I work with addicts, sharing Biblical wisdom and the good news of the gospel. It can be a pessimistic, morally ambiguous door to the Kingdom. Many are called, few are chosen. But the yeast parable keeps me going. It can take generations for the fullness of Kingdom to work It's way through a family or community.
The application to addiction is good example. The journey of recovery, on the front end, doesn't have a lot of pizzazz. Not a quick fix! Just keep showing up, sit in this circle, one day at a time, work the program. Doesn't seem very revolutionary. But over time, this is the way. The yeast expands.
I’ve reread these first three posts to remind myself of Friend Beck’s pastoral perspective. It’s fair to do so, because he has a particular, genuine concern for Christian congregations. In contrast, I generally speak and write to a mixed bag of universalist seekers, some of whom are Christian, some who are not, and some who do not consider themselves religious at all.
I read scripture as one whose native religion is Christianity. However, I quit seminary in the early 1970s to wander with Jesus in the wilderness of my Christian and non-Christian, theist and nontheist fellows. I try to come to the gospels from the outside. I know and trust Jesus in my heart, but I know him better through the sacred stories about a first century Palestinian Jew. For now I read without the layers of theological constructs that grew up around him over later centuries.
From this perspective, I see not pessimism but patient realism in these parables. Yes, the Jesus of sacred story might say:
"I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
'You will listen and listen,
but never understand;
you will look and look,
but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown callous;
their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and
understand with their hearts,
and turn back—
and I would heal them.'"
But this is not to withhold the “secrets of heaven” from the crowds.
As I commented in Part 2, God’s grace is not limited by the readiness of people to receive it, and God never stops sowing the seeds. The kingdom of heaven has horizons, not boundaries. I cannot imagine the man Jesus threatening to play gatekeeper.
Yes, the parables do a sorting. But they do it over and over. Their inward wisdom is there for everyone to find, whenever the Spirit has stirred them deeply enough to make their hearts soften and their eyes and ears open.
I see your point about the initial pessimism about how the Kingdom is received by most, but the conclusion is that those who do receive it by faith in its seemingly insignificant beginning will see its glorious end. Perhaps, this is the secret and the promise to those who have ears to hear.
I work with addicts, sharing Biblical wisdom and the good news of the gospel. It can be a pessimistic, morally ambiguous door to the Kingdom. Many are called, few are chosen. But the yeast parable keeps me going. It can take generations for the fullness of Kingdom to work It's way through a family or community.
The application to addiction is good example. The journey of recovery, on the front end, doesn't have a lot of pizzazz. Not a quick fix! Just keep showing up, sit in this circle, one day at a time, work the program. Doesn't seem very revolutionary. But over time, this is the way. The yeast expands.
I’ve reread these first three posts to remind myself of Friend Beck’s pastoral perspective. It’s fair to do so, because he has a particular, genuine concern for Christian congregations. In contrast, I generally speak and write to a mixed bag of universalist seekers, some of whom are Christian, some who are not, and some who do not consider themselves religious at all.
I read scripture as one whose native religion is Christianity. However, I quit seminary in the early 1970s to wander with Jesus in the wilderness of my Christian and non-Christian, theist and nontheist fellows. I try to come to the gospels from the outside. I know and trust Jesus in my heart, but I know him better through the sacred stories about a first century Palestinian Jew. For now I read without the layers of theological constructs that grew up around him over later centuries.
From this perspective, I see not pessimism but patient realism in these parables. Yes, the Jesus of sacred story might say:
"I speak to them in parables, because looking they do not see, and hearing they do not listen or understand. Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:
'You will listen and listen,
but never understand;
you will look and look,
but never perceive.
For this people’s heart has grown callous;
their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and
understand with their hearts,
and turn back—
and I would heal them.'"
But this is not to withhold the “secrets of heaven” from the crowds.
As I commented in Part 2, God’s grace is not limited by the readiness of people to receive it, and God never stops sowing the seeds. The kingdom of heaven has horizons, not boundaries. I cannot imagine the man Jesus threatening to play gatekeeper.
Yes, the parables do a sorting. But they do it over and over. Their inward wisdom is there for everyone to find, whenever the Spirit has stirred them deeply enough to make their hearts soften and their eyes and ears open.
Jesus calls us to heal, not to sort.
Blessings, Mike Shell
I see your point about the initial pessimism about how the Kingdom is received by most, but the conclusion is that those who do receive it by faith in its seemingly insignificant beginning will see its glorious end. Perhaps, this is the secret and the promise to those who have ears to hear.