Hidden.
2005 was an eventful year for me. Over the course of twelve months, I wrote three books and started a business. (A free book to anyone who can remember the first name of my coaching business!) Hard to believe all that was seventeen years ago. We were two years back from Colorado to Greensboro, Thorpe was 8, Ashley was 10, and Abbie was 12. And Kellie and I had just turned 40, mere babes.
One of the books I wrote that year was called The New Rebellion Handbook, a concept I was recruited to write for a publisher. (And although, yes, I can be rebellious in a bad way, this book was about being rebellious in a good way. :) Each chapter followed a very specific format: a brief introduction to the theme, an article, a Biblical perspective, and a summary… followed by a handful of verses, quotes, books, websites, music albums, and activities. The chapter rounded out with a profile of someone historical and someone modern who embodied that theme, a reflection question for journaling, and (in the spirit of David Letterman) a Top 10 List.
This was a very different writing project for me and included a lot of research, as you might imagine. Truth is, I don’t have a lot of patience for research, so I was deeply grateful when Kellie jumped in to scour the internet for months and collect all this data. I wrote the content, and she populated my lists. A beautiful partnership! And although the book is long out of print, you can see from the link that it did indeed exist.
In an interesting twist, Kellie and I just enrolled in a doctoral program through Portland Seminary where we will study leadership and spiritual formation for the next three years—and we’re absolutely thrilled! I know, gluttons for punishment. And guess what we’ll be doing… yep, research. But to our delight (even mine), we get to research our great passion: The Vining Center. Or rather, we get to search out the needs and opportunities for contemplative spirituality and then craft ways we will try to meet those needs and opportunities in the coming years. While we intuit some of this already, other parts are hidden. And hiddenness invites discovery!
I don’t know if you’ve thought about it this way before, but Jesus was a big fan of hiddenness. Just about every business or ministry I know wants to expand, and there’s nothing wrong with that…but Jesus intentionally tried to keep things covert. The savior of the world was a lousy businessman! (That’s a joke.) But seriously, his approach revealed a fundamental aspect of the kingdom of God that we don’t innately understand. And we need to understand it if we’re going to move in sync with God’s movement in the world.
Think about these aspects of Jesus’ ministry:
He lived in almost complete hiddenness for 30 years, leading up to only three years in public ministry. A grossly inefficient use of time.
At least four times in the gospels, Jesus performs a miracle only to then tell the person to keep it a secret. Terrible marketing.
The more his influence grew, the more he avoided cities and stayed in the countryside (Mk 1:44-45), sometimes for his safety and other times to avoid being forcefully crowned king.
Why didn’t Jesus want more attention? Wasn’t that the point? Isn’t that the point of our modern ministries—to make the message of Jesus more public, more available, more winsome?
But Jesus seemed to know that not everyone was ready for good news. That some would be threatened by it, either politically or personally, or just hadn’t come to the place in their journey where they had the capacity to respond. So even though crowds gathered, he seemed to be ever scanning for the one here and the one there who was hungry, open, ready to change. Publicly, he cloaked his message in parables, intentionally confused people (Jn 6:53-66), and offended earnest seekers (Mk 10:21-23).
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells seven parables to describe the mystical realm he called the kingdom of God. Each one references the quality of hiddenness: a seed hidden in the soil, yeast hidden in the bread, a treasure hidden in the ground. The kingdom is something obscured (13:24-26), something that has to be searched for (13:44), something that requires effort and sacrifice to enter (13:45), and something that is obstructed by our scramble for money and privilege (13:22).
“Why do you speak to the people in parables?” the disciples asked him. “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables” (Mt. 13:10-13). To me, this almost feels a little harsh, even elitist. But I think it instead reflects Jesus’ deep knowledge of soul-ripening and human freedom.
This is why I believe that the contemplative life is the life of the kingdom. To contemplate is to desire and value what is hidden. To contemplate is to search and find that precious part… like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and frustrating her sister (Lk. 10).
King David understood that God had secrets, but that God was also eager to share them: The secrets of the Lord are for those who seek them out (my version of Ps. 25:14). “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings” (25:2). The prophet Jeremiah invites all contemplatives: “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord” (Jer. 29:12-14). Found indeed.
God has chosen to make the divine everywhere present but subtly mysterious. It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking… but delightfully accessible when you are. God is waiting for those who like young Samuel will recognize the divine invitation and respond, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!” And oh will God speak!
growing the soul
Might God be inviting you right this moment to search out something hidden? A gift? A secret? Something good that God wants to share with you in an intimate way? How might you contemplate that?
serving the world
Kingdom contemplatives not only join God’s scavenger hunt for secrets; they develop a keen eye for those who are hungry and ready for more… and invite them to join the hunt.
takeaway
Join the contemplatives.