Perspective: Imperceptible but Impactful

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Imperceptible but Impactful

Jesus asked, "What is God's kingdom like?  To what can I compare it?  It's like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in a garden. It grew and developed into a tree and the birds in the sky nested in its branches."

Again he said, "To what can I compare God's kingdom?  It's like yeast, which a woman took and hid in a bushel of wheat flour until the yeast had worked its way through the whole."

Luke 13:18-21 (CEB)

From the past will come the future
What it holds, a mystery
Unrevealed until its season
Something God alone can see

From "Hymn of Promise" by Natalie Sleeth

In the Gospels, a recurring subject of Jesus' teachings is the Kingdom of God.  In two of the Gospels, Jesus begins His public ministry by calling people to repent because the Kingdom of God has come near.¹  Jesus describes the Kingdom of God primarily through the use of parables, short stories that either reveal or obscure some deep truth, depending on whether or not a person is actually seeking it.²  At one point in the Gospel story, Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to both a mustard seed and some yeast.

First, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that somebody plants.  Though it is a tiny seed, it grows into a large plant, in which all kinds of birds can take shelter.³  Next, Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like some yeast that a baker thoroughly mixes into some flour or dough.⁴  Both the mustard seed and the yeast are hidden.  The mustard seed is hidden in the ground, and the yeast is hidden in flour or dough.  Both the mustard seed and the yeast make great differences in their respective environments.  The mustard seed grows into a plant, providing shelter for birds, and the yeast causes bread to rise, making it more enjoyable.

Perhaps Jesus is saying that, though the Kingdom of God might at first seem imperceptible, in time it will make a great impact one might not have expected.

As I've noted previously, in my personal Bible studies, I like to compare different versions of a particular story about Jesus or teaching of Jesus to see what the different Gospel writers want to emphasize.  Sometimes, two versions of a particular teaching might not be different, though each version's placement within the Gospel story might differ radically.  In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells His parables about the mustard seed and the yeast among numerous other parables about the Kingdom of God.⁵  In the Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, Jesus tells these two parables after healing a woman in a synagogue on a Sabbath day.⁶

N.T. Wright suggests that, because Jesus tells the two parables after miraculously healing someone in Luke's Gospel, they are perhaps, in the eyes of the writer, a commentary on the miracle.⁷  The scholar writes,

The kingdom is like a tiny seed producing a huge tree - which can then accommodate all the birds in the sky.  One action in one synagogue on one sabbath; what can this achieve?  But when Jesus sows the seed of the kingdom, nobody knows what will result.  Or the kingdom as a small helping of leaven, hidden apparently in the flour.  It seems insignificant and ineffectual; but before long the whole mixture is leavened.  One healing of one woman - but every time you break the satanic chains that have tied people up, another victory is won which will go on having repercussions.⁸

The Kingdom of God is continually advancing in ways we might not expect or in ways we might not initially perceive.

Wright's words were a comfort to me when I read them last week.  Sometimes I feel like the things I do are unimportant or unfruitful.  Just like the mustard seed or the yeast, the seemingly inconsequential things we do can make an impact we might not initially expect, when God gets ahold of them.


Notes:

1. Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:14-15
2. Matthew 13:13, 16; Mark 4:10-12
3. Matthew 13:31-32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19
4. Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20-21
5. Matthew 13:3-52
6. Luke 13:10-21
7. N.T. Wright.  Luke for Everyone.  2004, Westminster John Knox Press.  p. 167
8. ibid.

The photograph of the mustard seeds was taken by Rainer Zenz and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Lenten Perspective: The Slanderer and the Advocate

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Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Slanderer and the Advocate

Then Iēsous, full of the holy life-breath, returned from the Iordanēs and was led by the life-breath to the wasteland, and for forty days he was tested by the slanderer...

Luke 4:1-2a (as translated by Sarah Ruden)

But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says, "Do not be afraid!"
And the Voice of Truth says, "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

From "The Voice of Truth" by Casting Crowns

In three of the Gospels, we read that, before Jesus begins His public ministry, He spends forty days fasting in the desert.¹  There, He faces temptation from the devil.  During the season of Lent, the roughly forty-day period of time preceding Easter Sunday, Christians around the world figuratively follow Jesus into the desert for a time of self-denial, introspection, and repentance.

