“If suffering is the sole origin of consciousness, and the beginning of true spirituality, God can much more easily make a saint out of a sinner…through suffering.” (Dostoevsky).
In the parable of the good and bad trees Jesus states that: “every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and burned.” (Mat. 7:19) In it, the Lord of the harvest is making a comparison between the labor of a horticulturalist and that of a spiritual laborer. A good tree then is one that not only produces after its own kind, from a viable seed, but one which also retains its genetic blueprint. “…and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree-yielding seed.” (Gen. 1:29) From a spiritual perspective, a good tree connotes to a disciple who reproduces fruit unto righteousness. Conversely, a bad tree is one that produces fruit, but without the self-replicating life-giving principle or righteousness within it. Even as the Lord said: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance!” (Mat. 3:8)
Accordingly, a penitent heart could be considered the nominal requirement for a disciple that produces fruit unto righteousness! It follows then that a true disciple is not only one that bemoans his spiritual predicament, but that his remorse is such that it drives him to the seek repentance with all his heart, mind and soul. From that perspective then, the disciple is one tha is not only reachable, but teachable. Conversely, it remains as impossible to reform the unrepentant as it is to disciple a scriptural know-it-all. For that reason, the symbology of the “narrow gate” and a camel kneeling to be divested of its burden, remains apropos as a descriptive of a pentinent believer seeking entrance to the kingdom. As Jesus said: “The gate remains narrow, and the road hard that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” (Mat. 7:14)
In a very real sense this passage intuits to a spiritual awakening, one that is apprehended and generated apart from intellectual deduction.– “Blessed are you Simon bar Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” (Mat. 16:17) And, while spiritual illumination can be found and even nurtured through “…a washing of the water of the Word” (Eph. 5:26), an intellectual fixation on the literal meaning at the expense of its spiritual connotation, serves to leave a reader both deaf, and dumb. Let us avoid then being counted among those who are “forever learning, yet never coming to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim.3:7). Don’t…”Wait for it!” “For the kingdom of God cometh not through observation, it is within” (Lk. 17:20-21). The spiritual reality of the Christian path remains consistent with the revelatory process, one that unfolds gradually and sometimes almost imperceptibly as a believer synthesizes and internalizes the truths being presented.“So that your love may overflow more and more, and with knowledge and full insight enable you to determine what is best, so that you might produce that harvest of righteousness, which comes through Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1: 9,10,11)
CoupStick Chaplain 