What can we say July 30? 9th after Pentecost

    Summer is whisking along… This week I’ll open with Romans, reflect on a dare that worked out well with the Rachel / Leah business, and then touch on our Gospel.

   Romans 8:26-39. If Paul had written nothing but Romans 8, we would lionize him. If he’d written nothing but this portion of Romans 8, we would extol him as one of our greatest. Better to let such a text linger in the open space of a sanctuary than to attempt much mansplaining!

   I love to imagine Paul pacing the room, blurting out his latest thoughts, the scribe scrambling to get it down on parchment, thinking “Wow, this guy is on fire today!” So much here: “We do not know how to pray as we ought,” which is an understatement. So often parishoners in crisis say they don’t know what to pray, or feel they can’t pray. I ask if they’ve done any sighing. Of course they have – and we note how Paul dares to suggest that our “sighs too deep for words” are really the Spirit praying in us. Wow – so encouraging for me as a pastor, and as a guy who sighs a lot. Preaching this requires no illustration, except the shared bonds of humanity.

   Verse 28 is a favorite, finding its way onto posters and cross-stitching – but when people think it means God is orchestrating everything in your life so you have a happy ending and all goes swimmingly well? A sign of 1^st World theology and a lucky pile of circumstance, not divine arrangement. Michael Gorman’s pointed words: “This means neither that God orders all the details of believers’ lives into a rose-garden experience, nor that God inflicts suffering. Rather, Paul proclaims that all things contribute to the final good of glorification, of conformity to Jesus.”

   Indeed: panta, “all things,” clearly refers to the sufferings of the present time (verse 18). And sunergein, “works together,” more likely connotes “assists,” or “are profitable.” John Calvin explains: “Paul does not mean that all things serve the comfort or convenience or worldly interests of believers; it is obvious that they do not. What he means is that they ‘assist our salvation.’” It’s about the assurance of a future with God, and how present sufferings can’t unravel that relationship with God and with others in the Body of Christ. Scripture does of course have the Genesis 45 and 50 belief – that God uses evil for good. But this is a far cry from God using little circumstances and happenings to make my life fun.

   People also love that “more than conquerors” (sometimes with militaristic images),which feels like winning at the game of life, with God’s powerful assistance… The verb means “hyper-conquer” (hypernikomen)! – and the context sobers up us who fantasize about being “more than conquerors”: “These words undoubtedly brought immense comfort and hope to the suffering Christians of the Roman house churches. Some probably suffered for lack of sufficient food. Others were likely victims of abuse from their masters. Still others may have endured economic reprisals for having abandoned pagan worship at their guilds, or emotional mistreatment from family members or fellow synagogue members for having confessed Jesus as Messiah” (Michael Gorman).

    On a dare, I preached on Genesis 29:15-28 a few summers ago (check it out!) – and surprised myself by how well it went. I used “In the morning, behold, it was Leah!” as a cadence / refrain throughout. By the end they were saying it out loud with me!

   It’s all about how disappointment works – in marriage, friendship, life, with the church, yourself, God even. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks noticed how Jacob’s trickery earlier in the story boomeranged on him; the medieval rabbis imagined Jacob chiding Leah: “Why did you deceive me, daughter of a deceiver? Didn’t I call out Rachel in the night, and you answered me!” Her blunt reply? “Isn’t this how your father cried out Esau, and you answered him?” There’s also the rich irony of Laban’s assertion that “this is not done in our country,” giving the younger before the firstborn – which is exactly how it does wind up happening in the strange world of the Bible.

   Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52. In v. 51 Jesus asks, “Have you understood all this?” They answer, “Yes” – but I’m a little puzzled. I’m not sure Jesus’ stories are really supposed to be translatable into some logical proposition. He told stories with vivid images because that was the way he wanted to communicate what he had to say. The vivid image is his message. It’s all mind-boggling. A tee-tiny mustard seed burgeons into a big shrub which can accommodate birds. Treasure hidden: how often do you find such a thing? What’s the nuance? The joy? The finding? That it’s hidden? That it’s precious? That sacrifice is required? The answer is Yes – and more. Pearls, and then the pearl; I love it that the Greek word for pearl is margarita – although I may not share that (or sing the Jimmy Buffet song as our anthem!).

   If I make a connection for people, it might be revisiting the unforgettable, moving ending of the film Good Will Hunting. On the advice of his therapist, Will drops his new job and his settled life and drives off to find the girl. He’s full of joy and hope – but even those he abandons are filled with joy that he’s gone.

   And then Rick Lischer, in his great book on the parables, passes along a quirky reading of the hidden treasure from a sermon he stumbled upon: “‘When Jesus was taken from the cross, they hid his body in a tomb and then sealed it lest someone find him. For 3 days, Jesus himself was the Treasure hidden in the field; for 3 days he was the seed lying dormant in the ground. He was a human parable of God’s love and power.’ It is fair to say that neither Jesus nor the author of Matthew’s Gospel intended that to be the meaning of the parable. Nevertheless, the preacher, not schooled in the church’s rich tradition of theological interpretation, has managed to speak in perfect continuity with the tradition and declare something ‘new.’”