PROPER 12A 2008

As I pondered the lessons for today I kept on thinking about the question that God asks Solomon in his dream: “Ask what I should give you.” We all have heard the stories about the genie in the bottle.. If you had one wish and it would be granted, what would you ask for?

In one of our liturgies, those who are going to be baptized are asked this question: What do you seek?

All of us have levels of what we want and desire and seek. If we are starving or dying of thirst, we want food or water. If we need shelter, that is what we want. But as these needs are met, we go deeper and we struggle with issues of meaning

I read the sports page all the time and a King’s basketball player, Brad Miller, tested positive for the third time for smoking marijuana. He is going to be kept out of five games, I think, and thus lose about $600,000 of his salary – his total salary for a year is around $11 million !! So they had this interview with him and he talked about the pressures he faces as a celebrity basketball player and that is why he smoked marijuana to relax and sleep. Then a few days later a woman wrote in and said Brad ought to face real pressure like she was facing: no job, not enough money to pay rent or buy food or gas. She said she would gladly change places with Brad!

Well, the truth is, as our rich celebrities teach us daily on the web and in the magazines, money and wealth do not satisfy the inner needs of the soul. If it did, then Brad and Britney and Amy Winehouse and all the others would be happy, model citizens. And contrariwise, all those who were poor should be miserable and unhappy.

In a real sense, the spiritual life is a search for meaning. Why are we here? What is this life all about? What’s the purpose of this day to day struggle?

Jesus, in the gospels, talked over and over again about the Kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God. This morning we read 5 short parables teaching us about this kingdom. Because the kingdom of heaven is such a vast and deep concept, Jesus has to give us different lens through which to see it. Remember my illustration of looking through a camera to take a picture. Through the lens you cannot see all that your eyes see. The picture only gives you one view of the whole. This is what parables are, in a sense. It is like trying to describe love, or hate, or any other deep emotion. You cannot do it in a few words. So Jesus uses stories to help us get different and deeper understanding of this reality that he calls the kingdom of God.

Though words fail to capture the depth and breath of this concept we call the kingdom of heaven, or of God, let me try and give you a simple way to understand what it is.

In the Lord’s prayer, we pray that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. In essence, this is what the kingdom of heaven on earth is. Wherever the will of God is being done, there is the kingdom. Those who are striving to do the will of God are in the kingdom. Another way to see it is to say that those who have made Jesus the King of their lives and are striving to follow the king are living in the kingdom.

Last week we had a living example of kingdom living in Dr. Scott Kellerman. As he strives to bring healing and education and a better quality of life to the pygmies in Uganda, he is living in the kingdom. As anyone of us strives to make Jesus the Lord of our lives, and we strive to serve and to love and to give and on and on, we are striving to live in the Kingdom of God.

Lets go back to the question that God asks Solomon and apply it to us: “Ask what I should give you.” Or lets ask ourselves the question that we ask of those who are going to be baptized: “What do you seek?” What is it that you are really striving for in life? What is it that you really want?

The answer in the pre-baptismal liturgy to what do you seek is: “life in Christ.” Above all things: health and wealth and success I seek life in Christ. Though there are different ways to express it, the answer for a Christian will, at its core, express our desire to live for Jesus, and thus his kingdom, above all things.

I know that in one sense this kind of talk seems so radical and alien to our day to day life. We all struggle with work and family and relationships, and these take most of our energy. But as the parable about the treasure in the field, and the pearl of great price teach us, once we see, or find these treasures, all other things take second place. So you are going through life, plowing the field at work, or taking care of the kids at home, and all of a sudden you find a great treasure. The treasure is so great that you joyfully sell all that you have to get that treasure. Or you are going through life seeking pearls, and we could take pearls to mean any type of satisfaction that we can have in this life – health and wealth and success --- but as you seek these, all of a sudden you find one pearl that is greater than all of these, and you realize that all the pearls in the world do not compare with this one, and so you give up what you have to obtain this one, valuable pearl.

The truth of these parables is pretty clear and simple. The kingdom of heaven is more valuable than anything else that we can possess. It is worth all. It is valuable and worth seeking because it is eternal, and will never pass away.

This morning in our collect for the day we prayed a prayer that is on my heart daily.

We prayed that, with God as our ruler and guide, as we pass through things temporal we would not lose things that are eternal. This is a great prayer that captures the struggle that we all daily face. In a sense Christians are trying to live in two kingdoms: the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of this world. Often these two kingdoms are at war with each other.

The writer of 1 John puts it this way:

¹⁵Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; ¹⁶for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷And the world and its desire^£ are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever. 1 John 2:15-18

It is not always easy to live in the tension between the two kingdoms. Day after day we are bombarded with the values and norms of the kingdom of this world. It is amazing how relevant the words of John are written two thousand years ago. The struggle is still the same. We still have desires of the flesh and of the eyes, and we still have great pride in riches, which lead us to stake our souls on things that are temporal and are passing away.

There are two disciplines that I do to try and keep my life focused as a Christian. They might be helpful for you.

The first is I try, on a regular basis, to go deep and struggle with what it is I am really seeking in life. I try and answer the question: “Ask what I should give you..” or “What do you seek? I pray something like this. “Lord, I know how weak I am, and how distracted I am most of the time, but at bottom, deep in my soul, I seek your grace and strength to live for you and your kingdom until my last day. Do whatever you need to do to keep me living for the kingdom.” I often even think, maybe pray, Lord, if I am the worst Christian ever, I still want to end up on your side. I would rather be a door keeper in your house than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

The second is I look to my death and then back up and try and evaluate what is really eternal and valuable and what is simply going to pass away. Taking time to look at what I am doing and seeking and valuing is very helpful for me in light of my soon coming death, because death forces me to face truth. Death teaches me that so much of what I touch and feel and value is temporal.

If there is a God, and there is life after death, and there is this kingdom of heaven, what will last and what will pass away? Some things are easy to see: physical things like houses and bank accounts and toys and pleasures -- even my own body-- are not going to last. But what does last? Things like love and caring and giving are the treasures that last. The things that Dr. Kellerman does for the pygmies will last. A kind word to a child will last. Making cookies for others will last. As we worship God and learn about Jesus we learn day by day the values and norms of the kingdom. It is not always easy to know exactly what we are supposed to be doing, but I believe that if we make the decision to live for the kingdom, the Spirit of God will lead and guide us.

Now in closing, I know that some of you may not have heard much of what I have said, and many of you hear the words and think it is nice church words and all, but the truth is, what I have said is important if you take your spiritual life seriously at all. For, what we value, and seek, is often what we get. If you are honest with yourself, and you realize that living for the Kingdom of Heaven, and thus for God, is not your goal in life, then, when it is all said and done, you will fail to reach that goal. I have no idea what the consequences of that descions will be, but there is enough that Jesus said about it that I don’t want to find out! I think that the warnings of Jesus are there to make us realize that our choices do matter in the end. What we do does matter.

C. S. Lewis in the book The Great Divorce says that hell is simply us living out for all eternity what it is that we valued on earth. In the middle of the book, a teacher at the foot of heaven says this:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ”thy will be done” and those to whom God says:” Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

In Lewis’ view, eternity is us getting what we valued and strove to get on earth. I have always found this to be a powerful way to understand why our choices matter.

So lets take just moment here, July 27, 2008, and ask ourselves, what are we really seeking today in our lives? What is it that we value above everything else? The answer to this question is like a rudder on a ship.. It will control where you are going.

Let us pray

Lord, help us to know ourselves, and see your truth clearly. Guide us and lead us in this life, so that as we pass through so many things that are temporal, we might not lose those things which are eternal.. AMEN!