How Do We Find the Pearl?

Our texts this week are actually the texts from last week, which we missed due to our fantastic Music and Arts Presentation. So, we'll be looking at Genesis 29:15-28, Romans 8:26-39, and most particularly Matthew 13:31-33 and 44-53. They can be read here.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
-Matthew 13:45-46

And now I had discovered the good pearl. To buy it I had to sell all that I had; and I hesitated. -Augustine, Confessions (8.1.2)

The parable of the pearl has long fascinated me, which is part of the reason I could not let this week of lectionary scriptures pass me by. When I have faced brutal decisions in life, times that you know you have to make difficult choices, this parable has more than once come to my mind: what is my pearl of great price? And what am I willing to give up in order to pursue it?

These are scary questions--and difficult ones to answer. Let's just be literal about the parable for a minute, shall we? I just checked my bank account, and in the month of July I have made 38 different purchases using my checking account. This doesn't count cash, which is harder to keep track of--a few dollars here, a few there. I looked at where the money had gone, and maybe there were a few frivolous purchases, but most were needful (well, fairly needful) things--rent, gas, insurance, food, phone, car repair, charitable giving, gifts for people with birthdays or birthing children, medicine--things it would be awfully hard not to be able to pay for.

So I wonder what the merchant did once he had his pearl. A pearl won't feed you, or house you, or get you from place to place...it may be amazing and awesome and the coolest thing you've ever seen, but really, now that you have it...now what? Was it all he'd hoped it would be or did he find, as that great progressive Baptist preacher Carlyle Marney once pointed out, that there is "no agony in life more acute than those moments when you realize you've paid too much" (which, though a bit of an exaggeration--I can think of many things more agonizing--does touch on the depths of regret such a choice can trigger)?

I realize that this is a parable, and hence not meant to be taken literally. But it troubles and challenges me: what is worth giving everything for--what is so great that we can give even the good up? What is so important that all other things of importance fall away? There are a lot of pearls in our lives that are incredibly valuable...how can we choose one, and how can something so great ask so much of us?

What is our pearl of great price, and what will we give up to hold it--and it alone--in the palm of our hand?

Kids Can!

This week, as a group of our kids from our Music and Arts Camp (see the pictures throughout this post!) will be presenting music and drama as the core of our worship time, we will not be following the lectionary. Instead, some of the 55 amazing kids who have been with us the last five days will be telling us the stories of great kids from the Bible--kids who help us learn that they can do amazing things when they realize that they are not just children, but the children of GOD! I would encourage you to read the amazing stories we read this week in advance of Sunday--the story of Samuel learning to listen to God's voice; the story of David being chosen to be king; the story of a little girl whose willingness to forgive brought healing; the story of friends who were willing to stand up for what was right even at great cost; and the story of one little boy whose willingness to give his tiny lunch to Jesus let 5,000 people be fed. They are all stories WELL worth our time (and, since it is approximately 10,000 degrees outside, the fiery furnace story may be particularly apt to read right about now!).

As we began to plan for Music and Arts Camp, I was amazed by the number of stories there were to choose from in the Bible featuring kids! Honestly, it was a hard list to narrow down; besides the five stories we chose, there were dozens of other amazing tales that I so wanted our kids to hear. There was Miriam, protecting her brother Moses as he floated in the bushes so that he could live to lead God's people. There was Gideon, being chosen by God as an unimportant child to lead his people out of oppression. There was Esther, probably not far into her teen years when she realized God had made her queen "for such a time as this" to save the Jewish people from extinction. There was Jeremiah, chosen by God before he was born to be a prophet to the nations. And let us not forget dear Mary, probably not much more than 13 or 14 when she was asked to bring God's son into the world. It seems like we could have EASILY done two weeks focusing on biblical kids who can!

I think what this slew of biblical kids called by God can teach us--among other things--is how low we often set the bar for what we can do, at all stages of life. "I can't do it!" is one of the most frequent and frustrated cries we hear from any child attempting a new task who wants to get it right immediately--to be able to do it just like grownups. As adults, we think we're too old to be called to something new, to do something important, to change--we don't want to risk the failure, the discomfort, making fools of ourselves or being hurt. God's continued invitation to the Samuels and Slave Girls among us reminds us that if we can manage to do things like listening, forgiving, giving what little we have--that God can do some remarkable things with whatever we offer freely. It sounds cliched, but it is really beyond true--God believes that we can, with God's unconditional love and help supporting us.

I wonder, if we started kids off earlier (and us grownups, too!) learning about people in the Bible who, though as ordinary as they are--forgotten youngest brothers, people whose names did not even get recorded, boys and girls from all countries and classes--were called by God to do extraordinary things...I wonder if then we could see the Bible not just as a book of crazy things that happened long ago and could never happen today, but as our story, the great adventure into which God invites all of us who have been called children of God (and that is what we are!) to live.

