How are you doing at "building your city's wall"

3/4/2018

In Matthew, Jesus gives us a one sentence parable concerning the Kingdom of God.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”
During our Merge Summit, as we talked about working on our city’s wall, the subject of the Kingdom of God was in the forefront of the conversation. I have been doing this for a while and I understand that even with the subject of the Kingdom there are varied opinions on what that looks like. As I read the parables in Matthew, it seemed to me that the Kingdom is presented as simple and even small, yet it impacts everything it comes in contact with. The small amount of yeast that is used compared to all the other ingredients to make bread and yet without the yeast…it falls flat. It makes the bread rise and take the shape we assume bread should look like. He talks about a mustard seed, being the smallest of all seeds, and yet a great plant grows from that small seed. So, while some might see the Kingdom as being triumphant and influential, I tend to see it as subtle and almost insignificant in the eyes of those around it. (I hope others with different views will add to the conversation)

When I hear Jesus speak that the “Kingdom of God is here”, what I do see is darkness pushed back. People are healed because the Kingdom of God is breaking in…demons flee at the simple command to go. The outcast and the rejected are welcomed in, ahead of the highly religious. Lepers are not only healed but they felt the touch of another human hand even before they are made whole. The Kingdom of God was radically different from any Kingdom man could build. An interesting aspect of how Jesus ministered was as the crowds got bigger He would either leave and move on to another place or He would blister the crowd with a message that was difficult for them to swallow…and He would watch them walk away. I am not sure any of us understand His methods…only that He came to proclaim the Kingdom of God and demonstrated its presence with signs and wonders.

I am glad for those who love the large and the loud. I support those who declare we should rule
and reign here on earth…now. But I also look for a Kingdom movement in the subtle…a leader
organizing men to read to kindergarten students in TPS. Another leader who has been given
charge of a school by outside sources to bring wholeness and help to the children of that
school…and Jesus is welcomed. I watch a leader work hard to begin a program to help families
work their way towards home ownership…one house at a time. Walking with the family,
discipling them in spiritual things and also essential things like finances and family. A leader sets up a business with the vision to influence culture from within the culture. Even as many have attacked them and called for them to leave, they have dug in to love those who do not love them. To influence. To me, those things sound so much like the Kingdom Jesus describes in the above parable.

I love the big…bicycles given away, parties thrown for the crowd, and much more. Loud and
impressive. All of it can be seen as the Kingdom…and also the child hearing a grown man, a
business man reading a story to them. A school where there will always be someone there to
walk alongside them through the good and the hard. One family with a dream of owning a
home…and someone coming alongside them, not giving them a hand out…given them a hand
up. You gotta like that…a lot.

Bill

1 Comment

Bill Herzog link

4/10/2018 11:08:41 am

A city ministry leader, Mitch Machir with Water for Ishmael, sent me the following quote:“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one much individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meet together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possible be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. AW Tozer (Pursuit of God)

I love the imagery Tozer shares as he points to a tuning fork bringing all the pianos into a perfect tuning. Oft times, in the Church, as we begin to talk about unity, we speak in ways where each leader or church is expected to lose their individual calling and throw in with the rest of the group. Each piano here was its own instrument, some may have been uprights, others grand or baby grands, some may have been spinets or even player pianos, but tuned to one common tuning fork…flawless in sound. If someone decided to tune one piano to the tuning fork but the next one to the already tuned piano there would be subtle changes…until we got down the line further then they are no longer in tune with one another.

So I am not going to insult anyone’s intelligence here and ask “Who or what is our tuning fork?” So one hundred worshippers meet together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possible be were they to become “unity” We could all sit in a room and pick apart our theological differences, focus on what we might not agree on rather than focus on the One who called us together to begin with. Many times the fight for unity is really a struggle to convince someone else they are wrong…and I am right. Barb and I have been married for 46 plus years and I can say with confidence WE do not agree on everything theologically or otherwise. But…we are tuned with the same tuning fork…singing the same song…in harmony.

As we think about Merge we have to remind ourselves we are not an ecumenical group or an inter-faith group. Merge is about men and women that are looking directly at Jesus, not even at one another but at the One leading the orchestra and following His lead. And we find ourselves more unified than if we ever decided “unity” was the goal. Jesus is the goal…the Kingdom of God moving forward…God being glorified in our city is our tuning fork. Anything else is just a good idea…and many of us are tired of good ideas.
The Psalmist writes, :How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that was poured over Aaron’s head, that ran down his beard and onto the border of his robe. Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion And there the Lord has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting. Psalm 133 NLT My friend Mitch is one of many that long to see believers tuned, not to one another but to another standard…so that we are in tune with one another.
- Bill Herzog

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