The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

 

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

 

From Survival to Mission:  Mt.6:33 - 34

 

6:33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  34 So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

I was recently forwarded an email that contained a story.  A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and started to fill it with golf balls.  He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed that it was.  The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar.  He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the jar was full.  They agreed it was.  The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full.  The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes.’  The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.  ‘Now,’ said the professor, as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.  The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions…things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.  The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car.  The sand is everything else:  the small stuff.  ‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.  The same goes for life.  If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Our ‘golf balls,’ so to speak, are commitments of love that manifest the reign of God in our lives.  The challenge of Jesus is to see everything else as second priority:  the pebbles, the sand, or even the coffee.  Those are second order priorities, not first.  What will life be like if we do that? 

Here’s one way.  In 1995, I moved into East Palo Alto, a community with the highest per capita murder rate in 1992.  I moved into one of the most dilapidated apartment complexes in the city.  There were 100 apartments filled with wonderful families:  Mexican immigrant families.  Unfortunately, the apartment was right next to a freeway onramp and offramp so drug dealers were always there.  Kids played in or near huge garbage dumpsters.  Everyone had a cockroach as a roommate. 

One of the families that I met was the Sanchez family.  One day I was going to work in the morning and Graciela Sanchez, the grandmother of this family, asked me for a ride.  She said, ‘My usual ride was arrested.’ (Huh?!)  I asked, ‘Where do you work?’  She told me, and I realized that it was only 10 minutes away from where I worked, Intel Corporation.  The next morning, there she was again.  So I took her again.  She asked if I could pick her up from work, too – it cost her time and money to take the train and bus.  Plus, she would rather get home earlier to help the kids with homework.  I thought about it, and realized I could get my work at Intel done by 4:30pm, so I said okay.  I took this Mexican grandmother to and from work…every day…for over a year. 

I let that one big golf ball sit in my jar.  During that time, my supervisors at Intel pulled me aside and said, ‘Mako, we’d like you to take this new role helping out this other organization.  They’re in trouble and it would take some serious overtime, but you’d get some good experience.’  We were an internal management consulting group.  It would have been more responsibility and more exposure for me, along with longer hours, but I prayed about it and later said, ‘I can’t.’  They were surprised.  This was the late 90’s, when Intel’s stock price was doubling every 18 months, and most young, single people would take the position.  A few months later they said, ‘Mako, there’s another opportunity…’  It was a similar situation.  I turned down that promotion, too.  Curious, they asked me why I turned down these two opportunities.  I told them, ‘I know this sounds weird, but I’m a person who is trying to take Jesus seriously, and I’m connected to this family in my neighborhood.  I’m taking the grandmother to and from work every day, and I think it’s pretty important to them.’  So I had a chance to witness to my coworkers!  God had helped me feel close to this family, and I was beginning to understand something about God’s heart for others. 

Was it worth it?  One day as I was driving grandma Graciela home, she was telling me about her family, and she asked, ‘Mako, can you be the godfather (padrino), of my grandson?’  What an honor!  In Mexican culture, if something happened to the adults in the family, I could have been entrusted with that grandson.  And in the meantime, she was welcoming me to be closer to the family.  I was glad I committed myself to Jesus and to this family, even though I chose not to take the promotions.

Seek God’s kingdom first.  In other words, first make decisions to express His reign in your life.  Make commitments of love to Jesus’ mission, and to concrete people, maybe even to new people you haven’t met yet.  Then, figure out how much time and money you have left to spend on yourself, figure out where to live, how to eat, what time you can devote to other things, what other things you can afford to do.  That’s the order of decision making in a Christ-centered, mission-focused life.  What are the golf balls in your jar?