THE QUEST
August 23, 1987, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service

John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Matthew 13:44-52

“Again the kingdom of heaven:is Like a merchant: in search of fine pearls,
who on finding one pearl -of preat value, went and sold all that he had and
bought it." —Matthew 13:45,46(RSV}

Those great New Yorker cartoons go to the heart of of the human
predicament with unerring accuracy. In one of them two aging tycoons are
riding in.the back .seat of a limousine. They exude "success." They have
accomplished in life what they set out to accomplish. A cemetery is
visible through the window. One man says to the other: "Kind of takes
some of: the fun out. of being rich doesn't it?”

Human: beings are made,:-it seems, with the capacity to expect more ~
than life-offers, even in-victory and success and accomplishment. We are
most human in our impatience with the limits of“our humanity, We are never
better than when we are stretching:high and probing deep, looking; seeking.
Thus, “The Quest." Poets and artists and musicians and saints share the
pursuit... for beauty, truth, meaning, for salvation. ; .

Sometimes the quest is-elegant and sometimes it is not so elegant::.

“It doesn't. get any. better than this!" That's the tag line‘of-<a
series of: beer commercials.which actually are marketing something far-more
profound... the dream, the holy grail of consumer society, the pearl of
great. price. A group of people are fishing, or riding swamp bugvies, or
white-water-rafting. It is high adventure: muscles are flexed, the water
is frothy; the sky a. brilliant blue accented by: the careful prism splashes
on the lense of the camera. And then evening comes. The steaks, or the
fish, are thrown on the open fire, a gorgeous’ sunset decorates the sky,. the
holy elements are distributed and opened with the familiar hiss of the flip
top and the words of the institution come resonant and clear... “It doesn't
get any better than this."

Is that. it? -Is that what the Quest. is about? -Is the Pearl of- Great
Price those wonderfully luminous moments of pure’ physical/sensual ecstasy
when we -are one with the world, and our friends, and we know that it just
doesn't: get any better? ; : ;

For the less vigorous perhaps it is the quasi immortality promised by
the insurance company whose commercials used to alternately drown you, lay
you out in the emergency room, call you home by way of the stairway to the
sky... then show what an. irresponsible oaf you've been because now your
kids can't go to college - and then, miraculously give your life back, this
time full of responsible prudence and resolve —- to buy more life insurance.
Is the security of your loved ones the pearl of great price for which you
would do anything?

Or is it simply ~- money?

The cover story in the July G edition of Fortune is "The Money
Society." “Money, money, money is the incantation of today. Americans are
bewitched by an epidemic of money enchantment... Under the blazing sun of
money, all other values shine palely." The modern hero, says the article,
is “the honcho with the condo and the limo and the Miro and lots and lots
of dough." The article contained what I thought was an altogether sad
revelation... “An overwhelming 93% of recently surveyed teen-age giris
deemed shopping their favorite past-time, way ahead of sixth place dating."
[Fortune, July 6, 1987, "The Money Society," Myron Magnet].

What is the objective for which you would do anything? It's a
fascinating question and it is amusing to play with it a bit. It is also a
very important question. Jesus posed it one time by way of a series of
playful, colorful stories, the point of which is altogether serious.

I love the scene - the beach in the early evening, the sun is
setting, the gentle recking of the fishing beats makes a quiet slapping
sound in the water. Jesus is sitting in a boat, just a few yards out in
the lake, A crowd is standing on shore listening: some are down on their
haunches, a man picks up a hand full of sand and lets it trickle through
his fingers; a few are lying back, looking up at the exquisite color of
blue in the sky, just a few shades from purple, accented by an occasional
mountain of white clouds. For some people, just being there like that, in
that picture, is a pretty good object for the quest.

