Sermon, September 7, 2003
13 Pentecost, Proper 18, Year B
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sermon, September 7, 2003
13 Pentecost, Proper 18, Year B
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Give Me Your Pearls
I know what’s wrong with you. I know what’s wrong with me. It’s the same problem. It’s the same thing that every human being struggles with. And it makes us deaf to the music of life surrounding us, blind to reality, unclear in speech and lame in strength. So I want to talk about "the problem" first of all today.
Each of us has three needs that must be met. Three legitimate needs: 1. A sense of security. To feel safe, secure. 2. The experience of affection or esteem. To be loved. 3. Some degree of power or control. Each one of us is born with those three instinctual needs -- security, affection or esteem, power and control. And each one of us has experienced the trauma of one or more of those needs being unmet.
If you will look at your behaviors and your attitudes that get you in trouble, the stuff that messes up your life, at its roots will be a motivation related to these three needs. We all develop exaggerated needs for security, affection and esteem, power and control. Our blindness and deafness and lameness is related to the energy we invest in trying to meet these three needs on our own.
If we’ve been deprived of a sense of security, we’re likely to invest our energy in possessing the symbols of security in our society, especially money and possessions. If we’ve experienced a lack of esteem or affection in our lives, we’re likely to invest our energy in making sure people like, love or respect us, so we work desperately hard to be attractive, loveable or respectable. If we’ve felt powerless or out of control, we’re likely to invest our energy in whatever we think gives us power and control.
I’ll bet nearly every person in this room is driven by at least one of these passions. Which is yours? What’s most important to you? Being safe and secure? Having people like, love or respect you? Being in control, sensing some power over your situation? All three?
Sometimes the best way to identify our particular drivers is to ask what is it that most panics us, what really pushes our buttons. Are you most affected when your security is threatened, or when you feel disrespected or unappreciated, or when you don’t have control over things?
Now, here’s the big question. What do you do to make sure none of that bad stuff happens to you? Whatever you do, THAT’S your problem. Whatever you use to protect your security, esteem and control is your idol or your sin or your addiction. That’s what makes you crazy and deaf and blind and lame, so that you don’t experience life as it really is, you experience it out of your sense of potential depravation instead.
Once upon a time there was a beautiful, cheerful little girl. One day while she was at the check out counter at the grocery store, her eyes fell upon a string of white pearls in a pink satin box. She was overwhelmed. They were so beautiful. "Please can I have them!" she begged her mother. "Please!" The mother looked at the price tag. $1.95. "That’s a lot of money," said the mother. "I’ll earn it, I promise. I’ll work hard and I’ll save everything." "Okay," said her mother, "when you’ve earned the $1.95, you can have the necklace."
That day she went home and raked all of the leaves in her yard. Her mother gave her a nickle, and she was thrilled. She put it in her penny-bank. She raked the neighbor’s yard, and earned another nickle. (This is an old story.) Whenever her mother gave her some money for candy or snacks, instead of spending it on such trifles, she put it into her savings, carefully counting and dreaming of the day she would have enough money for the beautiful string of pearls.
Sure enough, one day she made it. She had worked and sacrificed and saved the entire amount. She went to the store with both of her parents to buy the beautiful pearls in the pink satin box. Her excitement was boundless. As soon as she got out of the store, trembling, she put them on. She looked at them hanging down her neck. They were beautiful! As soon as she found a mirror she looked again. They were even prettier than she had imagined. From that day on she wore those pearls everywhere. And every night she fell asleep with her hand around her beautiful pearls hanging safely around her neck.
Some time later, one evening after her Daddy had finished reading her bedtime story to her, he asked her an odd question. "Do you love me?" he said. "Yes, Daddy, you know I love you." "Then, give me your pearls." She was taken aback. Shocked. "Oh, I don’t want to, Daddy." "That’s okay," he said with a touch of sadness in his voice, and he kissed her good night.
The next night after her father had finished reading to her, he asked again, "Sweetie, do you love me?" "Yes, Daddy." "Give me your pearls." She had spent some time thinking about it and was more prepared this time. "Daddy, you know I love my pearls. Here, you can have my pony that stays by my bed instead." "Okay," he said, with a tear in his eye. "But, do you love me? Give me your pearls." She was crestfallen. "Here Daddy. Take my baby doll and blanket. You’ll like them." "Okay. But, do you love me. Give me your pearls."
This painful litany continued night after night. Until one evening, when her Daddy walked in to read her a story. The little girl was sitting on her bed, her chin trembling, a tear-streak down one side of her face. "What’s the matter?" her Daddy asked. She lifted her little hand. "Here, this is for you." She held out the precious string of pearls. His tears began to flow, and with one hand he took the pearls and with the other hand reached into his pocket and put a string of genuine pearls into her empty hands. "I’ve been waiting all this time for you to give up your grocery-store pearls so I could give you these real, genuine pearls. I love you so much."
Sometimes when he finished a parable, Jesus would look around at his disciples and say, "Have you understood this? Those who have ears, let them hear." From the beginning of your life, you have been God’s beloved child. God has always offered to you as your free inheritance perfect security; perfect affection, esteem and love; perfect power and control. God’s gift is the genuine article, and even evil and death cannot overcome it. That is the promise of the cross and resurrection. You are always perfectly safe, perfectly loved, and God is perfectly in control. Do you love God? Then only trust. That’s all it takes.
God wants to replace our grocery-store worries with pearls of great price. Whatever we’ve been doing to protect our own sense of security, esteem and control is our problem, our idol, our sin, our addiction. If we will only release our grip and be opened, we can surrender our fear and be given genuine faith in its place. We can surrender our self-pity and be given the experience of gratitude in its place. We can surrender our resentments and live with profound acceptance instead. We can surrender our dishonesty and become truly honest. Faith instead of fear, gratitude instead of self-pity, acceptance instead of resentment, honesty instead of dishonesty, genuine pearls instead of grocery-store stuff. That’s what God wants to give us in Jesus. Real life, abundant life.
Everything you’ve ever really wanted is already yours as a gift from God. Perfect security, perfect love, perfect power. "Ephphatha!" "Be opened."