Deep Dish

I remember watching my mother make homemade pizza every Sunday night for supper.  She would go the full length of making her own dough from scratch.  I didn’t care about the process as nearly as much as I did the end product, yet I remembering being curious about the procedure.   Before she did anything else, I recall her activating the yeast.  It was a simple concoction including dry yeast and warm water which would stand for a few minutes before she mixed in the remaining ingredients. 

I inquired about this process, to which she explained the purpose of the time and the yeast and the flour.  But honestly…I stopped listening.  All that I really gained from the information was that they yeast was what was going to make the dough rise so that she would have enough to stretch out for the pizza crust.  I wondered why she had to let it rise and why she couldn’t just make enough from the start.  It didn’t seem all that efficient to me.

It was my dad that really helped to clarify the effects of yeast.  Inevitably the time came in my dad’s life when he was placed into a position to make the pizza for his family due to the absence of my mother on a given Sunday night.  Sure, he could have made burgers or something simpler, but it was Sunday night and Sunday night was pizza night, so as to not break tradition he put his own hands to the dough.  I don’t know what happened, but when the dough rose out of the bowl it was like a demon coming to an airy life of destruction.  Dough was spilling over the edges and when he punched it, the dough punched back. I felt like I was living the Muppets episode of the Swedish Chef and the living dough.

After wrestling the dough through kneading and stretching, he placed the soon to be pies into the oven.  The fully cooked pizzas emerged from the oven 20 minutes later to a family of astonished eyes.  Rather than the usual standard thickness of hand tossed crust, what emerged was a three inch platform crust of wonder.  It was like two cheese covered sheet cakes coming out of the oven. Upon the sight of it, every pizzeria in Chicago would suddenly refer to their own creations as thin crust.

I suppose the good news is that the two slabs of pizza fed the family for nearly two weeks.  In fact, in a pinch we could swipe off the toppings and use the crust as hamburger buns.

The chemistry of baking is really remarkable.  Jesus speaks of this phenomenon in Matthew 13.  Jesus tells of how just a little bit of yeast can cause the dough to expand exponentially.  Here Jesus is referring to the incredible reality of His Kingdom.  Jesus’ Kingdom has “already” come…and yet there is the fullness of His Kingdom that is “yet” to come.  It is the “already, but not yet,” splendor of His Kingdom. 

The Kingdom of God is exponentially better than anything that anyone can ever imagine.  It is the priceless pearl.  It is the great treasure that is worth giving up everything for. 

I am convinced that if we could truly come to see that Jesus’ promised Kingdom is better than anything else in this world, we would come to live differently.

May we come to see the great value of that Kingdom…and be transformed by it.

 Corn, Carrots, Onions and Weeds

It is no secret that I was overworked as a child.  I have spoke openly about how my parents made me do practically everything around the house while they and my siblings did nary anything.  It was my responsibility to split wood, and mow the lawn and weed the garden and haul wood into the house.  I would often complain about this while waiting for dad to come in from feeding the pigs and blowing snow off of the driveway to we could eat the hot meal that mom prepared every night. 

Over the years it is likely that I hauled in more than twice the amount of wood than any of my siblings did.  In fact, while my brother carried in wood one piece at a time, I worked harder and gathered many smaller pieces into my arms so that I could carry more wood in at once.  This made financial sense too as my dad paid us 1 penny per piece of wood.  So in the time it took my older brother to make 2 cents I could have already earned a quarter.  Somehow they turned this into an example of my own greed and laziness, but I just don’t see it. 

They say that the starting and stopping of an engine uses more fuel than one that is just running at idle.  This is why when mowing the lawn I would leave the engine run while making myself a little afternoon snack on those hot July days.  I am sure that my parents wouldn’t want me to risk passing out from fatigue due to the excessive heat.  Again this was turned against me as if I was being lazy.  This is absurd! It is obvious that I was being frugal with dad’s fuel not wanting to waste gas by the constant starting and stopping of the mower.  The rule was that each child had to mow one tank of gas as their “turn.” It’s not my fault that the mower ran out of gas while I was eating my ham and cheese refreshment.   

When it came to weeding the garden I would again find myself thrown under the proverbial bus. 

“Ryan! Get out there and weed the garden!”

Keep in mind, that our garden was an acre and a half of mostly corn and potatoes.  One corner however would be left to fill with carrots, onions, tomatoes and beats.

“I can’t go out and weed right now! It’s too early!”

“What do you mean it’s too early! It’s already 11:00 a.m.”

“No! I mean, the plants are not big enough to weed yet.  I can’t tell the difference between the corn and grass, the carrots and weeds and the onions and aloe vera.”

“There is no aloe vera planted in the garden now get out there!”

