What Then Shall We Say To These Things?

I am covered in gratitude and relief to have made it safely home, and in time for the birthday celebration of the child turning 20 no less. It was a super long drive, made light and momentary by having a wonderful friend to caravan with, and many prayers along the way. Today, after I rush off to church, I am packing everything back up and heading off to Pennsylvania for Level Three training. I believe the expression I’m searching for is something like ‘the epic shifting of the catechetical gears.’ What has the faith of the infant and toddler to do with the 9 to 12 year old child? I am about to find out.

Imagine, then, my delight to discover that the Gospel appointed for today is that chapter in Matthew that includes the Mustard Seed, the Hidden Treasure, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Leaven. These are all wonderful parables that children in Catechesis spend almost nine years considering. They are quite perfect for the youngest child because in each case there is something hidden that has to be searched out, or some invisible glory that is gradually revealed, kind of the way the strange and precious redeeming work of Christ grows in the fertile soil of the human heart from childhood into eternity.

This parable, tucked in at the end, is more for the adult end of the spectrum, when the moral, reasoning mind is fully formed and already a vast number of choices and decisions have been made:

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This little vignette quite leapt out at me, this week, especially as I spent so much time mulling over Jen Hatmaker’s rejection of hell. She seems to have missed reading this text, and others. Personally, I have long been curious about why Jesus so often returned to that image of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

If I was forced to pick a single golden thread out of all the readings for this morning, I would pick out the theme of judgement. In each case, the human creature is invited by God to grow a discerning and judging mind, as well as an aesthetic perception of the world and God’s work in it. The Lord comes to Solomon, in the Old Testament, and asks him to choose any gift, and Solomon asks for wisdom. God is delighted with this choice, and therefore promises also to give material wealth and temporal honor. As long as Solomon walks in the “statues and commandments” of God, he will reap the riches of a “wise and discerning mind.”

And that gift seems to be illumined perfectly when you consider the man searching out the single unfathomably beautiful pearl, something so necessary to him that he sells everything else he has. Or the man who discovers a treasure and reburies it and then buys the whole field. Or the man who understands that the speck of a seed he possesses, when planted, will produce a glorious tree full of shade and birds. In each case, a judgment is there to be made about what is good and, then, what is much better.

Imagine a world in which no one made any judgments about anything. How would anyone know what to eat or what to wear? How would time be governed? How would anyone be able to tell the difference between good and evil if there was no discernment, no opportunity to look carefully at a circumstance or a material object and decide, by use of the heart and mind, if it is worth anything?

You might remember that Jen Hatmaker asked a sort of similar wondering question, “What does that faith look like walking around this earth?” “That faith,” for her, referred to her unfounded theological postulation that Christians heretofore have assigned “dark, cruel, and murderous traits to God” and that getting rid of those traits simply produces happiness and joy for everyone. She answered her own question. The earth would first “be purged of judgement,” “Us and Them” would be “over,” “faith instruction of fear and shame based threats” would also be “purged” and finally, Christians would just be “good, normal neighbors” instead of using “embarrassing tools of evangelizing and proselytizing.”

I think, just glancing over the texts of Scripture spread out before me, that it is more likely that the earth is going to be purged “by” judgment. God, the good and perfect judge, is going to put everything to rights. He is going to take some people, in the manner of those fish, and put them in one container, and take other people and put them in another container. The story itself is an urgent invitation before that moment to judge, to try to discern the measures by which he will make those determinations. It is to look around and wonder if there is something so essential that to miss having it would be a catastrophe resulting in total spiritual ruin.

In this way, it seems there is a sort of greater than/lesser than relationship between God’s judging capability and my human one. The whole point is that, being a mere creature, I can’t always tell the difference between good and evil, beautiful and ugly, life and death. I have to trust God. I have to submit my judging and discerning mind to his greater and more perfect judgements. If I rely on my own “understanding” I will miss the precious beauty of God’s action in the world. I will end up like Solomon, wandering in the kingdom of idolatry, not knowing which end is up.

There is a simpler and more blessed way to live. It is to become a properly judging person. To be like the woman who silently works the leaven into the measures of flour until the whole dough is filled with the invisible yet powerfully acting agent that will make the whole loaf grow. To be like the man who searches diligently because he knows what he is looking for and won’t stop till he finds it. To be like the helpless seed that falls into the ground and dies. Helplessness, which then produces trust, is the key to a wise and discerning mind, a heart that is moved by the proper kinds of love. You admit that you don’t know and then the One who does know helps you. Paul says it quite beautifully:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Those who love God, in other words, will be able to tell the difference between something that is worth nothing and Someone who is worth everything. They are so dependent upon the Spirit to know and govern their hearts and minds that they don’t even worry about what to ask for. They know God will sort it all out. And that sorting does include some people finding their whole consolation in God himself making them good and acceptable according to the merciful blood poured out on the cross:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

That glory, especially in this life, is buried in the interior life of the Christian in such a way that often she isn’t even able to see it herself. And other people pass her by on the street, or online, and do not see the treasure of faith and hope and love hidden inside. They might think she is to be abhorred particularly for her trust in the God who reveals himself so strangely in the Scriptures.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

It’s hard to look there, at the Man who died and rose again, who went back to sit on that hidden Throne. You can’t even see him. All you can do is open his book and read it, searching for a glimpse of his glory. And then you can go to church, and sit and listen, and walk forward and put out your hands to receive… what? What do you receive? You have to go and find out. Hope to see you there!