Here is a true story that I read a few years ago. An aging woman decided to move into the city to a retirement home. She had a big sale to downsize. One thing she did was slap a "for sale" sign on her late husband’s pride and joy – a 1963 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing that he had bought in 1972. She remembered that he had told her the Mercedes was collector’s item worth one hundred thousand dollars not long before he had died fifteen years ago, so that’s what she priced it.
One shopper saw the for-sale sign in the car’s window,
and he immediately wrote her a check for twenty-five hundred dollars to hold
the car for him for the day. Then he went to the bank and opened a home-equity
line of credit. On the way there he called his broker and cashed in mutual funds.
Then he maxed out his Visa card on a cash advance. He wound up with a certified
check for $100,000 and drove back to buy the car. He knew what the widow did
not: in the years since her husband died the car had increased in value to $250,000.
That man was willing to take risks to obtain something of tremendous value. I knew a man in Nashville who told me a long time ago that he was offered the opportunity to become one of the original investors in the franchise license for all Davidson County for Wendy’s restaurants. He turned it down because he did not want to be diverted from the business he had already built up. Later, of course, he wished he had invested.
Would you pay a hundred thousand dollars for an ordinary orange?
Eleven millionaires drowned when the Titanic sank in 1912. One who survived was
Arthur Peuchen, who left $300,000 in a lockbox in his cabin. "The money
seemed to mock me at that time," he said later. "I picked up three
oranges instead." A hundred thousand bucks each.
What is of ultimate value to us, so much so that we would
sacrifice almost anything else to obtain it? Jesus spoke about that Matthew 13.44-45:
44 “The
kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he
hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that
field.
45 “Again,
the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he
found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought
it.
In the ancient world a large, flawless pearl would have been
something like the Hope diamond of its day. Ancient literature tells of single pearls
worth millions of dollars in modern value. When this merchant found such a pearl,
he cleaned out his stock and sold his personal possessions to buy it. The
merchant apparently did not come out ahead financially; he just changed assets
at even value. There is no hint that he sold the pearl later. For all we know,
he simply kept it.
But this story is not really about an actual pearl, is it? What
Jesus seems to be trying to communicate is the importance of knowing first,
what is of ultimate value and second, what will it take to obtain it.
Contrast this parable with the story of a young man, also told in
Matthew, who asked Jesus what he needed to do to gain eternal life. After a
short conversation, Jesus tells him, "Sell everything you have, give the
money to the poor, then come and follow me." But the man said no. Matthew
says he went away sorrowful because he had “many possessions.” Jesus offered him
ultimate value but the young man declined because, he thought, the price was
too high.
Today is interactive sermon day. I would ask that everyone take a
moment, turn to your neighbor and talk briefly about what this parable means
for you. Pause
Matthew 13 is a series of parables, one right after another. Parables
are narrative stories that set up a situation at the beginning, show a kind of
“twist” in the middle, and end with a punchline. This parable does that, too,
although not very obviously. In fact, I think that all of Matthew 13 from start
to finish is one long parable about the kingdom of heaven and what it takes to be
in it with the punch line in verses forty-nine and fifty, which tell of severe
judgment at the end of the age. It’s quite grim.
So, for anyone who understands the parable of the pearl to mean, “The pearl is the gospel, and we should be willing to surrender everything for the sake of the kingdom,” I shall not disagree. But I also remember what our bishop, Bill McAlilly, likes to say about his son’s soccer coach, who would always ask his players after a goal was scored, whether by his team or the other: “So what? Now what?”
So, say the parable of the merchant is about doing whatever it takes to be
in the kingdom of heaven. That’s fine. So what? Now what?
That is the hard part for me because it forces me to ask, “What is
my pearl right now?” Because you see,
everybody has a pearl. What’s mine? What’s yours?
What is it that I treasure more than anything else – so much that,
like the merchant once he gets the pearl, I am not willing to part with it,
ever? That’s my pearl. Everyone here has a pearl, also. So, take a moment now
and think about the answer to this question: What is your pearl? What is more
important to you than everything else? What is it that would make you give up
almost anything else to keep? If you are inclined, turn to your neighbor and
talk it over.
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When I served a church is west Nashville, I did some volunteer
ministry at Lighthouse Ministries, a live-in center for men suffering from
addiction issues or homelessness. I remember counseling a young man who just
would not follow the rules of living there. He said in one session with the
director and me that he really wanted to go home to visit his mother over
Christmas but of course he had no money even to take a bus to Jackson,
Tennessee, where she lived. The director said that funding could be provided,
but it was not simply free. He had to follow the rules and go through the
process of making his life better. He said that was too hard and there were too
many things out of his control. I asked him, “You can make your bed tomorrow
morning, right?” He nodded. “Well,” I said, “that’s in your control and it is
one of the rules here. Don’t worry about what you can’t control. Do the things
you can control.”
His pearl was to spend Christmas with his mother. It was a good
goal. I remember a discussion about this parable by Vanderbilt Professor
Amy-Jill Levine. She said that after class one day where they talked about this
parable, a young female student came to her and said, I know what my pearl was.
