we end up putting ourselves on the side where Jesus is not standing. 

Twin Parables

Twin parables is what the two might be called.  One follows the other in the 13th chapter of Matthew.  One is about a hidden treasure found in a field and the other about a pearl so valuable that the merchant sold everything in his inventory to buy the one.  But the common denominator to both is, of course, the opening words in which we hear Jesus saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like..."  and the closing phrase about "selling all that he has to buy."  (Matthew 13:44-46)

What is obvious is that Jesus is declaring that nothing is of any greater value than the Kingdom of Heaven.  Nothing measures up to being a part of what God is doing in the world.  When it is all said and done nothing in our life is more important than the Kingdom of Heaven.  Of course, this is a word that goes against the grain of everything our culture values.  Most of us spend most of our energy on things like accumulating more, elevating ourselves to a higher status in the eyes of others, and securing security for ourselves and our family.  Pursuing the Kingdom is more like a peripheral issue.

Could we be so wrong?  Could we be kin to the young man who showed up in the presence of Jesus as a seeker only to be told, "...go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."  (Matthew 19:21)  Could it be that there are other things in our life which are more important to us than being one who is actively involved in pushing the rule of God another step forward in the place where He has put us?  Could it be that these twin parables are so convicting that we dismiss them into the world of being too simple to be relevant? Could it possibly be?

Soon

Sooner than soon
   shall I see Him,
   not as one seeing another,
but, as one seeing the
   unseeable, invisible
Mystery.

Perhaps, before the pen
   finishes its work.
   or one day just
after the next tomorrow
   in His time, not mine.
Soon.