So much of what Jesus taught has such an urgency to it - the Virgins that should remain awake; the Servants that should remain awake; the rich man who's life was taken that night; THE SON OF MAN HAS NOWHERE TO REST HIS HEAD....
My understanding of what Jesus was telling us just made a monumental leap. Of course I've known, really my whole life, that Jesus was NOT telling us about some Heaven AFTER we die. That's rubbish. No! Jesus died to show us Heaven in THIS life. Of course.
So these parables with such sense of urgency were NOT about winning an afterlife ticket. So what ARE they about?
Jesus was telling us a central feature of our work; that is, our opportunity for Life! The field in which we sew Universal Love is a constantly shifting battle field on which the battle is raging. Period. Always. IT IS NEVER NOT A BATTLE FIELD WITH WAR RAGING AROUND US. When the bullets are being fired on the right, we dash and sew on the left; when the firing is on the left, we dash and sew on the right, and so on.
Now that I stay on or close to the Path, life is SO LIKE THIS! Where I am welcome one second, the door slams the next. When a heart is open to receive one second, it is slammed shut the next. When meager resources, funds, equipment, whatever are available one second they are obliterated the next. Until the Kingdom reigns, this is how it is for those who's religion is Universal Love.
This is important and helpful for me to know. Otherwise I would have the tendency to blame myself for such extreme instability. No. It is the nature of the battle of Life we have the Privilege and Joy to pursue.
Our opportunity, our ONLY Opportunity is to embrace our role as Medics on the Raging Battlefield of Life. The alternative, embraced by almost all is the Purgatory/Hell of the drone, the zombie, the degenerate.
