Do you remember the old game of “Barrel of Monkeys”? It came in a plastic container made in the shape of a barrel. To play, you would open the barrel and dump out all of the monkeys. Now, the only monkey you were permitted to touch with your hands was the first monkey. Holding the first monkey by one arm, you would then connect it to a second monkey by its arm, lifting it up. The second monkey’s job was to stay attached to the first monkey, while lifting up the third monkey by one of its arms, and so on. The goal of the game was to pick up all of the monkeys. The nice part of the game was that there were no time limits. Only the breaking of the monkey chain would stop the game.
What if heaven is like the game “Barrel of Monkeys”? (Stay with me, here…) Maybe the barrel is heaven, where we are all meant to be, and meant to all be together? Maybe God seizes onto us and is inextricably connected to us, guiding us and “lifting us up”? Maybe God isn’t satisfied to leave any of us behind. He won’t give up until He has us all, because He wants us all.
Now let’s take the analogy a little further. You might say, “well, if he’s God, why not just grab up all of the monkeys Himself and stuff them into the barrel?” He can, but maybe He wants to demonstrate something. Maybe He wants to demonstrate that He exists, and that He exists through us. When one monkey successfully grabs onto another monkey in the game and you are able to lift them up into the air, isn’t there a feeling of joy? Maybe when one of us, connected to God, lifts up another, who is not connected to God, but God, working through us, lifts up the other, what joy would there be in heaven? Like the one who plays, God is patient. He is willing to take the time necessary, using our “attachments” to one another to bring us ultimately to Him?
Ok, so sometimes the chain breaks and you have to start again. Ultimately because He is God, He never gets bored, never tires of being there, and so we go again. As long as there are monkeys, God’s love remains, ready to lift us up.
From the perspective of monkeys, with all due reverence when I say this, who is the first monkey? Who has the most complete attachment to God? His son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Like the first monkey in the pile, the connection between first monkey and player is unshakable, firm and united, and all things go through Him. Christ is the First Fruits, the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, our Savior. God sent His son for us, to collect all of us.
Now for the second monkey. Ok – again with reverence and all due honor and respect! Maybe the second monkey represents Mary, the Apostles and the saints. This group represents those who are more separate from the Father but connected to the Father through the Son. If you remember in the game of Barrel of Monkeys, the ones left in the chain are usually the top two. That’s because the connections are strong near the top! Mary, the Apostles and the Saints have a direct “first hand” experience with Christ.
What holds them together? Maybe the glue between the monkeys is the Holy Spirit. (It could also be seen as love, too. For God is the Holy Spirit, and God is love.) The closer we are to the source, (God) the stronger the chain. The further away from the source, the weaker the chain. Why? Because the Holy Spirit can’t hold onto us? NO! Because when we sin, we are further away from Christ. When we are less conformed to His likeness, we are further away from Him. How can we know what Christ’ likeness is if we have never seen Him? When we reach out and connect with Mary, the Apostles and saints, we come to know what they know about Christ. They share with us their experiences of being with Him directly. They lead us to Him. For who knows God better than Christ, and who knows Christ better than Mary, the Apostles and the saints? They are not there to be worshiped separate and apart. (Anything that separates isn’t from God.) They are there to share with us, to comfort us, to guide us so we don’t feel so terribly alone. For they were all humans too, and except for Mary also sinners. They know what it’s like to be human, to be “poor abandoned children of Eve”. We can “hold on” to them as models of how to do faith, hope and love, what we aspire to, as they were formed into Christ themselves (“…yet I live, no longer I, but Christ who lives in me.”, St. Paul, Galatians 2:20). Why is this important? Maybe so that we have the strength to “hold on”, when we are weighted down by sorrow, weighted down by sin, weighted down by the pull of the world. The closer we are to Christ the stronger we are, and Mary, the Apostles and the Saints already know how!
