The kingdom’s disparate thread
Today, I offer disparate (and to you meaningless) items: a meat fork, andirons, a poem, a scorecard, a book, a box and bedtime stories.
These are the earthly treasures in which my heart rests, the glimpses and snippets of my past that cohere in a way that arouse my soul to the kingdom yet to come.
The good book tells us, “For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also” (Matthew 6:21). The truth hurts. I can confess my heart has been misplaced and misdirected in life. I have gripped earthly treasures and felt the resulting guilt but also God’s forgiving grace.
There is a treasure story in the literature from Aesop’s fables. He wrote, “A jar of honey chanced to spill its contents on the windowsill in many a viscous pool and rill. The flies, attracted by the sweet, began so greedily to eat, they smeared their fragile wings and feet. With many a twitch and pull in vain, they gasped to get away again, and died in aromatic pain.”
Humans have a proclivity toward attachment. It is never difficult to discern where our heart lies. Jesus and Aesop understood human nature.
My mother always said, “A word to the wise should be sufficient.” Jesus said much that should be sufficient, so I pray for wisdom and also to be wise.
“For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also,” Jesus said. Our Lord’s words are profound, wide and deep in meaning. These words have passed by me many times in life and I have thought about them often.
I understood the difference between earthly and heavenly treasures, but the distance between head and heart is a life. I did not have ears to hear until now. The meaning did not escape me, but our Lord’s intent did.
So what was Jesus doing in these words? Let me suggest he was writing a eulogy and an epitaph. He was writing mine and yours. Jesus came so that we might know the difference between “aromatic pain” and eternal joy. While the choice is clear, our will revels in obstinacy.
A golden thread runs through my disparate items and awakens me to clarity. This thread weaves patience, kindness and perseverance, rejoicing in truth.
This thread runs through that meat fork, used by my mother as I watched (and smelled) her cook her spaghetti sauce; those andirons, forged by my grandfather’s hands; the poem, written by my daughter about me; the scorecard, the first time my son broke 80 playing golf; the book, “Milk and Cookies” recited by my youngest before she could read; the box, a gift to me made by my wife and those bedtime stories (Boogly Woogly stories), my gift to my children.
This thread is love, a love that reveals the kingdom yet to come.
“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15).