Always Monkeys!

I have learned, in life, that when you are in an exciting situation with opportunities, momentum and imminent success, there is always a monkey!  It seems that obstacles and difficulties are both normal and inevitable.  It is just life, I guess!

You might ask, what kind of monkeys are you talking about?  When I visited Brazil, we were taken out into a beautiful rain forest of trees older than America.  There were beautiful birds, stunning flowers, and we had to catch our breath at the lushness of what we saw.  But, true to form, there were monkeys.  These trashy creatures gathered in the trees, chattering and leaping around, very upset with our presence.  When this didn't cause us to leave, the nasty things started throwing fruit at us.  So much for pristine and quiet beauty!  There are always monkeys!

John 4 recounts a story of ministry success.  Jesus' disciples were baptizing and leading many people to the faith, much to the dismay of the Pharisees, the church leaders of Jesus' day.  Monkeys!  To add complication to the situation, Jesus and the disciples were rerouted through Samaria.  The Jews viewed the Samaritans as monkeys (bad actors in the play of life), and the Samaritans viewed the Jews as monkeys.  And one more complication.  As Jesus comes into town, he meets a Samaritan woman, and one of notorious ill repute.  Another monkey!  Even for Jesus, no good deed goes unchallenged!

In life there are always those monkeys, trying to impede or stop things that are both good and right.  What do we do?  Jesus embraced the situation.  He took the trip through Samaria in stride, and (recounting the birth story of Jesus) it is likely his parents, Mary and Joseph, elected to travel through Samaria, ignoring the bad name of this hated place.  He looked for an opportunity to announce the Kingdom of God.

Jesus used the situation (and this woman) to make several theological points we can grasp and apply today.  The Kingdom of God welcomes those that society casts out (women, those who are sinners, those who don't have their act together, those who are not popular with the in crowd).  Jesus doesn't just embrace these folks ... He converts and redeems them!  The Kingdom of God is for all people willing to listen, believe and allow the Gospel to make its way into their hearts.  The Kingdom of God goes everywhere ... even into places the "elite, proud, popular" people avoid.

Jesus used the situation to ask this untrained, spiritually-unprepared woman to go to, tell, and bring others to the feet of their Savior.  Jesus ends this story with both promise and one more "monkey."  The promise is that the harvest is plentiful.  The "monkey" is the lack of workers.  Matthew 9:37-38 says, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few."

We often avoid, abandon or just stop ministries that present obstacles.  It is our nature.  But, what if we 1) embrace the situation, 2) use the situation, and (doing what Jesus did in Matthew 9) 3) pray to the Lord of the Harvest for guidance, solutions and power over those nasty monkeys?