Who's the Greatest? (Part 2)

Last week I proposed our reluctance to see others with an uncompromised compassion is because we are all trying to answer a question much more important to us: "Who's the greatest?"  I neglected to point out we also believe we know the answer; it is either a) I am! or b) I need to be be!  Both to our detriment and the detriment of others, this is the real question and real answer we all pose in all our relationships--from those most intimate to us to those most remote to us.

As I have said hundreds of times on this site, God has made restored relationships--first with Him and then consequentially with each other--possible in Christ.  I question if we can fully comprehend what these restored relationships are if we don't see others with an uncompromised compassion.  As long as I see others from the perspective of how they might advance me or hinder me, I am really only interested in the question of who's the greatest, and answering it summarily with a resounding, "I am!"

Jesus who is the source of all wisdom, God incarnate, and therefore the only one who can guide us into and perfectly arbitrate restored relationships, He tells us the greatest is the least of all and the servant of all (Mark 9:35).  Let's read further in this passage from the Gospel account of Mark and learn what Jesus means by this.

And taking a child, Jesus made the child stand in their midst, and after embracing the child Jesus said to them, "Whoever receives a child such as this in My name, receives Me.  And whoever receives Me does not receive Me but the one who sent Me." [Mark 9: 36-37]

Because children were nothing much more than possessions equivalent to slaves in the first century, Jesus' admonition would have been astonishing to those listening--to say the least.  The greatest therefore in the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e., "in My name") is one who refuses to cling to social prejudices, but who treats every person, either those who can repay or those who cannot, with equal love, which means to promote the other's welfare over his/her own--even if it doesn't advantage the one doing the promoting.  In this way we are truly receiving God because He has loved us the same way.

The disciple, John, says to Jesus, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we forbid him, because he wasn't following us.  Jesus said, "Don't forbid him.  For no one who does a miracle in my name is one who will soon be able to speak evil of Me.  For whoever is not against us, is for us." [Mark 9: 38-40]

A person who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven will not promote or maintain divisions.  From the time we are children until we die, we humans love our cliques, clubs, and Parties.  We seem to find great power through our exclusionism. The most grievous example of this are the walls that we maintain between our own brothers and sisters in Christ (i.e., sectarianism).  But one piece of the great news of the Gospel is God has broken down all the dividing walls of humankind in Christ.  His kingdom is open to all without distinction who surrender themselves completely in faith to Jesus the Christ.

"For whoever gives to you  a cup of water to drink in (My) name because you are of Christ, truly I tell you, that one will absolutely not lose his/her reward." [Mark 9:41]

The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are those who maintain right relationships in even the simplest ways.  I see in this simple parable of Jesus a role reversal in order to communicate a universal principle.  Jesus did this with the parable of the Good Samaritan to communicate we are all neighbors and therefore we must treat all as we would like to be treated.  In a similar vein, we need to treat our brothers and sisters in God's kingdom as if the entire kingdom rides on even the slightest gesture of kindness; because--guess what?-- it does.  A mitigated love ceases to be love God is trying to create in us, but quickly reverts to self-interest.

"And whoever might cause one of these little ones who are believing in Me to stumble (sin), it is better for him/her if a mule-driven-mill-stone is placed around his/her throat instead, and has been cast into the sea." [Mark 9: 42]

The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is one who seeks first the benefits and spiritual prosperity of another person for the sake of God and that other person.  It is a sad truth that our neglect, exploitation, or inordinate burdening of another person leaves us owning some of the sin that person might fall into because of this.  The very foundation of the Kingdom of God is relationships, first between us and God, and then with each other.  As Jesus' image of a mill stone around a person's neck illustrates, God takes these relationships very seriously.  When we advantage ourselves at the expense of another person, it is as if we tear the very fabric of God's kingdom.

