Sermon Archive
The Pearl of Great Price
Sermon preached by John Armes at Evensong on 3 September 2006
t was last Tuesday morning, 2.30am; I was standing in the garden outside this church looking towards the roof. 'What on earth,' I asked myself, 'am I doing here?'
I had been deeply and contentedly asleep when the phone rang. It was the monitoring centre telling me that the fire alarm had been tripped at church and that the fire brigade had been alerted; would I please attend? I didn’t rush up the road.
Forgive me if that sounds unduly negligent of the well-being of this gem of a building. The thought of this place being reduced to a mass of charred and smoking remains is terrible to contemplate. But, I knew, almost with certainty, that there would be no fire. The alarm had been playing up because of faulty sensors, especially one in the tower. Which is why I found myself standing in the garden whilst two poor firemen scaled the various ladders and walkways to confirm that it was indeed instrument failure.
What on earth was I doing there? Well, it’s my job; I’m first on the call-out list. But that raises another question: why on earth did I choose to do a job that would shatter my much needed beauty sleep in this way? And not just that, I thought to myself, one that also expects me to attend so many meetings and spoils my weekends with sermon preparation.
Even at 2.30 in the morning, in other words, I was hovering on a theological discussion with myself that was leading me, step by step to a version of Jesus' parable of the pearl of great price. I do what I do because somehow I think it’s all worth it.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, there are many more heroic people of faith than I, who have suffered far more calamitous privations than being woken in the small hours to stand in the pleasant surroundings of a deserted Edinburgh city centre and to hold a conversation with two firemen, agreeing that the view from the top of the tower was, without doubt, awesome.
There are all sorts of people I think of as heroes. I think of Edna who for years made it her task to tend the graveyard at her church, who was always there to make coffee after the service and to make sure she knew why someone was missing that day. I think of Robbie, who put his own hardships to one side to make other’s lives more cheerful – always ready to do the small and menial task so that others could get on with what he thought of as the real work of the church.
Then there was Rachel, who would pack up her sandwiches and head off to Faslane to protest against nuclear weapons – who counted it a success every time she was arrested. Or Ben who for years ran a youth club for children in a place where no one else seemed to care.
Yes, I think of these kind of quiet heroes before I summon up the undoubted giants of sanctity – you know, the Mother Theresas and Desmond Tutus and Dietrich Bonhoeffers and numerous martyrs who met bloody and painful deaths all because they believed. And not just Christians either. There are others of many faiths and none who today brave guns and abuse to witness for peace in the middle-east, or to report on the truth of what is happening. Others still who are imprisoned unjustly – as Amnesty International records show.
Yes, against these heroes perhaps our little lives of faith seem superficial. And yet, in our own little way we too respond to the treasure, the pearl of great price that makes it all worth it somehow. Because, at some point, even for us, our comfort and safety comes second to some greater cause.
According to Jesus, this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like - it’s that realm full of people who are willing to put aside treasures that rot and decay, in order to find something of infinite value – a treasure, a pearl. To the extent that we do so, we too become part of this Kingdom.
We should note, perhaps, that Jesus is not offering a romantic exaggeration of the life of faith. His own life gave credibility to his words. His life exemplified the Kingdom of Heaven because he gave himself totally, for the sake of the most precious treasure of all. 'Where your treasure is there will your heart be also,' he says. So great was Jesus' sense of where true value lies that he counted it more precious than life itself.
Remember the story when Jesus goes into the wilderness and he is presented with three very plausible temptations. He could feed the hungry by turning stones into bread. He could impress and dazzle the crowds with his supernatural powers, he could rule the world with wisdom and compassion - but each time Jesus says no, not because the temptations were wrong in themselves, but each one was less than what God wanted for him.
Where then do our convictions lie? How far would we go to secure that pearl of great price? What would we be prepared to die for?
Not easy questions to answer, especially with the extra frisson given by our modern context, sandwiched between the anniversaries of 7/7 and 9/11 and living with plots where young people imagine they have found the pearl of great price for which they will lay down their lives, taking tens, hundreds of others with them.
Life is precious, my life is precious, my comfort is precious. Heck, I complain enough about losing a few hours sleep. Martyrdom is not a necessary option for most of us nowadays. 'What a waste!' we tend to think when someone dies before their time. 'How pointless!' we add, when someone seems to wish death upon themselves.
When the Japanese invaded Papua New Guinea in 1942, the Christian missionaries had the chance to flee but they decided to stay. 'We could never hold up our faces again, if for our own safety, we all forsook him and fled when the shadows of the passion began to gather around him in his spiritual body, the Church in Papua,' said Bishop Philip Strong to his staff in a radio broadcast. To a man and woman they stayed. 333 church workers died. We remember them every 2nd September - yesterday.
Were they foolish, reckless of their lives? Certainly Bishop Strong was criticised for his decision. Yet the great advance of Christianity in the post war years in Papua NG was in no small part due to their sacrifice. What would make us do the same?
For good reason we are hesitant about too much certainty in faith as in politics. It can lead to gross cruelty and inhumanity. And it’s no cowardice to cherish our lives or to take the safe option so that we can fight another day.
But like Jesus we still face temptations, not so much to do the clearly wrong, but rather to choose the less than best option. So the question remains - where does your treasure lie? How many times has the light shone for us and we have passed by - missing the treasure, overlooking the pearl, settling for the second best whilst bemoaning the telephone call that has dragged us from our beds?
It’s worth thinking about for a moment, for though this is the treasure for which we might die, it is also the treasure through which we shall live.
Worship >> Sermons >> Sermons