What Jesus says in that setting is intriguing, almost curious. The
topic is not the ethical imperatives for which he has become famous... "You
have heard that it was said... but I say to you." The topic is the
Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is like this - a sower, sowing seeds; yeast, a
mustard seed. They are so intrigued they follow him after he is done
teaching... "Say some more about that, Jesus..." and what he says by way of
explanation comes in two brief fascinating comparisons —

"The kingdom is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and
covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the
field.” That's a very peculiar story. :

In my formative years, returning something which did not belong to me
was held up as an important ethical ideal. It was part of a strong respect
for the property of others..., bordering on reverence which children of the
Great Depression (and adults) —- all seem to have. If you found money,
someone's wallet, for instance, you were expected to knock yourself out to
locate the person who lost it. You certainly didn't hide it and come back

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later to retrieve it. So, by my family's standards, this man is a
scoundrel. Ile stubs his toe on a box of money, quickly covers it up. © And
then, does he hustle downtown to ask who buried the gold out on the back
forty? No... this fellow rushes home, gets the bank books out of the
drawer, savings bonds - a few C.D.'s, withdraws everything he has saved,
hurries on over to the realtor and sells his house, then drops his car off
at the used auto lot and now, Fully liquidated, makes an offer the owner
can't refuse on the field in which the treasure is buried.

Someone (I think it was Frederick Buchener) in retelling the story,
made it even more amusing by wondering if the man had a wife, and what she
was saying as he is selling her home out from under her on one of his “get-
rich schemes."

What this man has found is so valuable that its quest calls for the
suspension of common morality.

My hunch is that Jesus intentionally told a story that was slightly
out of sync... with a bit of shock value. There is something in life
which is infinitely valuable, he was saying. “It is here, in your midst.
Nothing in life compares to it. It is God's Kingdom." And in the thrall
of this charming scoundrel who secretively buys the field - Jesus has them
listening carefully and says...

"It is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one
pearl of great value, went and sold ali that he had and bought it.”

We're a little more comfortable with this fellow here in Chicago on
North Michigan Avenue. He's a broker. If the first man is a dirt farmer
in a John Steinbeck novel who sells all his possessions to buy a field
under which he has a hunch there lies an oil well, this one is a pin-
striped, wing-tip shoes, button-down collar, regimented tie, broker for E.
F. Hutton. When E. F. Hutton speaks everybody listens. And when pearl
merchants sel] all they have for one pearl, everybody sits up and takes
notice.

The sense of this story is that the merchant is dealing in something
more than commercial value, that his search for "fine pearls" has something
of "The Quest" in it. I see him as a connoisseur, a lover of beauty with a
finely cultivated aesthetic taste. Trading in pearls is the way he
finances his real passion... his true vocation... the guest for something
so good, so beautiful, so valuable, he will sell anything to own it.

Unlike his agrarian counterpart who stumbles on his treasure this man has
invested his life in the pursuit of something represented by the one,
perfect pearl. When he sees it he knows immediately - and he must and will
have it.

Now at this point in the sermon it is customary for the preacher to
ask the congregation what - for you - is the pearl of great price. For
what would you, some day in the future sell all? The exercise of answering
that can be amusing and safely remote.

I should like this morning to invert that process. I'm going to
make an assumption about you - because I know its truth in my own life. My

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assumption is that we are already doing it... that you and I are already
mortgaging and encumbering our lives, our futures, We could, -of course,
sit around after dinner. over coffee and discuss. the matter of -infinite
value and what we'd do to get it. But my assumption is that we are already
selling in pursuit of- something; that this quest. is very much underway.

Jesus! brilliant little story invites us to consider the -pessibility
that ‘somewhere along the line we decided what the pearl of great. price was
and have been in its pursuit ever since.

“We do work hard at ‘financial security. The theologians suggest that,
like the two tycoons passing the cemetery, the compulsive- ~accumulation-
mentality, has in it something of eternal aspiration —- that we assume
having lots of money is at- least a leading candidate for the pearl of great
value.

Winning is certainly an ultimate objective for which significant
sacrifice is made. The National Collegiate Athletic Association has a
major problem on its hands. The universities whose athletic programs it is
responsible for monitoring and regulating have allowed an entire system. to
grow up within higher-education, an academic counter culture whose simple
goal is to win. Winning is the supreme value... the pearl of great. price.