"If your hand might cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better to enter into life maimed, than to depart, having both hands, into Gehenna--into unquenchable fire.  And if your foot might cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better to enter into life lame, than, having two feet, to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better to enter into the Kingdom of God one-eyed, than, having two eyes, to be thrown into Gehenna, where their worm doesn't die and the fire isn't extinguished." [Mark 9:43-48]

The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven is the one who purifies him/herself.  If our leg is gangrenous, we have the doctor cut it off because we would rather live lame, than to die whole.  At its most basic level Jesus is telling us the one who is least of all and the servant of all loves him/herself by eliminating everything and anything from his or her life--whether good or bad--that might cause him or her to sin, which is to disobey God. The illustration Jesus employs here of a hand, foot, and eye speaks to the extreme by which we strive to purify ourselves--not a literal injunction.

I see also by Jesus' choice of body parts an intended completeness of purification.  It is all too easy to cherry-pick those parts of our life we think God wants us to purify, and then ignore all the rest.  We might then purify the part we have identified with the intensity basic to Jesus' parable (above), but still miss the comprehensiveness also intended with the parable.  What do you think?  I suggest the hand, foot, and eye are types for the purpose, motives, and thoughts of a person.  These three things capture the whole person; they are therefore interrelated, and so must all be subjected to Christ.  For, indeed, to purify ourselves is to completely surrender ourselves in faith to Christ.





 

Who's the Greatest? (Part 1)

What is your typical reaction to other people?  When you see a toddler for the first meeting, I suspect you are filled with some degree of affection for the little person; a desire to be the child's protector might even well up in you.  But when that same rascal goes on the rampage, pulling out your potted plants, running around helter skelter, or screaming in a temper tantrum, those initial warm impressions quickly vanish.  Perhaps more interestingly, you thereafter view the same child, regardless of his/her present disposition, with at best only a patient tolerance; any original sense of regard is long gone. Furthermore, you now tend to project your dissatisfaction on the kid's parents, so you question their parenting skills and even their character: "Certainly responsible parents who understand the importance of discipline to the health and welfare of future civilization would never raise such an unruly little beast."  You stuff the kid and its family into your burgeoning file of names of all those people you classify as second and third class citizens, and therefore people to be avoided, or at least not to be trusted.

There are many more examples of how we tend to make lasting judgments of others based on scant evidence--people such as the loner in your office or class room, the mother screaming at her child in the check-out line, the guy sitting at the green-light for more than 5 seconds before going, or many, many others I'm sure will easily come to mind with only a mere touch of the rolladeck cards we all keep at the ready in our brains.

Face it; our judgments and assessments of others--any others, whether family, friends, acquaintances, or people we only read about--grow increasingly harsher and unforgiving as their actions or inactions become increasingly inconvenient to us.  We invariably take our first glimpse of our fellow human beings with critical eyes.  Even if we make the attempt to perhaps understand the other person's behavior, we usually find ourselves making qualifications, and end up shaking our heads at them for their obvious stupidity, flagrant and incomprehensible immorality, or--if we are in a particularly generous mood--ineptness.  We rarely, if ever--and I mean all of us, myself included--consider others with an unqualified compassion.  Why is that?

The question should be most disturbing to all of us who profess to be followers of the Lord and King, Jesus the Christ--that is, all of us who claim to be Christians--because Jesus always looked at the throng with compassion.  And the throng always contained all types from the murderers to the oppressed, the swindlers to the haughty, and the poor to the rich.  Yet, even though  Jesus teaches us the student is not above his/her teacher, nor is the servant above his/her master, we all seem to excuse ourselves from having to greet our fellow human beings with the same compassion our professed Lord does. Perhaps, we think Jesus is a perfection unattainable by any of us, or the compassion He exhibits is only something he expects us to practice in heaven, or maybe we take a mean view of the word compassion.  Joseph Ratzinger, in his seminal work Jesus of Nazareth--From the Baptism in the Jordon to the Transfiguration. Image (2007): p. 197, in describing the Good Samaritan's response to the man left beaten and bereft on the side of the road, explains our valuation of the term compassion this way:

"And now the Samaritan enters the stage.  What will he do? He does not ask how far his obligations of solidarity extend.  Nor does he ask about the merits required for eternal life.  Something else happens: His heart is wrenched open.  The Gospel uses the word that in Hebrew had originally referred to the mother's womb and maternal care.  Seeing this man in such a state is a blow that strikes him 'viscerally,' touching the soul.  'He had compassion'--that is how we translate the text today, diminishing its original vitality."

