Sunday, October 20, 2013

Parables of the Kingdom (10/20/13)

Parables of the Kingdom
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
October 20, 2013

The Gospel of Thomas

Jesus said,
"Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.   For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. And there is nothing buried that will not be raised."  (5)


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Jesus said,
"There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, 'I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.' These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.

Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"  (63)


---


Jesus said,
"Look, the sower went out, took a handful of seeds, and scattered them. Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock, and they didn't take root in the soil and didn't produce heads of grain. Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure." (9)


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And he said,
"The human being is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose the large fish.

Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!"  (8)

---

He said,
 "A person owned a vineyard and rented it to some farmers, so they could work it and he could collect its crop from them. He sent his slave so the farmers would give him the vineyard's crop. They grabbed him, beat him, and almost killed him, and the slave returned and told his master. His master said, 'Perhaps he didn't know them.' He sent another slave, and the farmers beat that one as well. Then the master sent his son and said, 'Perhaps they'll show my son some respect.' Because the farmers knew that he was the heir to the vineyard, they grabbed him and killed him. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"  (65)


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Jesus said,

"A person was receiving guests. When he had prepared the dinner, he sent his slave to invite the guests.

The slave went to the first and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said, 'Some merchants owe me money; they are coming to me tonight. I have to go and give them instructions. Please excuse me from dinner.'


The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master has invited you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought a house, and I have been called away for a day. I shall have no time.'


The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'My friend is to be married, and I am to arrange the banquet. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me from dinner.'


The slave went to another and said to that one, 'My master invites you.' That one said to the slave, 'I have bought an estate, and I am going to collect the rent. I shall not be able to come. Please excuse me.'

The slave returned and said to his master, 'Those whom you invited to dinner have asked to be excused.' The master said to his slave, 'Go out on the streets and bring back whomever you find to have dinner.'

Buyers and merchants will not enter the places of my Father."  (64)


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The disciples said to Jesus,
"Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is like."
He said to them,

"It's like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky."  (20)


---

  
Jesus said,

"The Father's kingdom is like a person who has good seed. His enemy came during the night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The person did not let the workers pull up the weeds, but said to them, 'No, otherwise you might go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.' For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and will be pulled up and burned."  (57)

---

Jesus said,

"The Father's kingdom is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself. 

So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys." (76)

---

Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a woman. She took a little leaven, hid it in dough, and made it into large loaves of bread. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!" (96)

---

Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking along a distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road. She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty."  (97)

---


Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful. While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it into the wall to find out whether his hand would go in. Then he killed the powerful one."  (98)


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Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, 'I love you more than the ninety-nine.'"  (107)


---

Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his field but did not know it. And when he died he left it to his son. The son did not know about it either. He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went plowing, discovered the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished."  (109)


What is life for?

What is your life for?

As Mary Oliver asked the question in her poem, “The Summer Day:”
“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

Those questions are hard and they are supposed to be hard.   They invite us to a deep level of introspection, an activity that is generally not asked of us.    For the most part we are asked to describe what we prefer in regards to entertainment or we are asked to buy things or to make money or to measure our success against some standard, but rarely are we asked what we are for,  

Why are you here?  Not the human species, you, in particular.  
Why are you here? 
Who are you? 
What are you doing with your life?

Asked directly, those questions are a bit aggressive.  

It is still Sunday morning, and I could use another cup of coffee and you are asking me why I am here? 

Rather than ask those questions directly, Jesus said things like this:

"There was a rich person who had a great deal of money. He said, 'I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant, and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing.' These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.

Anyone here with two ears had better listen!"  (63)

We might scratch our heads and ask what is Jesus saying here?   Are we not to invest?   Are we not to save?  What about George Herbert who wrote in 1633: “A penny spar'd is twice got.”   Ben Franklin was credited with that piece of wisdom as “a penny saved is a penny earned.”    

Wasn’t the rich person Jesus speaks about doing the wise thing?  Saving his pennies?  What else are you supposed to do with your pennies?    Did he do wrongly this man?  You can think of worse things to do than to invest wisely and save.   

Whether you do or not, you end up the same, dead.  That is the prize of life, death.    Whether you think that fate is fair or not or is too depressing to talk about or not, it really doesn’t matter, because that is the truth.  None of us gets out of this life alive.    Regardless of whether you think there is something beyond this life, this life ends in death. 

So back to the original question asked by Mary Oliver:
“What are you going to do with your one wild and precious life?”

One answer is, “I will save my pennies that I may lack nothing.”

All right.  At least it is an answer.   He spent his time building his treasure.   His treasure is in his barn.  It made him feel secure.  And he died. 

