Matthew
13:31-33, 44-52
Thirty summers ago I
worked in the store of a restaurant in Seal Harbor, Maine, the Jordan Pond
House. It closed this year after more
than a hundred and twenty-five years, during which it became locally famous for
its popovers and strawberry jelly. We sold
a lot of that stuff (the jelly, that is) in the gift shop. It was part of my job to keep the shelves
well-stocked, because there were people who would come in during the afternoon
tea and buy up six or twelve jars of the stuff at a time. It was like some people around here have to
have their James’s Salt Water Taffy from the shore every year. “Strawberry Jam Served at Jordan Pond House”
the label declared, with a picture of the Bubbles, which were the mountains visible
from the restaurant lawn where tea and popovers were served. Then, about the end of July, I told my
manager that our supply was getting low.
The next day she sent two of us over to the warehouse, where we found
big boxes of jelly jars freshly labeled and big cans of strawberry jelly. Smucker’s jelly. And spoons.
The label said, “Strawberry Jam Served at Jordan Pond House.” With a name like Jordan Pond it has to be
good.
If someone prizes
something highly enough, they will pay for it.
So it is with the
kingdom of God, but without the deceit.
If it means enough, they will go to whatever lengths they must for its
sake.
“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. 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
13:44-46]
Do people really do that?
Remember
Ann B. Davis? She played Alice on The Brady Bunch, the maid who went
bowling with and eventually married Sam the Plumber. She had four Emmy nominations and two Emmy
Awards before she took that part. In
1975, she met the Episcopal bishop of Colorado, who invited here to visit at a
sort of half convent/half commune that he and his wife had formed from their
household. As Bishop Frey tells the
story,
“She came to visit us
on Epiphany in 1976 and, after about a month, we realized she wasn’t visiting
and she realized the same thing, that she belonged there. She called her agent
and said, ‘Don’t call me for a year, I got a better offer.’”[1]
It was a very different life from what she had
known. She was part of the charismatic
movement within the Episcopal Church, which is a combination I find hard to
picture, but in his obituary of Ann Davis a journalist who knew her wrote that
she was
“the kind of person that, after the
conversion experience that turned her life upside down, would spend her days
hidden in the back of that homeless center quietly doing laundry or sorting
through donated clothes. You should have heard her cackle when she finally
managed to make stray socks match.”[2]
I kind of like that picture of Alice the Maid turned
into a real-life Ann-the-Servant. It
happens. People do put their Emmy Awards
on the shelf and go follow Jesus.
One
of the things that made that possible for Ann Davis was that she was single and
had no children, which does give some flexibility that not everyone has. But following Jesus, even in that radical
way, does not necessarily mean renouncing your life. (It’s interesting that right after Jesus
called Peter to follow him, Peter takes him home to heal his sick
mother-in-law.) It may be that what
happens begins small, and in time comes to fullness in someone’s life, maybe larger
than anyone could ever have predicted.
“He put before them another parable: ‘The
kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his
field; 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.’ 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.’” [Matthew 13:31-33]
Wherever you are in your own life, whatever you
put into following Christ will change the rest of your life along with it.
T.
S. Eliot wrote a poem called “The Journey of the Magi” that describes the Wise
Men’s trip to find the child Jesus. In
it, one of them looks back on the experience as an old man.
“All this
was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.”
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.”
Do not expect to meet Jesus and not be changed
and challenged. It’s what he does. He asks our best and offers his best. He doesn’t let you settle for glass beads
when there are pearls to be found, or false gods when the living God is
reaching out for us.
“The Lord’s my
shepherd; I lack for nothing.
I’m provided with
everything I need.
I rest by pools of
cool, clear, quiet water,
And on sweet grass I
feed.
In the middle of hate
and violence
I feast in peace. My goblet overflows.
Because the Lord of
heaven is our shepherd,
With God we have a
home.
We have a home, we have
a home.
Forever with God we’ll
be at home.”[3]
No comments:
Post a Comment