I did give up everything for it – all my money, all my possessions, I even
ended my marriage for it. It was alcohol. I was willing to give up everything I
had to get the next drink.
When I ask myself what my pearl is, I also cannot avoid asking, Is
that what my pearl should be? Is my pearl a good one?
Professor Levine also talked about leading a Bible study at River
Bend Prison and discussing this parable, where an inmate told her that his
pearl was freedom, to be released from prison. Another said that his pearl was
simply staying alive while he was in prison.
Viktor Frankl wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning not long after he was liberated from a
Nazi concentration camp near the end of World War Two. The Library of Congress
lists this book as one of the most significant books of the twentieth century.
Frankl lost his entire family in the camps – his wife and children did not
survive.
But Frankl wrote about all the things the Nazis, with all their
evil designs, could not take away. He wrote of people who entered the gas
chambers praying the Lord’s Prayer or the ancient prayer of the Jews, the Shema
Israel. He told of starving prisoners who went through the huts giving their
meager bread ration to others near death. Such acts convinced Frankl that a
person’s ability to choose one’s attitude, to control one’s inner life, no
matter the circumstances, was the single human freedom that no earthly power
could ever destroy. So even the worst that this world can throw at us cannot
take everything. Frankl did not talk about parables, but he did find his pearl,
to be in control of his inner life. And that was how he found freedom in the
camps, even surrounded by death at every hour.
What’s your pearl? Should it be?
The error I have made so far in talking about this parable is
individualizing it, as if Jesus was talking to and provoking thought in
individual persons. Yes, there is a lesson for each of us in this parable and
my lesson and yours won’t necessarily be the same. But there is a lesson for us
together also, with the same focusing question: What is the pearl of our church? What is the centering and central focus of our life together
as the body of Christ? Is that focus what should be our focus?
So, I would ask each of us right now to answer this question: What
is it that we do, that if we stopped doing it, would lead us to think we had
surrendered a central, vital element of being a church belonging to Jesus
Christ? Please discuss with your neighbor.
Here is a second question: Is there anything that we are not
doing that, by its omission, is already surrendering central, vital element of
being a church belonging to Jesus Christ?
And here is the third and final question, not for discussion but
for answering for oneself: Does it matter – does it really, truly matter enough
for all of us together – as a church – to do whatever must be done to take hold
of that pearl?
These are hazardous questions. If we are honest with ourselves
individually or with ourselves as a congregation, we would have to admit that,
as W. Edwards Deming pointed out, the main purpose of human organizations is to
maintain the status quo.
The first time I thought about this for myself, I came to
understand that my pearl was just that: preserving the status quo. I understand
that the prospect of change can be disturbing. At the outset it can seem like
entering a dark room blindfolded. Yet as Sam Cooke sang in 1964, “A Change Is
Gonna Come” whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not, whether we
are prepared for it or not. And there are only three ways to deal with change:
1.
Make things happen,
2.
Watch things happen, or
3.
Wonder what in the world just
happened.
Over time, I came to realize that no matter how wonderful the
status quo feels, it is not possible to maintain it. The only place the status
quo is maintained is a cemetery. As Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead”
and, “God is the God of the living.” To be alive is to change.
So, discuss briefly with one another this question: In the coming
months and years, what changes to our status quo are coming? And what would we
like the changes to be? Here is a template I use:
First, rediscover and renew our calling from God as Christian ministers
and lay people, as individual disciples and as connectional Methodist church
people. Jesus told Peter he would make him fish for people. Do we remember when
we got hooked by Jesus? Is it still fresh? Or did we get stuck in a rut, which
is to say, did we devote our energies to preserving the status quo?
Second, are we intentionally making disciples or just accepting people
into membership? We should discern together and put into place together an
intentional path to discipleship. It cannot be enough any longer simply to
accept people into membership and leave them free lancing afterward. No longer
can we say, “We have Sunday School classes and Bible studies and women’s groups
and community ministries, and we hope that one of them is right for you.” Jesus
did not give us the mission of making church members, but of making disciples.
Of course, we will have to figure out just what a disciple is, but
I will leave that for another day.
Third, do we see all the people, including both the people of our
fellowship, whether members or not, and the people of our larger community? William
Temple observed, “The church is the only cooperative society in the world that
exists for the benefit of its non-members.” I think that’s a bit of an
overstatement, since I think we would agree that police, fire and rescue
departments and the US military also exist for the benefit of non-members. But
Temple’s point is still sound: Jesus didn’t begin the Church in order to convey
member-benefit packages to church people.
Now, we do benefit, and very richly. But not in ways awarded by
other organizations. Jesus put it this way to his disciples just before he was
arrested: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as
the world gives. So, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
Fourth, how shall we preserve that of our church which is excellent and gives
glory to God, of which there are many examples? It is true, that as Sebastian says
in The Tempest, “What's past is prologue,” but it is also past. We cannot plan
for the past, only for a church we will bequeath to our children and
grandchildren.
Personally, I am optimistic! After all, Jesus said, "Do not
worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we
wear?' For people who don’t know God wear themselves out themselves over such
things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. So, seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, then all those other things will be given to you
as well."
Good words to live by and plan with. Thanks be to God!
