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O'Malley's Best Metaphors That gospel offers two metaphors (or similes, if you're picky). The kingdom of God is like finding a treasure in the field or a pearl of great price. But metaphors (or similes-or, in fact, most figurative uses of language) are utterly useless-or worse-unless you decompact them. Figures of speech are like instant coffee. (You really can't escape metaphors.) The people at Maxwell House and Taster's Choice take a real cup of coffee and compress it by some magic into tiny black crystals. To reclaim that original cup, you have to pour boiling water on it. (Tepid water will get you only a lifeless resemblance.) Similarly, people gifted at writing take an experience or a human insight and, with great effort, compress it into black characters on a white page. In order to reconstitute that insight, that understanding, you have to decompact it, pour on your own boiling hot awareness so that you re-live the experience with the same intensity the writer had. So with this gospel. The kingdom of God is like finding a treasure in a field. Yawn. What's next? Nice metaphor, but it says nothing unless you decompact it. Okay, you're boppin' along in your field and your toe hits something. You peer down and, lo, it seems to be a box. You paw around it and, whaddya know, it is a box. You snap open the lock with a rock, creak open the lid, and WOW! It's filled with diamonds, rubies, coins, pearls. And it's all yours! I don't know about you, but I know I'd shout--helplessly--"Holy (BEEP)!" Which means that, if you have ever actually understood the Good News--that our sins are forgiven and that we need never fear death, you simply must have shouted, "Holy (BEEP)!" And if you haven't, if being Christian hasn't made you feel the same liberating exhilaration a paroled convict feels, then quite likely you've never even heard the Good News yet. Now, does it take more than one set of fingers for you to count how many Christians you know who've been that helplessly exuberant about being Christian? Are many of them clambering up onto the rooftops to shout that Good News? If all that ol' Catholic brainwashing had been even the least bit successful, I'd imagine our rooftops would be a lot more crowded. However, I'm pretty sure being an authentic Christian does NOT mean we have to carry soap boxes wherever we go, or that we have to be as fearless as St. Paul at the Areopagus in Athens or Billy Graham in an arena in Forest Hills. All we have to do is till the fields, stir up the sludge, make people who've settled for survival suspect there might just be more to life than that, lure them to be just a little bit less UNready when the Spirit shows up. We're not the main act, just the less charismatic apprentices who warm up the audience. At that point, the Great Surpriser ignited an idea in my head. He made me think of "The Antiques Roadshow," which I'm not at all interested in-and yet, when I click onto it, I get unwillingly fascinated by what those ugly pieces of junk are worth. My interest isn't at all aesthetic, just down-to-earth materialist. How do we make the Kingdom intriguing to people who are sadly bereft of the sensitivities to appreciate that kind of thing? "Hey, friend. Take a look at this crumby old, ugly-looking religion we're trying to offer. You'd never find it in Angelina Jolie's dressing room. But it's two thousand years old. Yeah, really. And it was previously owned by the first pope! And St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Joan of Arc, Catherine of Siena, Thomas More and Henry VIII and Martin Luther, Copernicus. Not to mention Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, Nils Bohr. That's one helluva lot better pedigree than "George Washington slept here." It really could be worth something. No? Okay. Maybe later. I'm always here if you want to ask about it." Or maybe that's even too pushy to be welcomed. How about, "You've been looking kinda down. I don't want to intrude. But if there's anything I can do, just ask." It's a start. The secret of salesmanship is to size up the audience. Find where the need is. Maybe that's the most basic Christian attitude: a sensitive alertness to others' real needs. |
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