Dr. Ratzinger is absolutely correct; and the same word is used to describe Jesus' reactions to the crowds.  Regardless, we rarely conjure up such a "visceral" compassion for others.  Instead, we downplay the whole idea, thinking compassion is nothing more then writing a check to the United Way. Why is that?

I propose the answer lies in the fact we are all busy trying to answer another question far more relevant to us: Who is the Greatest?

And they went into Capernaum, and when He was in the house Jesus asked them, "What were you considering on the road?"  But they [His disciples] were remaining silent; for they were arguing with each other on the road, "Who is the greatest?"  And after sitting, Jesus called the Twelve and says to them, "If anyone wants to be first, he/she will be last of all and servant of all." [Mark 9:33-35]

Jesus has graciously given us the answer to the question consuming all of us.  I suspect it isn't what we wanted to hear.  I'm also convinced that in this answer we shall find the path back to the visceral compassion God expects each of us to have for our fellow human beings.  Therefore, next week we will allow Mark to unpack for us what Jesus means by being least of all and servant of all.  Stay tuned.

The First Clayton Bloom Parable (Reprised)

[Because last week I published the second Clayton Bloom parable, I thought I would reboot the first for all of you who either have forgotten it or are new to my site.  Enjoy.................]

Clayton Bloom sired three sons. Even before they had hardly grown, each of them turned away from their father, obsessed by a need to outdo his brothers. When they could, the brothers demanded their inheritances and left their father—each certain that with his talent and resources he would excel over his brothers.

Time passed and the three brothers failed in their quests. Each found himself separated from the others and severely destitute.

At the right time, Clayton went in search of his wayward boys to bring them home. He found his oldest in a stupor and lying in a ditch.

The father appealed to the man, “Come home my son, and I will give you rest. You will have your original job at twice the salary. And someday you, along with your brothers, will be given control over my estate.”

His son looked up through eyes half closed by contempt for his father and replied, “I don’t want your pity, Old Man. And I certainly don’t want your charity. I can care for myself. Go away and leave me alone!”

Reluctantly, Clayton left his oldest son in search of his brothers. Eventually he found his middle son, and appealed to him in the same manner he had with the man’s older brother.

The middle son didn’t answer his father right away, but thought, if I take the money, I can get myself cleaned up and go back to those guys who stuck me and make them sorry for underestimating me. The bums will soon be bowing to me, and I’ll be on top, again. “Sure, Pops,” the middle son said. “I’ll go back to work for you. Thanks, thanks a lot!”

After Clayton had sent his middle son home with instructions for the servants to care for him after he arrived, the father sought out his youngest boy. He found the young man worse off than his brothers. The father knelt beside his youngest son, and appealed to him as he did his two brothers. The man looked up at his father with weak eyes that welled with tears.

“Why should you be so kind to me after I brought you so much disgrace? I have despaired so long, Father. If you only knew how tired I am of it all. I hate my life. I have tried to console myself by remembering my home and you and my life there, but I couldn’t. I tried and tried but the memory was gone, so I convinced myself that it never really happened. I thought it was nothing but a dream. I went on even though deep down I knew it was pointless and ended here hoping to die. I didn't have the guts to kill myself. Now here you are. It wasn’t a dream after all. I want to go home. I’ll do anything to go back there. I’ll listen to you. I’ll do anything you say. Teach me, Father, so I can please you. I want to please you, but I've forgotten how. I should never have left home. How could I have been so stupid?”

The young man wept. Clayton reached out and pulled his son up out of the murky water and embraced him. He could feel his son’s bones beneath his dank, soiled, and tattered clothing. The son staggered and nearly collapsed out of his father’s arms. The father realizing how near death his boy was lifted the frail body over his shoulders and carried his son home.

