Fields of Perfection [part four] ...

Some journey’s have unintended consequences, and some unexpected benefits.  Imagine yourself planning a first-time trip to London England for your family.  None of you have ever traveled oversees, but you go about all the normal things we would expect to do.  We arrange a passport for everyone.  We make airline reservations, and hotel accommodations.  We arrange for local transport, though expect to take taxi’s and the tube for the most part.  These are the things we expect to have to do, in order to take a journey to London.  But then something unexpected happens, an Ambassador from France arrives at your doorstep the eve before your trip.  They knock on your door and tell you that historians in France have been working on tracing the ancestors of King Louis and believe you may be the last living direct descendant.  They want you to come to France (courtesy of the French government), for an all-expenses-paid first-class trip to explore your heritage.

Surprised would hardly be the word for it.  You agree to go.  You are taken on a supersonic plane that arrives in 2 hours, much less than you expected, and you ride first-class all the way.  You are taken to the Palace of Versailles outside of Paris where Louis spent much of his life.  But not to tour it.  To stay in it.  You are to sleep in a bed made of down feathers that measures about 15 feet across.  Every room in this huge castle now belongs to you.  Beyond this, the Hope Diamond which once belonged to your ancestor is now laid out upon your neck.  The historical wealth of France is transferred to you.  This does not happen because you planned for it.  It did not happen because you deserved it.  It happens because of something outside of your control entirely, it happens because of your ancestry, and happens because of something inside of you that you were entirely unaware might be there.   You did not know you were an heir to a throne, but you come to discover it by the hard work of somebody else.

Most of us do not dream of becoming an heir to a long expired French throne.  It did not work out that well for King Louis after all.  The unexpected consequence of power is not something uplifting to human nature, it is something that tends to tear what is important in us down.  But it turns out, you, and each member of your family, are in fact heirs to a different throne, and direct descendants of the King who still sits on it.  And the journey of discovery, or reconciliation with that throne, is what that ambassador knocking at your door, wants you to begin.  This journey, like the imaginary one we described above, will happen not because you plan for it.  There is nothing you can do to get ready for it.  You are only asked if you will go, or not.  What happens then is in the hands of the King who desperately wishes to meet you in person; and show you what He has in store for you.  He wants so much to put a crown upon your head.  Not one made of silly hope diamonds that twinkle only when light hits it, but one made of stars which themselves shine brighter than our sun from within. 

This journey does not happen because you deserve it.  You cannot earn it.  It is the gift of the King, to you, His long-lost child.  And your prince-ship (or princess) was something buried in you, that your mortal mind can scarcely imagine, let alone comprehend.  How do I know?  Because the perspective of the farmer is always greater than the perspective of the seed.  Jesus Himself reminded us of this.  Matthew continues a series of journey-related parables told by Christ in chapter 13 of his gospel.  As discussed so far these journeys are not quick, or instant.  They are told in the growth process of a Farmer and His seeds.  But progression, or rather transformation, is what occurs in each of them.  This one picks up in verse 31 with Jesus saying … “Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: [verse 32] Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”

A short story as stories go.  But the point is revealing.  The farmer once again is Jesus Christ, as it has been in all the parables that precede it.  The field is the world.  The seed is us, that is, anyone who would choose to accept being the seed of the Farmer.  The farmer does the planting, and in this case, the seed hardly recognizes what it will become.  From the perspective of the seed, they are the tiniest of all their peers, the least of seeds in fact.  This seed looks at other seeds to determine its own value, but has no idea what it would become.  You can imagine other herb seeds laughing at the tiny little grain of mustard seed; other seeds imagine themselves bigger because they begin the journey bigger already.  They think themselves ahead on this journey because of how big they are today.  But not so.  Seeds are ALL tiny, especially in the hand of the farmer.  But after the transformation, the tiny grain of mustard seed becomes a great tree.  It gets so large other species like birds, can actually make a home in its branches.  Hard to do that in a basil herb, or perhaps oregano, or garlic.

The point of this parable is that the seed does not really know who it is.  The seed has no idea what it is intended to become.  Only the farmer knows that.  And ONLY the farmer can see to it, that destination is what occurs, guiding the transformation from seed to tree – faithfully watering, fertilizing, providing sunlight, etc..  Our farmer does the work.  The journey is not ours because we deserve it.  And as these parables reveal, not even because we can imagine it.  Our imagination is stunted by our past, and the diversion of our focus away from our farmer.  We start looking at who we are today, and see only the least of all seeds (in or out of the church).  Looking at self does not make the journey happen.  Looking to the light of the farmer does.  But the great news is that, it does not matter if you can grasp who you really are.  It does not change a thing.  You are heir to a throne whether you believe it or not.  The journey will reveal it.  All you need do is begin.