May we be challenged by our children and these kids from long ago on Sunday morning to believe that when God calls us God's children and invites us into God's ongoing story in this world....we, too, can do anything!

What...or, rather, Who...is this all about?

Our lectionary texts this week are Genesis 25:19-34, Romans 8:1-11, and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23, which can be read as always here.

As I will be traveling to a writing conference in Minnesota on Sunday, our good friend Stephen Price will be sharing with us in worship at Broadneck this week, and he has a very interesting batch of scriptures to work with! It's a week I'm sad to be gone, both because I am eager to hear Stephen's insights into these passages and because the Parable of the Sower has long been one of the teachings of Jesus that fascinates me most.

Here's what fascinates me about it: so often in this parable, we focus on the different types of soil--rocky, thorny, shallow, dry, gravel. I have no idea how many times in my life I have heard the question posed, "Which kind of soil are you?" with the central point of the parable being to find ourselves in it. I've also spent a great deal of time thinking about and listening to sermons that focus on the seeds in this parable and their harvest--"Are you bearing fruit? Is the word of God growing in you?"

These are all valid questions--and the seed and the soil are crucial to the parable. But I have become convicted that the most important verse in the parable (if we can call one verse more important--maybe, I should say rather, the key to the parable?) might be one of its shortest, and one that mentions neither seed nor soil: perhaps it is verse 18, where Jesus says, "Hear then the parable of the sower" (emphasis added). Though Jesus nowhere here goes into great detail about the sower in the way he did with the soil and the seeds, it is the sower he wants his hearers to pay attention to, to focus in on in this story.

So this is the question that confronts me every time I sit with this parable: what kind of Sower is this? What kind of crazy farmer throws seeds on rocks, weeds, thorns, and paths, wasting time planting in regions that are obviously not ripe for growth? This is obviously not the brightest Sower on the farm...why be so wasteful? Why so nondiscriminatory in sowing in places seeds have little chance to grow? Is what we're reading here a parable of immense grace--is this a picture of God along the line of the parable of the Prodigal Son, another example of the extravagance and almost recklessness of God's love?

What kind of Sower is this? What--or rather, who--is this parable really talking about?

"Things Your Pastor Would Totally Avoid Preaching About Were It Not For The Lectionary," Part III: The Letters of Paul

Our Lectionary Readings this week are Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67, Romans 7:13-25a, and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. The readings as always are found here, but it would really be helpful with these somewhat complex passages to read the entirety of each chapter (Genesis 24, Romans 7, and Matthew 11) rather than just the brief segments chosen by the lectionary.

In case you have not picked up on this pattern by now, each week the Revised Common Lectionary of suggested scripture readings that we follow lists four texts for the church's consideration: an Old Testament text, a Psalm, an Epistle reading (i.e. a New Testament reading other than from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John), and a Gospel reading. In my year at Broadneck, I have preached on a good number of Old Testament texts and a large number of suggested Gospel readings; I have even preached the Psalms a few times; and I have occasionally brought in Epistles. I have not, however, preached a sermon solely focused on one of the books that makes up a third of the New Testament canon: the letters attributed to the apostle Paul. In spite of Paul's frequent appearance in the lectionary, I tend to avoid him whenever possible.

Why, you ask?

I ask myself this question, too. There are a few reasons I can think of: an obvious excuse would be that it is some texts attributed to Paul that have been used to argue things that have been damaging to so many people--including passages that have been used to justify the exclusion of women from ordained ministry. Yet heaven knows that there are offensive things in the Old Testament, too, and occasionally in the Gospels...so this isn't enough.

I guess another reason is that I love stories--I love the rich characters and encounters that emerge in Gospel and Old Testament texts, and the dense theological statements of Paul are sometimes harder to convey. But...Paul's letters were also written to specific communities, each with their own stories to be told...so this isn't enough either.

I suppose, if I am honest, Paul is just hard. He seems to contradict himself at points, and so much of his complex language could be construed in so many different ways. When I was in college, the girls' small group I was part of my first year decided to spend a semester reading the book of Romans, and we only made it to chapter 2 before we had gotten into so many arguments over Paul that we had to call it quits. Theologians and biblical scholars have exhausted bottle upon bottle of ink, roll after roll of parchment and paper, and countless Microsoft Word files over the past two millenium going at it about what Paul means not just overall, but in a single word here and there---for instance, today's text has raised exponential scholarly debate over the identity of the "I" (is it Paul? is it a rhetorical device representing all humanity? Is it Jews who have not believed the message of Christ? Is it pagans? Is it Christians continuing to struggle?), and each of these interpretations would cause you to preach the passage in a different way. With so many opinions, how can you ever know that your interpretation of Paul is "right," that you are not becoming another in a long line of preachers and Bible readers who have misconstrued his letters?