A year passed, and the younger brother found the middle brother packing a suitcase.

"What are you doing?” the younger brother asked.

“I’m out of here, man,” the middle brother replied.

“But why? We have everything we could ever want right here. No one out there will ever love you and care for you as our Father does. You of all people should know that.”

The middle brother attending to his task answered, “This is too much like work. No thank you. You can have it.”

“What are you talking about?” the younger brother pleaded. “Father has given us servants to do all the real labor so we can complete our studies. Once that is done, father has promised to put us in charge of the whole estate—the house, the land, the livestock--everything!”

“That’s fine for you,” the middle brother said as he snapped the suitcase closed.“I got some old scores to settle.” He waved a thick wad of bills before the younger brother’s face, and then plopped it on top of others neatly stacked in a black attaché. “Besides,” the middle brother continued, “I know just how to parlay this money into some big bucks. Soon you will be working for me, little brother. And I’ll make it happen without all the sweat. I have all I need.”

The middle brother picked up his things and made for the door and stopped. Turning to face his younger brother he said, “Still, I can always use dedicated workers like you. Yes, you’ll be hearing from me, squirt.”

The younger brother watched his brother walk out of sight; he never looked back.

The Second Clayton Bloom Parable

Clayton Bloom sired two sons.  The Bloom boys and their father did everything together.  When the boys were old enough, Clayton took them into the forest growing around their small home, in order to teach his sons about the trees and plants, the animals who lived there, its beauty, and how they might care for it all.

The boys were enthralled and amazed by each new thing their father showed them.  In a very short time, the boys confidence grew, and it emboldened them.  Even though Clayton warned them against venturing off alone, the two brothers decided they had learned enough to go exploring without their father.  When Clayton left them unattended, the boys seized the chance to go hiking on their own. Happily and with great pride, the boys bounded into the wood.

As you might expect, it didn't take long for the boys to become disoriented.  The more they walked, the darker it became.  Even though the sun shown brightly in the sky when they had embarked on their journey, now, no matter where they turned, the trees grew closer together and higher, shutting out the light.  The lads started to panic and quickly forgot all Clayton had taught them.  Soon their panic turned to rage, and they tore through the beautiful landscape, mashing colorful wildflowers, uprooting bushes, and tearing off limbs of trees.

They then turned on each other, each blaming the other for their predicament.  Words became violent, and the bigger brother strangled the smaller until the latter ceased struggling.  The young man wailed at the sight of his motionless brother and screamed at the gloom, cursing his father for ever bringing them to this place.  Now senseless with guilt, the boy ran deeper into the forest, leaving a wake of horrific destruction.  He ran on carelessly in this way until he fell down an embankment.  Unable to move because his leg was broken, he lay there in the twilight quietly weeping.

When Clayton discovered what his sons had done, although late, he dropped everything and rushed into the darkness to find them.  Eventually, he found one of his sons lying unconscious on the ground. Clayton knelt beside his son and resuscitated the boy, and then gave him water to drink and food to eat.

As the boy regained his strength, he noticed blood streaming down his father's face.  "Father, you are injured."  His father smiled and stroked his son's head. "I would suffer a thousand wounds and even die if that's what it would take to find my boys."  His son's chin dropped to his chest in shame.  "Father, I'm sorry I disobeyed you."  Clayton embraced his son and kissed the boy's face with pink tears of joy and relief.

"Come, now," the father said, standing.  "We must find your brother before something worse happens to him."  Clayton and his son went on together in search of the missing boy.

The boy was the first to find his brother lying on a small protrusion on a steep slope.  "He's here, Father.  I found him, I found him.  He's over here.  Come quickly, Father, he's hurt!"

When the lad saw his brother he thought he had murdered show such concern for him, he whimpered, "Why would you care after what I did to you?"  His brother answered, "Didn't I run away with you? Didn't I try to kill you?  Yet, even though we are bad sons, Father came after us; and even though he injured himself, he never stopped searching until he found us.  How could I not care for you?"

