Our Dreams and God's Reality

            If I had to pick a favorite memory about Camp McDowell, the Episcopal Camp and Conference Center for the Diocese of Alabama, it would be saying Compline, an evening prayer service, in the Lower Camp chapel.  The prayers that are included in Compline are impressed on my heart and soul.  “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or sleep this night…”

            The tradition of Compline at Camp McDowell is alive and well.  At Senior Camp, Compline was said just about every night.  Notice that I said, “just about every night.”  About half way through the session, I asked Claire to design a worship service based of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd curriculum that we use for the children here at St. Paul’s.

            It was a beautiful service and revealed the depth of the Episcopal liturgy but it wasn’t Compline.  After the service, the Head Counselor asked the campers if they had any announcements before dismissing.  One camper raised her hand and said, “Why didn’t we do Compline?” 

The Head Counselor looked at me.  I responded, “I wanted to explore with you other aspects of our liturgy, but we will do Compline again tomorrow night.”  I could have said a whole lot more but bit my tongue.  My answer wasn’t good enough so another camper proposed having an optional Compline.  So, the campers led about a quarter of the camp in an optional Compline.

And while Compline was going on in the chapel, I was talking to another camper, outside the chapel, about how much Compline meant to him.  While we were sitting outside the chapel, during the optional Compline, this senior camper expressed how he wanted to do Compline as many times as possible as this was his last camp.  Needless to say, he missed Compline.

As a follow up, I told the campers of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote.  Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and martyr who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp, argues in his book Life Together that the biggest danger to authentic Christian community is that we put human ideals before divine reality.  We often love our human constructs for community more than the reality God has set us in through Christ.

Even though his book was published before World War II, the truth Bonhoeffer expresses in this book are timeless.  The biggest threat to our Christian identity are based on our dreams of what that community should look like rather than focusing on the reality that God in Christ is already revealing. 

Bonhoeffer says, “Christian fellowship is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”  If the campers read between the lines, I was trying to tell them that our worship of God doesn’t simply happen at Compline.

These five parables fromMatthew’s gospel communicate that God’s Word is what creates Christian community – not our own idealized versions of what community should look like.  After all, our own ideas of community set in contrast to God’s kingdom reality are always incomplete, imperfect, and limited – and our own good ideas inevitably cause a self-righteousness that is antithetical to kingdom living.  And to be clear – I am guilty loving my dreams more than God’s reality as well.

  The first two parables, the mustard seed and the yeast, remind us that God’s kingdom is already planted in Jesus Christ and that God’s kingdom permeates every facet of our life together.  These two parables also remind us that the kingdom of God is found in the most unexpected places – in the small and ordinary, in a mustard seed, in the stuff that we might consider unclean or impure like yeast to a Jew.

These first two parables tell us that it is not up to us to go out and create this Christian community.  Rather, we are called to go out and find the kingdom that God has already created and Jesus gives us a big hint on where to find this kingdom – the kingdom is not found in the same places that we might expect to find earthly kingdoms – the kingdom of God is not of this world – the kingdom of God is found in the last places that humans would naturally look.  

And then Jesus gives us a teaching on what we are to do when we find the kingdom of God on earth.  Jesus compares the discovery of the kingdom to someone who sells everything to a buy a field just to acquire a hidden treasure, and then to a merchant who is in search of fine pearls.  And foolishly, at least according to earthly standards, the merchant gives up his entire livelihood to secure the pearl of great price.  But such is the experience of the kingdom of God on earth. 

We can’t expect to fully live in the kingdom of God on earth when we are still holding onto the things that we have acquired in these earthly kingdoms.  We can’t expect to fully live into the kingdom of God if we cling to our own ideas of what a good life consists of rather than letting go and participating in the life God has already made available for us in Jesus Christ.

The final parable gets a little trickier.  This is a mini-parable on the final judgment.  God will separate the good fish from the bad fish.  At this point, we can assume that the bad fish are those who are consumed by the kingdoms of this world and the good fish are the ones who are fit for life in God’s enteral kingdom.

I don’t know about you but this one makes me a little nervous.  And I think it should make me nervous.  This fourth parable on judgment challenges me to think about what I hold most sacred in this world.  This fourth parable demands that I take a spiritual inventory and name all the temporal things that I hold onto so tightly.  I am confronted with the truth that human ways, human ideas, human possessions will only fail me in the end.

The series of parables ends with Jesus asking his listeners, “Do you understand?”  And without hesitation, the crowd says, “Yes!”  Y’all are smart people, and I imagine that you too understand the message that Jesus is putting before us. 

To summarize – seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.  Make your priority in this life the discovery of the kingdom of God in our midst and everything else will be taken care of.

The real question asks, “Do you trust this message enough to actually live your daily lives in such a manner?”  As I’m sure I’ve said before, I estimate that I live about 80% of my life in the kingdoms of this world and 20% of my life in the kingdom of heaven.  I have a lot of work to do. 

And the good news is that God will never stop working on me; God will never stop working on you.  God will never stop working to reveal the kingdom of heaven even when we start looking for life in all the wrong places.  I have experienced God’s grace enough times to remember that God is doing everything in God’s power to show me life and life abundant – no matter how far off track I stray.

Finally, Jesus tells the listeners who understand the message of the kingdom to train others in kingdom matters.  For me, this is more good news.  I am best trained in something when I get to teach it to others.  You might be thinking – well I’m not a preacher or teacher.  Sure, that might not be your job title but it is your vocation.

In our own unique ways, we all have the opportunity to open others to the possibility of God’s kingdom in our very midst.  We all have the opportunity to remind people to look for God in the small and ordinary.  We all have the opportunity to remind people that God’s kingdom is everywhere.  We all have the opportunity to show people just how serious we are about living in the kingdom of earth by making great sacrifices for the sake of the gospel. 

Like the parable of the loaves and fishes, God has given us everything we need for kingdom life through Jesus Christ.  It may not appear to be much on the surface.  But possibilities in God’s kingdom are endless.  And we have reason to hope for endless possibilities because our Lord and Savior is the One who is risen from the dead – nothing – not even the powers of sin and death – can stop the growth of God.

May the eternal truth of God’s Word which has been planted in your heart through the living Christ make you strive for the kingdom of heaven and may you know a life that the kingdoms of this world will never give you.  Amen.