Jesus decides to make another analogy to bring home the point in a way perhaps his female audience will also understand better.  He continues in verse 33 saying … “Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”  The dough has no idea what leaven will do to it.  The dough had no plans to go anywhere or be anything greater than it already was.  But introduce the transformative power of the Kingdom of Heaven into the dough, and rise it will do.  The dough will never understand that process, neither will we.  It was not the work of the dough to make itself rise, it was the introduction of the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven that made that happen.  Only Jesus understands the work He is doing, and what results it will have.  We do not.  But the rising is guaranteed. 

Transformative love, that is love, not content to leave us in our sin, with our pain, and the death we embrace because of it.  That love of God, instead removes our pain, our sin, and even our death.  It grants life eternal.  Not just eternal “existence”, but eternal “life”.  Real life.  And it begins the moment it is introduced.  The end of the journey does not arrive in an instant, but the benefits of the journey begin to be seen immediately and throughout, ever growing towards the fields of perfection He has in mind.  Perfection is not just intended for one or two, it will in fact be seen throughout all of heaven, in each and every one of us, its residents.  So if all will see it.  Then all need not wait to see it develop within them in the here-and-now.  It can begin today.  These stories were designed to illustrate these things to us.  But have they?

Matthew makes a commentary on these parables of Jesus, now four of them on the same theme, as he states in verse 34 saying … “All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: [verse 35] That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.”  The Truth is here revealed.  The beauty of the gospel, kept secret from the foundation of the world is here revealed.  This is the battle plan Jesus had when Satan will still Lucifer.  These are the plans Jesus had to keep hidden from Lucifer, asking Lucifer to trust Him rather than grow envy and break trust, resulting the in invention of sin and evil and death and war.

That our Savior and Lord would provide a way of our escape from the addiction of sin, was the plans for our transformation, created before we were.  Man was created in spite of knowing what Love would cost.  Man was created with free will, our God desperately hoping we would not break trust with Him, as Lucifer had done – even though we chose it as well.  But with our fall, was already created a way for us to reconcile, and learn to trust in our God once again.  To re-establish trust on our part in our God to truly save us – to do what He has promised to do.  Each of us face the same challenge and tests Lucifer did, and Adam did, and Jesus did.  We are all asked whether we will trust God, in spite of what we think or feel or believe.  As we learn to have that kind of trust, we learn to make a life where sin will never enter in to it again, not in the eons of time we will face in eternal life.  Our trust in God will be so great, sin will have no vehicle for entry ever again.

These were the secrets revealed to us in a series of parables.  And Satan must have wept at the beauty of how great the love of God is, for us, and once for himself before he abandoned it completely.  The seed does not have to understand everything, not even who it is.  The seed has only to look to the farmer, and watch what the farmer has in store for it, letting the transformation truly begin.

 

The Will Not to See ...

Imagine standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris France with your significant other, or best friend.  You stand there gazing up the structure and marveling at how high it was built.  You stand in awe of the construction techniques and historical significance of this building, remembering how its iconic form is nearly “the image” associated with Paris, and often with the entire country of France.  For you, the “truth” of what is in front of you, is life altering.  Your significant other or best friend on the other hand, cannot take his/her eyes off the hotdogs in a cart from a nearby street vendor there in front of it.  They have not looked once at the Eiffel Tower, seeming to refuse to while the hotdogs remain in view.  They ask you for money to purchase one, and seem totally disinterested in the magnificence of this structure.  For your friend, they might as well be standing on the street in front of their own home back where you live.  The place does nothing to move them, the events do nothing to move them; the “truth” of what is in front of them … does nothing to move the person, who has decided (for whatever the motives) simply … Not to see.

Most of us, would think this situation is impossible.  How could someone travel thousands of miles to see Paris France, saving up money, sacrificing, and then when they get there, to ignore one the key attractions, only for the sake of common food you could get anywhere.  Who would do that?  Would you?  Are you the one I am talking about?  What if the stakes were higher, what if the “truth” was Jesus Christ, and it was you who simply failed to see?  Imagine the embarrassment of coming back home to say you missed the Eiffel Tower to eat a hot dog.  Or worse, imagine the embarrassment of recalling a gospel for transcription, and admitting that you missed the “truth” of the Messiah, for something worth even less than a common hotdog.  This is where we find Peter (and us), we find him in the presence of Jesus Christ, the long awaited Messiah.  It was for Jesus that Peter had sacrificed so much to see and be with.  More than we would for a vacation to France, Peter had given up his job, his security, and his reputation with the community.  Peter had given up much to be here with Jesus.  But it was Peter, who missed the “truth” that was worth everything, because he would not see, being distracted by something worth less that street food.