A couple of weeks ago, when I encountered the story of Jesus' time in the desert in the Gospel of Luke, I decided to read it from a more recent translation by classics scholar Sarah Ruden.  Interestingly, Ruden translates the Greek word diabolos, which is typically translated into English as "devil," as "slanderer."²  This translation choice affected the way I read the story this year.  It caused me to consider that maybe the things the devil says to Jesus are not merely temptations but also slanderous lies and that maybe Jesus responds not just with Scripture He has memorized but with what He knows to be the truth.

Because Jesus has been fasting in the desert, He is hungry, so the devil says to Him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."³  Jesus came to the desert from the Jordan River, where He was baptized.  As He was praying after His baptism, the heavens were torn open and a Voice from Heaven said to Him, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."⁴  Now, in the desert, the devil is slandering Jesus by calling His very identity into question and is demanding that He prove who He is by using His divinity to His advantage.

The devil's slander does not work on Jesus, because He knows the truth.  Quoting Scripture, He responds, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"⁵  Jesus knows who He is, and He knows that He has everything He needs, even in the desert.

Next, the devil somehow shows Jesus all of the kingdoms of this world in an instant and says to Him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."⁶  The devil is now slandering God by calling God's sovereignty into question and claiming sovereignty over the world for himself.  He invites Jesus to bow down to him so that he may bestow upon Him power like that of the Roman Caesar.

Jesus knows the truth that, even though it might seem at times that the whole world has gone to hell in a proverbial handbasket, the devil is not the true ruler of this world.  He responds, again quoting Scripture, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"⁷  Jesus and His people have been commanded to worship and serve God alone, because God is the true Lord of this world, who makes all things work together for good,⁸ no matter how dire things might seem at any given moment.

Finally, the devil whisks Jesus away to Jerusalem, places Him on the highest point of the temple, and says to Him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"⁹  Once again, the devil slanders Jesus by calling His identity into question.  He then misappropriates the ninety-first psalm in an attempt to get Jesus to flaunt His divinity to the people of Jerusalem by doing something extremely reckless.  Perhaps the Gospel writer is suggesting that the misuse of Scripture is a form of lying.

Jesus is not affected by the devil's lies because He knows the truth.  He responds, quoting Scripture once again, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"¹⁰  Jesus knows who He is; He knows that He does not have to prove Himself to anyone, especially not some arrogant liar; and He knows how utterly stupid it would be to jump off a building in order to provoke God to act.

The devil finally leaves Jesus alone... for the time being.¹¹

At the same time the Father claimed Jesus as His own beloved Son, the Holy Spirit took the form of a dove and descended upon Jesus.¹²  We read that the same Holy Spirit is the One who compelled Jesus to go into the desert.¹³  Ruden translates the Greek phrase normally translated into English as "Holy Spirit" as "holy life-breath."¹⁴  The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and the Spirit remained present with Him, like His own breath.

In at least one translation of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is called "the Advocate."¹⁵  Any voice that tries to discourage us or lead us on a destructive path does not come from God, for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Advocacy.  The slanderer will try to make us doubt that God claims us and loves us.  The Spirit of God assures us that we are God's beloved children.  The slanderer will try to convince us that evil is winning, and that, if we want to succeed in this world, we will need to lower our standards.  The Spirit of God encourages us to trust in God and to continue doing what is right.

May we learn to ignore the voices of slander, and may we learn to trust the Voice of Advocacy.


Notes:

1. Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13
2. Sarah Ruden.  The Gospels: A New Translation.  2021, Modern Library.  pp. 177-178
3. Luke 4:2-3 (NRSV)
4. Luke 3:21-22 (NRSV)
5. Luke 4:4 (NRSV) (See also Deuteronomy 8:3.)
6. Luke 4:5-7 (NRSV)
7. Luke 4:8 (NRSV) (See also Deuteronomy 6:13.)
8. Romans 8:28
9. Luke 4:9-11 (NRSV) (See also Psalm 91:11-12.)
10. Luke 4:12 (NRSV) (See also Deuteronomy 6:16.)
11. Luke 4:13
12. Luke 3:21-22
13. Luke 4:1
14. Ruden, p. 176
15. John 14:16 (NRSV)

Christ in the Wilderness was painted by Ivan Kramskoi in 1872.