The meaning of life.

Jesus doesn’t scold with his parables.  He just turns things so that we see them from a different angle.    A penny saved is a penny earned.  Good advice.  Wise advice.   On the other hand, you’re dead.   Jesus isn’t forcing, not pushing, not scolding.  As we use the phrase, he’s “just  sayin’.”

He is planting in us a thought.  Like a seed, a seed of a mustard weed that might grow into a pesky bush of discomfiting thoughts that there might be more to my life than saving my pennies so I personally will lack nothing.     

Jesus is inviting us to a level of introspection beyond the confines of common wisdom.   

Through his parables he encourages us to ask hard questions about ourselves. What are our lives for?

Speaking of mustard, we find this exchange:

The disciples said to Jesus,
“Tell us what Heaven’s kingdom is like.”

He said to them,
“It’s like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.”  (20)

There is something funny about that parable, too.   Mustard is a weed.  A large plant?  Maybe, depending on what large means.  The birds making shelter in a mustard weed would have to be small birds.  Mustard takes over fields.  You don’t really want it.  You have a nice prepared field, prepared for grain, and instead mustard gets in the field and it grows fast and spreads and suddenly you have a field full of weeds.   And now your grain field is full of mustard weeds that shelter sparrows who taunt you.    That says Jesus, is the kingdom of God.

I have my prepared life and I have my prepared barns and my field is ready for planting grain with which I will fill my barns.   Then death comes.  Or then these weeds come in.    Jesus seems to be saying that these mustard weeds that invade our prepared fields are the kingdom of heaven.    What does that mean?   Maybe he is saying that these weeds are gifts in disguise.  

Sometimes that happens with life doesn’t it?  The things that are annoying weeds in our prepared fields turn out to be gifts.   Rather than fight them or spray them with Roundup, Jesus is inviting us to respond to these unexpected and uninvited circumstances as opportunities to take our lives in a new direction.

Maybe.

It could be that this parable is social commentary.  The ones who own barns and prepared fields are the rich.    In the first century, that would have been a very small percentage of the population who owned the vast majority of the wealth. Jesus’s audience would have made up the vast majority of people who owned a small minority of the wealth if any.  Perhaps these poor are the mustard weeds and this is an “Occupy Prepared Fields” kind of parable.    This would fit well with the earliest traditions about Jesus.    The poor will inherit the earth as mustard infests the fields.

He’s just sayin’.

 Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking along a distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her along the road. She didn't know it; she hadn't noticed a problem. When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty."  (97)

I am starting to see a pattern.  
The full barn cannot protect the man from death. 
The prepared field gets overrun by mustard.  
The full jar of meal pours out without the woman noticing.   

Jesus is really annoying. 

How is a broken jar that loses all its meal without the woman noticing like the Father’s kingdom?    Let’s be clear.  No one wants to have this happen.  This is a bad day.     If that happened to you and then some long-haired, bearded buy with sandals said, “Hey isn’t that like the kingdom of God,” you would just punch him. You’d just lay him out. 

A full jar of meal is the kingdom of God, thank you.   So is a prepared field in which the seed I plant in it grows into grain, not mustard, but grain that I harvest and then store in my barn because I have worked hard and earned it.   That is the kingdom of God.

Except when it isn’t.    Except when jars break and mustard overruns the field and we die before we enjoy what we have earned and saved.  

Then what do we do?
Then what is life for?
Then who are we?
Then where is God?

When things don’t happen like they are supposed to happen,
when life is out of order,
when the common wisdom doesn’t come through on its promise,…

…then we are left with the pieces of the shattered stained glass and we have to start from the very beginning and ask what God is and what life is and we have to decide whether or not we even want to live it. 

The Jesus traditions that have taken many trajectories have had their most meaning for me in those times when the jar is broken and empty.    It isn’t a pious kind of thing that is often heard from those who don’t get it that there is bright side to it, or that God is closing a door but opening a window, or God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle, or whatever other cliché is popular at the moment.  

The Jesus traditions including the parables by Jesus and the parables about Jesus speak in ways that are not direct.   They don’t minimize the loss.   They don’t hurry you through it, nor do they look away.   The Jesus traditions and the stories that have been incarnated so to speak in the lives of people throughout our history, are less “preachy”, the meaningful ones, that is, and more evocative.  

They speak to me in the presence of loss or self-rejection or doubt, not with scolding or judgment but with embrace.  

Henri Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest.  He died in 1996.  He was a deeply spiritual person who saw the kingdom of God from the vantage point of woundedness.    Through the woundedness he discovered embrace by God who called him, “Beloved.”  

