Yes, the word "Wrong" in the title is misspelled intentionally, to make an ironic point...
It seems as
though my spiritual walk these days is a constant struggle between the man I am
and the man I want to be. But before I
go ahead and write something stupid, like “Hell, isn’t everybody’s?” I need,
instead, to look at some of Jesus’ parables in which the Christ illustrates
analogies to men and women at different levels in their spiritual walks. Some of these people really ARE where they are
supposed to be. Am I?
Our Pastor has been
doing a series lately about Jesus’ parables.
The three latest they talked about concern people at different points of
belief. In one of these parables, Jesus
verbally paints the picture of a farmer planting seed on different types of
soil (Mark 4:3-9). In another, a
self-righteous Pharisee and a sinning tax collector both pray to God at the
Temple, but only one of them goes away acceptable before God, and it may not be
who you think it is at first (Luke 18:10-14).
Lastly, our Missional Communities Pastor most recently shared
Jesus’ parable about a wedding banquet, with the King inviting people who
refuse to come, and finally inviting anybody he can find, but throwing out the
man who is not dressed for the wedding (Matthew 22:1-14). In each of these cases, as I believe is the
job of any good Christian, we should look at these parables and try to
determine which one of these people in these stories we are. And if we do not like who we are, we should
change.
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| Image From http://insidelifexchange.blogspot.com/2012/03/parable-of-sower.html |
In the first parable, Jesus later
explains that the seed the farmer sows is the Message, and the different soils
are the different ways people receive the Message. Some seed falls on a hard pathway, and birds
come and eat the seed that falls there.
Some seed falls on shallow soil with rock underneath; the roots cannot
take hold and the plants wither away when the sun comes out. Some seed falls on soil among thorns, and the
plants are choked out, and some falls on good fertile soil where it grows and
produces a great crop. A good Christian
should be the last example, and this should be evidenced by the crop that is produced. I know I am not the first or the second
example, but if I’m being honest, I also don’t think I could claim the last
example as a good Christian should. If
anything, I’d probably be the third example, and I also think many Christians
in America are. We let the worries of
this life choke out the Message. Instead
of spreading the Gospel, we have our jobs, and our lawns, and our “Honey do”
lists. We have our kids’ soccer practice
and football games, movies and shows to attend, our DVR’s crammed with TV
shows, and all those get-togethers with family and friends, and we shove God in
on the weekends, if there’s time. That
is not a healthy walk with God.
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| Image from http://writeforgod.stblogs.com/2009/03/21/the-pharisee-and-the-tax-collector/ |
In the second parable, a righteous
Pharisee thanks God that he “is not a sinner like everyone else.” He thanks God for all the sins he doesn’t commit,
and for all his righteous behavior. “I’m
certainly not like that tax collector!” he adds. Meanwhile, the tax collector is asking God to
have mercy on him, a miserable sinner.
“I tell you,” Jesus advises his disciples, “this sinner, not the Pharisee,
returned home justified before God. For
those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves
will be exalted.” As C.S. Lewis states
in Mere Christianity, it is the sin
of Pride can cause the good Christian to stumble, the same Christian who is
careful to watch out for all the other sins.
This is because, at the same time he’s patting himself on the back for
being able to resist all the other sins, such as anger, sloth, lust, gluttony,
envy, and greed, he can unknowingly suffer the sin of Pride if he thinks this
resistance is all his own doing. Like
the Pharisee in this parable, he may start to feel he doesn’t need God or His
grace to get to heaven. “Look what a
perfect little Christian I am,” would be his thought. That’s why the old saying is “Pride comes
before the fall,” instead of one of the other seven deadly sins. One legend states that Satan was once God’s
favorite angel, until he started to think of himself as “special.” As God’s favorite angel, he didn’t succumb to
the other sins. Rather, it was Pride that
brought him down, and then God cast him out of heaven.
I’d like to say I’m definitely the
tax collector, for I know my sins, and have, on many occasions, asked God’s
forgiveness. I know it is only through God’s
grace and Jesus’ sacrifice that I will make it to heaven. Unfortunately, Christians often wear masks,
among each other and the rest of the world.
