1.
One day, a round Indian businessman, dripping with gold and diamonds, came to visit Mother Theresa in Calcutta. He threw himself at her feet, and cried out, “Oh my God, you are the holiest of the Holy! You are the super-holy one! You’ve given up everything! And I, I cannot even give up a single samosa for breakfast! Not a single chapatti for lunch can I resist!”
Mother Theresa broke into laughter so wild and merry that her attendant nuns worried and came close. She was in her 80s, you see, and frail from a couple of heart attacks. But she laughed and laughed, the businessman at her feet. And eventually, she took a deep breath, stopped laughing, and wiped the tears from her eyes. With her other hand, she leaned forward to help her puzzled visitor to his feet.
And then, quietly, she said to him, “So you say I have given up everything?” The businessman nodded eagerly, “Yes! Yes!” Mother Theresa simply smiled. “Oh, my dear man,” she said, “you are so wrong. It isn’t I who have given up everything; it is you. You have given up the supreme sacred joy of life, the source of all lasting happiness, the joy of giving your life away to other beings, to serve God in them with compassion. It is you,” she said quietly, “it is you who are the great renunciate!” And then to the Indian businessman’s total bewilderment – not to mention her attendants’ – Mother Theresa got down on her knees and bowed to him. Flinging up his hands, exasperated and befuddled, he ran quickly from the room.
Now there was a woman who found treasure in the field, marked it well, then sold all that she owned, and rushed to buy the field itself. Mother Theresa knew where to find the treasure, the gospel, the joy of Christ. She found it in bathing the dying, in feeding the hungry, in loving the children. That was the treasure, compassion was the treasure; so Mother Theresa sold all that she owned – just like in the parable – she gave up everything else and rushed to buy the field itself. The gospel provokes a rearranging of her life, a relocating of her life, a reimagining of what’s possible.
Just like in these parables, these odd little stories, these Comparisons Jesus lays out there for you and me. What do you do when you find treasure like that? Does it change the way you look for work? Does it rearrange your priorities or the way you spend time with your family? Does it make you vulnerable to a bleeding, broken heart? What do you do?
Jesus says, “The God Movement is like a jeweler looking for special pearls. When she finds a super-duper one, she goes quickly, unloads her entire stock, and keeps that one priceless pearl.” The gospel provokes a rearranging, a relocating, a reimagining of what’s possible. It means unloading the old stock, giving up on the crazy advertizing campaign, yielding to the mystery and the wonder and the beauty of that one / priceless / pearl. That’s what faith is, Jesus says. That’s what faith does.
2.
Now you may want to push back a little here. You may want to say, “But, Dave…Mother Theresa?” You can’t be serious. Jesus can’t be serious. How many of us can do what Mother Theresa did? How many of us can sell off everything, unload everything, rearrange everything and rush to buy the field? It’s just not realistic. She was a giant. She was a saint for God’s sake!
But take a minute. Take a minute and remember what we’ve learned about Theresa over the years, especially since she’s died. Her own autobiography reveals a young woman riddled with doubts, and then a mature woman anxious and frightened. She writes about feeling distant from God a good bit of the time, feeling uncertain of God’s power, feeling ineffective in her ministry. It turns out that Theresa of Calcutta was a lot like the rest of us – capable of great joy and amazing grace and the deepest possible love; and burdened by doubt and this nagging feeling of insignificance. She was one of us. Human and broken.
And we’re the ones, we’re the ones who are out there in the field, stumbling around, scanning the landscape in the first days of Lent. Human and broken. Anxious and aching for hope. We’ve lost jobs. We’ve seen our favorite courses cut from university offerings. We’ve watched sadly as the politicos in Washington pervert justice as if justice were some kind of poker game for the rich. We’re the ones out there in the field – human and broken, anxious and aching for hope. And somehow, somehow, we keep stumbling into this treasure.
Don’t we? You see the sun rising over Monterey Bay this morning. The blood red streaks merging into bright orange ones, the bright oranges exploding into cobalt blues! A resurrection every morning! Somehow we keep stumbling into this treasure. You hear the passion in Lori Rivera’s voice – the life-loving, faith-flying, soul-slinging passion – in Lori voice. Somehow we keep stumbling into this treasure. You watch the joy in an 8-year-old’s eye – the kind of joy only God could make – as she’s making a Valentine for an old shut-in, as she’s imagining the old man’s smile opening it up. Somehow, somehow, we keep stumbling into this treasure.