I can’t say that I “intentionally” attacked the corn, carrots and onions, but I can say that I took no extra care in weeding these crops…especially the onions…I hated onions.

The next day my dad was livid as to the fact that more than half of his onion plants had been uprooted and thrown out with the weeds.  Somehow he seemed to feel that this was my fault. I tried to warn him that the plants were too young to be able to tell the difference from that which was desirable and that which was a weed.  As an aside, he had planted something like 300 onion plants…who needs 300 onions? Certainly not an 8 year old boy who hates onions. 

I do remember mom making onion rings one time.  They were pretty good after I pulled the soggy onion out of the crust and ate the crust. “We should have onion rings more often!” I said.

“We would if you hadn’t killed half the crop.”

Every time I read the parable of the wheat and the weeds found in, Matt. 13:24-50, I am reminded of the poor weeding skills of my childhood.  In some self justifying way it makes me feel a little better about my adolescent inadequacies.  Here Jesus lays out an incredibly thought provoking story of wheat and weeds.  In the parable we find that the wheat is good and the weeds are bad. Jesus reveals that both will be coexisting in this world until the final judgment.  This is a reality that causes turmoil for many people.  It is tough.  It is tough to understand why God doesn’t just deal with the evil right now?  Uproot the weeds now and be done with it! Then I come to realize, that I too was once a weed.  In fact, there are still so many weedy qualities in me that I shudder to think how God can love a weed such as I?

Perhaps God isn’t dealing with the evil sooner than we would want because there are still so many weeds that he longs to become wheat?  2 Peter 3:9 says, “God is patient and not willing that anyone should perish, but desires all to come to repentance.”

May we turn our eyes to living our lives in such a way that the weeds would long to become wheat before the final judgment inevitably comes.  Make no mistake…the judgment will come.  But until then, may the Holy Spirit draw every man, woman and child to put their trust and faith in Him.

 

 

 

 Cultivated

My memories of growing up on our 3 ½ acre “fake” farm run deep.  Some of my earliest memories were when my older brother and I would spend our afternoons racing tractors.  My dad owned a couple of old crank start Farmall H tractors that he kept parked side by side near the pig pen.  The two beasts were nearly identical with the exception of the paint color.  One machine held fast to remnants of the original Farmall red, while the other had grayed and rusted from years of neglect.  I usually hurried to the red one as everyone knew that was the faster tractor.  My older brother reluctantly found himself mounting the Gray Ghost as we called her. 

We spent hours racing the tractors and arguing about who won, each of us insisting that we had bested the other.

“I won!”

“No you didn’t!”

“Sure I did!”

“You couldn’t have won, you were on the older clunker!”

This usually went on until mother called us in for supper.

“Boys! Stop playing on those tractors and come in for supper!

“Mom! Tell Ross that I won the race!”

“Well Ryan, considering the fact that those two tractors never moved even an inch during your “races”, I would say that you both won.”

“Or both lost!” my dad interjected.

Perhaps I neglected to emphasize…this was a fake farm…with fake running tractors.  Sure the tractors were real, but they had never run in my lifetime.  Additionally, being only 6 and 7 years old respectively, me and my brother would never have been able to crank start those machines.  Therefore  we relied on making our own engine noises.  My noises were always faster and better…that is why I won the races.

All of this changed however, on the day that dad brought home a real working tractor.   It was a tiny little orange Allis Chalmers B.  It was from that day on that our lives changed…for the worse.

Immediately Dad brought my brother and I outside to “work the land.”  This mostly meant that Dad insisted that we stand outside and watch him work and stay out of mom’s way.  He said something to the effect of, “Boys, come out with me…you mother is losing her mind and she needs to have you guys out of the house.”  I assumed that she must have found the pet toad I left in the dresser drawer.

So we stood and watched,  as Dad broke the ground with an old single bottom plow.  Then we watched some more as he disc harrowed the newly plowed earth.  We watched even more as he ran the drag across the newly harrowed ground.  Then came the work.  He made us walk all over the soft ground picking up all of the rocks that we could find and place them in a pile outside of the prepared area.  He then made us shovel manure by hand into wheelbarrows and dump the loads of excrement all over the newly dragged dirt.

Then we stood and watched some more as he harrowed the ground again…and dragged it again. 

It was at this point that my brother and I took turns riding on the antique farm machines being pulled behind the Iron Ox.  After my older brother had spent some time bouncing on the steel seat of the corn planter I took a turn being jostled on the vintage potato planter.  The following weeks and months included watering, weeding and finally harvesting.  When all was said and done we had corn ears coming out of our ears and enough bags of potatoes to shake a stick at. 

That about ended our farming career as the old Allis Chalmers went to the old tractor shed in the sky.  

