Following Directions

I remember an e-mail I received some time ago, that contained a modern day parable. It was called “The Seed”. This little parable inspired me to experience a difficult Gospel lesson in a new way. The story went something like this: There once was a man named Ted, who worked as an executive in a large corporation. The company’s CEO was about to retire, so the board of directors began the search to replace her. The Chairman announced that the board had agreed to promote from within the company.

One day, the chairman invited all the executives into the company’s boardroom. The board’s table was covered with pots full of potting soil. Beside each pot lay an envelope which contained a single seed.  The chairman’s instructions were simple. Each executive was instructed to take a pot and seed home. They were to plant the seed in the pot, and to water and tend it as necessary. In six weeks time, each executive was to bring their pot back to the boardroom.  The chairman would judge between what the executives presented in their pots and a winner would be chosen.

Ted took his pot and seed home. He carefully planted the seed and carefully placed the pot on a window sill on the sunny side of the house. Every morning he checked the soil and watered it as needed. Every evening he eagerly looked for a sprout to appear. Every evening he and his wife stood by his pot and he said. “Honey, I did everything just right. I planted the seed at the right depth and gave it the right amount of water. I put it in the perfect spot, so that it would get the perfect amount of sunshine. …. But, I’ve got nothing! I’m a failure.” Every day his wife encouraged him, “Honey, just follow the directions and trust what the Chairman said.”

Finally, the day came for the executives to appear before the Chairman together with their pots. Ted did not want to go to work that day, as he was ashamed of himself and considered himself a complete and utter failure.  His beloved wife encouraged him. “Honey, just follow the directions and trust what the Chairman said.” So, Ted took his empty pot and headed for work. He snuck into the boardroom early and placed his pot on the table so that no one would see that it was his.  

Six weeks earlier to the day, the ornate table in the boardroom had been covered with a plethora of barren pots; however on the morning of the great reveal, that same table was a different sight. It was covered with beautiful plants bearing blossoms which matched the beauty of God’s rainbow in both color and intensity. Each plant was uniquely beautiful making it impossible to objectively judge between and among the plants. Well, except for one pot - Ted’s. It was empty. The beauty of the surrounding plants made Ted’s pot look all the more barren and made Ted feel even more like a failure.

When all the pots were in place, the Chairman entered the room. His eyes surveyed that table. They fell on Ted’s empty pot. “Whose pot is this?” the Chairman barked. “I want to see that person!”  Ted stepped forward fearing the worst. “It’s mine, sir…” Ted stammered.  “Gentlemen, meet your new CEO!” the Chairman announced with glee. “What?” all the others cried in one voice, “This man is a failure, his pot is empty. Look at our pots, they are full of life and are beautiful. How can you pick a man to be the CEO of a company, whose job is to make the company grow, when he can’t even make a plant grow?”  

The Chairman responded to their complaints with these words: “Gentlemen, the seeds I gave each and every one of you had been boiled and thus rendered incapable of growth.  When you realized that the seed I gave you would not grow, you substituted another seed - or you bought a seedling of another plant. Then you presented it to me as the fruit of the seed I gave you. Ted was the only one with the faith, trust and integrity to follow my words implicitly. Ted is the kind of man I want to run this company.”  

  

This little parable really struck me. I saw it as metaphor for my relationship with God. It would be easy to see the life of faith as this kind of a competition. God has given each of us a pot and a seed and announced that in the end, He will judge what we have grown in the pot. The winners will be chosen to sit at chairs in the heavenly boardroom. You don’t want to know where the losers will end up. We assume that God’s heavenly board of directors will be made up of those who have the most beautiful plants. The beautiful plants represent the good works that we might accomplish during our lives. The people with the gifts and abilities to complete all these good works are the people who deserve a seat on the heavenly board. It would be easy to lose heart and say, “how can I keep up with people such as these -why bother?”  Take heart:  this is not what Jesus and the heavenly Father have in mind. This earthly parable calls these words of Jesus to mind:

 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:21-25).

It’s easy for a person to believe that he or she has received a bad seed in life. It is easy to say, “I had potential, I could have been someone. However, I couldn’t afford to go to or finish school; I lost my job; life just passed me by; I got a bad diagnosis. Why bother? How could God love me, my life is not a beautiful plant.” However, just as God gave Ted his wife, He gives us mentors. They speak for God and say, “Have faith and trust in God, follow His directions.” They stand with us and encourage us to “keep praying, worshiping, praising, forgiving, loving God and your neighbor, and performing random acts of love and kindness. Keep doing these things even if you don’t see a shoot spring up in your pot. Believe that in the end, it is impossible to make yourself acceptable to God. Believe that any beautiful plant in our pot is our creation, a figment of our imagination. We have substituted our own seed for the one God gave us. Believe that Jesus, like the Chairman of the Board, does not judge us by the beauty of the flowers in our pots, but on how we followed His directions!

Looking For Loopholes

“Why was the lawyer studying the Bible right before he died?”

 “He was looking for loopholes.”

Everyone likes to poke fun at lawyers. Whenever someone finds out that I was a lawyer for 13 ½ years before becoming a pastor, they feel compelled to share their favourite lawyer joke with me.