Their Father arrived. Carrying his injured son over his shoulders, Clayton led his two sons back home. The brothers became closer than they had been before their ordeal.  They remained with their father, and he taught them and provided for them, so that they built their home into a magnificent estate. Together, Clayton and his two sons nurtured the forests and lands around them into resplendent gardens spreading out in all directions as far as the eye could see and beyond.

Relationships

Our exchange students left us this week to return to their homes in Europe and to carry on their lives. From my vantage point it was a tearful departure for all the exchange students and their host families. The poignancy of the moment was accentuated by rain and the predawn darkness.

It amazed me how quickly familial bonds form between people who only a couple of weeks before were utter strangers.  It just goes to show how relational we humans are.  But why shouldn't we be? After all, our Creator is relational.

As relational as we all are, it also amazes me how much human society struggles to establish meaningful, healthy, and functional relationships.  Like Darth Vader trying to set his sight on Luke Skywalker's X-wing, we just can't seem to home in on loving relationships.  If we were created to have such relationships, then why do they continue to elude us?

Even though it isn't a very popular subject, that question can be answered with one word: Sin.  People don't like to talk about Sin because, basically, they don't want anyone telling them how to run their lives. And all too often the things we want to do seem to be on someone's list of sins: things such as, sexual preference, abortion, killing, stealing, adultery, dancing, gambling, drinking, drugs, pornography, warfare, music, and on and on.  But none of these things or any others one might add to the list constitute what I mean by Sin; they are really only symptoms of Sin.

A careful examination of the above list--and there are many, many more items one might add to it--shows a common relational theme. The items are either a means to create and maintain relationships, or a means to compensate for the absence of relationships, or a means to cope with destructive relationships.  One way or another, any item on the list can be traced back to a relationship.

And because the behaviors on the list function in some way pertaining to relationships, it does no good to tell the practitioners they are wrong because they, as all of us, are desperate for a relationship--all of us want to be loved; so they really believe they have discovered the means in the life style or behaviors they have adopted, or they have given up hope, altogether, and have defaulted to simply medicating the pain.  It's as if I were starving to death and caught a poisonous frog, and when I was about to eat it you told me I was wrong to eat it.  I would think you either didn't care about my plight, or wanted me to die of starvation, or you just wanted to control me.  In the end, I would eat the frog, and I would die.

Surely some things on the above list of "sins" are definitely comparable to the poison frog, but not all the listed items are.  Yet any one of them are just as fatal if we are attempting to find through them those elusive relationships we have all been created for.  This is what I meant by Sin, earlier.  Sin is the belief we can find, maintain, and build right relationships on our own; putting it simply, Sin is thinking we can be our own god.

Speaking about the community of right relationships we were created to have, the Apostle John tells us,

"Not those out of bloodlines (genealogies), nor out of the desires of the flesh, nor out of the desires of humankind, but those who are born of God." [John 1:13]

The right relationships we all long for will forever elude us until we are again in the right relationship with our Creator--when God is our God and not ourselves.  Until we do that, we shall remain in darkness--both in wherewithal and understanding.

Well, I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is we cannot extricate ourselves from this darkness.  The good news is God can and indeed has made the way out for us.  Let's return to John for the rest of the story....

"In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and God was the Word. He was in the beginning with God,  All things were created by Him and apart from Him was not one thing created that was created.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of humankind; and the light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.... He was real light that illuminates humankind coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was created by Him, and the world did not know Him.  He came to His own kind, and His own kind did not accept Him.  But as many as receive Him, He gives to them authority to become children of God, to those who are believing in His name, not those out of bloodlines (genealogies), nor out of the desires of the flesh, nor out of the desires of humankind, but those who are born of God.  And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we saw His glory as the only unique begotten one from the Father, full of grace and Truth." [John 1:1-5, 8-14]

In an inexpressible act of re-creation, God entered into human history by taking on flesh as His only begotten unique son, Jesus the Christ, to deal once and for all with the consequences of Sin and the Death that came from it, in order to re-establish the intimate relationship He intended from the beginning to have with all of us, so we would be an eternal community with Him and with each other. And this eternal community--the kingdom of God--the salvation of Humankind--the glory of God--is for all who stand in Christ and Christ alone by believing in Him, which is faith that is inseparably belief, trust, and the action of obedience.  It is in Christ alone we will find those elusive relationships we all long for because only in Christ is the Truth of what they are and the power to live them.