The soft soil has once again become hard and pocked with gopher mounds.  Looking at it today, you would never have known that for a few short months it was a small fertile plot of land 200ft x 200ft.

Land is like a muscle, you have to work it to keep it growing.  When the land is neglected it reverts back to the hardened soil it was known as earlier.  Here we find an incredible parallel to the Parable Jesus shares in Matthew 13:1-23.  In these verses we find the condition of a variety of soils and how these soils are able to receive the sweet seed of the Gospel. 

Perhaps the soil of your heart is hard or perhaps it is soft, or perhaps it is even somewhere in between.  The condition of your heart today does not have to stay way it is.  If you have a heart that hard it can be softened.  If you have a hear that has become hard, it can be softened again.  Conversely, if you have a heart that is soft…sadly it can become hardened.  As a farmer never ends the annual working of the soil, so our God never ends his work of softening our hearts for His transformation.

May we come to invite him to have more of our heart…more acreage to break and work. May we allow him to do the deep work of preparing our hearts to receive the seed of the Gospel and then continue to work it so that through us he can bring forth the great harvest.

 Something Greater

The old adage is that “Records are made to be broken,” and for the most part, this seems to be true, particularly in the realm of athletics.  Perhaps one of the most well known record breaking performances was when Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt shattered both the 100m and 200m world records, which still stand more than 15 years later.  Bolt broke the record that many believed to be unbreakable, Michael Johnson’s 200m dash record.  When you watch something like that happen you know that you have just witnessed something special. 

Just this past month I have watched Gabel Steveson, heavyweight for the Minnesota Gopher’s wrestling team, compete against 3 different top 10 ranked wrestlers in the country.  It is really incredible seeing how this man makes these other great wrestlers look like they have rarely seen the mat.  He is really on a level of his own.  Even non-wrestling fans would be able to see how great of a wrestler this man really is. It is indeed something special to encounter.

It is often easy and exciting to see the greatness of athletes in the context of their sport.  Yet, what for some reason, we, as a society, don’t as readily notice the greatness of Jesus.  He is incredible!  Certainly, those who have experienced his immeasurable grace can speak to the sweet greatness of our Savior.  Yet, he is even greater than that!  In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus speaks of 3 incredible comparisons of his greatness.  Jesus reveals to those who are his followers, as well as his skeptics, that He is greater than the Temple, the Prophets and the Kings of old! 

Jesus is greater than the greatest kings of Israel including Solomon and all of his wisdom.  Jesus is greater than Jonah and the rest of the prophets who foretold of his coming.  Jesus is greater than the Temple…which housed the presence of God.  Jesus IS the presence of God! He IS God!

It is time to see Jesus for who he really is!  The greatest thing in the world…universe…and beyond!

Jesus is greater than everything!

 Foretaste

There are very few foods that I don’t like.  Two of my most prevalent dislikes are olives and sauerkraut.  There was a time however, that this list was significantly longer.  Prior to 2010, the list would have included squash and split pea soup.  Propelling even further back in time, to the years of my childhood, the queue would have contained; onions, tomatoes, oatmeal raisin cookies, guacamole, sour cream, yogurt, celery, salsa, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, boiled potatoes, Chinese food, egg rolls, mushrooms, chili and cornbread. 

I am pleased to share that each of these previous disliked items has now found a special place within my broadened palate. 

In order for each of these provisions to transfer from repulsion to revered, one shared act of commonality needed to take place. Each element required tasting.  Had I never tasted squash, or mushrooms, or guacamole, or cornbread I would never have discovered my affection for them.

In an interesting similarity, my grandfather spent the first 70+ years of his life avoiding pizza, simply because of his loathing of tomatoes.  It wasn’t until he found himself living in assisted living where he came to discover his love for pizza.

In Matthew 12:14-32, we find Jesus once again confronted by the religious leaders.  In this case he is being accused of being influences by Satan himself.  It is quite clear that the Pharisees and the scribes have already made up their mind about Jesus. They hated him and yet, supposedly loved God.  If only these people could taste and see that Jesus is who he says that he is.  He has come bringing healing and restoration.  He is offering a foretaste of the Kingdom of God that has both come and is to come and yet these leaders are refusing to take the taste.  They are refusing to experience the truth about Jesus.

May we come to experience the real Jesus, to taste and to see all of his goodness.

 Newton's Law

Legend has it that around 1665, a man named Isaac was hit in the head by an apple and everything changed. This proved to be the catalyst that he needed to formulate his infamous laws of gravity and motion.  Since hearing this story I have perpetually placed myself in positions to replicate his sudden onslaught of wisdom and smartness.  However, all I seem to get is more lumps and bruises on my head.  It is possible that I become even less intelligent with each encounter.  My thick head has been impacted by ice, rocks, tree branches, other heads, the ground, ladders, lumber and logs.

