one good big fish

Jesus said: “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 13:44,45)

We could have it all. And have it slip away. We could make a fortune. And lose it. Or we could have it in our hands the whole time and never grasp its meaning. That is part of what is happening here: Jesus tells stories, brief vignettes, about people who get it. Who get the meaning of what they have, what is right in front of them. It’s not that they always had it and never knew it, not these people with the field and the oyster. It’s that when it is presented to them, they know its worth. They know it is worth more than everything else that they had. And so they give it all up, set all that aside, to have that one great good thing that is the true prize.

In the Gospel of Thomas, an ancient text not in our Testaments, the illustration was drawn from fish. A fisherman goes down to the sea and casts in his net: when he pulls it out, he finds he’s caught lots of little fish and one good big one. So it is with the kingdom of heaven. Everything else is set aside, not because it is unworthy in itself, but because next to the one thing that counts for all, they count as if for nothing.

Thomas Aquinas put it this way, when he was given a vision, in contemplation, of the holy: I have seen things that make all my writings seem like straw.

In comparison to that final gift all else seems of lesser value. Until it is put in its proper place. Until all else is understood in right relationship to the gift of heaven, it will all come to nothing.

And then all else begins to grow into more than we could have imagined, looked at in isolation.

Jesus put before the crowds 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.” (Matthew 13:31-32)

A mustard seed. Or a redwood seed. Or a saguaro seed. Not much, by itself, to start with. But let it grow. Let it come into its fullness. Better yet, grow into fullness with it. Then you’ll really see something.

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

JRL+ 

_______________

On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he replied, “The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.” (www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/stt03002.htm)

“Aquinas’s vision may have been a vision of heaven, compared to which everything else, no matter how glorious, seems worthless.” https://www.catholic.com/qa/when-st-thomas-aquinas-likened-his-work-to-straw-was-that-a-retraction-of-what-he-wrote

2023 July 30 

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 12 Year A

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Pentecost/AProp12_RCL.html

Track One (semi-continuous)

Genesis 29:15-28

Psalm 105:1-11, 45b

or Psalm 128

Track Two (complementary)

1 Kings 3:5-12

Psalm 119:129-136

Romans 8:26-39

Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

weeds, wheat, and time

https://www.mindat.org/photo-163625.html

There was a mine down in Bisbee called the Irish Mag, which a miner named for his favorite entertainer. She got her nickname from the false association of Mary Magdalene, a woman healed by Jesus, with a woman caught in adultery or a woman anointing Jesus' feet with precious oil. Mary had been as desperate as the woman about to be stoned; she was as grateful as the woman preparing Jesus for his Burial. 

What we do know about her is her dilemma and distress, her deliverance and dignity restored, her response of love and faithful follower-ship, and her witness to the one who delivered her from demons and who was himself to lead us all from death to life. 

She was a witness: one of the last to see him living and the first to see him raised. She was a witness; the messenger to the apostles of the risen Lord, the first to proclaim the good news. 

What we know of her helps us sort out the meaning of the strange parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30). Workers report to their employer that weeds are growing up amidst the wheat they planted. The farmer takes a puzzling course. He could have had the workers pull or hoe or poison the weeds once they'd sprouted and been spotted. But instead he tells them to leave weeds and wheat to grow up together, and wait to sort them out until the harvest time. 

The farmer’s patience and wisdom led to something surprising that makes more sense if we realize Jesus was talking about a harvest of souls - and that the time was ripe.

Remember, he said that "the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few." (Matthew 9:37, Luke 10:2) The harvest time is now - for Mary of Magdala. A woman worn down by afflictions, she becomes one of the greatest of disciples.

Magdala is a small ancient town site along the lakeshore of Gennesaret better known in the Bible stories as the Sea of Galilee. On the west side of the lake south of the incoming stream of the Jordan are a series of places well known to pilgrims: Capernaum (where Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law) then Tabgha (the multiplication of the fishes), Ginosaur, and Magdala. Inland from the ancient site is a modern Arab/Israeli village, Migdal. Recent excavations reveal anew the importance of these small ancient villages.

Along the lakeshore where Jesus first began his ministry, proclaiming and healing, he encountered this woman. (Luke 8:2, Mark 16:9) And something extraordinary happened. In the midst of her affliction he blessed her with unconditional love. He never confused her quandary with the person that God loved. And as a result of this personal encounter with Jesus her dignity was restored. She became an icon of hope for all who are broken in heart or spirit or body or mind.