And what I hear Jesus saying this morning – and Mother Theresa, too – is that once you’ve found it, once you’ve found this treasure, you want to make it the focus, the center, the heart of your life. Love is everywhere. Compassion is everything. So you start selling things off. So you start unloading the old inventory of pearls. So you start reimagining what’s possible in your life. Because of love. Because of love. Don’t fall into the trap of believing this stuff only works for sinless saints and unblemished wonderworkers. The treasure’s hidden in every one of our lives, in every one.
And, of course, Christians aren’t the only ones who know this. We’re not the only ones. It’s pretty much a universal revelation among the world’s spiritual traditions. A deep and restless current in all kinds of spiritual practice. Shantideva, for example, the great Buddhist mystic, put it like this:
“All the joy the world containsH
Has come through wishing happiness for others;
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.”
“All the joy the world contains/ Has come through wishing happiness for others;/ All the misery the world contains/ Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.” Isn’t this like a scalpel, a spiritual scalpel, the cuts quick to the heart, the deepest heart of life? We hear something very much like it from Jesus, on our own Lenten journey. “Unless you take up your cross,” he says, “you cannot follow. Unless you lose life, you cannot save it. Unless you die to ego, you cannot live in spirit.” It’s pretty heady stuff, what Jesus says, scalpel stuff, if you ask me. And it comes up over and over again during Lent, and then again during Holy Week. “Unless you lose life, you cannot save it. Unless you die, you cannot live.”
But maybe Jesus is simply connecting with Shantideva, with the deep current of selflessness in all spiritual traditions. “All the joy the world contains/ Has come through wishing happiness for others.” That’s the treasure, I think. That’s the treasure Jesus finds buried in his own Jewish faith. That’s the treasure Jesus finds buried in the unsettling, yet inspired words of the Hebrew prophets. “All the joy the world contains/ Has come through wishing happiness for others.”
And maybe Jesus is saying that unless you place that treasure at the very center of your life, at the very heart of your home, at the very core of your being – unless you sell everything to make that treasure your own – you risk losing it altogether. I’m not convinced he’s interested in literalism here: that you’ve got to go out and sell the cars and the house, that you’ve got to quit your career and head for Calcutta tomorrow. Literalism has never been Jesus’ thing. But I am sure he’s interested in a total rearranging of your priorities, a total repositioning of your passion, a reimagining of what’s possible in your life. “It’s like finding a treasure in a field,” he says. “You cover it over again, quickly, then you run off with great excitement, you sell everything you own, and by God, you buy that field and you buy it fast.” God wants your partnership, your friendship, your passion. You find that treasure, wherever it is, and you put it at the very center of your life, at the very core of your being. And everything else changes. Everything.
3.
I think it’s entirely possible that churches face this same choice as we encounter the gospel, hear it fresh, and look to the future. I remember talking to a Baptist preacher years ago, during the first Gulf War. His congregation had just decided to open their doors as a sanctuary church for military resisters, young women and men, enlisted women and men, who couldn’t in conscience show up for a war that seemed immoral and insane. This little Baptist church invited these young women and men into their fellowship, into their homes, into their sanctuary – as a sign of God’s passion for a world that studies war no more.
Well, as you can imagine, this was a radical step for a laid back group of Baptists, for any group of Christians for that matter. Members had to think hard about breaking laws. They had to rearrange the furniture, literally, so a few folks could sleep in their little sanctuary. And they had to field all kinds of questions and take all kinds of abuse from so-called patriots in their neighborhood. The pastor looked tired that fall, but he also had this light in his eye. A light that said: “I’ve found the treasure. I know where it is.”
Friends, Jesus isn’t one for complacency. And that’s because he loves us so much. That’s because he knows love can bind our broken hearts and make us whole. So he invites us along, on another Lenten journey, so that we might pay attention and watch for what truly matters. There’s treasure here – in the gospel, in this community of gospel spirit. There’s treasure in our affection for one another, in our love of scripture, in our daring spirit of service and action. It’s not terribly complicated. It’s not hard to wrap your heart around. And it’s not just for saints and wonderworkers. It sounds something like this: “All the joy the world contains/ Has come through wishing happiness for others.”
Yeah, there’s treasure in these fields. But buyer, beware. You’ll have to rearrange the furniture. You’ll have reposition your passion. And you’ll have to reimagine what’s possible in your life. But, believe me, you’re up to it. You are most definitely up to it. Because that same treasure is sown like a thousand seeds in your precious soul. And that same treasure is worth every ounce of your effort, every bit of your courage and joy. So you’ll have to reimagine what’s possible in your life. But you are most definitely up to it. And there’s a church full of folks, right here, eager to cheer you on! Amen.
