I have a little test for you.
Look at the three fruit below and tell me which you think are good and which are rotten:
It looks like the first one is good and the other two are rotten. But it’s a trick Ember!
It’s hard to tell the difference on the outside, but when you look inside you can see that the first fruit is a good banana, the second fruit is a rotten banana,
and the third is a plantain, which looks like a rotten banana on the outside, but it’s still good fruit. Just a different sort of fruit.
Now I’m going to be serious for a minute. Imagine that the fruit stands for both the good things we do and the bad things we do. The good fruit comes from our share of the of the image, essence, or Spirit of God. The rotten fruit comes from things we do that are not from the image.
Here’s the part that bothers me: what if my share of the image was like a banana, and some other person’s share of the image were a plantain? I might just assume that every rotten-looking banana thing they tossed at me was rotten fruit, and block it, toss it out, or hurl it back, and never, ever learn about the plantain image of God!
I would be rejecting God! I’d be limiting my portion of the image instead of building up the image of God inside of me! It makes me feel sick to think that I might cut myself off from part of God without even being aware that I’m doing it!
That’s what I was talking about in my last post, Rumpelstiltskin, when I said that sorting through the slings and arrows of nasty people to find the good stuff was going to take some detective work. We need to test all that fruit before we can be sure it’s really rotten and not some kind of tricky new fruit!
All I need to do now is get myself a fruit tester! Do you think they sell any at Wal-Mart?
Ok, so you are saying that plantains are good fruit and shouldn't be dismissed because of the way they look on the outside. But, still bananas must be a superior fruit because they look good and taste good, and that is a better or more complete image of God, right?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe that is a silly thing to say because one image of God, who is an infinite being, if it is a good image, cannot be closer to the perfection of that infinite being by quanity (for the two would both indeed lag infinately in perfection), but only quality. Nothing created can be infinite like God is infinite in all ways, but God puts an image of his goodness in all things so that being finite they do contain a certain perfection in the certain image that they are. I mean, I'm sure God had a reason for making the plantain look the way it does. The overt beauty of a perfect banana is a certain kind of beauty. Maybe there are some people who like or even prefer the hidden beauty of a perfect plantain. The goodness comes in being the image that God intends for you to be right? And if we are all being the image that we are supposed to be; that image being Christ, aren't we all equally good eventhough we are all very different?
I think your second interpretation is better. Is yellow more beautiful than brown? Is the forrest more beautiful than the dessert? I can even imagine that someone might think a rotten banana is more beautiful than ripe bananas or plantain.
ReplyDeleteSt. Paul, who talked A LOT about fruit, also said:
...make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but IN HUMILITY REGARD OTHERS AS BETTER THAN YOURSELVES. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2:2-7)
I think that's why Jesus said we're to leave judgment out of the equation when dealing with others.