Ok, so now we have a small chain going, but a pile of monkeys still on the ground. The task is to connect what is “lifted up” (in heaven) with what is still on the earth. Remember the glue, love/the Holy Spirit? Maybe God offers us “someones” we can “connect with”, especially if we can’t seem to connect to Him. For example, if I can’t quite wrap my head around God, maybe I can relate better to His Son. If I struggle in understanding the son, I can turn to Mary, the Apostles and/or the saints (they are kinda like us!) But what if I can’t relate to them either? Well… how about family or friends? Maybe they have come to understand things about faith that we can’t fathom on our own. But what if we are afraid to ask? Maybe we’ll look dumb or embarrass ourselves! Ok, so now I’m being a difficult little monkey. But those who love us can pray for us. You don’t even know they are doing it! Through PRAYER the grace of the Holy Spirit grabs onto you, and through them, lifts you up. Even if someone doesn’t want to know God, they may know someone who does. If that person loves the other, and the other loves God, well, there you go! Barrel of Monkeys Theology. Leave no monkey behind.
This is where it really gets good. The real challenge! Say, for example you are “lower on the chain” and the last monkey is being difficult and doesn’t want to get on. You may think, “UGH! Stupid little monkey! What are you doing? Hurry up! Get on! I can’t hold on forever!” But that isn’t what God wants. Isn’t that the test of our strength in faith? We really DO have to hold on forever. The only one who gets to judge is the Just Judge. We cannot force others to “get it”. We do however, have to pray for them.
“Pray for them? “ you ask. Pray for obstinate sinners who don’t want to get with the program? You mean, the ones that cut me off in traffic? The child who refuses to go to church? People who do me harm, abuse me, then blame it on me? You want me to pray for THEM? UGH! Have you ever even tried to do this? It really sticks in your craw! Sometimes I look up to heaven and ask, “REALLY? Are you kidding? You want me to do what?”
But we are commanded to do this (Matthew 6: 43-48). “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what recompense will that have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?” When He first started His ministry, in the Sermon on the Mount, He gave us the beatitudes, one of His very first teachings, “…Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12) When asked what were the greatest commandments, He responded “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12: 29-31) When we obey, when we bow down to His will, when we conform, when we stop thinking about ourselves as individuals and think more of the collective love, we transform. Through the suffering of being “on the cross” with Christ Himself we empty ourselves and take on His nature. He gets us! He’s been there! Didn’t He pray to the Father in the garden, “if it is possible let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will but Your will be done”? (Matthew 26:39) Those who He died for, and those who we die (to ourselves) for are the sinners. These sinners, my little monkeys, are what can make us saints. Rejoice in the opportunity to be tested! We aren’t there to save THEM (our arrogance!), they are there to save US. They humble us, to transform us, to challenge us , through humility, patience, persistence, kindness, courage in suffering, and most of all, through TRUST IN JESUS.
It’s easy to get arrogant and proud in faith. You may say, “I don’t need intercession! I can go directly to Christ!”, and “here’s the truth! Get on or get going!” But this is the greatest sin – pride. It masterminds all other sin. It is the antithesis of how Christ lived His life. He lived not for Himself but for us. He washed the feet of the apostles. He said, “l have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” (John 13:15.) We need each other to do His work. We need to want intercession, not need it. We must love each other. After all, it’s the glue. Loving each other and helping each other IS intercession. This is the stuff that saints are made of.
When we become saints, we are closer to Christ, we are stronger, we can hold a chain. The number of chains God has the capacity to hold is infinite, and Christ is the head of every chain. We are here to help Him, not because He needs our help, but to testify to the truth, that he is Lord. He loves us all, and He wants us all. Each chain has the capacity to load up monkeys that maybe didn’t fit on other chains. Maybe because of our connections with each other, through love and through prayer, each chain accommodates a different monkey. We have many gifts, and there are many ways to get to heaven. Maybe the gifts we are given attract or “connect” with people in a certain way that allows them to join us on our chain.
When we become Christ, we too can be patient, can be kind. We must graciously, mercifully, lovingly open our hands to each other, as Christ opened His hands to be nailed to the cross. Sometimes an open hand is met with a slap, or worse – nothing at all. Just breathe, and believe. He is in charge. Show up. He’ll do the rest. Don’t try to control others, or that which you do not have the power to control. Trust in Him who loves you. He knows what He’s doing. He wants us all. And when He has us all, game over.