A book has just been published by Michael Christensen and Rebecca Laird calledDiscernment.  It contains writings on the theme of discerning direction for our life from Henri’s journals.   It is autobiographical in that he was often in the process of discerning, of asking that question that Mary Oliver asked directly, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life” and that Jesus asked through his parables.  

Henri discovered that through all of the discernment the primary core identity was that he as are all of us, beloved.   He wrote:

My dark side says, “I am no good.  I deserve to pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned.”  Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us God’s beloved.  Being the beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.”  P. 26

This is always true but especially true when the jar is broken and the field is full of mustard weeds and when we come to the realization that the full barns won’t protect us.     Jesus said the kingdom of God is like that.  The kingdom of God is present there.    In that.   Present and hidden.   

What is life for?  
What is your life for?
What will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Perhaps we are here to live life knowing that we are beloved.  

Henri said that he prayed this prayer when he needed to discern what God was calling him to do.   The prayer is by St. Teresa of Avila, called Solo Dios basta, or God alone is enough.    I will close with it:

Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you.
Those who cling to God
Will lack nothing
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
God alone is enough.

Amen.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Seeking and Finding (10/13/13)

Seeking and Finding
John Shuck

First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee

October 13, 2013

Selections from the Gospel of Thomas

Jesus said,
"Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. And after they have reigned they will rest." (2)

Jesus said,
"One who seeks will find, and for one who knocks it will be opened."  (94)

Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it. After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, 'I love you more than the ninety-nine.'" (107)

He saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb and going to Judea. He said to his disciples, "He is surrounding the lamb."

They said to him,
"So that he may kill it and eat it."

He said to them,
"He will not eat it while it is alive, but only after he has killed it and it has become a carcass."

They said, "Otherwise he can't do it."

He said to them,
"So also with you, seek for yourselves a place for rest, or you might become a carcass and be eaten." (60)

Jesus said,
"The Father's kingdom is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself.  So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys." (76)

Jesus said,
"Why have you come out to the countryside? To see a reed shaken by the wind? And to see a person dressed in soft clothes, like your rulers and your powerful ones? They are dressed in soft clothes, and they cannot understand truth." (78)

Jesus said,
"Seek and you will find.  In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them." (92)

His disciples said, "Show us the place where you are, for we must seek it."

 He said to them,
"Anyone here with two ears had better listen! There is light within a person of light, and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine, it is dark." (24)
   

We are spending the season of Autumn with the Gospel of Thomas.  Next weekend we are honored to welcome Milton Moreland of Rhodes College in Memphis and Ruben Dupertuis of Trinity University to Elizabethton for a weekend seminar on the Gospel of Thomas. 

As I am preparing these sermons on Thomas I am learning a great deal about this text and I am discovering that I am intrigued by the wisdom of this text.   I am finding myself challenged by what it says.    Perhaps as Jesus says in saying two, “disturbed” by it.  

To prepare these series of sermons, I took the sayings and divided them under ten themes.   This is not because there are ten particular themes in Thomas.  It is because I needed to preach ten sermons.    The divisions are not clean.   I did this without any guides.   These were themes I saw.   

These themes are:

Who is Jesus?
Revealing the Hidden
Seeking and Finding (the theme for today)
Parables of the kingdom
The human condition
Who are you?
Disciples in the kingdom
The beginning is coming
Ethics of the kingdom
Congratulations!  You get it!

These themes are not cleanly divided.  They spill into each other.  For example, the human condition, who are you, and disciples in the kingdom are all quite close.   As I continue to explore this amazing text I am finding that there are many other choices I could make regarding themes.   But it is a start.

I am seeking to find meaning in this text.  

Seeking to find.

That is today’s theme.  The sayings I chose for today either have the word “seek” in it or are obviously about seeking.    We are familiar with the following saying in both Luke and Matthew, the wording in both gospels is identical:

Ask—it’ll be given to you; seek—you’ll find; knock—it’ll be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; and for the one who knocks it is opened. 

Saying 94 in Thomas is a shortened form of that saying: 

 Jesus said,
"One who seeks will find, and for one who knocks it will be opened."  (94)

Then we have saying two in Thomas.  This is the anchor text for this theme of seeking and finding.  

Jesus said,
"Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. And after they have reigned they will rest." (2)

Matthew and Luke end with the finding, the receiving and the opening.   Thomas takes it further.   Keep seeking until you find.  But when you find, the quest doesn’t end.   Once you find, then it gets interesting.    Jesus makes this statement of great confidence:  ask, seek, knock.  This effort will not go unrewarded.  Thomas takes this statement further and tells us what happens.    