And this freedom, and her devoted discipleship, prepared her for something even more extraordinary. For she was a witness - one of the last to see Jesus living, and then - the first to see him risen. A personal encounter with Jesus that transformed the world. For she, the first witness of the resurrection, was sent by Jesus to bear the good news to his apostles, the ones commissioned to take this message to all peoples.

The Irish Mag is long since played out, but this woman’s witness lives on.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. The Parable of the Weeds of the Field (the Wheat and the Tares). 

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene (July 22)

https://www.bisbeeminingandminerals.com/irish-mag

https://thediggings.com/mines/22579

https://www.mindat.org/sitegallery.php?loc=33190

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Mary-Magdalene 

treasures

Young Woman with a Pearl Necklace by Jan Vermeer van Delft 

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. 

A competent wife, how does one find her? Her value is far above pearls.

What a rare find is a capable wife! Her worth is far beyond that of rubies.

(Proverbs 31:10, three times.)

Rubies, pearls, rubies: clearly a wise husband knows he has a precious gift in a good partner.

What chance we will know a treasure when it appears before us? The blessing of another person, the gift of a sunset or of rain, the courtesy shown by a cautious driver, the laughter of a friend. These are treasures great and small, not all worth more than precious jewels, but all worthy of appreciation and thanks.

In the gospel story for the end of July 2023 we come across another treasure, in a story told by Jesus: a treasure hidden in a field. Finding it, the finder does not waste any time, but goes and buys the field, in order to have the treasure. Drop everything else. This is it. Next to it nothing else matters. They fade into the background. 

Kind of like falling in love. All else fades away, just a murmur of sound and some vague apparitions, form the background. If you see the one right in front of you, my friend, for who they are.

Jesus does not say the kingdom is like a person falling in love, but does he have to? The single-minded vision is there, the incautious extravagance of setting all other agenda aside, the rightness of doing so. 

“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 13:44,45)

Worth it.

Young Woman with a Pearl Necklace by Jan Vermeer van Delft (Public Domain) https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/young-woman-with-a-pearl-necklace-jan-vermeer-van-delft/kQFMVJh6zAXoxQ © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Image by Google

The Sower and the Seed

 

The Sower

By Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)

1850

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31601

(public domain)

The Sower

Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Arles, November 1888

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0029V1962

The sower came to my house the other day with a hose and blew hydroseed all over the place. Sure enough, some fell on rocky ground, of which we have plenty; some fell on the path and the road and if the birds had a chance on it before the trucks ground it into the dust, I’m sure they had their fill. Some fell among weeds, where it became indistinguishable from them: a weed is a plant growing where you do not want it, but until it grows up to maturity how do you tell which is which? And some fell among good soil. We’ll see what happens there.

The parable of the sower that Jesus tells in the gospel of Matthew (13:1-9) touches on this common experience. Picture him sitting on the shore near a small fishing village, ready to teach, until so many people come to hear him that he gets into a small boat and from just offshore looks back at the crowd and speaks to them from there.

How many of those people decided to fit themselves, and others, into categories? That guy looks like rocky soil to me, says one to himself, while the other thinks the first has a weedy look.

That is hardly the point of the parable, in my mind. Like many of Jesus’ parables it turns our everyday expectations upside down. And that is a place to start. Why was the sower so indiscriminate? Why not pay attention to where you’re throwing, and focus on the good soil? Or better yet what is this sowing all about in the first place?

Jesus’ sower seems to work with joyous abandon, spreading far and wide a seed-message that in only a few can take hold and grow into something productive. He seems bent on starting something, and he does it in the most extravagant and outrageous - and democratic - way. 

The seed, I would suggest, is the message that Jesus - and we - bring to the world, the coming of the ordering of everything under heaven into its right relationships. We call this the reign of God. 

And why not spread it far and wide? Why deny anyone the chance to receive it? Sure they may seem rocky or weedy or road-weary to us, but let’s see what happens when the seed falls, and the sun shines, and the rain falls: will it grow? Will it become something wonderful? We will have to wait and see. And meanwhile we must cultivate our own garden, that it well receive what we seek to spread.

Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen. (Sundays and Seasons)

 

Let the rain begin!

JRL+

An edited version of this meditation appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, page E3, Keeping the Faith feature, Sunday July 23, 2023, under the title “The seed of God’s word.”

Rebekah waters the camels

Rebecca at the Well and the Meeting of Rebecca and Isaac. 

