Why Does a Painter Paint?

why does a painter paint
a sculptor sculpt
an architect build
a musician compose?

Because they must.
Because the music they hear
the colors they see
the shapes they discern
must be given their voice,
their shape, their form

the creator creates
because that’s what
a creator does

Why is there a Kingdom?
Why should it please God
that it should be so?

Maybe because when
The Word opens . . .
a world opens

. . . because the light of God,
like the power of God,
will not be contained.

Because the God who is love
loves like a little girl
with a blue flower in her hair
having no interest in whether
you solved the national debt crisis today --
or not --
wanting only to love you . . .
just as you are . . .
into who you ought to be

because one rainbow . . .
one life . . .
one love . . .
just wouldn’t do . . .
When you’re God,
why do one rainbow . . .
or life . . .
or love . . .
when you can do four . . .
or infinity . . .
all at once?

What on Earth is the Kingdom of God? [Sermon Cliff Note]

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 13.44-46 (NRSV)

What on earth is the Kingdom of God?  
It is the place where the rich
will never have enough money
to buy their way into
but where the poor don’t need it . . .
It is the upside down place
where youth is wise and old age is foolishness . . .
The nameless place within each of us
yearning to be filled with we know not what . . .
Yet it is the place that is not a place at all . . .
It is a destination already arrived at . . .
A state of grace and acts of love . . .

What is the kingdom of God?
It is the buried treasure that someone 
would find and hide to find again
keeping it all for himself . . .

It is the pearl of great price . . .
beauty and perfection and symmetry
that someone would sell all to have  . . .

It is that worth any price, any risk

But whose price?  Whose risk?
Tradition would suggest that
Jesus’ parables are a challenge to us –
sell all you have and follow me . . .
risk all you have to be with me . . .
gather in all you have and
throw your lot in with me . . .

I am the investment you seek
I am the sure thing –
the treasure you already know is there . . .
the pearl whose value you already have. . .
I am that for which you have waited a lifetime

But it can also be an unpleasant parable
if we assume that we’re the
shoveler, the buyer of land
with insider knowledge
of that which was not ours
 – diggers for our own advantage
taking that which someone else
had laid aside for themselves
keeping it a secret
hoarding the extravagant find

But what if God is the man,
digging not for God’s own sake,
but for ours –
selling all, risking . . . all . . . to find
to have. . . to hold?

if God is the merchant,
maybe we are the treasure
the value-thing God invests
everything for to find

treasure is only treasure
because we think it is
It’s only value lies in our own belief
that it has value
Pearls are pretty, but they’re really only sand
and oyster spit
It is the beholder’s eye that gives the pearl its value –
to an oyster, its nothing but an annoyance to be dealt with
to the merchant, a breathtaking treasure to be cared for . .
its unrealized potential sitting in the palm of his hand

So well we might consider anew –
who is the digger of treasure?
Who is the merchant?
Is it us, seeking after value?
Or might it just be God,
already aware of the value
because the only value has
always and ever rested
in and only in God’s own eyes?

The Gospel According to Alice in Wonderland

Sunday Sermon Cliff Note

The Kingdom of Heaven is . . .
Near . . . and far . . .
Easy to get into . . . impossible to enter . . .
For the few . . . and for the many . . .
A place of peace and rest . . . under constant violent attack . . .
Small and large . . .
Here and yet there . . .
Found and lost . . .
A secret place known to all . . .
Something you can’t see that’s already here . . .
Within and without . . .
Now and not yet . . .
Concerned with the living and indifferent to the dead . . .
Known and not known . . .
A place to which the signs point for which there are no signs . . .
A great banquet without any food . . .
A place where we’re going that we’ve already come to . . .
A place that is not a place at all . . .

This place that isn’t a place at all is like many things . . .
Mustard and other seeds out among the scattered weeds . . .
Buried hidden treasure . . . a place of leisure . . .
A merchant of the finest pearls . . .
A fisherman’s net . . .
A wedding banquet . . .
A king meeting with his investment advisors . . .
Day laborers . . .
A pay check . . .
Virgins?  Yes, virgins . . .
A grumbling teen-aged son . . .
A banquet feast for the least . . .
Yeast – called leaven . . .
I ask you . . . how is that heaven?

Kingdom-of-Heaven is all about topsy-turvy upside down justice, which is to say no justice – no human scale-weighing, at all.

Photo by whale05 at flickr commons

It is the Gospel according to Alice in Wonderland . . . where big is small . . . where everyone’s a winner after everyone was a loser . . . where tears cause floods and rabbits talk and the power elite are to be mistrusted. . .

Where success is failure and powerlessness is power . . .

Where children frame the picture that adults find impossible to enter . . .

Where it’s more about the net than the fish . . . the banquet than the diners . . .

The Kingdom of God is about . . . God . . . whose ways are not ours . . . whose yardstick is not ours . . . whose justice is not ours . . . whose welcome is not ours . . .

For God’s ways . . . God’s yardstick . . . God’s justice . . . God’s welcome . . .is so much more than we can imagine . . . and God’s kingdom, like many things, is none of those things, but so much, much more . . .

It’s a standing invitation, Alice . . . won’t you come in?

Won’t you step through the looking glass through which you see only dimly and come in?

Won’t you surrender your size in the world and come in?

Won’t you stop worrying about who might get there before you and come in?

Won’t you stop trying to figure it all out and just . . . come . . . in?