Loopholes are important to lawyers.  A “loophole” is defined as “a way of escaping or evading compliance with a law or terms contract.”  Examples of loopholes abound.  In 2005, a US retail giant planned to construct a store in the tiny hamlet of Dunkirk in Calvert County, Maryland. A county zoning ordinance restricted the size of a retail store to no more than 75,000 square feet.  The retail giant wanted to build a much larger store. Corporate lawyers for the retailer came up with a plan that would have dodged the square foot restriction.  They proposed building two buildings, side by side, on the same lot: a 74,998-square-foot stand alone general retail store and a 22,689-square-foot stand alone garden center. Each store would have had its own separate and distinct entrance, utilities, bathrooms, cash registers and product lines. However, together these stores would have had a combined area 30 percent larger than the 75,000-square-foot limit for a single retail store. The proposal appeared to meet the zoning ordinance yet the retail behemoth would be able to construct a complex that would, in effect, exceed the county’s zoning ordinance.  The retail giant was poised to slip through a loophole in the ordinance.  What a beautiful legal manoeuvre. It was a ‘perfect ten’! The retail giant would have complied with the county’s zoning ordinance and, at the same time, defeated its whole purpose: to keep big box stores out.

There are some who question whether the grace offered by God is really, in effect, a giant loophole.  Listen to these questions which appeared from a user of a website called Ask.com: “It seems like a loophole in Christianity that you can just show up at the end of your life and say, ‘I believe in you God, I am sorry for all my sins’ and go to heaven. If this is the case, why does anybody at all go to Church prior to that time? Why not just "show up" for God at the end of your life?”  The person posing these questions believes that heaven will be populated by two classes of people:  those who attended church regularly through their lives and people who slip into heaven through their ‘loophole’. Those who relied on the loophole could live their lives on this earth as they pleased prior to their death.  At death, all they had to do was to make a declaration of belief in God, and contrition for sins committed. Just like the retail giant, they could slip right through a crack in the pearly gates into heaven.  The questioner wondered why anyone would sit in a hard pew Sunday after Sunday; listen to a preacher drone on and on about what a sinner you are, and like it! The questioner wondered why one would not just use this ‘loophole’. Like the retail giant, the Ask.com questioner believed that he or she was poised to make a beautiful legal manoeuvre. It was a perfect ten. The questioner had found a way comply with God’s requirements for entry into heaven without living a ‘religious life’.  

How would you respond to these questions?  

The Christian Church stops and ponders these and similar questions during a season of the church we call ‘Lent’.  Lent begins on March 9^th with Ash Wednesday and ends Sunday April 17, on Palm/Passion Sunday. During Lent, all Christians are essentially encouraged to question if the good news about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection has been shared in a way that would cause us to believe that Jesus provides a giant loophole that permits us to simply show up at the end for God and all will be forgiven.   

The Gospel according to St. Luke describes a scene at the very end of Jesus’ life as a human being among us; as He died on the cross between two men who hung on their own crosses. The Roman authorities had nailed a sign on Jesus’ cross above his head that read, ‘King of the Jews’. To almost everyone, this sign was seen as the ultimate putdown.  Jesus was no king! He had no power, no authority, no subjects, no army and certainly no sovereignty. He was under the complete control of Rome. The Gospel continues:

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43).

One of the two criminals dying with our Lord saw Jesus in a new way. God had opened this man’s eyes so that he could see that the sign over Jesus’ head was not a joke, or the ultimate putdown, but the truth.  He was permitted to see Jesus as the King of the Jews and the Son of God.  With God’s help, he could see that Jesus was not suffering for any committed wrong.  He saw Jesus’ suffering and death as something far greater. He was permitted to see that Jesus had a kingdom and a life in Him that was not of this earth but beyond this world. The man suffering on the cross was permitted to see and understand that death was the only way into Jesus’ otherworldly kingdom. The man dying with Jesus was permitted to see that Jesus was completely sovereign. Jesus had made a conscious decision to lay down His life.  He was permitted to believe that Jesus had the sovereign authority to choose those who would be members of His kingdom.  God also gave the man the ability to see that he had lived a sordid life and deserved his punishment; that he did not deserve to enter into Jesus’ kingdom by reason of that sinful life. If Jesus was not suffering for what He had done; God gave him the faint hope that Jesus could be suffering for that thief on the cross.  God gave the dying man the hope and faint trust that the sovereign King Jesus might have mercy on him and let him into that kingdom.  He did not presume he had any rights when it came to entry into Jesus’ kingdom; he humbly asked for mercy. Jesus responded with mercy and promised him entry into that kingdom beyond the gates of death. With His words of mercy, Jesus changed a criminal’s faint hope into an unshakeable belief and trust in life after death with Jesus. 

 I am convinced that the reformed criminal’s advice to the person asking the questions on Ask.com would be this: “I surveyed my life as I hung on my cross. I had to admit that I had lived my life my way. I satisfied my desires at the expense of others. I never thought of God or God’s desires for my life. I couldn’t change a thing. I could not make amends. I deserved what I got!  Jesus made amends for me by His suffering and death. There are no loopholes! If I could have lived my life over again, I would have lived it differently.  I would have thought about God and what He wanted for my life.  I would have gone to God’s house to worship Him to learn about His will for me.  I would have followed King Jesus on this side of the gateway to His kingdom. I would have become a part of God’s family, the church, where I would have grown in faith, been held accountable for my behaviour and held others accountable for their behaviour.  Don’t wait to show up for God at the end! You may end up like the other criminal who hung beside me. When he had to show up for God, he insulted Jesus instead of having faith in Him.  Start living with and for King Jesus now! He can be found at a church near you.  What you do now has eternal consequences!” 

In Christ, Pastor Ed

PS: The retail giant didn’t use their loophole; they withdrew their application. They knew it would have been wrong!