Johannes Lutma (1624-1689). https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=rebecca+and+isaac&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=1#/BK-2009-273,1

Officiating at a cousin’s wedding, I was glad someone got to read the passage from the Song of Songs (2:8-13) that we hear on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. While it may be explained as an analogy of the love of God for Israel, or for humankind, or of Christ for the Church, it is pretty romantic stuff and obviously a welcome paean to brides and grooms on their big day.

The story from Genesis (24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67) is a good one, too, for marriages. I’m not sure how often it’s read, or if it’s even suggested. It’s not in the Book of Common Prayer list of suggested readings for “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage” – more’s the pity. 

Abraham sends a servant to his far-away family, seeking a bride from among them for his son. The servant finds the daughter of the house fetching water from a well. He asks her for a drink, and she gives it, and not only that, waters his camels and then she adds, ‘We have plenty of straw and fodder and a place to spend the night.’ The servant gives thanks: he’s found the right place and the right woman. Soon they are journeying back to bring the bride and her prospective husband together.

It is as much a comedy - a story with a happy ending - as the story from the book of Tobit (8:5b-8) I’ve heard read at weddings more than once. That’s the one where Tobias and Sarah, his bride, pray by the bedside “that she and I may grow old together” before they climb under the covers and sleep through the night. 

In this story from Genesis, of a wife sought and a husband found, we hear good words about good people, not only the bride and her groom but also the good people who are Abraham’s family, and his household.  

The worthy and humble action the daughter of the house takes upon the servant’s request, to which she responds generously, seals the deal in his mind. And I think once Isaac saw Rebekah they were both pretty clear that the coming nuptials were a good thing.  “Who’s that?” she asks, spotting Isaac for the first time. 

The story of Rebekah and Isaac makes a good story, like Ruth and Naomi, or Esther and Mordecai. It comes in the older book, the one about the whole business of God bringing humankind into relationship with himself. In that book, which begins in the beginning, we hear a lot about mythical characters from the distant past. So that it is all the more endearing to hear them talked about as human beings, with feelings, however distant their time and place and customs are from our own. 

How many notions that This is the One begin with seeing Her watering the camels? 

And yet this is the kind of test, of observed behavior, that in even martial settings tells the person with open eyes what to do. Remember how Gideon selected from his soldiers the ones who drank from a stream in a particular way. And how the son watching over the sheep, young David, was chosen to be shepherd of his people.

Rebekah was a woman of virtue. And alone among the Matriarchs, she seemed to get her man to herself. Sarah and Hagar both bore children to Abraham. And the competition between Leah and Rachel to supply sons to Jacob was so fierce they each supplied a handmaid - their names were Bilhah and Zilpah - to give birth to some of the twelve sons of Israel. That is indeed far from our times and customs.

Rebekah however had no such problems, as the story comes down to us. She had another one. Her husband was almost sacrificed by her father-in-law. A lot of love had to come from another earthly source since Abraham, faithful as he was to God, was so rarefied in his affections among humans. I think one of his best moments was entertaining the three angels who came to the tent at the Oaks of Mamre. 

And Rebekah was a worthy successor in hospitality to her parents-in-law, offering not only water but food and shelter to the strangers whom she met at the well.

The blessing given Rebekah is like the blessings given Abraham and Sarah. (Genesis 24:60: ‘May you, our sister, become thousands of myriads; may your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes.’ She will become the mother of many, like Sarah before her, and through them a blessing for all people. 

To the faithfulness of Abraham is added the hospitality of Rebekah. 

Where shall we go to find such abundance of blessing and virtue in our own day? And how will we know it when we see it?

The Rev. Dr. John Leech serves as a priest associate at the Episcopal Church of Saint Matthew and is an occasional guest preacher at other churches throughout southern Arizona.

An edited version of this meditation was printed on page E3 of the Arizona Daily Star, July 9th 2023, in the Keeping the Faith section, under the title “A test of observed behavior.” and online under the same heading at https://tucson.com/life-entertainment/local/faith-values/a-test-of-observed-behavior/article_77717684-1436-11ee-b224-93f28543ce76.html

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Tobit 8:5b-8

AProper9 RCL

Portrait of a Couple as Isaac and Rebecca, known as 'The Jewish Bride'

c. 1665 - c. 1669

Rembrandt van Rijn

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=rebecca+and+isaac&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=0#/SK-C-216,0

THE RAM IN THE THICKET

Abraham's sacrifice, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1655 

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=sacrifice+of+isaac&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=5#/RP-P-1962-14,5

God put Abraham to the test, saying to him, “Abraham.” He answered, “Here I am.” “Take your son, your favored one, the one whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1-2)

As it happens, God acknowledges Abraham’s faithful obedience, and an angel stays his hand before he can slay his son. He spots a ram in a thicket, and offers that instead. 