Still, in spite of all these misgivings, we cannot ignore Paul-- such a large portion of our canon is attributed to him, and he has perhaps done more than any other theologian to shape the theology of the Church--some have argued his teachings had more of an impact on the direction of the church than those of Jesus himself! So this week, if I don't wimp out, Paul will be present with us in worship...how will we read his words in Romans 7 together? Hopefully with a lot of openness and grace, wrestling with Paul as so many have before us in hopes that the wisdom of God's Spirit will prevail even amidst the confusion.

"Things Your Pastor Would Totally Avoid Preaching About Were It Not For The Lectionary," Part II: The Binding of Isaac

"Abraham and Isaac", by John August Swanson

Our lectionary texts this week are Genesis 22:1-14 (though the whole chapter is worth reading) and Matthew 10:40-42 (though it is better put in context if you start a few verses earlier--at least at verse 37). I would also recommend Psalm 13, though I am not sure if we will deal with it directly on Sunday--it is one of the absolute most powerful prayers out there, in my humble opinion. You can read all of these texts here.

Okay.

So, most preachers have commentators they lean on to help them navigate the muddy and difficult waters of scripture interpretation on a weekly basis--"experts" who bring a fabulous combination of thoughtfulness, scholarship, and pastoral sensitivity to the biblical text. This week, however, there was a problem: as I began my study work, I found that many commentators whose insight I appreciate did not write about the first suggested lectionary reading from Genesis 22. Most commentators turned to the alternate suggested reading from Jeremiah (one of the RARE occasions that Jeremiah could be seen as the "soft" text), or else stayed close to the Gospel text on hospitality.

Why, you ask?

Because this Genesis text is scary.

Ter-ri-fying.

We like stories and texts that give us answers. This one, however, seems to call everything into question and raise more emotional and ethical and spiritual questions than we can possibly answer...perhaps even more than we can ask. The starkness of the story both makes it almost painful to read and invites us into that dangerous place of trying to fill in an infinite number of gaps in the story.

Why did God ask for this?

Why didn't Abraham fight back and argue with God?

What if Abraham had said no?

Did Isaac realize what was going on?

What was Abraham thinking, feeling?

What kind of God asks you to sacrifice your child?

Was God just toying with Abraham?

This isn't the God we know in Jesus, is it?

This was just a one time thing--God would never ask something like this of us, right?

Like I said, scary. Every time I've read this text this week, the tightness in my chest has grown exponentially...to read of this sort of encounter between God and someone God has chosen and (we presume) loves and cares for...it's like looking a nightmare in the face. And even if it has a "happy" ending, there's nothing feel-good about it whatsoever as far as I can see.

So why not go for Jeremiah, or the Matthew text? Something easier...which would be, essentially, any other text?

Well...because this story is here for a reason. No matter how much we've tried to explain it away, to dismiss it as child abuse, to relegate it to the land of the crazy...it's a core narrative of Judeo-Christian faith and therefore must tell us something crucial about this "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" that we still claim to worship. History has not swept this ugly incident under the rug, and neither can we. There's something key we need to encounter here about the character of our God...and about ourselves as made in that God's image. I don't know what it is yet--and come Sunday, may honestly still not know. It may be many things. But this isn't a story we can shove away, but must wrestle with continually...sit with in the darkness...let speak, even if it speaks words we don't want to hear.

So have courage, as on Sunday we go where few dare to go. I have no idea what we'll find, but I am glad that as the children of God at Broadneck, we'll be making the journey together.

"Things Your Pastor Would Totally Avoid Preaching About Were It Not For The Lectionary," Part I: The Trinity

Our scripture readings for this first Sunday in the season of Pentecost (also called Ordinary Time) are Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Psalm 8, and Matthew 28:16-20. The very brief epistle reading from 2 Corinthians is also worth your time. You may read them all here.

For some reason, the liturgical calendar which we follow in our year together as a church and which shapes the lectionary of scripture readings we follow designates the Sunday after Pentecost each year as "Trinity Sunday." It's the one and only day that celebrates not a particular person or scriptural event, but a doctrine of the church--for, though the three-fold phrase of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" does show up occasionally in scripture (our New Testament readings for today being the case in point), the actual word "Trinity" never does--it's a term that did not come into mainstream Christian use until late in the 4th century. It emerged from a series of arguments among early theologians as to how we can understand God the Father/Creator/Almighty, Jesus, and now the Holy Spirit given to the church at Pentecost as all being the same God. The answer, which was given to me in seminary in the form of this nifty diagram, is this:

Well...that clears is all up, now doesn't it?