Introspection: A Christmas Reminder

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

A Christmas Reminder

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

John 1:14a (The Message)

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail th'incarnate Deity
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell
Jesus, our Immanuel

From "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" by Charles Wesley

I had driven to another part of town with plans of eating breakfast at a mom-and-pop cafe I enjoy, as I often do when I take Friday off from work.  Ending up back at a chain coffee shop closer to my home and ordering a tiny, overpriced toaster-oven breakfast sandwich naturally put me into a bad mood.  I was already primed for cynicism when I started noticing the Christmas music playing over the speaker.  I started to wonder once again if there might be some conspiracy involving Hallmark Media, Mariah Carey, and countless other parties to do to one of the two Christian high holy days what has been done to the Feast of St. Valentine.

Seriously though, I always tend to feel a bit cynical during the Christmas season.  The senior pastor of my church recently admitted that, though he loves the meaning of Christmas, he tends to dislike the "stuff" we cram into the season.¹  I totally understood what he meant.  For me personally, trying to figure out what to give people for Christmas is a source of frustration and anxiety, and the sentimentality permeating so many Christmas songs and Christmas movies just seems empty.

My devotional reading for that Friday consisted of a section from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, in which Paul urges his readers to follow through on a commitment they made to contribute to a fund to help fellow believers in need.²  When I've encountered this particular reading in the past, I've focused on what Paul writes about giving - that one person's excess can meet another person's needs³ and that a person should give joyfully and not begrudgingly.⁴  That Friday, out of the two chapters in the day's reading, a singular verse captured my attention, a verse I've previously ignored in order to focus on the "big picture" of what Paul is writing.

Paul writes, "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Although he was rich, he became poor for our sakes, so that you could become rich through his poverty."⁵

The theological term for Jesus' "self-impoverishment" is kenosis, which means "self-emptying."⁶  This concept is developed further in other parts of the New Testament.  Paul includes in his later Letter to the Philippians what is thought to be an early Christian hymn, which is commonly called the Christ Hymn.  In it, we read,

Though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings.⁷

At the very beginning of the Gospel of John there is another early Christian hymn, which is sometimes called the Hymn to the Word.  In it, we read,

The Word became flesh
and made his home among us.⁸

The Son of God "became poor for our sakes" by divesting Himself of the power and glory of divinity in order to walk among us as a flesh and blood human being.

The mystery we ponder and celebrate at Christmas is that, in the words of one preacher, "the Infinite has become an infant."⁹  This is the whole Christmas story in a nutshell.

Singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen once mused, "There is a crack, a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in."¹⁰  That Friday morning, a reminder of the Incarnation cracked through my cynicism, or maybe my cynicism was the crack that allowed in the reminder of the Incarnation, which I admittedly glossed over previously.  I suppose I needed a reminder amid all the "stuff" that there is something worth celebrating this season.

Whether or not you struggle to get into the "Christmas spirit" and whether or not you enjoy all the "stuff" that goes on this season, may you, dear reader, remember that, in a dirty stable in Bethlehem, the Son of God once lay in a feeding trough, having become "poor for our sakes."


Notes:

1. Brian Gilmer.  "A Thin Christmas."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 12/08/2024.
2. 2 Corinthians 8-9
3. 2 Corinthians 8:13-14
4. 2 Corinthians 9:7
5. 2 Corinthians 8:9 (CEB)
6. Wikipedia: "Kenosis"
7. Philippians 2:6-7a (CEB)
8. John 1:14a (CEB)
9. C.H. Spurgeon.  "The Condescension of Christ."
10. From "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen

Natività was painted by Carlo Maratta in 1655.