I think that most of us would be quick to agree that life can be confusing at times. We seem
to go from highs to lows and back to highs again. We judge this experience to be wonderful and that one to be the
worst thing that ever happened to us today, and tomorrow see it in a completely different light. Sometimes it would
be hard to say what life was really like. The same can be said for trying to describe the Kingdom of God.
In Matthew's gospel we find an odd assortment of parables that begin with the same words: "The Kingdom of
God is like".....like what? How do we translate these descriptions of the kingdom of God today for people
to whom mustard is a vinegary yellow condiment, bread is a styrofoam like object in a cellophane wrapper, treasures
are Wall Street stocks of variable value depending on the time of any given day, and pearls are in and out of fashion?
The objects of the stories may change, but their lesson remains the same. Life is made up of "surprises"
both good and bad. It's similar to the variety pack one often finds with cereals or teas, allowing a sampling of
the many flavors and types available in a given line, appealing to a wide range of individuals tastes.
Tastes change and in truth sometimes what we initially judged to be wonderful turns out not to be so at all, and
in similar fashion what we thought would be very bad for us can become the important turning point of our lives.
First readings are often deceptive, and that is never more true than in our first reading of a story of scripture.
In the terrible story of betrayal involving two sisters and what would become a loveless marriage for the one we
read - "...and he loved Rachel more than Leah." Here the ultimate trickster, Jacob, gets his comeuppance
from his equally unscrupulous uncle Laban. It seems like justice for him, but what about the two women who seem
like mere pawns? We can read into those lines the sadness that always accompanies indifference to the uniqueness
of personhood, or our own experience with a failed romance. But look what God does with this con-job: It's LEAH,
the unwanted one, the unlovely one, who became the mother of Judah. Rachel's sons Joseph and Benjamin are the undeniable
stars of the final chapter of Genesis, and clearly Jacob's favorites, but it is out of Judah's tribe that Jesse
came. And it was out of the stump of Jesse that Jesus came! All this because Laban, the scheming uncle thought
Jacob deserved a taste of his own medicine!
I doubt that anyone would say this story smacks of fairness, but then again most people would probably agree that
"life" is not fair…by our standards anyway. Bad things do happen to good people, but we are encouraged
to remember that life is also not fair in our favor! If God used our standard of fairness not one of us would be
counted among the redeemed children of the most high that we are. None of us would qualify for that kind of favor!
Paul drives that message home in the text from Romans along with the added bonus that nothing external can separate
us from the love of God, and neither can anything internal. It wasn't fair that God sent the son to die for us,
but thank God that God did!
So we are left to wonder what God can and will do with all those mean sneaky things that folks have done to us,
and that we have done to them?
Jesus asked: "Do you understand this?" and they were all quick to nod that they did indeed. Jesus then
commended "every scribe who has been trained" for knowing the kind of discernment that can separate the
good from the bad correctly, and for being able to bring the hidden blessing out of the depths of uncertainty.
Sometimes it takes the gift of reflection, being able to look back and see more clearly in hindsight. When we look
at the old vs. the new, being able to know which has greater value? Not everything improves with age, but somethings
do get more valuable - like photographs of family members now gone.
So too with the rituals of the Church, and the traditions passed on from generations of believers. In them we find
that the 'treasure of the Christ" was always hidden within the Hebrew scriptures, and continues to be revealed
in human experience today. This striking quality of hiddeness - namely, in the ordinary circumstances of our everyday
lives--like a silver spoon in the drawer with the stainless, like a diamond necklace on the bureau with the rhinestones--the
extraordinary hidden in the ordinary, the kingdom of heaven all mixed in with the humdrum and ho-hum of our days,
is as easy to find as an amaryllis bulb in the dark basement that suddenly sends forth a shoot, or a child's smile
when he or she awakens from sleep, or the first thunderstorm after a long drought,…all of them signs of the kingdom
of heaven, clues to all the holiness hidden in the dullest days, but only for those "with eyes to see."
The good scribe or interpreter is one who both draws on tradition (scripture) and on contemporary experience as
a parable of God's reality in the world, thus on both "old and new." This is exciting for individuals
or churches embarking on a new journey, and accompanies the directive that all action is important. Planting the
seed, working the yeast into the bread, buying the field, these are ventures of faith that take more than contemplation....And
even when we are at first uncertain, we can see how the Spirit can direct those actions, sometimes "with sighs
too deep for words." For in the power of a sigh, all weariness and thought are revealed together, regret and
wonder fully mixed.
We become convinced that in such times it is only the hand of God that holds us together. In a similar way lives
linked by love are inseparable through good times and bad. Elise Norton, writing for Guideposts tells of what was
to be the highlight experience at the end of a mission work camp that almost turned tragic. The crew was to be
rewarded with a white water rafting trip. Fourteen people in an inflated raft rushing through rapids. A distraction
caused the guide to hit a large submerged boulder, and Elise's husband was thrown from the raft. It surged on ahead,
while he was pummeled by one rock after another, sometimes being sucked under and at other thrown into the air.
All the while the guide tried to get to a spot where they could hold their place hoping to catch him as he came
past.
Elise writes, "I knew what it was like to be so helpless and at the same time so linked to one in peril. I
felt as though every rock hit me, and every gulping for air was my own. When we finally were able to pull him back
into the raft, broken and bleeding, but thankfully still alive, I knew I had everything in my arms that I would
ever want."
"Nothing can separate" ---us from God who also exhibits such complete love for us.
We waste far too much time regretting our mistakes instead of changing our behavior. It was Soren Kierkegaard who
said: "Teach me O God, not to torture myself, not to make a martyr out of myself through stiffling reflection,
but rather teach me to breathe deeply of the faith to which I have been called."
Perhaps the true "pearl of great value" is the slowly revealed goodness that God sees in each one of
us! Such truths, life all things of value take time to be fully realized. True love, lasting friendship, the admiration
of one own child…or as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in 1868:
"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-- Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight the Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind."
May God open our eyes to the wonder of the Kingdom, being revealed to us in all the mysteries of life. Amen
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