Perelandra and the Front Porch

I am halfway through reading C.S. Lewis' book entitled "Perelandra", the second in his renowned science fiction trilogy. My copy of the book is pretty dang old--my dad read it when he was young--which is cool. But as a consequence, I have to hold it gingerly to keep half the pages from falling out, which is annoying.

I don't feel the need here to go into a synopsis of the book, but it takes place on Venus, and one of the characters is a type of Eve. She is one of only two humans native to the planet, and the other (her husband) is missing. Just as the Lady is a type of Eve, Venus is a type of Eden, and at the beginning of the story is in an unfallen state. The Lady knows nothing about evil, but in talking to the protagonist of the story, Professor Ransom (who has been sent from earth), she begins to learn some new things. The central message of the book is stated well in the following passage:

"What you have made me see," answered the Lady, "is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one's mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before -- that at the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished -- if it were possible to wish -- you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other."

It blows me away to think about how often this happens... millions of times a day. Do you sit in a relatively good job and spoil it by fantasizing about the job you really want? Maybe the job you have is actually better. Do you have a loving spouse, and wish you could have married your high school sweetheart instead? Are you so sure you would have been happier if you had?

I think a lot about how the Pharisees were guilty of this. Their approach to the concept of Messiah was to expect a conquering king, a Pharisee of Pharisees, someone who validates them, and rewards them for their sacrifice of righteousness.

As an aside, I often wonder how many of those who actually did follow Jesus were really any better. The disciples were validated by Jesus because he picked them and not others. The sick were validated because he healed them. The children because he honored them. The women and Gentiles because he included them. I can't believe I'm saying this, but... perhaps we have been a bit hard on the Pharisees. Not because they were good, but because they were no worse than the others around them (or us, for that matter.) Everyone in Jesus' company was simply following him, or not following him, based on what was, or wasn't, in it for them. It was not until he was crucified and resurrected, and really not until Pentecost, that his followers began to be identified by what they were giving, and not what they were getting.

We have to make the same choice. Jesus may be validating you... but he won't be for long, I promise you that. He will lift you up and set your feet on a rock. He will breathe his strength and peace into you and anoint your head with oil. But there will come a point where you have been rehabilitated enough to stop taking, and start giving. And that is the point where Jesus will seem to disappear.

Then you will have the choice of the Pharisee (or perhaps Peter at his moment of denial, if you will.) "Do I take Jesus as he is? Or do I keep waiting for somebody to validate me... to be the fruit that I expected to find?"

But the choice has a different twist for you then it did for them. You don't have Jesus literally standing right in front of you, calling you a viper, or a hypocrite. You have the opportunity to craft him into your likeness with your imagination, then with your words, and then with your lifestyle. You can convince people that Jesus is something else... a wish-granting pushover, or pot-smoking hippie, or a gun-toting Republican, to name a few.

You come to that point where he seems to disappear, and then you have to clear it all away--your needs, your blessings, your expectations--remove all the clutter from your vision and ask yourself the only question that has ever mattered...

"Do I trust God?"

And when you have answered it, look again at the fruit in your hand, and the fruit in your mind.

I am not the only one who ventured into the idea of the Front Porch, and The Core, with certain expectations. Many of you who are reading this have had your own. Some of you have taken actual steps to realize those visions. Some have done nothing. And a few have asked me to do it for them.

It's easy to dream when there is no tangible reality in front of you, defying you openly. But now the Front Porch is real... and it keeps tantalizing me with the promise of other-worldly delights. You know, revolutionary ministry, authentic community, dynamic relationships, transformed lives, and night after night of packed-out events. In a word... adventure. But it also taunts me with the threat of misdirection... that it might very well become something bad, or something old and tired... or perhaps nothing at all.

Don't push away from me on this... it's your battle, too. Ask yourself if you are more in the habit of finding a Jesus who will continue to validate you, or of pouring your heart out to serve the one who really exists.

I'm just trying day in and and day out to remember that it all belongs to him... that success is his responsibility, not mine.

Thank goodness.