A Prophet's Reward

The Bible Study that I am a part of in Tacoma is a very successful Bible Study, as Bible Studies go. The reasons for this are simple, but effective. It is at a regular place and at a regular time every week, (Monday at 7:30 P.M. Panera Bread, Tacoma Mall.) It is led by an extremely passionate and dynamic woman with a strong knack for names, faces and stories and a powerful love of Jesus. The core is a group of very close friends who have been going there for years, and a few new arrivals like myself who have sort of been adopted into the group. Finally, it has a very simple and effective format. Every meeting starts off at 7:30-45-ish (whenever the Filipinos show up) with introductions and the question of the day, which can be anything from "What was the most memorable spiritual experience of your life," to "What was your worst ever haircut, and how did you end up with it?"

After that we pray and begin the actual Bible study portion. The plan is very simple. We read the readings of the day, meditate on them, and then discuss them. At about nine we do announcements and then go to Red Robin for bottomless fries, root beer (or real beer for the 21 or over) floats, and burgers.

Simple, but it works. I should do a Thugfang post about Bible studies sometime, but that isn't what I set out to write about. It was a bit of a digression. I set out to write about one of the thoughts that came out of discussion from last week.

The Gospel from last Monday was Matthew 10:34 - 11:1. Of course there are enough passages in that gospel to spend hours and hours meditating and discussing, but in the interests of keeping this a blog and not a book, I just want to focus on the one line that struck me most powerfully, "Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is righteous will receive a righteous man’s reward." Matthew 10:41.

At first glance this seems unfair. All you have to do to earn a prophet's reward is find yourself a prophet and offer him some hospitality. You don't even have to be one yourself, which is a pretty sweet deal considering all the ostracism, shunning, stoning and whatnot that goes along with it. As my younger brother said, "Well, if that's the case, sign me up. Come on, all you prophets, free hospitality right here!"

Which is exactly what I would say myself.

On a deeper level, this passage challenges a good many of my deep set notions of what religion, salvation, and heaven are all about. I mean, I had always thought that there are levels of reward in Heaven. Each person rises to the level that he opens himself to. The more spiritually developed you become on earth, the more room you have for heaven, so to speak. The priest has a higher vocation than the layman. He gives more, and as a result he is emptier and has more room to be filled with joy.

This is an overly simplistic way of putting it.This passage tells me that in reality it is not so simple, or maybe it is simpler, but not in the same way. Of course everyone must be completely empty before they can enter the Kingdom. Some choose that emptiness as a way of life, and I had assumed that they would have a head start when they got to the pearly gates, but maybe that is not the case.

When I read this passage it reminded me of Mother Teresa. She started the order, the Missionaries of Charity, whom she described as contemplatives in the midst of the world. That is, their charism is both to develop the deep, intimate relationship with God which we would associate with a contemplative order, and also to engage in active service for the poorest of the poor. They are known for their work throughout the world, and I assume that Mother Teresa has a very high place in Heaven. Not that she earned it, per se, but that by the evidence of her life I can only assume that she had an unusually close and deep and rich relationship with God.

What a lot of people do not know is that Mother Teresa also started another group, which she envisioned as being as large as the MC itself, sort of an auxiliary MC. There were two groups, really. One was composed of terminally or chronically ill people, people who could not leave their beds, who could not lead an active life. Their mission was to "adopt" a Missionary of Charity, and to offer up for them all of their prayers and sufferings and the frustrated desires of their lives. The other group was composed of lay people, man, women, children, families, lawyers, businessmen, blue collar workers, teachers, just your ordinary everyday people. Their job was very similar, to adopt spiritually a Missionary of Charity. In addition they were to support them financially in their work through donations, volunteer work, whatever they could.

Both of these "auxiliary" groups seemed to be working the lesser missions on face value. The Missionary of Charity sister or brother or priest is out in the field, doing the real missions. They are the ones going out into the gutters and streets, touching the lepers, smelling the rotting flesh, witnessing all the horror of poverty and degradation. The two other groups are no doubt useful in their way, but really, aren't they just glorified ammo handlers, in the spiritual sense? Sitting at home, passing spiritual ammunition to the real spiritual warriors? How will they get a "holy man's" reward simply because they supported a holy man?

