Don't Miss the Main Event

A little while ago, I found myself thinking about the problems of distraction, disinterest, and complacency when it comes to the soon-expected changes that will upend our depraved society. Those changes have since come to pass in sweeping and dramatic fashion, and our world and our lives will never "return to normal." Sadly, some of us still feel certain entitlements, or are focusing on the wrong things in life, and will be sorry if we don't get about the business for which we were sent here: our own spiritual growth and to provoke spiritual awakening.

As we approach our theme today, let us consider two scenarios. First, let me share a story that one of my classmates told us about a Mike Tyson fight back when Tyson was in his prime. For those who remember, Mike Tyson was a crushing puncher who had knocked out multiple opponents, many in the first round. His reputation was so intimidating until Nintendo produced a boxing video game with his name on it!

Anyway, the guy was telling us about a fight that Tyson was apparently doing, and the scene in the restroom before the fight was chaotic, to the point that some folks were apparently relieving themselves in the sinks! No one wanted to be there too long and potentially miss the fight.

Can you imagine having paid for an expensive ticket, watched the lower card events, but then step away to take a break, only to come back and have missed the main event?

Let us consider another scenario: showing up late to the airport for a fully booked flight. As infrequently as many people travel, and as challenging as it often is to get a good flight, we usually follow the advice of the airlines to show up early, so as not to miss the flight. Even if you have a ticket, if you are not there within 15 minutes of the scheduled departure, your seat can be taken from you! How many of us would test that policy on purpose? In fact, some of us have seen that policy enforced on a straggler.

These two scenarios help to shed light on a spiritual problem in our current society, a problem that is highlighted by a dumbing down of the public, the politics of personal destruction, and the re-emerging spectre of privilege. For all of the advancement of our so-called "civilized" society, for all of the available technology and accumulation of wealth and material goods, so many are in jeopardy of missing the whole point of life in this incarnation.

With all of the personal trials and tribulations that we endure over the course of our earthly sojourn, it would be a shame if we went through all that hardship and still missed the main event!

As Jesus sat at a meal with his disciples at the home of one of the Pharisees, he was scrutinized for having healed a man on the Sabbath. However, no one was able to challenge him for having done it. While they were thinking, he put forth a couple of parables to them to prod them to adjust their priorities. In particular, the parable about the great supper was intended to show them how misplaced priorities, as a consequence of being lost in or distracted by "the world", could cause them to miss the point of being here at all!

As is the case with Jesus' parables, he infuses them with elements that bring attention to customs of the people, and their relative unimportance in the face of the main event of life.

Speaking specifically of religious practitioners, one of the hardest things to do is for people to distinguish between a ritual practice or custom, and a genuine encounter with the Spirit of God--and further, to be willing to challenge, change or even let go of the former for the sake of the latter. In other words, although religion was created (and purports to exist) in order to facilitate communion between mankind and God, religion itself (particularly obsolete or misunderstood by-products of religion) are often the very impediments that get in the way of one's communion with God!

In their customs, it was important to own land, to inspect the land, to prove a newly acquired team of oxen, and even to prove one's love for a new bride. But, if all of those rituals and customs were put in place to prepare one for an event, and that event commences, the question begs: "What's more important: maintaining the customs for preparation, or participating in the event itself?"

Many, unfortunately, have become superstitious about religion, unwilling to actively study or understand it, afraid to view it objectively or question it, to the point where religion itself has become a god for so many! Religion's job is not to perpetuate itself so much, as it is to prepare the seeker to meet God! When religious practitioners seek to perpetuate religion more than they seek the LORD, those practitioners have cut themselves off from God, because they want the rituals, customs, and practices more than they want God! Such ones will be doomed to miss out on the very event for which their religious practice has purportedly prepared them--the coming of the LORD!

When we look objectively around our society today, we can attest to the fact that, as the Bible teaches us, the forces of evil have not only been in control for centuries, but that they've done a very good job of suppressing even the thought among many that life and civilization could be so much more than it presently is. We see an informal but deliberate structure of polarity in all aspects of life. We see educated versus uneducated, haves versus have nots, young versus old, city versus country, Jew versus Gentile, Protestant versus Catholic, Sunni versus Shiite, Democrat versus Republican, citizen versus immigrant, white versus non-white. The controllers of society have created division wherever they could, and then built in biases into the structure of society to favor one over the other, (occasionally flip flopping to keep the people off-balance and) enabling them to keep conflict going perpetually.

We, at the grass roots level have been focused largely on survival in a world of artificially produced scarcity. Operating from this lower level (of consciousness), people have sought those things that seem to impart some level of privilege, and thus relief, from the oppressive society. Thus, people have coveted money, and hoard it, look down on those who don't have it, as if money imparted something to their being (and not simply helped greased their path). People have coveted education, thinking degrees have made them smarter/better than others, or, alternatively, have shunned education, feeling that education is for elitists. Many people of color have coveted whiteness, trying to pass, etc.

Those who have certain privileges imparted from birth, e.g. ethnicity or wealth, often feel a sense of entitlement, and resist efforts of others who simply seek a level playing field, seeing their search for equality as a threat to their well-being, because they have mistakenly assumed that an external arbitrary attribute is part of their human essence.

People distracted by these by-products of life are not able to discern what's really important. And, while they are willing to fight over arbitrary polarities in society, so few people are looking past the superfluous gadgets, trinkets, tokens, and ideologies to discern the true meaning and purpose of life.

There is definitely something going on now, and fortunately, some of the people are starting to wake up and question the status quo; especially younger people. Many consider them to be disrespectful or irreverent, and seek to marginalize them because they are a threat to the status quo. Thankfully, though, their unconventionality has shaken some awake enough to see the foolishness of our current state of affairs and begin to question it themselves.

The vast majority of people are oppressed, but some don't realize it because their chains are made of gold, sparkle with diamonds, their prison cells have maids and gardeners to tend them, their skin is pale, etc. And while people fight each other, envy each other over trinkets and tokens, the great Day of the LORD is here! And none but the righteous can stand.

We came here to Earth to learn how to live in peace, show love, kindness, and compassion to those in distress, to assist suffering humanity, to open the blind eyes, and to bring those that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Jesus' parables often speak about the LORD coming back to check on those whom He left in charge of His house; but those in charge don't believe that He's coming back, as evidenced by how they have structured inequality and violence into the system, and eased God out of it.

It has been prophesied, "God is coming!" And, quite frankly, with the prevalence of abominations and the desolations, He must already be here! How many of us are going to miss the main event, the glorious (or dreadful, depending on your perspective) coming of the LORD, because we are in conflict over artificial and arbitrary polarities, neither of which brings us into the unity of the faith or the knowledge of the Son of God? We have a ticket to be here, but will we miss out, distracted by pelf and power, envy and jealously, or even distracted by religion? Don't miss it! Don't have exerted all this energy, endured all this trouble, only to miss the main event!

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