We found the bolts that hold the big desk together. They were tucked into a drawer of the desk. Duh. But still, I was pretty sure I had checked there. At least that is what I told my wife, La Donna when she asked if I had looked there. I was sure I had. But the drawer was deeper than I realized. Or they were wedged into a back corner. Or it was magic.
Yeah, that’s it. The unexplainable. There is a lot of that when you move. Who put that there? What happened to the whatsis? What are we going to do with these? Whose is this anyway and why didn’t we get rid of it years ago? That last one is usually about my stuff. Funny how that works.
But it is like a combination of Christmas and a Easter Egg hunt. There are treasures hidden all over the place and you just gotta find it. And it is often in a place you don’t expect. You open a box and wonder why you packed that item in with those things. You open a drawer and find that you had tucked in something that doesn’t really belong there for safe keeping. Power cords and remotes, that should have been packed with the item they power are hidden away somewhere else.
OK, it isn’t like we are going to stumble across gold bars or a lost Rembrandt or anything. This is, after all, our stuff. Ordinary stuff. Stuff we know and love or have gotten used to anyway. The point here is not the value of the items, but the fact that they are hidden away in surprising places, in places we should have uncovered by now, in places that are right under our noses.
Our passage this week is also about what is hidden in plain sight. But what Jesus claims is right under our noses is something of incalculable value.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." 33 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." ... "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." 52 And he said to them, "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."
There was a rabbinic teaching method called “charaz.” It means stringing pearls, and the teacher would spin out image after image, wisdom saying after wisdom saying, parable after parable in a seemingly random way. It was designed to tell a larger truth by focusing on small details, or to tell about a whole by examining the parts. It was describing a picture by telling of a variety of perspectives.
I am sure that the hearers got as frustrated by this style of teaching as we do. “Which is it, Jesus” was demand. Is the kingdom like a pearl or a net? Is it more like yeast or like a treasure in a field? Do we stumble across it or set out with a checklist to find it? Does it work in secret hidden away from our eyes like yeast in the dough, or does it sprout up like a plant and provide shade and protections like a mustard shrub? Is it something common like a seed or questionable like yeast or valuable like a treasure?
All of these questions and more Jesus would answer with a smile and nod of the head and tell us that we are like scribes bringing out of the treasure something old and something new. And with furrowed brows we would throw up our hands and grumble. When we pressed him, and shouted out which is it? This or that? He would say “yes.” You know he would. With a laugh he would say “yes. That’s it exactly!” And he wouldn’t be saying it just to be funny. He’d say it because it was the truth. He’d say it because it was the best answer. Is it a pearl or a net or a seed or a treasure hidden in a field or yeast hidden in three measures of flour? Yes, it is that exactly!!
Talking to Jesus can be exhausting. You think he is out to confuse you. We keep skipping over those verses where it says he said nothing except in parables. I think we skip them because they make it sound like Jesus was just messing with us, and we don’t like that. But the truth is he really wants us to see. He really wants us to understand. We just can’t do it by thinking the way we usually think.
We have to learn to look under our noses and off to the horizon at the same time. We have to learn to see the ordinary and the spectacular all together. We have to learn to experience the everyday and the once in a lifetime in the same moment. We need to see deeper and trust more completely. We need to value what the world throws away and throw away what the world things most valuable.
In short the Kingdom asks us to turn upside down. To stretch and reach and get outside of ourselves long enough to really see the wonder of the universe in a tiny seed. But most importantly, at least it seems to me to be most important, we are supposed to do it with joy.
It is easy to get frustrated when you can’t find the bolts that hold you desk together. We are inclined to blame the others in the house, who you are sure didn’t take the same care that you would have taken in securing a place for them. But it is precisely these inclinations that we need to set aside. Instead we embrace the challenge, the search, the discovery with joy and with passion.
It is the latter parables in this string of pearls that carry an emotive tag. The first are simply descriptions. Reminders that there are forces at work in this world. That though it may at times seem as though God is distant and apart from us, God is in fact at work within us and around us and in the most unsuspecting of people and places. There are seeds pushing down roots, Jesus says, there is yeast raising the bread of human relationships and opportunities. Trust me, he says, it is there.
But then as he gets wound up in the telling he gives us clues on how we are to respond to this, how we are to commit ourselves to the search and the claiming. “In his joy,” Jesus says about the man who finds the treasure. And the merchant sells everything else to possess this new pearl. He sets aside everything he once thought important in order to occupy this new and exciting land.
At times settling in is tedious and time consuming. But at other times, it is fun as we get caught up in the joy of making ourselves at home in a new place. Finding treasures we forgot we had, or rearranging the furniture of our lives so that there is room for joy in this place.