We don’t want other people to know the struggles we have, so we have a
tendency to wear a costume when we’re out in public. Like the character of the Professor in the
novel Cujo, a trademarked spokesman
for children’s cereal, we tell the world, “Nope, nothing wrong here!” Of course, in the novel, the red dye used in
the cereal scares the hell out of hundreds of parents across the country who now
think their kids are bleeding internally, and this marketing campaign comes
crashing down, and adman Vic Trenton may be out of a job. In the same novel, Donna is fooling around,
but keeps it from her husband Vic. “Nope,
nothing wrong here.” Their son Tad is
scared by the monster in his closet, but Vic makes up “The Monster Words” and
now everything is all right. The Cambers
have their problems, and basically treat their dog Cujo as almost an
afterthought. They never took him to the vet, he developed rabies after being bitten by rabid bats, killed his master,
and lay siege upon Donna’s car stalled in the middle in their farmyard, causing the death of her little boy Tad.
Now it’s a little late for the Professor’s catchphrase, “Nope, nothing
wrong here!”
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| Image from http://www.dvdizzy.com/cujo.html |
And like this allusion, some of us
Christians are walking around with a smile and a skip in our step, repeating
“Nope, nothing wrong here!” while the Monsters we keep locked in our closets
are just waiting to lay siege upon us and cause countless amounts of
devastation to our lives. We may be
truthful to God in our prayers, admitting all our sins to Him, and asking for
his forgiveness, but we are reluctant to share them with the rest of the
world. It’s perhaps understandable why
we don’t, keeping up appearances with friends and neighbors, but it leaves us somewhere in between the Pharisee and the tax
collector in our spiritual lives.
Finally, there is the parable of the
wedding banquet. A King prepares a great
wedding feast, and sends his servants to tell those invited it is time to
come. Refusing the invitation, the King
sends his servants out again, and this time, some ignore the servants, going
about their business, while others “seized his servants, mistreated them and
killed them.” Angered, the King
retaliated against them. “The wedding
banquet is ready” the King tells his servants, “but those I invited did not
deserve to come.” He then urges his
servants to go out to the street and invite anyone they can find. The wedding banquet now filled with guests,
the King then sees a man without wedding clothes, and tells his servants to
“tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there
will be weeping and knashing of teeth.”
Jesus finishes this parable by warning “For many are invited, but few
are chosen.”
And once again, the Christians must
look at this and determine which of these people they are. Are
they the servants? Are they the invited,
who ignored the invitation, going about their own business, or actually
mistreating and killing the servants?
Are they the others who were invited?
Are they the man who was invited, but wasn’t wearing wedding clothes?
This one is a little more difficult
to determine. The servants would be
anyone who serves the King, which could be either angels or good Christians
delivering the gospel to the world (the “good soil” in the first parable). The ones invited to the feast are the Jews, who
rejected the Message of Jesus, but could possibly represent anyone who
rejects the Message. The people in the
streets who are invited would most likely be the sinners who hear the message
and make it to heaven ahead of those who merely seem righteous. The man without the wedding
clothes is most likely someone who heard the message, but does not have
anything to show for it, meaning that when we are invited, whether or not we
are truly Christian will be reflected by our deeds and the life we live, in
essence, the “clothes we wear”. This is
the same message in the book of James, which is not that we need to earn our
way into heaven, but that “He will know us by our fruits”.
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| Image from http://giveustoday.com/ |
For this parable, I think I would be
one of the invited guests from the street, and I’m half afraid that I am the
man without the wedding clothes, because I don’t always live my life for Christ the way I think I should be.
I live a comfortable existence, but I should be more for my Lord. By the same token, seeing within myself the
soil choked by thorns, and the tax collector when praying to God and the
Pharisee when I present myself to others, and the man without the wedding
clothes at the banquet does mean that there is still hope for
me. It shows me that I am still not
perfect, and still much in need of God’s grace and forgiveness.
At any rate, at least I’m not prideful.
Strangely out of place /
There's a light filling this room where none would follow before
I can't deny it burns me up inside / I fan the flames to melt away my pride
Do I want shelter from the rain or the rain to wash me way?
I can't deny it burns me up inside / I fan the flames to melt away my pride
Do I want shelter from the rain or the rain to wash me way?
I need you, I need you, I need you / I need you, I need you, I need you / You're all I'm living for
I might sound like a fool / But I think I felt you moving closer to me
Face to the ground to hide the fatal cut / I fight the weight / I feel you lift me up
You are the shelter from the rain and the rain to wash me away…
You're all I'm living for / All I'm living for / You're all I'm living for
Face to the ground to hide the fatal cut / I fight the weight / Feel you lift me up
Can't deny it burns me up inside / I fan the flames to melt away my pride
Only had a second to spare but all the time in the world to know you're there
You are the shelter from the rain and the rain to wash me away…
You’re all I’m living for
-
“I Need You”
Jars of Clay
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