But that is not Mother Teresa saw it. She did not view them as supports for MC's work. Instead they and the missionaries were simply support for God's work, each tools in the hand of God, which He used as He saw fit. It was not the task that they were called to do it, but how freely and lovingly they did it which mattered. She said, "No one can do great things for Jesus. Only little things with great love." This from the woman who saved countless thousands of people from dying alone, friendless and despairing in the gutters and the slums around the world.

This is what I think Jesus meant in this passage. It is not the task that matters. The prophet's task may be higher than the bricklayer's task, but that does not mean that his reward is greater. Reward is not determined by task, since task is given by God, not earned by merits. The only possible thing that could be rewarded is response. The more wholeheartedly we open ourselves to the task that God gives us, the more we allow Him to empty us, stretch us, and fill us with Himself. That is the reward, as much of God as we can hold.

And this is how a man who gives a prophet a glass of water because he is a prophet can receive the prophet's reward because of it. It all depends on how much love goes into that glass of water.

70 X 7

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21-22

The namer was called unto the seventh day,

“Shabbat, my son.” But chose at length the sixth,

He and his wife.

And lived their life,

Between Monday morning and Saturday night

Grudging Sunday’s rest, clinging body and soul

To the thorns and sweat and pains of childbirth.

Nothing will induce me, so it seems

To rest.

At best

I slip back down,

From the sixth to the fifth;

And from carousing like a beast

I slide by slow degrees into the sloth

Of vegging out on youtube half the day.

Hardly worth

The blood and pain of birth

If I spend myself in becoming, step by step,

First a beast

(For there, at least,

Is strength to do!)

And then a vegetable in an armchair

And then a stone.

And when I’ve done,

My life’s ambition met,

As close to formless void as I can get.

Thank God for thorns.

For alarm clocks and early morns,
And all the harrying, hateful spurs of necessity

That drive me from the void. Some energy
At minimum I must spend to eat
To drive, to earn respect of all my peers.
And then, who knows? My ears
Attuned to frequencies beyond my normal ken
Hear the seventh faintly ringing through
The cacophony of egos, appetites and fears.

But Now I find myself back

Where I started this poem. My lack
Of rest.
Distaste
For any slackness in my rodent race.
I nervously sit through Sunday and my face
Betrays impatience for Monday.
“No rest for the wicked,” is not a punishment
But a simple statement of fact. When what is meant
Is understood, one might as well put forth
“No food for the hungry.” But of course!
That is why they are hungry.


And every seven days another chance
To put down spade and crackberry and learn to dance
So that on Monday, (On taking up once more
These workday dance partners) we might even up the score
And teach new steps to those who made us step
Like geese, in time to the rhythm of our clocks
Marching under orders from our sterile gods.
When drill sergeants learn to dance, they lend a measure
To what would otherwise be merely raucous pleasure.


And every seven years the land lies fallow
Untilled, unsown,
Left on its own
To see if it might
Yield in its own right.
The rest of the years are to learn from this year of rest
That all work is but a joining in, another way to divest
Myself of my self. Work is but another way to receive,
It has that in common with stillness. But I deceive
Myself when I think my work is mine, or grain
Or fruit or flocks or words in print. Once again
Working is just another form of begging
And sitting in prayer as much a form of legging
As commuting to work.


The Rock was taught a thing or two that day
How many times must Sunday come around?
Before I no longer need to work at rest?
But we are never lodger, always guest
And Monday is meant to vanish once for all.
Shabbat alone remains.
Live in the other six days all you want.
Stay there, if you wish, triple them up.
The beast, the vegetable, the rock, the void
Alike are destined for one thing: to be destroyed.
Only the human who has the strength to be
At peace in Him Who Is, can become like He.

How many times must I become at peace?

All of them.
Rest is stronger than work and so it costs
Everything. Not one thing less. All must be lost
In order to be found. But so it yields:
Peace times fullness of peace;
Rest times fullness of rest;
Joy times fullness of joy;
Life times fullness of life.
This is Heaven.
70 X 7.

See also Genesis 2:3, Leviticus 25.