The first thing you discover when you find is that what you have found is disturbing.   It isn’t all rainbows and unicorns and spiritual bliss.   It disrupts.  We have a story about how things are supposed to be and who we are and what makes sense then we get curious.  Or perhaps we aren’t curious.  Maybe we stumble on to something.   We find something that shakes our world.   

I remember learning the history of the American West and the treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government and by European settlers.  The truth was a lot different than what I grew up with watching television westerns.   It was disturbing and it still is.   Being confronted by our legacy of slavery and the ongoing injustice regarding race is disturbing.   It was disturbing to learn about our various environmental crises and what the future might hold for industrial civilization.  It was disturbing to learn the actions of our militarized empire around the world and of the inequality of which American consumers bear at least some responsibility.   In regards to religion it was disturbing to learn about the vastness of our universe and of our evolutionary history and realize that the biblical story was far, far smaller.   It was disturbing to learn about different religions and cultures that relativized my own.  

There is a great deal of effort by the status quo in religion and culture to silence the disturbance.   Much money is spent to deny what we are finding.   This is certainly true in the field of religion.   The creationist movement to deny evolution is a most obvious response to the angst of being disturbed by reality.   The denial of climate change or the rewriting of American history to show that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery or that the Indians really like it on the reservation or that everything the U.S. does is good and moral around the globe or that there is ample oil in North Dakota for all our energy needs is all part of the cover up and the denial of what we are finding to be true. 

The wisdom of Thomas is that disturbance is part of the quest.  When you find more truth about yourself or your world you will be disturbed.   Don’t cover it up. Don’t retreat.  Don’t go backward.   Don’t deny.  Hang in there, says Thomas.  Go through it.   Because disturbance is a path to wonder.    Only when we allow ourselves to be disturbed, broken, and emptied out can we be open to honest possibility.   Only when we are honest that we have wounds, can we begin the process of allowing those wounds to heal.     

It was disturbing to me when I first discovered holes in the Bible, that it wasn’t the inerrant Word of God that contained the cosmic story.   It was disturbing when I found that my understanding of God was too small for reality.   As I live with that disturbance, and the disturbance isn’t really over, I find myself in wonder and I marvel at the amazing universe of which I am a part.   I find that I marvel at the Bible much more when I read it as my ancestors’ own quest for meaning.    I marvel at the Sacredness of Earth and of the Universe.  I marvel that I am (and so are you) the eyes, ears, voice, and consciousness of Earth and the Universe.    This is an amazing time to be alive.   Amidst all of the disturbances, wow, I get to observe it, live it, participate in it, and tell its story.  





A couple of weeks ago I showed the youth a film about astronauts who tell of their experience in spaceand how that changed them.   The film has beautiful images of Earth from orbit and from the moon.  For the astronauts it was a profound spiritual experience. Disorienting.  Disturbing.







One astronaut who was aboard the space shuttle said that whenever they had free time they would just sit at the window and watch in silent wonder Earth turn below. It is the most amazing show ever.   She said when we look up from Earth’s surface and see the blue sky it looks like it goes forever.    The vastness of the blue.  But from orbit you see a thin layer just over the surface of Earth.  That thin layer is the atmosphere.  That thin layer is all that protects Earth and every living thing from the harshness of space in which nothing can live. 

Earth is a spaceship, an oasis of life in the midst of a vast, vast space desert.     They could see from space the impact of humanity on this fragile home.    They could see, for instance, the deforestation.  How both amazing and awe-inspiring on one hand and how fragile on the other is our beautiful home.

I asked the youth to calculate for me what year it will be when they are my age, 52.   They figured that out and it will be around the middle of the century, around 2050.   I asked them to imagine what life will be like in 2050.   It will be a world beyond oil.   However we manage our way through the peak and decline of oil production and consumption we will be by 2050 beyond it as well as beyond many other forms of fossil fuel energy that provide for us life as we know it. 

I wanted to impress upon them that they will participate in some of the most significant changes humans have ever known.     They will find creativity beyond what they know they have.  They will observe and chronicle and participate in the most amazing transitions humans will make.   Talk about an adventure.    We are in it, too.  We have already begun.  This is an amazing time to be alive.  If we are at all bored, we are definitely not paying attention.  

Disturbing?  Yes!  Marvel?  Yes!

Now, next step.  

“When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and reign over all.”

