Gaining So Much More Than a Pearl

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
July 30, 2023
Proper 12, Year A
1 Kings 3:5-12
Psalm 119:129-136
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52 

Gaining So Much More Than a Pearl

So, there’s an addendum to the story about Solomon we heard today in which God granted him long life and riches. Solomon didn’t ask for long life and riches, he asked for the wisdom to lead the people of Israel well. So, God was pleased with Solomon, and after agreeing and grant Solomon wisdom, God also granted him the long life and riches that he didn’t ask for.

When I was a kid, reading that story, the sneaky little part of my brain thought, “Well that’s cool. All I need to ask for something unselfish and then maybe God will make me hugely rich as well.”

Now, I knew God wasn’t stupid. Having just read that story about Solomon, I couldn’t just say, “God make me wise,” and expect to become rich. No, I had to try to fool God into thinking I really meant it. So my prayer was something more like, “God just make me wise. I’m not going for riches, just the wisdom part, so please help me out with that. Oh, and if you do make me rich, I’ll use like the hugely vast majority to give away to others.”

I’m not sure God said “yes” to either part of that prayer, but I’ve since realized what I pretty well expected back then, which is that God doesn’t work like that, at least not for me.

Far from the almighty golden gumball machine of a young boy’s fantasy, God seems more concerned with teaching us God’s ways of love and living out God’s kingdom here on earth than with granting the get rich quick prayer scheme of a teenage boy.

In one of Jesus’ parables that we heard today, the kingdom of God was kind of compared to a get rich scheme involving a merchant and a really big pearl. In the story, the merchant finds a huge pearl and sells everything in order to acquire it. Going back again to my teenage boy self, I didn’t find this story of God’s kingdom all that compelling. I mean, I got that the story was a metaphor, but the thought of a big pearl just didn’t interest me. What would I do with it, put it on a shelf and not really look at it all that much? If it was a life-size, working Millennium Falcon, then I could see the appeal, but the pearl just wasn’t doing it for me.

I wonder if sometimes my teenage take on the story rings true for many of us, meaning that I wonder if we hear about living God’s kingdom here on earth and find that it’s just not that appealing, like hearing about Solomon and thinking, “Yeah, yeah, wisdom’s great, but what about the money?” I wonder if we hear about God’s kingdom and think, “Yeah, that sounds lovely, but like a big pearl, I think I’m just going to put it on a shelf and not look at it all that often.”

God’s kingdom often sounds like a pretty good idea in church, and then it’s back to the rest of life. Fears and stresses of life hit us, and we take that pearl and put it back up on the shelf. The challenges of life make Jesus’ kingdom seem less appealing than the protection and numbing that often comes with just getting through the day. Even in those times when we really do want to live God’s kingdom, we really do want the pearl, but what the heck are we supposed to do with it? It’s pretty, and a lovely idea. Now what?

Well, what’d the merchant do? He sold all that he had to get it. For us, that means seeking God’s help to live out God’s kingdom here on earth. That means changing our lives to follow the ways of Jesus and giving up anything that gets in the way of us living Jesus’ way. The merchant sold all that he had to get the pearl, because living God’s kingdom was absolutely worth the price.

Following the ways of Jesus, we’re supposed to love our enemies. There’s a cost there, and a giving up of some of who and how we are. Letting go our fear, our anger, our desires to force our way in the world. We’re going to risk ourselves for the sake of others. We’re going to spend large amounts of time in prayer and seek peace with others. We’re going to give up selfish ways, and we’re going to join with others in helping to make the lives of those around us a little bit brighter.

That’s a lot. The merchant sold everything he had. Jesus said that we should lose our lives for his sake and the sake of the kingdom of God. Of course, Jesus also said that if we lose our lives for his sake, we would find our lives. Think about this not just as physical death, but also as losing the lives we have, giving up all of the ways which keep us from God’s kingdom. The merchant selling everything.

Then realize, the guy was a merchant. He didn’t sell everything and buy the pearl to put it on a shelf. He was buying the pearl to sell it again. He was going to make back all that he had given up for the pearl and then some. Jesus said, “those who lose their lives…will find them.”

When we give up all of the ways which keep us from living God’s kingdom, we aren’t left empty, with nothing. We gain back so much more. Now, I don’t mean wealth. Unlike my teenage boy self, we’re not trying to trick God into a get rich quick scheme. Also, giving up all that we have is not a simple, one-time prayer or declaration. Giving up all that we have is an ongoing process as we, over time, bit by bit, realize the parts of ourselves that aren’t living God’s kingdom, and we, over time, bit by bit, give those ways over to God. We let those parts of us die, and we begin to see what’s being reborn.

As we are reborn over time, bit by bit, here are some things that we gain as we give up all that we have. We gain peace, no longer struggling with everything and everyone around us. We gain acceptance that life is not all as we wish it was, and we find beauty in the life we have. We gain community, joining with others in living God’s kingdom and offering it to others.

The merchant didn’t force the pearl on anyone, telling them angrily or at knife point, “You have to take this pearl or else.” He offered the pearl to those who were willing to buy it. As we live into God’s kingdom, we can offer it to others, not with threats, not because they have to. We offer what we’ve found in God’s kingdom because we have been healed by it. As we are healed in God’s kingdom, we offer that healing to others, and joining with others, we see the healing of God’s kingdom grow. We see the lives of the people around us change for the better.

This isn’t a sudden get rich quick scheme. It happens over time, bit by bit. God’s kingdom grows, and the world is healed.