Listening to the story from Genesis (22:1-19), of the Binding of Isaac, we may wonder: what was Abraham thinking? Where did he get the idea that he should sacrifice his son? That God would want that? What kind of a god would ask this? What kind of a father would think to do it? Does the last-minute substitution of a ram make it OK?

The surrounding cultures, as I understand it, worshiped gods who did indeed require human sacrifice – just as much as the god of the Aztecs did. The cult of Moloch demanded the burnt offering of the firstborn son. Somehow Abraham got into his head the idea that this may be required even of him – that the God who has led him to the promised land, has given him his son, has promised him uncounted progeny – that somehow this is the same god.

All the way up the mountain, Abraham kept faith with God. Believing in the promise he somehow continued to expect the impossible. He laid the firewood on Isaac’s back – like requiring a man to carry his own cross – saying, “God himself will provide the lamb.”

Not knowing what would happen, in the fear of God he bound his son, and took up the knife. The angel stayed Abraham’s hand, and showed him the ram in the thicket. I think there is more going on here than the substitution of a sheep for a man.

God did not require the death of Isaac. He required his life – that is, that Isaac and all the future and the hope that he represents, belongs to God, not Abraham. This life is not a life to be grasped onto but to be freely accepted as a gift from the willing hand of God.

Abraham responds to God’s call in faith, in obedience, yielding all claim to ownership to what is most precious to him – the promise, the future and the hope embodied in Isaac – and he dedicates that beloved Child to God, to God’s purpose, not his own. 

And it is through the efficacy of this obedience, this act of faith, that Abraham becomes the father of nations – not through heredity but through faith in the love of God. 

And it is this faith that gives him descendants innumerable. “I will shower blessings on you, I will make your descendants as many as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore.” (Genesis 22.17)

Abraham chose obedience. Through his radical obedience, Abraham became the father of our faith, the exemplar of total trust in God.

What he was required to yield up, that which was most precious to him, what had to be relinquished to God when God required it, was Isaac’s life – not his death, but his life. The future and the hope that Isaac represented were not for Abraham to own and to master, but for him to trust in God to provide, just as he provided the ram in the thicket on the mount that came to be called, “God provides”.

When he set his face toward Jerusalem, Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected, and be killed, and after three days rise again. Jesus chose obedience – he lay his own life down, that very life that was to become the first fruits of the resurrection. Life is not to be grasped to oneself, but to be freely offered in obedience to God. Jesus did not give just his death to God; he gave his life – a life of integrity, of witness, of proclamation. He took up his cross rather than live a life of self-protection.

Jesus kept faith with God, proclaiming in word and deed the reign of God’s love, of justice, peace, and forgiveness. He embodied the fullness and image of God’s compassion and love for humankind. Just as Abraham traveled to a distant land ready to sacrifice his beloved son, so Jesus, knowing full well that it might cost his life, traveled up to Jerusalem to give witness to the reign of God.

He took up his cross rather than living a life of self-protection. We participate in the life of Christ, in the proclamation of the kingdom. We receive the life he continues to give to us. By his life we live. His life makes it possible for us to live faithfully, in radical obedience to God, with a future and a hope. 

To live in faith is costly; God asks a lot of us. Life is full of frightening and painful and hard things. We have this consolation, that Jesus went through this already and goes through this with us –we are not alone, and death is not the end of the story. 

No place we are ever asked to go – no height nor depth, no hardship or distress, no persecution or famine, no epidemic, no war - can take us away from the love of God. He has been there already. He is there with us. And he will bring us through to the other side. No other thing is required. God’s mercy is full and complete. He takes us from the broken places to wholeness, from the darkness into light; we were lost and are found.

Genesis 22:1-14

A version of this meditation appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, July 2, 2023, under the heading “God will bring you through" and online as "God will bring you through to wholeness." https://tucson.com/life-entertainment/local/faith-values/god-will-bring-you-through-to-wholeness/article_6c0ee3c4-1438-11ee-87ab-9fbfdae51b50.html

The Sacrifice of Isaac, anonymous. c. 1540 - c. 1550

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=sacrifice+of+isaac&p=1&ps=12&st=Objects&ii=0#/BK-1953-18,0