Parable: A mansion on the hill.

July 19, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

I am homeless, but I want a home of my own. I see the mansions on the hill— big, magical, luxurious, beautiful. I want to live there. But, I know I cannot, without something that, obviously, I am without … money. In effect, to have a mansion on the hill, or even an apartment at the bottom of it, I still need money! I don’t really need good credit, or creative financing. I wouldn’t have to borrow at all, if I just had money!

Maybe I could rent a mansion, but I would need to have the first and last months’ rent, plus the security deposit. I have nothing—so that’s out. But one way or another, to live in that mansion I would need cold, hard, cash money.

In fact, the lack of it is why I am homeless. Out here I am lost. It is unsafe, it’s filthy. The nights are frightening; the days are long and hot. I cannot protect myself or defend myself or save my own skin. I am always hungry, and I’m afraid I will become sick, living this way.

So, to get money, I would have to work —work very hard—and I’d have to save and hold on to every dollar I can, until I could afford to buy my way up to the mansion on the hill. It takes lots and lots of money, so I would probably spend my whole life on the streets, without shelter or safety or hygiene or self-care, just to save up the money to have that mansion before I die.

But, now I have met someone—maybe he’s a real estate broker or something—who says he can put me in that mansion on the hill today. He says I don’t even need money. I don’t know whether to believe him or not, because he says that all you really need to live in the mansion on the hill is not money, but … the key. Yeah, right! and I’m thinking, you have to have money to get the key. Duh! This broker’s name is Jesus.

It seems like it is too good to be true, because Jesus tells me to follow him, up to this mansion! He says that when we get there, the key will be there for me, and I can walk right in and live in the mansion on the hill. I don’t believe him, because you have to earn the money, whether you buy or rent, before you get the key. Hey, landlords even want a key deposit!—that’s more money! But he says, “No, that’s not true. Believe me,” he says, “I have the key to that mansion on the hill. Follow me. C’mon, right now.”

But who am I? I have trouble believing him. I am a homeless bum, a failure, a loser. It’s not just that I don’t qualify for a mortgage or have the money to buy a mansion. I really don’t deserve to live in that mansion, you know? So I think he’s just “yanking my chain.”

He tells me, “Nah, man. You deserve a better life. You deserve to live in a mansion.” “Are you kidding?” I say. “I don’t deserve that mansion. I just wish I had it.”

“No, you deserve it.”

“Who says, man?” I say.

“I say you deserve it,” he says, “and that makes it so.”

And you know what else he says? (This is too fantastic to think about.) Look, I mean even if I had the key—right?—I don’t own the place. The owner would eventually catch me and throw me out!

This guy is too much, I think! This real estate broker, this Jesus guy, says, “There are a lot of mansions on the hill, not just the one for you. So tell your friends, because the same key opens them all!” And, maybe this guy Jesus is a nut case, because he says, “make as many duplicate keys as you want!”

And while I’m trying not to laugh in his face, then he says, “Believe me, you and all your homeless friends can live on the hill in those mansions because I own them all, and I say it’s okay. C’mon! Follow me! Believe me!!”

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” —Ephesians 2:8–10

— Pastor Dan Hooper

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