 

A Mystery Beyond My Comprehension, and That’s Enough For Me

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Emmanuel Episcopal Church
June 20, 2021
Proper 7, B
Job 38:1-11
2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

A Mystery Beyond My Comprehension, and That’s Enough For Me

I don’t remember the first time I heard the story of Jesus sleeping through a terrible wind storm at sea and then silencing the storm with a word, but I imagine it went something like this.  I heard the story and then went, “Wow, how’d he do that?”  “Well,” I was told, “Jesus is God.”  “Oh, ok.”  See I was never all that amazed by Jesus’ miracles.  Not that his miracles weren’t amazing, but starting from a place of believing Jesus is God, it seemed totally natural that Jesus could control the weather, heal people, multiply food.  Jesus, being God made all of this, everything, “laid the foundation of the earth…when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for  joy,” so of course he could do anything at all.  So, going from that belief about Jesus and then hearing that Jesus could control the weather with a word, I figured, “Well yeah, of course he can.” 

For the disciples, on the other hand, Jesus’ controlling the weather was rather mind blowing.   “Who then is this,” they asked, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  Rather than starting from a place of believing Jesus to be God, they were gradually coming to know who Jesus was, and they had barely scratched the surface.  Like Job, when God said of him, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”, the disciples, though they knew Jesus well, were also realizing the enormous depths they had not even begun to plumb.

We’re like this with everyone we know.  My brother, Kevin, and I are identical twins.  We share the same DNA, and we grew up together, so we are very close and know each other very well.  Still, if we plumb the depths long enough, we get to places I don’t know and he doesn’t know.  We begin darkening counsel by words without wisdom.  We can know people our entire lives and still be surprised by them.  There are always greater depths we can plumb, new awareness and understandings of each other to discover.  

Being that that is the case for our knowledge of other human beings, we have to admit our knowledge and understanding of God is greatly limited.  God is known and has been revealed to us, and God is a mystery.  Whenever we try to define God too much, we end up with God’s response to Job, “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”  We think we know God.  We sometimes construct rather tight models of God and have rules around how and who and what God is, and then something happens that we can’t fit into our God understanding box, and our tightly constructed models of God come crashing down.  Far from a disaster, what that means is we get to plumb the depths of God even more fully.  When our understandings of God prove insufficient, we get to be the disciples in the boat with Jesus, wondering, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

As I said at the beginning, as a child simply hearing, “Jesus is God,” was enough for me to say, “Oh, ok,” to the question of how Jesus could control the weather with a word.  Of course he could, he was God.  Through further decades of study and plumbing the depths, I’ve barely scratched the surface of much anything more, though I have brought about a lot of helpful questioning and come to a greater heart knowledge of who Jesus is.  God is still a vast mystery and yet I have come to experience God as goodness and love, healing and freedom. 

I believe we are called to accept and embrace the mystery of God, and to be content with what we can say we know.  God is love.  Sounds simple enough, but what force or action on earth has greater depth and mystery than love?  God is good.  We don’t always know what that means, but we can trust in God’s goodness and give up some of our need for and illusion of control at all times.

Here’s what I know personally:  when I spend time in prayer and meditation, seeking God’s will, and setting aside my efforts at control, I find peace and unity with people and within myself that I don’t otherwise find.  Who is this that brings such peace and unity to life and relationships?  God, whom I don’t fully know, and that’s enough for me.  

Accepting some knowledge of God as well as great mystery of God, I get to see God all around, in the beauty of creation:  in the earth, the skies, the trees, the wind, the water.  Seeing God everywhere in the earth brings greater awe for all that is around me, greater respect, and a desire to honor the earth in how I live.

Seeing God in others helps me to see each person’s beauty and to want to give them respect and to honor them in how I live.  We see in Jesus’ teachings and actions, that such is his desire for us.  

I don’t understand how all of that works, but I accept it as true because it is beautiful and because the fruits of that belief are greater peace, love, and honor towards others and to the earth.  Accepting some of these mysteries of God brings the very love, healing, and freedom which I believe God to be.

Looking at another mystery of God, how can Jesus be fully human and fully God?  How is it that Jesus could calm a storm with a word?  Well, on the one hand, what can’t God do?  On the other hand, how exactly does that work, God being everywhere and also that one person?  I don’t know.  I don’t need to fully understand it.  I don’t need to understand how God was specifically there in the human being, Jesus, while also being fully present as the Holy Trinity in the heavenly places, while also being in and through all creation in the known universe and beyond.  

I don’t need to fully understand how we are both here living finite, mortal lives on this earth and we are at the same time alive with God in the heavenly places fully united to one another in Christ.  Paul writes about that in his letter to the Ephesians, and I don’t know how that works.  On this Father’s Day, however, I think about my dad who died six years ago.  I still miss him, and I also have joy because I believe that like Paul wrote, I’m not only waiting here on earth to be with my Dad again; I’m already with him in the heavenly places.  Now that’s a mystery of God beyond my comprehension, but I don’t have to understand it.  I believe it, and that’s enough for me.  

How does connecting with God through prayer and meditation, connecting with God through people, connecting with God through nature, how does any of that bring love, healing, and freedom?  How are we both here and with God in the heavenly places all at the same time?  How does all that work?  How does God make all that happen?  Well, I’ve got the same answer as my parents had for me when I was a kid asking, “How did Jesus calm a storm?”  He’s God.  Then I can figure, “Oh, ok.  Goodness, love, healing, freedom, of course God can do all that.”