In his must-read book Jesus of Nazareth, From Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. Image (2007): p. 169, Joseph Ratzinger puts it this way,

"...Jesus is closely connected with the "we" of the new family that He gathers by his proclamation and his action.  It has become evident that this "we" is in principle intended to be universal: It no longer rests on birth, but on communion with Jesus, who is himself God's living Torah."

Trouble in River City

One of my favorite musicals is The Music Man; and one of my favorite numbers in The Music Man is You Got Trouble.  I was thinking about this today because trouble has come into my life.  I knew it was coming; I tried to circumvent it; but it remained out of my hands, and now is knocking at my door like the angel of death.  Okay, this is over dramatic and hyperbole; things could be much, much worse, and is for so many people I know.  In some respects, though, trouble in America is much like the trouble Harold Hill spoke of in River City.  The town was well fixed and peaceful, compared to other places in the world at the time, so what they saw as trouble was really only a minor annoyance.  Many things we see as trouble in America are really only what my daughter refers to as first world problems.

What disturbs me more than the pending storm is my inability to deal with it in my spirit.  I mean, how often have I encouraged us to trust Christ, and not fear because He is alive?  Now, with what is really only a minor disturbance--comparatively speaking--I am completely unsettled.  It is easy to pontificate about faith from an easy chair, in front of a warm fire, while sipping a glass of Malbec.  Only when the fire goes out and you start to feel cold, do you begin to understand how much of what you believe is only theory.  It reminds me of what the disciples of Jesus felt when a storm suddenly rose up over the lake as they were boating their way across....

And there was a sudden great squall of wind and the waves crashed into the boat so that the boat was already filled.  And Jesus was sleeping in the stern on a pillow, and the disciples woke Jesus up and said to Him, "Teacher, doesn't it matter to you that we are perishing?"  And after having been aroused, Jesus rebuked the wind and said, "Be silent, Be quiet!"  And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And Jesus said to them, "Why are you cowardly?  Do you not yet have faith?"  And they were filled with great fear and spoke to each other, "Who, then, is this, that both the wind and the sea obey Him?" [Mark 4:37-41]

It all goes to show that ideas and doctrines do not hold us up, only the real presence of Jesus in our life does.  And we only come to really understand faith when we are forced to walk in it.  This reminds me of a story my physics professor once related to us.  He told how he had invited his girlfriend to go sailing with him.  She asked him if he had ever sailed before, and he told her he knew everything there is to know about the theory of sailing--and he did.  Well, after several hours of floundering on the water, and finally walking the boat along the shoreline, his girlfriend told him in no uncertain terms they were through.  I think she called him an idiot, but it was a long time ago, so I might be wrong about that.

Thank the Lord he isn't fickle like my professor's girlfriend.  The Lord didn't give up on His disciples because of their tentative faith; He hasn't given up on me because of my cowardice; and I assure you He won't give up on you, either.  He will continue to give us grace upon grace:  grace to forgive us when we stumble, grace to pick us up again, and grace to strengthen our faith for the next challenge. Such is the beauty of the Gospel of Christ; such is the wonder and peace of standing in His kingdom.

Thanks a lot, folks, for letting me unload on you like this.  I am feeling much better.  I guess this is why Jesus calls us to be a community; we cover for each other in our moments of weakness.  Thanks again for listening.

Weed

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  The temperature was cool without being cold.  The sun played hide and seek with the clouds; and best of all, it all happened on a holiday.  It was a perfect day to commune with the outdoors by attending to our yard and garden.