The incident is recorded in the Gospel of John Mark in chapter nine, and picks up in verse 30 saying … “And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. [verse 31]  For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. [verse 32] But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.”  Jesus was moving to Peter’s home once again as later verses will reveal.  But as He travels through Galilee, He moves quietly and avoids the crowds, because He wishes to reveal to His disciples “the most important truth” about the role of the Messiah.  In telling them about His death, there would be no anti-Roman kingdom setup by the Messiah.   He was tearing down the very foundation of their own ideas.  An earthly kingdom, free from Roman tyranny, was the only thing ALL of Israel had dreamed about and attached to the role of Messiah for as long as they could remember.

What Jesus was plainly saying was that He was to be killed, not crowned.  But after His death, on the third day, He would rise from death.  A risen Messiah was worth more to them, than one that had never tasted death, and simply got old like any other king.  But a risen Savior could do more for all of mankind (including the Romans), than they had ever dreamed.  Instead of ending Roman tyranny at the point of the sword (like many Christians today would like to “defend” the gospel), Roman tyranny like all evil, would fall to the power of love it could simply not resist.  Unfailing love conquers evil in ALL of us, not just Jew, Gentile, or Roman, but ALL of us.  Infinite Love that would die for us, to pay our penalty, also contains the power to transform us, so that our motives, and actions come into line with God the Father.  That kind of fundamental change is how evil is vanquished everywhere, by all races, governments, and peoples.

This was the most important truth His disciples could ever learn.  And Jesus did not mask it, or hide it, or speak about it in parables.  When you and I read what He said, we understand it fully.  But then, we have the vision of hindsight.  When the disciples heard these words from the mouth of Jesus Himself, they “did not understand it” and it only frightened them.  They were standing in front of the spiritual Eiffel Tower, and refused to see, refused to even look.  And in the supremacy of embarrassments, they were instead focused on something worth less than a spiritual hotdog.  It takes a great degree of humility for Peter to continue to reveal the ugly truth of where his own mind was with the others that day.  But he continues to tell John Mark what happens next continuing in verse 33 saying … “And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?” 

This was the home of Peter they had traveled to, note Peter simply calls it “being in the house”.  But then comes the ever probing question of Jesus Christ (who already knows the answer).  Jesus wishes to know what was more important to them than the truth He was trying to reveal.  Peter knows the answer and is ashamed like all of them to reveal it.  The events continue in verse 34 saying … “But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.”  After a long quiet reflection, someone (likely Peter) answered that they were arguing among themselves, who would be the greatest person (after Jesus) in His new anti-Roman earthly kingdom.  In short, they were arguing about power over others, and who would have the most of it.  In spiritual terms, power over others, is the domain of Satan.  God does not save us, by forcing us to be saved, even though He has the power to do that.  Instead He chooses to love us freely, and then offers us His love freely, and then offers us an end to the pain we bring ourselves.  We must choose to accept His love, and over time, learn to love Him on our own.  Love is a choice that can never be forced, or it is not love.

At least a hotdog can temporarily relieve hunger, the quest for power over others has no benefits, not even temporary ones.  What they were discussing, even arguing for among themselves is something that DOES NOT EXIST, in the kingdom of God.  How glory is measured in heaven, is not by how many people serve you, but by how many people you serve.  It is the exact opposite of how Satan thinks, and how he teaches us to value power in this world.  Jesus does not chastise His embarrassed crew for what they were doing.  He does not scold them for ignoring the most important truth He could possibly teach them.  I wonder how many Christian ministers would do the same?  Instead He decides, that if it is a lesson about heaven they need, that lesson will be given. 

And so a new lesson begins in verse 35 as Jesus begins to teach saying … “And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.”  So the key to being “the greatest” in the kingdom of God is defined and measured by how many people you can possibly serve.  Evidence would say, that Jesus Christ alone fits this title already.  For our God has given His blood, and His life, to every single person who has ever drawn breath in our world from the beginning of time until the end of how we measure it.  If in our limited human capacity, we want to be great, we must become the greatest servant ever known.  Instead of being first in line, we give that position to someone else in need, and instead take ourselves to the back of the line.  Now logic dictates that if we do this, we will “never” reach the front because there will always be someone else to give our position to.  “Exactly”.  The entire point of service, is that there is no end to it, there is “never” an “enough” when service is the goal.

