“I read your draft…”
Based on Matthew 18:15-20
Video version available on YouTube HERE.
Disclaimer:
The following letter is completely fictional,
and quite possibly completely true.
To my dear disciple Matthew,
I want to thank you for sharing your first draft of the Good News you are writing for the people in Antioch. I think it will get people’s attention in a time of division and longing. I have faith that it will be read and reread for generations to come. You must have done a lot of traveling to get such good details on those stories. Your version of the Good News is different from the ones written by Mark and Luke and the others. You emphasize teaching throughout. that emphasis will be useful for the people of Antioch, eager learners that they are, and who ever else gets their hands (and heart) on it.
You included the story of the magi! I am so happy to see that you included the wise men coming to see me when I was a baby. That is one of my earthly mother’s favorite stories, and I know she will be grateful you included it in your account of our heavenly kingdom work together. Antioch is so full of people from distant lands like the magi from Africa, arabia, and europe. I pray that they will see their own experiences in that moment when Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar find my family, and evade herod. These wise men from three continents brought astounding gifts to us that my mother treasured. Your people in Antioch, from all backgrounds, also bring me gifts that astound me. I treasure each person and the gifts that they offer. The legacy of the magi continues!
Two of the three wise men have left their earthly life and are with me in this eternal heavenly dwelling. We have been lately discussing Balthazar’s observation of how shocked people are when they get to heaven. Caspar and Balthazar are great conversation partners. Their earthly wisdom was renown, and their grasp of the human condition is intriguing to me now that I have dwelt in a human body on earth. We have noticed together how human beings carry grudges and divisions and slights and burdens and resentments right up to the moment of their death. They nurture and tend these burdensome enemies and give them TOO much life. It really eats away at their ability to focus on living my Good News - on teaching it, on sharing it.
Then, as their last earthly breath leaves their body, and they join us in this heavenly realm for eternity, they become suddenly aware that the ones they resented are here with them. And they feel joy to see them, and the resentment has vanished! And they look very shocked about it! Take the Herod who tried to kill me when I was an infant- when he arrived to this heavenly realm- he was in great shock at first! The one who told the magi secretly: “go, search for the child” arrived here to find me, and to find me welcoming him! He was quite shocked. He eventually absorbed the enormity of my love, and has settled in.
When I was among you on earth, I taught you and the other disciples how to go to one another directly whenever there was a slight, a problem, an insult or an injury. I taught you this and made it a priority because we were a group of very strong-willed and focused individuals! Some wanted a military coup of Herod, some wanted to make me an earthly king, others wanted to care for the poor or set up a commune. You each had distinct passions and gifts. do you remember how there were conflicts?
I equipped you with a pattern for living on earth that would prepare you to enter into heaven without being shocked. I taught you what I knew would make your earthly life more like heaven, so that the transition to this heavenly realm would be smooth, so that your earthly life would taste and smell and feel like a heavenly life.
Matthew, my friend, I ask you to emphasize these teachings in your Good News account for the people of Antioch. Teach the people who are following my ways how to forgive. How to reconcile. How to engage on difficult topics from a place of love. Teach the people that God equips us for heavenly life, even while on earth.
Teach the people of Antioch that they have a choice. They can choose heavenly ways of life over earthly ones. They do not need to carry the burdensome content to their death- they can be free of it yet while they live, and create space for more heavenly interactions with other people. It will bring them peace and freedom to do so. Encourage them to be courageous in the face of conflict- so courageous that they can calmly and clearly speak to one another in love. Let them know that I will be with them in these conversations, and that they will honor me and my teaching when they do it faithfully. They will have a taste of heaven when they find that freedom. That is what I want for my beloved people: Not a military coup or a coronation or a commune- I want my beloved people to choose to be free like heavenly beings!
Yesterday Balthazar reminded me that human beings spend much time and energy learning the earthly ways that to unlearn them and then learn the heavenly ways is difficult. This is why I want you to live it out in community, in the Antioch ekklesia, so that children will grow up learning the ways of the heavenly kingdom instead of the earthly ways. It will be a learning laboratory for heavenly life, not only for children- for adults, too. When we were together, Matthew, we witnessed adults turn their lives around- to move from earthly evils toward heavenly hope! You yourself went from collecting taxes for Caesar, from ripping off your neighbors to grow rich, to becoming a generous provider for others. Your own life, my servant Matthew, teaches people that although you were skilled in the ways of earth, although you were entrenched in a system of economic oppression, although you were rich with earthly gain, you longed for what was true and godly and just. when you found me, when you saw the possibility of a heavenly life on earth, you were willing to learn the heavenly ways. And now you are writing these teachings down, so that others can choose to live like they are already in heaven.
I do hope that the people of Antioch, and whoever else this Good News will reach, will understand that this learning takes time. While your conversion story was radical, some disciples took longer. They made incremental changes to their lives and in doing so found heavenly freedom on earth. Encourage the people of Antioch to make small incremental changes that they can sustain. over the generations these small incremental changes will coalesce into a beautiful heavenly way of life for my beloved people.
When I prayed with you on earth to my Father who art in heaven, I prayed “THY KINGDOM COME,” and I meant it with every fiber of my human and divine being. How I long to gather you and all people together in that heavenly freedom so that you can experience the deep, beautiful joy of the life I offer.
On that note, my dear Matthew, I thank you for your faithful account, and encourage you to use it well to teach others to be free, to reconcile, to love and live thy kingdom come today and every day.
Your teacher and friend and redeemer,
Jesus the Christ