It is a choice, says Jesus, for joy or tedium. After all who knows what else might be tucked away in the back of those drawers. Let’s go and see, shall we?
Yeah, that’s it. The unexplainable. There is a lot of that when you move. Who put that there? What happened to the whatsis? What are we going to do with these? Whose is this anyway and why didn’t we get rid of it years ago? That last one is usually about my stuff. Funny how that works.
But it is like a combination of Christmas and a Easter Egg hunt. There are treasures hidden all over the place and you just gotta find it. And it is often in a place you don’t expect. You open a box and wonder why you packed that item in with those things. You open a drawer and find that you had tucked in something that doesn’t really belong there for safe keeping. Power cords and remotes, that should have been packed with the item they power are hidden away somewhere else.
OK, it isn’t like we are going to stumble across gold bars or a lost Rembrandt or anything. This is, after all, our stuff. Ordinary stuff. Stuff we know and love or have gotten used to anyway. The point here is not the value of the items, but the fact that they are hidden away in surprising places, in places we should have uncovered by now, in places that are right under our noses.
Our passage this week is also about what is hidden in plain sight. But what Jesus claims is right under our noses is something of incalculable value.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." 33 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." ... "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." 52 And he said to them, "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."
There was a rabbinic teaching method called “charaz.” It means stringing pearls, and the teacher would spin out image after image, wisdom saying after wisdom saying, parable after parable in a seemingly random way. It was designed to tell a larger truth by focusing on small details, or to tell about a whole by examining the parts. It was describing a picture by telling of a variety of perspectives.
I am sure that the hearers got as frustrated by this style of teaching as we do. “Which is it, Jesus” was demand. Is the kingdom like a pearl or a net? Is it more like yeast or like a treasure in a field? Do we stumble across it or set out with a checklist to find it? Does it work in secret hidden away from our eyes like yeast in the dough, or does it sprout up like a plant and provide shade and protections like a mustard shrub? Is it something common like a seed or questionable like yeast or valuable like a treasure?
All of these questions and more Jesus would answer with a smile and nod of the head and tell us that we are like scribes bringing out of the treasure something old and something new. And with furrowed brows we would throw up our hands and grumble. When we pressed him, and shouted out which is it? This or that? He would say “yes.” You know he would. With a laugh he would say “yes. That’s it exactly!” And he wouldn’t be saying it just to be funny. He’d say it because it was the truth. He’d say it because it was the best answer. Is it a pearl or a net or a seed or a treasure hidden in a field or yeast hidden in three measures of flour? Yes, it is that exactly!!
Talking to Jesus can be exhausting. You think he is out to confuse you. We keep skipping over those verses where it says he said nothing except in parables. I think we skip them because they make it sound like Jesus was just messing with us, and we don’t like that. But the truth is he really wants us to see. He really wants us to understand. We just can’t do it by thinking the way we usually think.
We have to learn to look under our noses and off to the horizon at the same time. We have to learn to see the ordinary and the spectacular all together. We have to learn to experience the everyday and the once in a lifetime in the same moment. We need to see deeper and trust more completely. We need to value what the world throws away and throw away what the world things most valuable.
In short the Kingdom asks us to turn upside down. To stretch and reach and get outside of ourselves long enough to really see the wonder of the universe in a tiny seed. But most importantly, at least it seems to me to be most important, we are supposed to do it with joy.
It is easy to get frustrated when you can’t find the bolts that hold you desk together. We are inclined to blame the others in the house, who you are sure didn’t take the same care that you would have taken in securing a place for them. But it is precisely these inclinations that we need to set aside. Instead we embrace the challenge, the search, the discovery with joy and with passion.
It is the latter parables in this string of pearls that carry an emotive tag. The first are simply descriptions. Reminders that there are forces at work in this world. That though it may at times seem as though God is distant and apart from us, God is in fact at work within us and around us and in the most unsuspecting of people and places. There are seeds pushing down roots, Jesus says, there is yeast raising the bread of human relationships and opportunities. Trust me, he says, it is there.
But then as he gets wound up in the telling he gives us clues on how we are to respond to this, how we are to commit ourselves to the search and the claiming. “In his joy,” Jesus says about the man who finds the treasure. And the merchant sells everything else to possess this new pearl. He sets aside everything he once thought important in order to occupy this new and exciting land.
At times settling in is tedious and time consuming. But at other times, it is fun as we get caught up in the joy of making ourselves at home in a new place. Finding treasures we forgot we had, or rearranging the furniture of our lives so that there is room for joy in this place.
It is a choice, says Jesus, for joy or tedium. After all who knows what else might be tucked away in the back of those drawers. Let’s go and see, shall we?
Shalom,
Derek
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