As I have said many times before, everything in life is a metaphor.  Well, perhaps not everything; but living in a house full of women, you learn to speak in hyperbole.  Of course, that is also a hyperbole because not all women are prone to exaggerate.  The few women I've come to know well over the years have tended in that direction, though.  It's not a criticism; actually, I think it's kind of cute.  In fact, I've come to use the classic "always" statement as a means of making a point; I use bad grammar to the same end.  So I will say it again.  Everything in life is a metaphor.

Our small garden comprises a variety of perennials that bloom at different times over the course of the summer in order to treat the viewer with a ever changing palette of color. You gardeners reading this are likely thinking, Ah, yeah, that's the way it's supposed to work.  You must understand; our garden in particular, and all botanical matters at our house in general are the brain-children of my wife; I'm strictly a brown thumb.  My job is to mow the lawn, trim, and weed the garden.  The challenge for me is differentiating the weeds from the flowers.  My wife has been perplexed her daisies haven't come up this year.  I'm thinking I may had mistook them for weeds.  Some of this mistaken identity is due to my ignorance; but I attribute some of it to the cleverness of the weeds.

As I was surveying the garden yesterday, all seemed nice and tidy.  There were a few small weeds spotting the clear areas, but overall the garden appeared healthy.  Yet on closer inspection, I found some weeds dressed to the nines, standing straight and proud among the flowering plants past bloom, feigning to be part of the gang.  From a distance they were pretty convincing, too; close up, though, their weediness was quite obvious.  Huh, I thought, there's got to be a metaphor in this, somewhere....

And answering, Jesus again spoke in parables to them by saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a ruler of people who prepared a wedding feast for his son.  And the ruler sent away his slaves to call those who have been invited to the wedding, but they didn't want to come.  Again, the ruler sent away other slaves by saying, 'Tell those who have been invited, see, I have prepared my feast, my bulls and the fattened animals have been slaughtered, I prepared everything.  Come into the wedding feast.'  But those ignoring the invitation went away: one to his family farm, and another to his market; but those remaining seized the slaves and assaulted and killed them.  The ruler was furious; and dispatching his soldiers, he killed those murderers and set fire to their city.  Then the ruler said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who have been invited were not worthy.  Therefore, go upon the roads leading out of the city, and invite however many you might find to the wedding feast.  And those slaves took to the roads, and invited everyone they encountered, both the bad and the good.  And the wedding was filled with those reclining at the banquet table.  When the ruler entered the gathering to look at those who were reclining at the table, he saw a person there not dressed in wedding attire.  And the ruler said to the person, 'Comrade, how did you get in here without having wedding clothes?'  The person was dumbstruck.  Then the ruler told the servants, 'After you bind the person's feet and hands, throw the person out into the outer most darkness.'  There, there will be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen." [Matt. 22:1-14]

No doubt some will cite this passage as a proof text for unconditional election.  I spent a good part of this summer rebutting such an idea, so I won't belabor the point here.  I will say this.  Our hope and security don't rest in God having decided before all eternity how everything in His creation will play out, down to the last motions of each subatomic particle.  No, our hope and security lie solely in the perfect, finished work of Jesus the Christ.

God calls each of us to join Him in His eternal kingdom.  But we must respond, and respond totally on His terms, not our own.  This means we mustn't think we will get in because we're wearing a "I love Jesus" T-shirt; or toting citizenship papers to some nation, ethnic group, or church affiliation; or clutching our advanced degrees from prestigious universities, proving we have mastered the correct theology; or packing our get-out-of-jail-free card.  No, to come to God on His terms is to come clothed in Christ--ensconced in Him as in our skin--by surrendering ourselves completely to His strength and will with an indefatigable trust.  Jesus explains what I mean with graphic imagery:

"Truly, yes truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves.  The one who is gnawing my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life, and I will resurrect that person on the last day." [John 6:53-54]

Unless we put on Christ in this most intimate and utterly dependent way, we will remain like those weeds in my garden, believing ourselves to be flowers in God's garden, when we are not.  And our fate will be the same as the fate of those weeds: yesterday, I entered our flower bed, pulled those weeds out by their roots, and cast them behind the fence to dry and whither in the hot sun.