And you do not need the corruption and evil of this world to provide you with “need” to be served.  When we get to heaven, and in a million years from now, I imagine I will still love my wife, or my daughter, if that makes it easier for you to relate to.  In loving her, I may want to make her happy in some new way.  I may learn that she would like to take up piano playing.  So without anyone asking or prodding, or begging, I may decide to build her a piano.  This action may take only minutes, or it may take decades as I search for exotic materials from around the universe to use in the construction.  When it is complete, I give it to her.  This makes me happy, and possibly her.  But right after she receives it, she hears of another person who would like a piano, since she has this new one, she immediately gives it to them.  Now, am I angry?  My daughter has effective re-gifted a hand-made piano I put years into constructing.  But rather than be upset, I am elated.  In fact, as the piano I created gets passed from one person to another around heaven, my only thought is to make more of them.  At some point, there will be enough piano’s for everyone.  Is my “service” over at the point?  Do I just sit back and do nothing more?  No.  I begin to look for the next way to make someone happy.

Service does not have an end, because it is driven by love that does not have an end.  Our ways to serve in heaven will be constrained only by our imagination and creativity.  This attitude of giving to others without limit, without constraint, and without respect of persons (I love everyone equally much, though perhaps differently) is something this world is the complete opposite of.  The disciples were attempting to argue about their own position, in order to be served.  They reasoned in typical Jewish tradition, that only men of a certain age, were eligible for the respect and power they wanted.  This eliminated slaves, women, and most of all children from even the slightest consideration.  As we know, Peter had a daughter.  Perhaps it was her, or perhaps it was some other child who was just there, sheepishly listening to Jesus in the background.  Perhaps that child was enacting a version of hide and seek, knowing Jesus could see them, but also pretending He could not.  In any case, game over.

John Mark continues in verse 36 as Jesus pulls our sheepish child right into the center of the room saying … “And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, [verse 37] Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.”  You will note, as the child nears the center of the room, Jesus does nothing, until He has hugged the child, and then likely placed her or him upon His own lap.  Forget men of a certain age, Jesus is showing honor, and deep affection, for a child, perhaps even a girl child, as if she is the most important person in the Kingdom of God.  He further states and loves by example, and that if we “receive” which is to honor, value, and deeply love a little child or any child in His name.  We are in so doing, receiving the Father God who sent Jesus to this world to show us how to love.

What an awesome example of how to love!  We do not love children, particularly the little cute ones, the same we do adults.  We are WAY more willing to forgive the little children from being dirty, we actually tend to expect it.  We find the normal routine things they do (like baby speaking his first word, or junior riding his first bicycle, etc.) as worthy of praise and adoration.  We are typically very affectionate with kids holding them in our arms, making physical contact, and showing them by our actions, how we feel about them.  We do not think of them in sexual terms, nor financial terms.  We are not looking at kids for what they can do for us, but rather only to enjoy with them, the things that happen in our lives, or are brought there, like playing.  It is only kids, that can get us to stop what we are doing, and just play.  This is how God thinks about us.

Oh sure, you may look like an adult.  You may think you are one.  But as God looks at you, you are nothing more than a really cute little kid.  You don’t really know much.  You can’t really do much.  You have a diaper of sin, you keep filling up, that seems to always need to be changed to get you cleaned up.  And you are the only living creation in all the universe, capable of getting God the Father to take a weekly time out on Sabbath’s just to hang out and “play” with you.  This is the image of “how to love” Jesus chose when trying to teach His disciples about what it means to love in the kingdom of God.  He hugged a child, held them close, then proceeded to tell these men of a certain age, that to honor this little girl was literally to receive the Father God of the universe.  Nothing about our traditions is captured in that image, but everything about how God loves sure is.

If the disciples had listened on the road home, to what Jesus was telling them.  If they had heard His truth instead of arguing about power no one should want, they would have seen the Messiah revealed as our Savior, and the Savior of the Romans as well.  If instead of a quest for power and respect, we could see ourselves for the little children we are; perhaps we could begin to love each other like we do cute little kids, with far less expectations, far more forgiveness, and far more imagination.  But we who read these words of Peter, seem bent to follow the same mistakes he humbly admits to us.  We ignore the role of Jesus as our Savior and instead take that mantle upon ourselves.  We seek power.  We seek it even within the church, turning roles like pastor, and elder, into roles that demand respect as we alone are men of a certain age.  Instead of being servant of all, we expect a certain level of service offered up to us.  We do not really see ourselves as children, thus, we cannot see others that way either.  And in the end, we deny the presence of God the Father, in favor of the image in the mirror, which seems to demand all our time, money, and worship.

But these passages were not written to call us out for what we are, and how we have failed.  They were written to offer us hope of what we could be, and how we could love.  As we submit our hearts to Jesus, our reeducation in how to love, might find us thinking different thoughts, having a different perspective about who we are, and how God sees us.  We might actually start loving people differently, and isn’t that what the Gospel is all about …