So, when I was in college, I played Dungeons and Dragons. Probably too much at the time, but as time went by, I laid it aside. Lately, however, I’ve been getting back into it, mostly by listening and watching other people play on podcasts. Yes, it’s really kind of fun. All this to say, that I know a little something about dragons.
You see, in DnD, dragons are these looming mythical beasts from out of the dark mists of time. They can be evil or good, come in a variety of colors, breathe fire or ice, impart wisdom or lies. But all of them, every single one, loves to hoard treasure. They just can’t get enough. They sleep on their piles of gold coins and jewels. In fact, they spend so much time in physical contact with their treasure that when they are finally roused from their slumbers, coins and precious stones are embedded in their scaly skin. To a dragon, there is never enough treasure.
Today, Jesus is telling a story that has made people uncomfortable for centuries. And while most of what Jesus says makes people uncomfortable from time to time, this one always seems to stand out.
“The kingdom of Heaven is like…” Jesus begins. And he paints us a picture of an employer who hires different men at different times of the day…some at the start, and some at the end, right before the whistles blows to signal that work is done. And he pays them all the same. The ones at the start get angry. They should have more, they think. The other dudes didn’t do nearly as much, weren’t as clever or dedicated to their craft as us. Why should they be rewarded? And Jesus sets them straight. It’s up to the employer to decide who gets what. You made a contract for work, you got what was agreed to, now move on.
Over the centuries, we’ve convinced ourselves that this is a parable about grace and salvation. That God bestows grace however God wants. And to come to the end of life, after a long hard life of sinning and ne’er-do-wellin’, well, if that’s when you accept Jesus into that life, fine and dandy! Welcome to heaven, step right in. These other fellas who have been good all their lives will be happy to show you around. Right, fellas? I said, right, fellas?
And that’s a pretty good interpretation. It gets the job done.
But folks smarter than me have often pointed out that this may not be what Jesus is getting at. You see, this story falls into what is known as the “kingdom of heaven” parables. There are a bunch of them, and those smart folks have noticed something – they aren’t stories about God. They are stories about us. They aren’t stories about our relationship with the divine. They are stories about what Jesus says could be heaven on Earth, if we just went and did it.
In other places, Jesus is trying to say that the kingdom of heaven is here, if we’d just let it happen. It’s always just a little bit away. If only we would actually do what we say we believe. If only we acted out in real time what we profess to hold in our hearts, then the kingdom of heaven would be right here. We don’t need to die and hope for the best to see the kingdom of heaven. And we don’t need to wait for Jesus to come back and do it. He’s given us the tools. He’s given us the power. Because he’s given us the Holy Spirit.
And, so, these scholars suggest, this parable is actually about what it looks like on the surface…a new system of economic and social and spiritual security. A place where you don’t hoard. A place where equality and equity and caring and sharing are true realities. A place where 1% don’t hold half the world’s wealth, and the top 10% don’t hold nearly 90%. A place where wars become increasingly rare because grabbing other stuff becomes increasingly pointless. A place where a fair day’s wage means nothing more or less that coming together in love for our neighbor to ensure that everyone is satisfied…not just fed enough calories, not just housed enough not to freeze, not just educated enough to perform tasks, but satisfied.
Like manna from heaven. More than food, more than security, but satisfaction with life, with each other, and with God. But what the reading leaves out is what comes next. If you take more manna than you need, it will sour in your belly. If you gather up so much manna that others can’t have enough, you can’t sell it because it goes rots in front of your very eyes. You can’t build a vast empire as the manna king. You can’t impose a manna tariff. You can’t start senseless wars to ensure the free flow of manna.
I think looking at this parable as it is written on the surface is much harder than seeing is as symbolic. It’s easy to see heaven as perfect while we continue supporting the hoarders and the whole hoarding system while hoping to be doled out just an hour’s wages to get us through the night. It’s easy to just accept that we live in a world populated by dragons as old as time, unchanging and unchangeable. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In Bible Study, we are finishing up the Book of Acts, I hope, this Tuesday. We have been following the adventures of the apostles, mostly Paul, as they speak truth, not just to the poor, but to power. And that truth spoken to the powerful is not, “You are bad.” The truth is more than that because Paul, both in Acts and his letters, sees more potential in all of us. His truth – as he sees Christ’s truth – is “you will never be satisfied, if power and riches and hoarding is your goal.” You will always be reaching your talons out for that next gold piece, that next silver bracelet, that next diamond. You will always be stepping on the tiny poor that you no longer are even capable of seeing if you keep thinking of God’s manna as your own creation. There is only one way to be satisfied, and it is what is laid out in this parable: loving God and loving your neighbor. Not tolerating, not seeing the usefulness of, but loving your neighbor. There is only one way to be satisfied Paul says, and it is by following Jesus, truly following Jesus. Simple as that, and hard as that.
There are other dragons, in other stories. In C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the greed and envy of the boy, Eustice, causes him to transform into a dragon, but the transformation brings much more pain than satisfaction. He tries and tries to remove that dragon skin, but it keeps growing back. He wants to change, but he can’t. Until Aslan, the lion, who is the Christ-figure in the story, appears and begins to use his terrible, painful claws to rip into Eustice.
“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was [the skin] lying on the grass. . . And there was I, as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone. . . And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”
To be a child again, to approach others with the eyes of a child, sharing, caring, loving and needing love. No longer wearing the skin of the dragon. Maybe that’s what Jesus is telling us today. It’s at least worth thinking about.
Amen.