Okay. Maybe it really wasn’t very funny, but at the time I was amused. Truthfully, I’m still smiling.
Recently, on a rare foray into the local do-it-yourself building-supply emporium, I encountered Archie Bunker’s twin (or it could have been Ralph Kramden’s). As I approached the checkout counter, “Archie” rammed his cart in line ahead of me. Trailing behind was his mousy spouse.
“Hurry up, youse,” he snapped at her, “and pay for dis.”
Without waiting for his wife to open her purse or for the clerk to ring up the sale, Archie snatched the 60-pound bag of patching plaster from the cart and slung it over his shoulder. Out of the store he charged—spilling out his purchase in a steady stream behind him.
After completing my own small transaction, I followed the white trail of plaster into the parking lot and arrived just in time to see Archie discover he now possessed no more than a third of his original purchase.
Boom! He exploded at “Edith” and all the rest of the world.
Even as I chuckled to myself about Archie’s dribbling sack of plaster, I was reminded of something I had recently read. The purported memoirs of the disciple Thomas are a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. Portions of the text are familiar teachings closely paralleling the canonical Gospels. In other places the material and style more closely resemble the apochryphal gospels rejected from the Canon as fanciful and spurious. And finally, the text does contain a few sections so unique and attractive that one can easily imagine them to be genuine sayings of Jesus.
In this last category is a parable attributed to Jesus that came to mind as I followed Archie’s plaster trail. As I recall it, Jesus said the kingdom of the Father is like a woman carrying a jar of meal. While she walked on a distant road, the jar “sprung a leak.” The meal streamed out behind her on the road. Taking no note of her loss until she arrived home, she found her jar empty. Thus the kingdom can be lost.
Whether authentic or spurious, this parable does teach us an important lesson about the kingdom of the Father where his will is done. The reign of God—his effective lordship over our lives—is something that indeed can be lost all too easily. In ways of which we are seldom conscious, the example of Christ and the precepts he taught can become increasingly irrelevant to our patterns of behavior and human relationships. Sadly, we can, and often do, allow his reign to drain out of our lives by imperceptible degrees.
Like Archie in the building-supply store, we can become so obsessed with the immediate tasks of the moment that we are oblivious to our loss of God’s presence. We confuse urgency with importance, even in the work of the church. Imposing our agenda and timetable on the kingdom of the Father, we gradually lose his perspective on our lives and fail to discern his purposes for us.
The kingdom can also be lost through our preoccupation with trivialities. For want of a proper sense of proportion, we magnify petty slights and hurts. We rationalize or make light of seemingly small moral flaws, cultivate them in secret, and then suffer surprise when they are finally recognized as grievous sins. We persistently pursue the ephemeral and what lacks enduring value. All of these represent efforts to slip out from under the lordship of Christ: these are probably not deliberate or conscious steps, but they are “rebellion” no less.
In the area of career, too, the kingdom can be lost. Career objectives can be formed without due reference to our stewardship of talents entrusted to us by the Lord. His model of servanthood may be ignored as we are tempted by illicit opportunities to achieve influence and exercise power over others. Excessive self-confidence can leave us trapped in egocentric isolation from criticism or the support of others. Never do we intend deliberately to challenge the lordship of Christ. It just happens.
The bucket sometimes leaks and, like Archie, we may be the last to recognize what has been lost. And so it may be with the rule of God in our hearts and lives.
