And how does one allow cats to pee on the walls you may
ask? My answer is I am uncertain. In my cat owning experience they have only
ever peed on the floors when they choose to misbehave, or on the beds when they
intend to make a real stink of it. But
my wife and I once rented out our home for several years while we traveled to
other states across the country to pursue careers and opportunities we could
not get living in central Florida at the time.
We knew the tenant. We made a bargain
we thought was fair. We would charge
only exactly what our mortgage and taxes cost were (no profit), and since we had
a 30 year fixed loan on the home, we agreed to never raise that initial rent
the entire length of time we rented out our home. In exchange we expected for our home to be
reasonably maintained, or repaired of minor things that come up so we did not
have to worry about coordinating these repair events from out of state where
our access would be highly limited at best.
Flash forward 7 years from the start of that bargain. We are back in central Florida again, as all
the opportunities elsewhere have come to an end, and the costs to live
elsewhere are just too high. We plan to
move back into our home, and ask our tenant to move out for us with plenty of
notice. But what we discover is that a
direct move back into the house is just not possible without a nearly full
construction job to repair all the accumulated damage that was done while we
were away. We had been true to our part
of the bargain, never once raising the under priced rent a dime over the whole
7 years. But what we found was pet pee
on the dry wall, chewed up baseboards, carpets, and flooring. And most of all a stench so engrained in the
walls they would have to be completely replaced to rid the house of the
smell. All the flooring would have to be
redone. And at this point, we might as
well, convert the garage into another bedroom for our growing daughter at the
time. So began a major home interior renovation we did not intend to carry out.
You might think to yourself, who on earth did you entrust
your home to, that would allow it to become this damaged? You might think, this had to be a stranger
most likely, or at least a person you thought was friend who obviously did not
value the friendship. It was
neither. It was a sister of my
wife. A sister who never thanked us for
the financial benefit of rental stability, nor apologized from the
embarrassment of having allowed our home to become so trashed. But she was and obviously still is,
family. We have long since forgiven her,
whether she seeks it or not. We hold her
no ill will, and have not for many years, it has been now more than 20 years
since the forced interior remodel. But
to be clear, a simple paint job was no where near enough to gloss over the
damage done to our home back then, damage that our own family allowed to
accumulate over time, without shame, without apology, and without even
acknowledgement.
This was a financial surprise for us, as owners of the home. But this experience we had is not isolated to
only financial ventures. It happens in
the church as well. Ask yourself, what
happens when the leadership entrusted with God’s church turns the proverbial
cats loose to pee on the walls without consequence or regret? The damage done to our Lord’s church is never
so great, as when it is committed by those entrusted to be its stewards, or
it’s leaders. The Catholic church still
suffers almost to the point of no repair for how it handled the priesthood being
engaged in child molestation without consequence. I am not Catholic, but my sympathies would
always be aligned with victims of that horror, than with the supposed
leadership who seemed to systemically permit it. Cats peeing on walls with owners having no
interest in changing anything, not the cats, not the drywall, and not the
behavior. Just looking away and saying
have at it. We will hold our noses. And it has taken an interior remodel to
finally start making things better over there.
But the Catholic church is not the only one to suffer from
damage done by the stewards entrusted with the leadership of God’s church. Long ago, the one True religion, founded by
God himself high in a mountain called Sinai with 10 commandments given to
Moses, followed by the first 5 books of the Bible, came to a point in its
journey, where the spiritual leaders of that church reasoned it was better to
kill Jesus, the Son of God, than to relinquish one ounce of doctrinal control
over the people. This crime would be far
worse than permitting renegade cats, or even abusing children, it would be the
killing of Christ Himself. And for
nothing more than a lack of love, and a desire to stay in power. True doctrine could never have rationalized
anyone’s cold blooded murder, let alone the Son of God. But this course was set already in the minds
of the leadership long before it would be carried out by Jewish and Roman
hands. Could there be any way to prevent
it, any way to change hearts and minds, before it was carried forward. Jesus was here to die, so there was no way to
avoid that outcome. But He did not need
to be killed by His own church, that was an option His church alone would
choose. And if you ask me, we still
betray Him this way today in our own world, in our own pews, as we choose to
seat self in the center of our salvation.
Luke gives us an insight into the attempts of Jesus to
foretell and hopefully give pause to the spiritual leaders of his day, from
their nefarious purposes. Luke picks up
his account in chapter 20 beginning in verse 9 it says … “Then began he
to speak to the people this parable; A certain
man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far
country for a long time. [verse 10] And at the
season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the
fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty.” Several things to note about this story (and
it was a parable, not a translation of literal events, even though the
parallels would be uncanny) – The vineyard or the church in this case was never
“given” to men entrusted with it, it was only ever “loaned” to them, or placed
in their care for a specific purpose and a specific time. These men were not the new owners, they were
merely tenants. At an appointed time (by
the real owner I might add), servants were sent to collect the harvest from the
church, but instead of finding harvest, they were turned back empty
handed. How often is this remarkably
true still today in the church of our Lord.