This does not mean we get to be boss over everybody.   Look at me, I am enlightened, I get to reign over you.   No, not that.    It is the exact opposite of that. We recognize how interconnected we are to one another and to all living things. We are not separate but intimately connected.   We are the ecosystem of Earth for example.  We are Earthlings.  We are nature.   Even larger than that, our bodies are made up of atoms that come from exploding stars.   We are in time and in space the universe itself.    We arise from it, the primordial light.  We are the light of the universe. 

Interestingly, on Spaceship Earth in 2013 we are the storytellers of Earth and of all Earthlings.   We are One With All That Is.  In the words of Jean-Yves Leloup, “ We are OneWith That Which Reigns Over All.”    As we recognize our unity with Being itself, we are a part of that which reigns or which is.  

The path is that we seek and find.  We move beyond the false sense of who we are.  We learn some truths.   As we learn them we are disturbed by what we find, by the separateness and the alienation.  We are disturbed by the disconnect and by the pain it causes.   Through it we marvel at what is larger both without and within.  The truth is more amazing than the falsehood.   We discover that we are united not divided at our very core, we realize we are one with what is, then the final realization is repose.   We rest.  

This does not mean we take a nap.   The image is Sabbath.  On the seventh day, God rested, says the biblical story.   God didn’t stop reigning or being.   God rests perfectly.  The rest, the peace that passes understanding as Jesus elsewhere said, the presence of stillness and silence, is who we are.  It is the “light within a person of light” as Jesus says in saying 24.   The rest is not sleeping, it is the exact opposite, it is fully awake.  It is not tossed and turned by our thoughts and desires, it is the repose of perfect light that is repose.   It is rest within oneself.   We have those thoughts and desires, but they are not us.   From the light, from the peace, we live life, and if we choose, respond to thoughts and desires.

All of the stuff, the peak oil, the militarization, empire, the government shutdown, and all the worries of everyday life are there.  But they do not destroy us because we come to them from the repose, from the light that is the light of Being itself.   That is the meaning of the beautiful refrain, “It is well with my soul.”   The world is not at all well, but at the deepest level we are well and it is well because we are one in light.   We can thus be light in the world.  We can actually do some good, rather than engage in anxious worrying and panic, because we are repose, light, being. 

That is the journey Thomas invites us to take.     

I spent all my time on saying two.   The seeking, finding, disturbing, marveling, reigning, and resting is a way to see the other seeking and finding passages.  

I do want to say something about the big sheep.   

In Matthew and in Luke we find the parable Jesus told about the shepherd who had a 100 sheep.  One wanders off and the shepherd leaves the other 99 and finds the one.  After the sheep is found there is more rejoicing over it than over the 99 who didn’t get lost.  

The version in Thomas is slightly different.   There are also 100 sheep.  One is lost.  The one that is lost is the biggest.  When the shepherd finds it, he says to the big sheep, “I love you more than the 99.”   This theme has a parallel with another passage in Thomas that I didn’t include in this collection of the fisherman who catches a net full of small fish.  But among them he finds a large fish, keeps it, and throws the small fish back.    Another parallel is the merchant who has lots of merchandise.  But he finds a pearl and sells all his merchandise for the pearl.  

Large sheep.  Large fish.  Pearl.   What is Thomas saying? 

Seeking and finding is an act of discernment.    The big sheep, big fish, and pearl represent that which is worth keeping.  When you find it, don’t lose it.  Keep it over the rest.   Life is filled with things that clamor for our attention.  They aren’t necessarily bad things.  They may be good things.  But they are small things.  In your seeking, in your quest for that which is meaningful, in your quest for truth, for light, for repose, be able to discern and make decisions about what is important and what you will keep.    Don’t let the stuff of life fill up your life so that you miss what you really are seeking. 

In saying 60, the Samaritan is carrying a sheep.  He is going to kill it and eat it.  But he can’t eat it until he kills it, until it becomes a carcass.  Jesus says find your repose before you are carcass and will be eaten.    

In all of these parables in Thomas that use various images, they do seem to say something similar.  Seek repose.  Seek the light.   Find yourself amidst all of the rest.   Don’t get eaten by life’s cares and hassles and competing images for your soul or your center.   

You may read this in a different way, of course, but for me I find these parables and images of seeking and finding to be invitations to find yourself.  This is not ego-driven.   This is Being driven.             

I find this message of Thomas personally helpful because I get anxious about all kinds of things.   I worry over things small and large and I feel regret or guilt about the past and anxiety about the future.  My hunch is that I am not alone in that.  There are moments, that I recall who I am, that I get a glimpse of a bigger picture.   That picture is one of peace, repose, and light.   I am that.  So are you.   The light that is Christ is the light that is you. 

Let it be well with your soul. 

 Amen.