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Christmas 05
Greenbelt 05
Communion
This is a dialogue between 3 people, used at the start of our Greenbelt service in 2005, on the theme of 'Spiritual Nonsense'. The 3 people are identified as A,B and C here.
(A introduces the service)
B:
The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and
sowed in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet, when
it has grown up, it is the largest of all garden plants and becomes a
tree so that the birds of the sky come and roost in its branches.
C:
The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in 50
pounds of flour until it was all leavened.
A The kingdom of
heaven is like treasure hidden in a field: when someone finds it that
person covers it up again and out of sheer joy goes and sells every
last posession and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is
like some trader looking for beautiful pearls. When that merchant
finds one priceless pearl, he sells everything he owns and buys
it.
B: These are all familiar parables
we've heard many times before. Probably most of you totally ignored
most of them. You know the message; the kingdom of heaven is
something of immense value, like that pearl. It might start as a
small thing, and grow bigger, maybe inside our hearts or maybe in a
community. So maybe think of the 50 pounds of flour as a church that
is lacking in life, lacking in the spirit of God. And the leaven is
hidden in it, and leavens it, and animates it, and makes it grow.
C:
Leaven? What's Leaven? Like Unleavened bread?
B
Yes. Leaven is a word for yeast, leavening is making bread rise. It
was seen as an impurity, a sign of unclean-ness in Hebrew thought, so
on the holy days, they used unleavened bread, which had none of the
impurity.
C. So the kingdom of
heaven is like an impurity? And the idea of hiding yeast in flour is
ridiculous.
B Yes.
C.
So what did a mustard seed represent?
B
The mustard plant is a weed, one of the fastest growing of weeds, but
not only that, birds like to perch in its branches, eating the crops
that are supposed to be there, yet the references to its growing tall
and birds nesting in its branches echo old-testament descriptions of
the cedars of lebanon, the greatest of all trees. It's saying' The
kingdom of heaven is a weed that will destroy the crops, but it's the
mightiest and most majestic of all trees'
C.
The kingdom of heaven is to be found where we wouldn't think of
looking for it. The message of jesus is to reject religion, to look
for God who can't be fitted into the confines of our rules of
behaviour our institutions and our services and ceremonies. All these
things point the way, but only contain so much, like the 50 poinds of
flour, that try to hide the leaven, but it escapes even expanding the
flour out as it does so, stretching it beyond how it weants to be
stretched. Like the mustard seed the truth dwarfs the other plans and
mocks the gardener's ideas of neatness and productivity.
B
What is truth?
C Truth is the
greatest pearl of wisdom, the pearl of great price, the treasure that
it is worth giving everything for. The merchant gave everything he
owned. Everything. He had nothing but the pearl. No money, no home,
nothing. Yet you know he did the right thing. To the eyes of the
world, this is what the message of Jesus is like; it is nonsense.
What practical use is a pearl? You can't eat a pearl. Yet why
does the world expect to understand the mind of God?
B
And you are not of this world? You are beyond all worlds? You have
nothing but this pearl? You know the mind of God?
C
One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing. Jesus
commanded us to love god and love our neighbour. Jesus did not
command us to understand god; in fact he said that unless you become
like a child you can never enter the kingdom of heaven. Do not try to
understand God, only try to know and love God.
A: The
people were commanded not to make a graven image and bow down before
it. But they took the very words that forbade them to make a graven
image, carved them in stone and bowed down before them. So Jesus
came, not to replace the law but to fulfill it. But we built
churches, to try and trap his message and to control it. Even the
finest teaching is not the way itself. That is why Jesus said 'I am
the way and the truth and the life'. The bible is not the way and the
truth and the life; Jesus is.
B So we need
to tear down those churches! We need to set the message free!
C
No. The leaven only rose into a massive pile of bread because it was
hidden in flour. Jesus came not to replace the law but to fulfil the
law. Let the leaven work through the bread and expand outwards, the
message starts in the church, the law, but the churches were made for
humanity, not humanity for the churches. Remember the leaven was
hidden in the bread.
A: Look at Psalm 119 . Endlessly, it
speaks of the law as a delight. If you can believe it, then you live
as if the sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the
sabbath.
B: So what nonsense would Jesus
talk about today? Not about the cedars of lebanon, and how many of us
know how to make bread?
C: He'd
certainly have no concern for doctrine or obscure heracies. Or
ostracising people for their sex lives.
A: He'd look for
good and truth amongst the drunks and the drug-takers, amongst the
party-goers, just like when he made the heart of christianity be a
meal with wine.
C: He'd criticise the
right-on crowd worrying about their fair-trade coffee and
enviromentaly friendly washing up liquid.
A: Maybe he'd
meet someone, someone we'd expect to be trying to destroy our lives,
and say that nowhere, not in any christian country had he seen faith
like that man's.
C: The kingdom of heaven is
like some bit of overpriced memorabilia on eBay.
A: The
kingdom of heaven is like a computer virus
C:
Who haven't we offended yet?
B:
Yourselves. Whether you criticise the establisment for their small
ideas of God, or criticise the new establishment of those who
criticise the old establishment for their small ideas of God, when
you come up with your new and outlandish images from the newest
culture, you're just building another newer edifice that still can't
hold God. The old cracks are gone, the new cracks are there. It makes
a pleasant change from to move from one tower of babel to the next,
but forget your perfect offering; there's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.