Living in the Spirit
July 26, 2014
Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’ He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ —13:31-33
What Jesus doesn’t point out in his parables about the Kingdom of Heaven is that evil spreads in very much the same way. Like a cancer that starts as what appears to be an innocent mole, melanoma grows above the skin but the worst damage is not so visible. It is cancer’s tentacles reaching and spreading beneath the skin that are so deadly. We humans have finite capacity for both good and for evil. Unless we actively pursue the dominance of good, evil will soon fill the void. On the other hand, when even the smallest bit of love is nurtured, it will grow and grow leaving no room for evil.
Carl Jung says, People tend to believe evil is something external to them – yet it is a projection of the shadow onto others. As one who projects the principle for absolute and unresolvable evil onto others – it is to the degree that one condemns others and finds evil in others, that one is unconscious of the same thing within oneself, or the potential of that within oneself. It is a projection of one’s own shadow. What Carl Jung does not say here is that our projection of good on the other, loving them as they are, projects our own God-authored love for ourselves.
The foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven is loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. It is as old as time as old as God and it is upon this rock that we must do our part of living into the Kingdom of God right now and every day forward.
Prayer: Ancient of Days, fill us with your love so that we can love others as you would have us to love them seeing past what we perceive as evil and seeing your image in everyone. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.