Risking Is Imperative To Finding.
Risking is imperative to finding.
I think access to God and what the biblical writers call the Kingdom Of Heaven comes through the gateway of access into ourselves. We read about the spiritual through the lens of our own autobiographies. If we may know anything of The Beyond, then we must necessarily turn inward and look at the terrain of what has been created by this Generous One, and furthermore that this One decided to travel the same terrain we do with Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, the church has not done much in encouraging us to go inward except in order to find out what's wrong with us. That's valid, but it’s only half the journey toward wholeness and finding the kingdom within. In this vein I think the Church has accentuated the negative at the expense of the positive. We seem to have crucified the interior in order to prop up the exterior.
We are taught to observe the self only to criticize it, never to affirm it. We are told that duties, standards to live up to and constant attendance at church will land us in the Kingdom of heaven. Improving our performance, however, grows out of the corporate myth our country has swallowed, rather than accepting all of what we are compassionately and trusting the Christ within us to help us balance our wounds as well as our gifts.
This is an area in the church where I would like hopeful change to occur. Such a mentality creates a faith and spirituality which believes the Kingdom of Heaven is found by doing religious activities rather than being authentic and introspective in our living.
Don't mishear: there is nothing wrong with activity. Activity, however, must necessarily grow out of an introspective life. It does not create such a life, nor does it land us in the Kingdom of God.
This is the problem Jesus constantly had with the Pharisee's: their religion catered only to the exteriors of life, and because of that, missed the reality of God. Jesus both said and intimated that the “kingdom of heaven is within you.” It is an inward search, the result of which is a fulfillment unexplainable.
In the kingdom parables of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven as a personal search during which people will risk all in order to keep looking and finding. An inward search, if you will, in which the journey is more important than the destination, for all of these verbs are in the linear mood which, in Greek, suggests constancy.
In other words, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure in a hidden field, which a person constantly finds and sells all to have. It is like a merchant who is constantly in search of fine pearls and sells all to have them. None of this suggests mere activity, but a primal search. A Journey of all journeys. Something so inwardly fulfilling that we go to great lengths to stay on the journey. And like all great and primal journeys, there is risk involved, and risk is directly related to trust. The best way I can explain that is to break the process down into how questions:
How can one describe a wilderness without a hike?
How can one take a hike without moving?
How can one begin moving without deciding?
How can one decide without risking?
How can one risk without trusting?
You see, if we don't have an acute trust that Grace and Mercy saturate all of life, then we won't risk such inward journeys. And if we don't risk, then we simply don't find the bliss of the Kingdom within each one of us who, we are told in Genesis, have the image of God stamped in our very being. Being able to risk as these in the parables did is imperative to the reality of finding. Consider this column an invitation to do so! You’ll never be the same!
on February 4, 2010, 2:34 pm
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