What you seek is what you are going to get. What you expect is what you will call forth and recognize.
|
"The Principle of Likeness"
"Seek and You Will Find"
Thursday, 16 October 2014
In Matthew 13:10-13, the disciples ask Jesus why he speaks to the people with parables. “And he answered them, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to him who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing [with their normal mind] they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.’”
This is how I read this enigmatic passage: “You disciples have already made the breakthrough, so I can talk to you straightforwardly and you get it. But for those who are still enclosed and over-defended, I’ve got to tell little riddles and stories to undermine their usual and comfortable way of thinking, so that they’ll reframe both the question and the answer.” Parables, like Zen koans, are almost always counter-intuitive and resist your common sense intellect. That is their whole point.
I’d say that is still pretty much the way it is today when preaching the gospel. There are those who “get it,” and they get it largely because they’ve already learned how to be loving people. When you preach the gospel of love to loving people, they get even more loving. When people are invested in fear, hate, anger, or distress, you can say all kinds of wise words to them and it will go right over their head. It is like gibberish or nonsense or just of no interest. There’s a correspondence between the seer and the seen. If you’re not ready, you don’t get it. You don’t even pay attention to it. You don’t even hear it. I find this out in the vestibule of the church after some of my Sunday sermons. Sometimes my best lines go nowhere, and a quick throw-away line ends up changing someone’s life trajectory. Sometimes I even ask, “Did I say that?” It is all about the receiver—his humble readiness and her deep desire. Good people make me say very good things and frankly “bad people” (unready) do not care one way or the other.
Jesus was describing this when he said, “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7). What you seek is what you are going to get. What you expect is what you will call forth and recognize. What you allow and what you’re ready for is what can come toward you. But it has to be in you first, at least in the form of desire, or you won’t see it or recognize it when it is right in front of you. What a mystery this is.
Adapted from Collection of Homilies 2008, “The Law of Attraction”
(CD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: The silence in me will love the divine silence.(Eckhart Tolle)
___________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation
1705 Five Points Rd SW
Albuquerque, NM 87105 United States (physical)
PO Box 12464
Albuquerque, NM 87195-2464 United States (mailing)
(505) 242-9588
cac.org
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment