Know-Love-Obey God

(High Calling Blogs Book Club:
Loving Monday, by John Beckett, Chapters 8-11
See Laura Boggess’s post (and links to other Book Club posts) here.)

When the child was very young we called it “spit-up,” an appropriately mild term for a mere teaspoonful or two of mama’s milk that backed up, the belly being too full to take it all. Before long we upgraded the term from “spit-up” to “throw-up” when, instead of the innocuous, almost sweet-smelling spit-up, out came an impressive volume of rejected sweet potato mush. A couple of weeks later we tried sweet potatoes again, just to confirm the food allergy. (Allergy affirmative. Definitely confirmed.)

Then we graduated from food allergies to full-blown flus and viruses. Our current terminology was insufficient, so we moved from “throw-up” to “vomit.” In every aspect—odor, quantity, repulsion effect on others—this was well beyond newborn burps and food allergies that didn’t take. Only the iron-hearted and thick-skinned could endure these expulsions—lumpy, nauseating stuff. Sometimes long-distance trajectories were involved. Thank God for the washer, the dryer, and the grocery store that rents out Rug Doctors.

In Loving Monday, chapters 9-11, John Beckett explains “Dualism,” the idea that life is separated into sacred and secular, “higher” and “lower,” eternal and physical. This way of thinking puts the daily tasks of the workplace into the “lower,” non-spiritual realm.

Our culture is thoroughly saturated with dualism. In this view, business and most occupations are relegated to the lower, the worldly, the material realm. As such they are perceived to lack dignity, spirituality, intrinsic worth, and the nobility of purpose they deserve.

- John Beckett, Loving Monday, page 69.

Back to body fluids. They are generally, well, nasty. Blood, sweat, mucus, saliva—it’s all just plain gross. These things certainly do not seem to enter the spiritual realm, especially when they soak into the bedsheets, the carpet, and the floor just before the toilet.

Yet when I think of dualism, repulsive body fluids come to mind. More specifically, I think of spit, and I certainly agree with Beckett that dualism is a fallacy. The Gospel writers would throw dualism out the window, too.

There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears . . .

Eeeww—ear wax. And was the man thinking, “Where have this guy’s fingers been? Are his hands clean?” (I have heard that to avoid contagious illnesses, keep other people’s hands away from your eyes and ears.)

. . . Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means, “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

- Mark 7:32-35

This deaf man did not sit in a tastefully-decorated lobby, reading a magazine as he waited for the doctor appointment scheduled a month in advance. Jesus had no disinfected exam room, and He wore no gloves. The Lord’s healing was hands-on and unsterilized. He spat, told the man to “say Ahhh,” and touched the man’s tongue with His saliva. This Jesus—Creator of the universe, King of kings, Mighty God—in His humanity used the earthy, bodily things of man for the spiritual things of God. He spat to heal.

I can make no dualistic distinctions to receive the Lord’s healing or to be of spiritual service. The things of heaven are intimately connected with the things of earth. The Kingdom of God is at hand, is in our midst, is in hands getting dirty to wipe the sweat of fever off a child’s burning brow and mop up the rank vomit of illness which soaks into my floors, my clothes, my hair.

The Kingdom of heaven. What is it like?

- a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31)
- leaven (Matthew 13:33)
- hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44)
- a merchant seeking fine pearls (Matthew 13:45)
- a dragnet cast into the sea (Matthew 13:47)
- a sower sowing seeds (Matthew 13:24)

To explain His Kingdom to us, God uses the example of tradesmen in their workplaces—a merchant, a fisherman, a farmer, a woman making bread. According to the Gospels, there is no dualism. Thank God.

I want to remember this in my daily tasks. I want to encourage the young mother who complains that “all” she does every day is play with her toddler and fold laundry. This kind of work is Kingdom Work.