Catching Fog

Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God’s Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God’s creation, says:

“I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, ‘I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone,’ oblivious that in fact you’re a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless.

“Here’s what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that’s been through the refiner’s fire. Then you’ll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You’ve gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see.

“The people I love, I call to account—prod and correct and guide so that they’ll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God!

“Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That’s my gift to the conquerors!

“Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches.” (Revelation 3:14-22)

Jesus’ words can change your life. Laodicea was a prosperous commercial city in northwest Asia Minor, not too far from the city of Colossae. Its church had pushed Jesus away. They had allowed the deceitfulness of riches to make them forget the Lord they loved.

But Jesus told them it is easy to let him back into their lives. In fact, he told the Christians in Laodicea that he was just outside their door, knocking, waiting for them to let him return. When I was in Sunday School class as a child, I remember staring at a painting of Jesus standing beside a door, knocking, waiting to be let in. My Sunday School teacher used that picture and Jesus’ words to the Laodicean Christians to convince me to become a Christian.

Jesus’ words can be effective, even when we misapply them. God does not wait for us to understand clearly before he changes us forever. Whether we’re a Christian or not, Jesus is waiting for us to let him come in.

Send to Kindle

As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of His disciples, and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.”

They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”

They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission.

They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:

“Hosanna!
BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD;
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”

Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. (Mark 11:1-11)

The crowd went wild! They knew their world was about to change—they just didn’t know how much. The prophet Zechariah had prophesied that Israel’s king would arrive on a donkey’s colt. The word “hosanna” is a Hebrew phrase that means “Save, now” or “Save, I pray.” It came from Psalm 118, which was a Psalm of triumph and praise to God. The Hebrew word for “save” is related to the name Jesus, who received his name specifically because he would save his people. When he rode into Jerusalem, the shouting crowd supposed he was their political savior. They expected him to save them from the Romans by raising an army and fighting against them. But Jesus was coming to save them from something far more serious: their sins. To do that, he would surrender to the Romans and die at their hands. Then rise to life and return to his Father.

What does this mean to us today? True salvation does not come from overthrowing a government. It comes by surrendering. It comes from the one who saved us from our sins. If we want change, then we need to change things the way Jesus changed things: one heart at a time.

Send to Kindle

The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

“When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near you.’” (Luke 10:1-9)

Pastors deserve to get paid. Jesus sent seventy-two of his followers into the cities that Jesus was about to visit himself. Their message was the same as his, both in word and deed. Why seventy-two? Perhaps to match the number of elders on whom the Spirit descended in the wilderness to help Moses govern (see Numbers 11:25-26). The mission of the seventy-two was short and temporary, in contrast to the mission of the twelve apostles Jesus sent out at another time, that was worldwide and permanent. After a single missionary tour, these seventy two were never mentioned again in the New Testament.

What did Jesus mean about peace resting on a man of peace? The standard greeting in Israel, as throughout the Middle East, was shalom elekem–“peace to you” Jesus merely told them that if their greeting was accepted, they should accept that home’s hospitality. If their greeting was not accepted, then they should move on to someone else. Jesus was giving them instructions about how they would know where they could stay while they worked.

Jesus was proposing something new for those who worked full time for him. Before Jesus, the rabbis in charge of the synagogues received no payment from the synagogue. They had to have a trade in order to make a living. Jesus argued that those who worked for the kingdom of God deserved to be supported by those they ministered to. That’s why, in most churches today, our pastors are paid a salary by the congregation they serve.

Send to Kindle

“The one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’

“But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’

“For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:24-30)

Jesus didn’t ask us to play it safe. He wants us to risk it all. The poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous poem called If in which he described what it meant to be an adult. One part of being an adult was the willingness to take risks and accept failure. In concluding the parable of the servants that were given talents, Jesus ends with the one who, given the least (of a still enormous sum of money) chose to do nothing with it. Instead, he claimed fear as his excuse: fear of losing what he’d been given.

The master doesn’t accept fear as the real reason for the servant’s behavior. Unlike the servant in the parable in Luke, the servant in Matthew’s story not only has the single talent taken away, but he is cast into “outer darkness.” The weeping and gnashing of teeth is indicative of the regret the lazy servant suffered—his too late recognition of his bad behavior.

Jesus’ parable describes the kingdom of God. The wealth is distributed unevenly and the results are uneven. Heaven is not a “communist utopia”; God isn’t concerned about income inequality. You can multiply only if you have something to multiply with. You can’t multiply by zero and get anything. An unproductive servant is no servant at all. Like a broken light switch, you might as well toss it out. Taking risks is a good thing; playing it safe, not so much. After all, Jesus wants us to risk everything for him.

Send to Kindle

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“The man with the two talents also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.’

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:14-23)

Can Jesus trust us? The kingdom of God was compared to the faithfulness of a wealthy man’s servants who handled his investments while he was away. The Gospel of Luke presents a similar parable, but the purpose of the trip and the amounts of money and the number of servants differs from what Matthew describes. But Jesus’ point remains the same in both versions, perhaps told in different times and circumstances.

Here in Matthew, Jesus posits that the servants were given “talents” of money. A talent was sixty times larger than what the servants in Luke were given. A “talent” was the equivalent of nearly one hundred pounds worth of silver. It would have represented what a day laborer might have earned in twenty years worth of hard labor. It was an enormous amount of money.

God has entrusted us with an enormous responsibility. Into our hands, he has given us the wealth of his kingdom. He has left to us the choice of what to do with it. His hope is that we will invest in wisely and use it to advance his kingdom. How do we do that? He wants us to spend it on the lives of everyone we meet.

Send to Kindle

Jesus left the meeting place and went to Simon’s home. When Jesus got there, he was told that Simon’s mother-in-law was sick with a high fever. So Jesus went over to her and ordered the fever to go away. Right then she was able to get up and serve them a meal.

After the sun had set, people with all kinds of diseases were brought to Jesus. He put his hands on each one of them and healed them. Demons went out of many people and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” But Jesus ordered the demons not to speak because they knew he was the Messiah.

The next morning Jesus went out to a place where he could be alone, and crowds came looking for him. When they found him, they tried to stop him from leaving. But Jesus said, “People in other towns must hear the good news about God’s kingdom. That’s why I was sent.” So he kept on preaching in the Jewish meeting places in Judea. (Luke 4:38–44)

Jesus brought good news to the people of Israel. It was so wonderful, in fact, that huge crowds came looking for him so they could hear it. Healing the sick and casting out demons were illustrations, living parables, about God’s kingdom. Jesus brought the human race relief from its blindness, and from its oppression beneath the heavy boot of the evil one. Jesus rescued us from the kingdom of Satan just as God had rescued the Israelites from the kingdom of the Pharaoh.

The kingdom of God is about freedom, rather than slavery. It is about joy rather than sadness. It is about wealth rather than poverty. It is about health rather than sickness. But if we imagine that the kingdom of God is about a physical kingdom, physical wealth, physical health, physical freedom, then we are missing what Jesus means by the kingdom of God. We are allowing ourselves to become distracted by those things that won’t endure, instead of embracing the things that will endure forever. The kingdom is about our reconciliation, a treasure in heaven, and everlasting life. The reality of eternity begins today because the king of the kingdom lives in us and walks with us every day. We are his ambassadors, citizens, walking the road toward our home in the kingdom and inviting everyone we see join us on our pilgrimage.

And as we embrace God’s kingdom, the kingdoms of the world will inevitably change as well. We make the world a better place, we change physical reality, as we help people find the way to the true king and his kingdom.

Send to Kindle