Once you experience being loved when you are unworthy, being forgiven when you did something wrong, that moves you into non-dual thinking. You move from what I call meritocracy, quid pro quo thinking, to the huge ocean of grace, where you stop counting or calculating. Richard Rohr
We live in an age that philosopher Charles Taylor describes as an immanent frame, or, a state of disenchantment that eliminates the spiritual realm and reduces us to biological beings with five senses and no more. In such a context, it is only reasonable that our motivations and goals – indeed our very lives – become preoccupied with the manipulation of objects and people into an optimal order that maximizes our sensual pleasures.
In such a state of attention, then, we inevitably slip into the dualistic mindset of meritocracy. Because there’s nothing in this world for me to do other than seek sensual pleasures, and I am aware that you, too, are engaged in the same pursuit, then the only way for us to move forward is to agree that if I do something for you, you do something for me.
If I work for you, you pay me. If I do you a favor, you owe me. If you harm me, I will take revenge.
This mindset is so pervasive that even those of us who would reach beyond the eminent frame to seek the God of the universe who exists both beyond and within it allow us to be caught up in a spiritual meritocracy. If I do a good deed, God smiles on me and must bless me. If I suffer, God must be disappointed in me. If something bad happened to that poor chap over there, he most assuredly deserves it for something he has done.
There is no escape from this dualistic mindset without the divine, a new dimension of being, that exists apart from the immanent frame of disenchantment at worst and spiritual meritocracy at best. We need metanoia or repentance that leads to a new quality of attention, an entirely new way of thinking, that rises from the ashes of sensual orientation and seeks presence with the divine God of the universe and those around us that he has created in his image.
In our story today, Jesus confronts this immanent frame and invites us to live beyond it in the realms of love and enchantment and joy and peace.
How Jesus does this is the subject of today’s episode. He uses three metaphors that initially seem separate. Isolated. But when you allow them to coalesce, the result is a startling, overarching metaphor hidden in plain sight that stretches as far back as Genesis 1 and as far forward as Revelation 22.
Come and see for yourself.
Source Scripture
I Have a Proposal Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39
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Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God. Thomas Merton
The Ark of the Covenant. It is the subject of much of the Old Testament Scriptures. It is the central object of desire for Indiana Jones and Adolph Hitler in the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is the ultimate boon for many treasure hunters who still seek it.
The Old Testament Scriptures tell us that God spoke to Moses from between the two cherubim – or angels – that rose above the lid of the ark. Inside the ark were the two tablets of stone on which God etched the Ten Commandments with his finger. The ark was so holy it was never to be touched, but instead covered with cloth and carried with staves that allowed the men moving it to maintain adequate distance.
The Ark made its way from its birth at Mount Sinai through 40 years of wandering in the desert, and then to the Jordan River where it split the waters and allowed the Israelites to cross into the Promised Land on dry ground.
It eventually made its way to its final home – the Jewish temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. It was placed in a room of the temple called the Holy of Holies, where only the great high priest could enter once per year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to seek forgiveness for the people of Israel.
The Ark of the Covenant, the most holy object of all time, resting in the Holy of Holies, had itself a most holy place – the lid atop it that covered the Ten Commandments. The place where the great high priest would sprinkle the blood of sacrifice once per year.
It is here, between the two angels atop the lid, that God said his presence permeated this world from the heavens beyond. And this lid was known as the mercy seat.
Of all of the ways that God could choose to present himself and make himself known. It was not through the tablets of law that were hidden inside the ark, which represented the requirements of the people to remain in good favor with God. It was not through the magnificent structure of the temple that encased it. It was not through the gleaming gold that covered every inch of it. It was not through the blood sacrifices that occurred just feet way outside in the inner court of the temple and got most of the attention.
No, the portal between heaven and earth where the divine God of the Universe presented himself to mankind was on the mercy seat.
Mercy. This is God’s posture toward us. This is his intent with us. And this – this unfathomable mercy of God – is the subject of today’s episode.
Source Scripture
Party Time: Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras