What Fragments Us?

Jesus told stories to help us understand reality. He could have made use of ‘normal’ language (x, y, z is the case), or spelled it out ‘scientifically’ (here are the reasons x, y, z are the case). His closest friends shouted their point of view, used physical force, or just fled from trying. Jesus answers the question, ‘what fragments us?’, or ‘what creates disintegration in our lives?’, by asking us to imagine what life is like in a world where x, y, z are arranged in a way where... and so begins our journey.

Jesus’ short story about what fragments us

A man bought a field and planted many beautiful things in it. He really, truly loved it. Sometime later the man went away to another country and, because of his love for the land, paid some hired hands to tend it in his absence. When the time came, he sent a servant to the workers to collect some of its return. The man had always treated the workers with fairness and kindness, so they had no reason to think they were being short- changed or deprived of any good thing. The hired hands, however, beat the servant, sending him away empty-handed. Sending a second servant, the workers also gave him a beating. The same thing occurred for a third time. Not knowing what will get through to these men, the master sent his beloved son to be a direct messenger. Knowing this to be his dear son and heir, the workers threw him out and killed him so that they might keep all that they oversaw.

Finding ourselves in Jesus’ story

What fragments us, Jesus says, is thinking and living as these workers did. When we do, we (a) take things the good and faithful farmer, God, has created and generously gifted, (b) we write a new narrative about the kind of farmer he is, and (c) we say, ‘this is mine from now on.’

We fragment from God, from each other, and from ourselves, setting up our own life project that only the people ‘like us’ are welcome to join. We become self-reliant, possessive, and ungrateful in the generously provided- for world Jesus is speaking of. In our hearts and actions, we may seek to possess other persons as if they were our own (you are here to serve me). But our desire to use rather than love can extend to the earth we live on, the creatures that call it home, the material goods we enjoy, and our own private lives. The workers do harm to the farmer, his son, his servants, and to his fields. Eventually, the workers do harm to themselves. For they tear up the provision that is offered them, and in its place create burned over fields, broken relationships, memories of violence, and unfair rules by which to live; rules that they themselves would protest if applied to them. This is our world!

So, this is what Christians mean when they use the word sin?

The workers in this story reflect what Jesus and his followers mean when they use the word ‘sin’. Sin is what fragments us, according to Jesus.

Sin is like a worker who begins to think of the good farmer as withholding. Sin then acts in the world as if it were so, and eventually forgets that everything we have was given to us for our good.

When you hear the word ‘sin’, what do you experience? Often the idea of ‘sin’ brings specific behaviours to our imagination. Murder, lying, theft, etc. While things as these do make up part of what Jesus means by ‘sin’, and they certainly fragment us, this story looks to explain sin’s absurdity at a deeper level. What do the given examples, perpetrated always in and with the farmer’s fields, say about who we see and understand the good farmer to be?

We fragment, not only when we do bad things, but also when we despise and mistreat what is lovely and good.

According to Jesus, God is the good farmer. He does not ask us, the land workers, to earn his generosity. He is already generous! Instead, he invites us to live in this light.

Rediscovering the lovely things

Jesus’ way informs why Christian thinking, public and private, should always begin with the categories that God has given.

According to Jesus what God has made is lovely, and therefore should be loved. We might call this bestowing of loveliness as an ‘always the case’ reality.

Following Jesus, we learn to begin by asking, ‘has God made this thing?’, ‘has God said it is lovely?’

In the worldview of the Bible, there isn’t any instrumental or utilitarian moral reasoning necessary. These ‘always the case’ criteria for love help against the temptation to ask after something’s ‘use’, ‘appearance’, or ‘convenience’ to determine its loveliness.; or what we might call a, ‘depending on the case’ criterion for love. As followers of Jesus, we live in this world as those who have to account for what is lovely. None of us, even church-going people, are immune from these “depending on the case” ways that Jesus reveals through the workers in his story. Maybe the farmer isn’t good according to what we want good to be? Maybe his servants are less than good because they would disagree with us or do things differently? And so it goes.

Jesus’ advocacy for the sinned against

As you will well know from your own life, the workers ‘sin’ in this intentioned mistreatment of the good farmer and his provision is only one aspect of what is wrong with the world. For our part in this, those who follow Jesus find forgiveness and substantial healing. Yet, there is a higher peak still. The farmer’s servants, and finally his own beloved son, are brutalized.

Sin’s poisonous influence creates ‘misery’ in both the lives of the sinner and the sinned against. Is there help?

I hope we can discuss this another time.