“I know where you’re coming from”

The population of Jersey is now well over 100,000. As you live your life here I wonder if you know what makes each person tick. Folk tell me, “I know where you’re coming from….” Maybe they do.

A good example of this problem is Theresa May. She has appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary – a very senior UK government post. Some think they know where she’s coming. Some think they know where Boris Johnson is coming from.  But where is each really coming from?

It’s especially difficult (at this very time in which we are living) for us to assess what motivates a suicide bomber. We’re told that it’s their religion which makes them tick. But where are they really coming from? 

 

There is something very special about the teaching of Jesus. He often provides the answers to many of our questions – but we don’t ask him. Take a look then at the words in bold above.

As one might expect Jesus is talking to folk around him about the kingdom of God. He is, in fact, trying to get them to think about being part of that kingdom as opposed to coming from somewhere else. He is asking them and us to compare “coming from the kingdom of God” as opposed to coming from somewhere else.

He gives two examples of coming from somewhere else.  (1) It is comparable to a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. (2) It is comparable to leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.

 

The man who comes from somewhere other than the kingdom of God is devoted to the growth of his own garden. He is delighted with the tree which comes from the planting of this seed of self-interest. Jesus wants us to look at this visible tree. It may even be a tree where religion itself is the small seed of self-interest – a tree which, when it grows well in his life, leads to him supporting deeds (allowing birds to nest) which include harbouring harm to others – even the destruction of others. “As long as it’s good for me.”

The woman who comes from somewhere other than the kingdom of God is also devoted to self. But, in this case, she pursues self-interest by hiding it inside every part of her life. She concentrates on her appearance and beauty. Gradually, all the time not revealing where she is coming from (her self-interest). That permeates her whole being, including how to become loved, how to own good things and how to be praised.

 

How does this compare with a person who is coming from the kingdom of God? The answer is in the word “therefore” at the start of the extract in bold above. These man/woman examples from Jesus arose because of what had just happened. Here it is: There was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”  And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.  Coming from the kingdom of God, this is what the Son of God does.

But the ruler of the synagogue … said … “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Coming from self-interest, this is what religion does.

After the harmful life-purposes disclosed in the mustard seed and the leaven, Jesus tells his disciples “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” In this way they will avoid him telling them, one day yet to come, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ … ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from….’