 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
July 24, 2005
Holy Potpourri
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
What really gets me is that when Jesus asks disciples if they've understood the parables, they don't hesitate: YES! Not, "Well, we think so, but we've got a few questions." None of that. Just YES. How can they say that? Didn't they hear the same parables we're reading? Maybe you had to be there. But we're not. There is something different in hearing something said from reading the same thing. I love Garrison Keillor's monologues on A Prairie Home Companion. I find his written work, his novels, dull. We come to worship to "hear" a sermon; we may read it if we couldn't be there. It's not the same. What seems so easy for Jesus listeners doesn't seem quite so clear to me reading. For them, what seemed a holy potpourri of wonderful aromas and textures, seems like a puzzling conglomeration to those who read these parables.
It's maddening that Jesus doesn't just tell us right out what the kingdom of heaven IS! What's with all this LIKE business. Why doesn't he just bring us right up to it and say: This is IT, the kingdom of God? I don't, like, know why, but he does, like, give us, like, some clues that are, like, you know, helpful.
Whenever I hear Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven, I go back to his early preaching:" Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near." Near. What's near? Near compared to what? Are we there yet?
Then, what's all this business about: "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." (Matthew13: 52, NRSV). Actually, that's the part I found most helpful. He doesn't say that the kingdom is just a matter of something new, though it is as surprising as a tiny mustard seed that grows to be a great shrub, or yeast that inflates a huge lump of dough. The new is found in the midst of the old. Just as a farmer tromping about his field discovers a marvelous treasure, or a merchant going about his business is astonished to find a wondrous pearl. That's how close the kingdom of heaven is: right there on the edge of the ordinary, the everyday, the regular turn. And it always catches us by surprise.
I know people who are seeking some great experience, something transporting, something exhilarating, something out of the ordinary. Some try drugs. Some travel to exotic places. No matter where they go, what they do, they're still not there. Then, like Candid Camera, when you least expect it, there it is.
Reminds me of something I read in one of JD Salinger's novels. I don't remember which one. He's telling about how it is when we wad up paper and just flip it toward the wastebasket and, to our astonishment, it goes in. If we try to hit the basket with the paper wad, we just keep missing it, But without really wanting to, without expecting to, the paper wad it's the basket. We're surprised. We're pleased. Each time it happens. The things we seek we sometimes miss. We think we know what we're looking for and miss what's good. The kingdom comes to us in its own time, in its own way. It's always there. Always close. It turns our heads. It turns us around.
Hold on to the ordinary. Hold on to the everyday. I hope you've seen the film "Whale Rider." It's about a girl in a traditional Polynesian culture. She's descended from a long line of chiefs, but has to work hard to be taken seriously because she's a girl. The whale is a kind of cultural totem among her people. At one point she apparently revives the leader of several whales that have beached themselves and rides the whale out to sea. She holds on to the barnacles that attach themselves to the whale's body. That's kind of the way we ride the everyday, the ordinary-by getting a grip on the hard things that attach themselves to each day.
I was reminded of that scene from "Whale Rider" in a book I was drawn to this summer: Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. It's a collection of personal essays about her life with her son, Sam, Sam's father whom she never married, their dog who dies, her friends, her church. She's one of those California tree-hugging, tofu-eating liberals. She's also an active Presbyterian, and church is her top place to be. These essays are about being a woman, a mother, a friend, a daughter who is still so angry with her dead mother she can't bring herself to scatter her ashes. I guess that's all to say, she won't appeal to everyone, but even if she seems not your cup of tea right off, read on. She's a really good writer, excellent at relating the grit of everyday to the larger context in which we live and move and have our being, full of good humor, understatement and irony ranging from gentle to ascerbic.
She makes her teen-age son go to church with her twice a month. "He hates church," she acknowledges.
Then why do I make him go? Because I want him to. We live in bewildering, drastic times, and a little spiritual guidance never killed anyone. I think it's a fair compromise that every other week he has to come to the place that has been the tap for me: I want him to see the people who loved me when I felt most unlovable, who have loved him since I first told them that I was pregnant, even though he might not want to be with them. I want him to see their faces. He gets the most valuable things I know through osmosis. (p. 193)
Osmosis. It's what happens while something else is going on. It's what happens while we're doing something else. It's what happens without out our really knowing it. The kingdom of heaven comes upon us before we know it. It's always a surprise. It's always right in the midst of us.
How near is it? Near enough. It a little like having the light turned on, discovering that you're at the top of the stairs, and one more step would send you tumbling to the bottom. We're always just on the edge, near enough. Keep walking through you're everyday. The kingdom is right there along with the same old thing. It's not only a surprise. It's what you'd give anything for. How near is it? Near enough.
| Return to Sermon List |
First Presbyterian
Church of Cedar Rapids
310 Fifth Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA 52401
Phone: 319-364-6148
E-mail: church@fpccr.org
Copyright © 2003-2007 First Presbyterian Church of Cedar Rapids. All rights reserved.