One of Mr. Newton’s infamous laws is that when an object is moving, it will keep moving in the direction that it is moving unless something stops or changes that objects movement.  I remember experiencing the reality of this law a number of years ago as I was pedaling my bicycle on an unfamiliar single track.  I am not a great rider, I don’t take unnecessary risks but I do enjoy pedaling hard and going fast.  In this particular case, I was traveling too quickly to read and comprehend the sign ahead.  I learned after the fact that the sign read, “Jump Ahead,” Which when translated meant, “You are going to regret this if you don’t stop now. You will bleed and hurt, for the love of all that is Holy, please stop your bike now and find another way.” I really wish I had learned to be a better reader in school.

But…I didn’t read the sign…and…I didn’t stop…and I did hurt and I did bleed and I did hit my head…but…I also had an epiphany.  If I had stopped, I could have taken the time necessary to assess the situation and make a wise decision accordingly.  I was reminded of this epiphany this week, as I read Matthew 11:28-12:14.  Here we find that immediately after Jesus offers rest to those who come to him, He is confronted by religious leaders because of his disregard for the “Sabbath.”

The paradox strikes me.  Here Jesus is inviting people to rest and the religious leaders are criticizing him for not resting.  Perhaps, what the religious leaders don’t realize is that they are too busy pedaling their bikes toward the detriment of an injury promising jump to realize that they are not resting at all.  They are in fact heading in the wrong direction to their own demise.  It seems clear to me that Jesus is restoring rest.

I wonder, perhaps it is from a place of rest where we can truly know the next direction that God has for our lives.

May we come to find rest in the Rest Giver.

 What does it take?

 

As a child I was overworked.  My parents made me do practically everything around the house.  It was my job to clean my room, haul firewood into the house, feed and water the pigs, weed the garden, dry and put away the supper dishes, take out the garbage, feed the dog and anything else my parents assigned, which included just about everything.  Sure, my older brother helped…if you actually call shaking your face, day dreaming and laughing, help. 

I remember sitting at home in front of the television enjoying a well deserved break from all of my back breaking labor, while my mother was cooking up supper and my dad was shoveling 28 inches of snow off of the roof.  Just as I was finding a moment to breathe, my mother began barking orders for me to set the table while at the same time my dad burst into the house and insisted that I add more wood to the furnace.  Do you see what I mean? OVERWORKED!!

I grudgingly left my beloved Hogan’s Heroes and told my older brother that Mom wanted him to set the table and my little brother that Dad wanted him to  add wood to the furnace.  I then sat back down to watch more of Sergeant Schultz…feeling completely exhausted. 

I remember bringing this to the attention of my parents during one particularly laborious Saturday afternoon.  “Ugh…I can’t wait until I have my own kids so I can make THEM do all the work!”

These filled both of my parents with a great deal of mirth.  So much so in fact that supper was late because my mother could not stop laughing enough to get the ground burger into the pan let alone on my bun. 

I have taken the liberty of instilling this same work ethic into my own children.  They too have had to learn to do their own chores.  My children, however, have it so much easier.  For example, as opposed to having to wash and dry the dishes by hand, all they are required to do is empty “their” portion of the dishwasher.  Yet, this simple task has, at times, proven to be too laborious for my offspring.  One of my sweet laborers, who had been merely assigned to put the flatware away at the completion of each wash cycle, deemed it too extreme and defaulted to dumping the flatware into the drawer entirely unsorted, rather than neatly away as required.

After emphasizing my desired outcome, I expected the silverware drawer to look different.  Yet, day after day it looked as if an earthquake has struck the utensil drawer.  Even after expressing my exasperation and frustration…still no change. Finally, with veins protruding from my forehead I asked, “Seriously! What does it take? What does it take to get you to put knives where the knives belong…and the spoons where the spoons belong…etc!!.”

“I don’t know” She said.

“How about this!  For every fork that is out of place, you pay me $1.  For every knife…$1, and for every spoon $1!

“What!? One dollar for each! I can’t afford that!”

“Exactly! So please, take the extra time and put it away right! It will be like you are making money!”

I am please to say that to this day, our flatware drawer has never looked better!

When we encounter the portion of scripture found in Matthew 11:16-28, we find a similar question evidenced.  Jesus speaks of his works and miracles in the cities where he has been ministering and in a sense is asking the question, “What does it take? What does it take for you to believe and repent?”

What about us?  What would it take for us to believe in Jesus?  What would it take to trust him with everything?

It is a good question to ask…and an even better question to find the answer to. 

May we come to believe and trust in all that Jesus has to offer.