Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at the harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat in my barn. 

Matthew 13.30 

Pastor Oscar Banks of South Shore Christian Church in Corpus Christi tells the story of a children's sermon that took a hard left turn. The pastor asked the boys and girls what she would have to do to get into Heaven, proposing increasingly heroic acts of service and self-sacrifice. Well-schooled, the kids said no, that none of that would do the trick. In mock frustration, the pastor fumed, "Then what do I have to do to get into Heaven?"

"Well," replied one little boy. "First of all, you have to be dead."

Jesus threads the same idea through this parable: We never do well to get ahead of Heaven. Heaven comes after we've waited it out with the weeds. Utopian schemes of earthly paradise, Jesus warns, only make things worse. In fact, a lot of waiting goes on in this entire chapter: the farmer has to wait for the seeds to find good soil after a lot of trial and error; the hearers have to wait until the meaning of the parables emerges and most won't stick around that long; the birds have to wait until a mutant mustard seed goes full-on giant sequoia and the housewife has to wait for the dough to rise. 

So what is the calling of the Christian in this weedy old world? Put down the perfectionistic weed-whacker, tend to what's growing, and wait it out. And be humble: Someone has said that a weed is only a plant growing where I don't want it, and a lot of our condemnation of others has far more to do with their inconvenience to us than their disobedience to God. And be joyful: One day servants of the Householder will conduct a surgical strike, burn the bad seed and bundle us into his barn. Until then - on your job, in your family, at your church - don't expect Heaven; you're not dead yet.

To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write. . .

- Revelation 2.1

John's revelation begins with the risen Christ and moves quickly to the embattled Body of Christ. Chapters two and three of the Revelation consist of letters to seven churches. Interpreters have long debated the symbolic meaning of these congregations. Are they a sort of eschatological doomsday clock that ticks off the seconds and Sundays that remain before the Lord's return? Could we synchronize our sanctification with Revelation's Rolex and blow the whistle on the Thief in the Night?

Whatever one's position on this issue, one thing is clear: These congregations may have symbolized The Church, but they existed as churches. However they may relate to the end times, they fought out their faith in real time. If they are symbolical, they are first geographical.

They are unique: Christ addresses each community in terms that resonate with its own culture, and addresses their unique struggles, weaknesses, and strengths. They are typical: The pattern of address, commendation, rebuke, promise and warning runs throughout the seven with minor variations. Indeed, since John includes their letters in his Letter, he invites them to read each other's mail (quite literally). We can't think this was for purposes of gossip or bragging rights, so they must have been enough alike that this kind of snooping would do them good.

But here's the interesting thing: John doesn't write to the churches; he writes to their pastors. The Greek pronouns in the seven letters are singular: you, not y'all. And all that stuff about removing candlesticks? It puts the burden squarely on the shepherd. To be fair, interpreters debate whether angel means, you know, an angel, as if each congregation has a celestial foreman, or should be translated as "messenger," referring to the pastor. John is clearly into angels; he's also into the book of Daniel: quotes it twenty or so times, depending on who's counting; and the book of Daniel at least hints at territorial seraphim (Dan 10.13). Still, the New Testament also uses the word in the terrestrial sense, and anyway, how do you address a letter to an angel? Probably it means "pastor."

This reminds us of the words of Herman Melville in Moby Dick when his narrator, Ishmael, ponders a pulpit shaped like a ship's bow: 

"What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world ’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow."

So when your pastor mounts to the pulpit on Sunday, be in prayer. The risen Christ says the hurricane is coming, and you need to hear the foul weather protocol. 

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10.11

Do we love ivory, or elephants?

I once heard the story of an ivory hunter back in the days when the sun never set on the British empire. He returned to England fabulously rich, and at a dinner party the young men plied him with questions as to how they could replicate his success. The old boy replied, "Everyone goes to the jungle to hunt for ivory and they all discover the same thing: It isn't that hard to find ivory; the problem is that when you do, there's always an elephant attached."

Well, not necessarily. 

Elephants world-wide face extinction due to the predations of poachers who slaughter the beasts for their valuable dentition. A mature animal mounts a set of tusks that top out at over one hundred pounds each; at $1K per kilogram, that cashes out to about $100,000. At the Addo Elephant Preserve on the Eastern Cape of South Africa this pressure has led to a unique survival strategy: tuskless elephants. A recessive gene that normally affects about two percent of the population now appears in a large percentage of the females in this region. Poaching has dropped to nearly nothing; why kill the animal when there's no payday attached?

But here's the interesting thing: Addo's park rangers have not stood down. Instead, this eighty-soldier army polices its ponderous charges using military tactics and weaponry, including air support and motion-detecting sensors. They shepherd their charges through thick bush rife with plants that have names like pig's ear, spike thorn, and mother-in-law's tongue! They place a high price on useless beasts; they risk their lives for pointless pachyderms.

Few people in Jesus' world had ever seen en elephant, so he chose sheep to make the same point. The good shepherd sacrifices himself for the flock, a clear statement that he cares for them as living things rather than simply so much rolling stock. Esau's birthright meant nothing to him if he was dead; Jesus instead operated on the logic of love and laid down his life for his mangy inheritance.

In a day when aftershave-soaked televangelists preach sweet-smelling sermons from behind a shield-wall of ivory dentition, God calls pastors to admire ivory, but to love elephants. Sheer your sheep for the wool, but love the sheep for themselves.

Ministry is not all ivory and love-offerings. It is often thick hides and sharp brambles. God calls pastors to go on safari through thick thistles suitable for weaving a crown of thorns, to spend their lives on useless elephants whose only claim to care is that Christ loved them enough to die for them. Our best preaching may fall like pearls before pachyderms, but we will one day hear the Good Park Ranger say to us, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

We take every thought captive to obey Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10.5

Parasitoid wasps are a thing. 

It appears that they roofie other bugs and turn them into a living incubator for the wasp's eggs - which hatch into larvae and devour their host then bust out like high school football players through a blast sign. Gross, huh? (Yeah, but at least one of 'em does it to cockroaches, so it brings balance to the force.) This appears to have been going on for forty million years, if you believe what the scientists say about the fossil evidence. 

Think about that: a hostile, alien being that hijacks the brain, making a creature cultivate the means of its own destruction. 

Paul knew all about this. That's why he declares in 2 Corinthians 10.5 that he "takes every thought captive." He deploys the same Greek verb he uses in Romans 7.23 to speak of  seeing "in my members another law. . . making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members." For Paul, this is war. "Damn the mosquitoes! Full speed ahead!" (Sorry. "Wasps" doesn't make the pun.) 

The devil is a parasitoid insect who co-opts us as surrogate wombs to nurse our own destruction. The good news is that we can choose other roommates. "The peace of God," promises Philippians 4.7, "which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I have a friend who is a ventriloquist. When she makes a mistake in her routine, she manipulates the puppet so that it turns slowly toward her and eyes her before asking, "Who's working your head?" It's a pretty good question.