We have no harvest, for we permit no real change in our hearts to occur.
Luke picks back up in verse 11 saying … “And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also,
and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. [verse 12] And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and
cast him out.” And in this
repetition of events, Jesus describes the history of the Jewish faith, where
servant and prophet sent to them with messages of love and redemption from God
Himself, were turned away again and again, some tortured and beaten or worse
for daring to interrupt the power structure with calls back to love again. These tenants had unknowingly become the
tenants from hell. No one ever sees that
coming in themselves. They are quick to
see it in others, but always seem to forget to see it in their own mirrors. And yet to have a tenant from hell, you need
exactly this set of circumstances and willful blindness.
Luke continues in verse 13 saying … “Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my
beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. [verse
14] But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned
among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the
inheritance may be ours. [verse 15] So they cast
him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the
vineyard do unto them?” And here
is where the love of our God is truly on display, even after our rejection of
His love, He STILL sends His only Son into our midst to show us what love looks
like, knowing full well every other servant that preceded him was killed by men
just like these. And knowing further it
would be these same men Jesus was here to save, stewards of His church, that
would join their ancestry and choose to kill the very Son of God in a vain
attempt to keep control. What destiny can
be left to us when such is our continued choice as leaders entrusted to keep
God’s church?
Luke concludes picking back up in verse 16 saying … “He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give
the vineyard to others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid. [verse 17] And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? [verse 18] Whosoever
shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it
will grind him to powder.” The
very men listening to this story, the very same tenants from hell and oblivious
to their own condition, hear the parable and utter the phrase “God forbid” or
rather, we would wish this never happens to us, the punishment most of all. But these same men have already concluded in
their hearts to kill Jesus who speaks to them now. They have already rejected Jesus as the
Messiah, and much more importantly, as their own personal Messiah. And so they plan even then to kill Him.
But Jesus offers them scripture to consider to hopefully
change their minds, and their planning.
He reminds them of a building analogy where builders rejected a stone,
that in spite of this initial rejection, becomes the very cornerstone against
which this entire building is constructed upon.
When we fall upon the Rock, we are broken. Our hearts are broken on the anvil of God’s
love, the stone we allow to accumulate within us is shattered by it. And then we become someone new, someone remade,
by the so great love of Jesus Christ. It
is our submission in falling that begins this process, Jesus end to end, sees that
it is completed in us. But when we
refuse Jesus, when we refuse salvation, the only destiny left to us, is to be
crushed completely by the weight of our own actions and our own guilt, leaving
no savior standing in our stead between us and God, only our naked deeds and
impure motives unable to stand in His presence without being completed crushed
by the weight of what we have done, and if allowed, what we would continue to
do.
People are quick to make excuses for bad pet behavior. They had to have been sick, or scared, or in
some other condition that drove them to do something as heinous as pee on the
drywall, or do worse on the bed. After
all the pet cannot be evil can they? But
regardless of the motives of simple creatures, the cleaning up after them is
choice we make or we don’t. We could
choose to be the completely embarrassed house guest horrified by these kinds of
actions, and set about to immediately cleaning them up to reduce the damage as
much as possible. It is no excuse. It does not undo the damage. But it tries to minimize the damage to the
extent that is possible. You will note
we are still talking about the damage of our pets do, those entrusted to our
care through choice and circumstance, those we claim are a part of our family
we love deeply. Or we can ignore the
renegade nature of cats bent on marking the world, your home included, and
allow that behavior to become so repetitive that it would seep into even the
rocks or foundation over time, Never
lifting a finger to fix it. Thinking we
did not do it ourselves, or do it on purpose, so cleaning it up must be
somebody else’s responsibility. Becoming
tenants from hell, without a single glance in the mirror.
I can testify what the costs are for errant pet behavior
allowed to accumulate over time without a second thought. Jesus can testify what it looks like when the
leaders He entrusts with His church refuse to love, and seek only power over
what does not belong to them. That kind
of behavior pulls the crucifixion of Jesus out of purely Roman hands, and
places it long before into the hearts, minds, will, and hands of those same
entrusted leaders of His church. Are we
there right along side those errant leaders even today? Do we still reject the notion of being saved
by Jesus alone, choosing instead to “help” God in this regard. Choosing instead to take care of some sin
that plagues us, instead of realizing to be truly saved from it, will require
Jesus to do all the work of seeing us saved from it, and allowing Him to do so. For can there ever be any kind of harvest
without allowing Jesus to make one in us?
Stop making excuses, and let Him clean you up, and pull the “hell” out
of your tenant title as it sits today.
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