Any time I try to explain or, in this case, diagram the Trinity, my head wants to explode. My greatest fear, when I met with my ordination council that was going to examine me to see if I was ready to be an ordained minister, was that they would ask me something like, "How would you explain the Trinity to children?" I spent the whole day before my ordination council pouring over my notes from my Church History and Theology classes in case this question came up, trying to come up with a simple answer, with some insight into this mystifying diagram which somehow left me cold, and came to only one conclusion: I can't explain the Trinity to myself, let alone to others.

And maybe that's the point. Maybe this Trinity Sunday is here not to take us back to fourth century controversies, but to help us encounter the present-day God as expansive, multifaceted, and utterly unexplainable. To encounter God as One (or Three-in-One) who is always shifting, always moving, yet always present.

A diagram--well, depiction--of the Trinity that I've come to like a lot more than the one I was given in seminary is this one, painted by Jan Richardson, which will also grace our bulletin cover on Sunday:

I love this image--one of touching, of movement, of wholeness, of invitation, of equality yet distinctiveness. It's an image of the Trinity that comes from the Celtic tradition, and Richardson speaks of it this way: "In the Celtic triple spiral, there is a space where the three spirals connect. It is both a place of meeting and of sheer mystery. Its vast, vibrant emptiness reminds me that, in this life, we will never know all the names of God. Even as the Trinity evokes, it conceals. We will never exhaust the images we use to describe the One who holds us and sends us, who enfolds us and impels us in our eternal turning."

The Trinity may be something I don't particularly want to attempt preaching on; and who knows, the word Trinity may not actually show up a lot in my sermon on Sunday. But I hope that, not just on this Sunday but on every Sunday, this sort of Trinitarian God will, indeed, be present to us: a God of evoking, concealing, inexhaustible mystery, a God who "holds us and sends us, who enfolds us and impels us." Join me as we place ourselves amidst this spiraling sweep of our God this Sunday.

Fill in the Blank

On this Pentecost Sunday--the day when we welcome the gift of the Holy Spirit to all people as Christ's enduring presence in this world--our scripture lessons are Numbers 11:24-30, 1 Corinthians 12:3-13, and Acts 2:1-21. An alternate story of the gift of the Spirit can be found in John 20:19-23. You may read all these passages here.


I am not usually a fill-in-the-blank sort of theologian; this may be part of the reason why I never made it through the Experiencing God study back when it was so popular a year ago, nor have I ever made it through a Beth Moore workbook. Today, however, I am going beyond my usual tendencies and offering a fill-in-the-blank question as food for thought. Ready? Complete the following sentence:


The Holy Spirit is _____________________.



Here's my theory about this blank: If we had begun the sentence "God is" or "Jesus is", though we would have gotten a diversity of answers, there would have been some standards that popped up consistently: "Good", "Our Creator", "Our Father", "Our Savior", "Lord," "The Son of God," "Love." An answer of some sort would likely have come to mind pretty quickly. It is my prediction, though, that it's entirely possible that each of us completed the sentence above differently, and that an answer was probably not immediate. This is because, for some reason, our knowledge of and ability to describe the Holy Spirit seems chronically more ambiguous; this was true even for the writers of the early church creeds that many traditions still recite as their confession of faith each week. The Apostles Creed has several clear things to say about God: "The Father, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth." It has even more to say about Jesus: he is/was God's Son, our Lord, born to Mary, suffered, crucified, died, was buried, rose, and ascended, just to name a few. But all it says about the Holy Spirit (other than it was how Jesus was conceived) is this: "I believe in the Holy Spirit." Boom. That's it. No elaboration...no explanation...no fleshing out, no filling in the blanks.

I think it's okay that we continue to be a bit confounded by the Holy Spirit, because it was confounding on the first day it made its full appearance as well. The crowds listening to the disciples could understand the different languages the Holy Spirit was leading the disciples to speak; they could not, however, reach a consensus on what was happening. "What does this mean?" is the poignant question many asked. "They are drunk" was the somewhat comical explanation others offered. Others scoffed. Others were amazed. Only one thing was for sure: according to The Message's wonderful translation of this text, "They couldn't for the life of them figure out what was going on."

"What does this mean?" This is Pentecost's enduring question to us. It's part of the reason why, though the day of Pentecost is one single Sunday, the Season of Pentecost in our worship lasts a full five to six months every year--we need that much time to even begin to approach that blank, to even begin to find a way to articulate this new and powerful presence of God among us and within us.

Be with us on Sunday as we welcome this Spirit again in all of its mysterious fullness, and be sure to wear red for the occasion (I have so much respect for whoever created that video).