Closer to home for many of us and more modest, less dramatic and

more complex, by far... we work hard at excellence, at being good at what
we do professionally. We are willing to make sacrifices for this. The
pearl of great price is not simply to succeed but to do what we do with oan

commitment, dedication, discipline and excellence... to be good business
people, physicians, lawyers, parents, clerks and clergy. Thank

God for scientists and educators and politicians and artists who pursue
their objectives with single-minded intensity. That's how we get great
music. and peace in the world and a cure for cancer. And yet --for everyone
of us there is a point at which our professional and vocational goals begin
to. look like the holy grail and our commitment to them like a religious
quest. The setting is usually fairly modest. ~ It is our life - our
vocation - our family - our relationship. We do, most of us, make
sacrifices here and they are tough and complex. We. do, for. instance,

forgo leisure time in this quest. We do sacrifice time with precious
people in order tc stay/on the job one more. hour, one more call, one more
brief, one more sale. And although it is neither evil, nor entirely
conscious, it in fact represents the quest we are already on, and-in it is
a value for which we are already selling some of what we have and what we
are --and it just may be, I think Jesus wants us to see -— that what’ we are
selling may be more valuable than ‘the object of the quest. for which we are
selling it.

In this story, the act.of seizing the Kingdom seems to be :the point.
But there is also the pearl. and it may be that Jesus wanted his: hearers
: to think about. that ‘pearl.. * that symbol of perfect beauty, that object of
infinite value, which all of human history regards. with romance ‘and i
“nystery. Reflect on the fact that the object of beauty and value is always
without exception, the product of an irritant. - The object to which Jesus

compared.the Kingdom. of God occurs in the first place because a tiny grain
of sand lodges in an oyster shell and causes an irritation. The oyster

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creates this beautiful and infinitely valuable pearl as it copes with an
irritation.

The simple fact is that most of the significant growing any of. us has
done was in response to irritation. You and I have prown when someone or
something irritated us. Consider the possibility that the best education
is the process of planting small irritants, questions, doubts, in safe,
secure places and then watching the magnificent process of coping with and
growing around the irritant. And consider the distinct possibility that
What this is all about is your own spiritual pilgrimage.

And now, if you will, let all of that into your life. Let it remind
you of the irritants in the past that foreed you toe grow; the people who
loved you enough to want you to grow: loved you enough, Chat is ta say, to
irritate you.

And let it remind you of the irritants that are causing you to. grow
now - in your vocation, in your intellectual life, in your relationships -
and in your spiritual pilgrimage and allow for the possibility that
something of that is what God's Kingdom is Like.

When the merchant found the pearl - he sold all that he had and
bought it. Jesus said there is an ultimate good, an infinitely precious
gem to possess which anyone would be happy to sell all. He called it the
Kingdom.

It is not a place. It is what we, all of us, are looking for — pearl
merchant, those folks sitting by the lakeside listening to him talk, and
you and me. Jesus proposed that the object of the human quest is not
wealth, physical pleasure, winning or professional excellence. It is
something called the Kingdom of God.

And that... God's Kingdom... is not a place. It's a condition. It
is God actually reigning. The Kingdom of God is when and where life is
lived within God's love and justice and joy and hope. The Kingdom of God
is when and where life overcomes death, compassion overcomes cruelty,
beauty is valued more than ugliness, when justice replaces injustice.

it is not always a big deal by the world's-standards. According to
Jesus, it is more often than not, hidden, inconspicuous. It breaks into
the ordinary life of the worid like a thief in the night. It grows
Silently within the ordinary life of the world like yeast working in bread.

Sometimes the Kingdom of God is so thoroughly hidden in the life of
the world that we stumble over it quite by accident...

You're going along your merry way, doing what you do in life, getting
up in the morning, drinking coffee, going to work, paying the bills,
watching TV, and suddenly you stumble over... love, beauty, justice,
intimacy, hope - God's Kingdom!

You have about concluded that people are so utterly selfish that the
human prospect is utterly grim... and you read about a fireman who waded
into a roaring inferno on the twentieth floor to bring a baby out.

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Or you've thought all day about ugliness - about abused children and
-drugs. and poverty and entrenched racism and now AIDS, and without warning
Samuel. Barber's “Adagio ‘for strings” breaks in- with such passionate beauty
your. eyes fill.

Or you've. about coneluded that no one. in this world- cares enough to
understand you, or understands you: enough really to care: -— that.-it's--you
against. the world and you'd better: learn to be ‘Cough: - and without warning
someone does, someone actually reaches: into your life-and holds. your. hand,
or holds you.

Or in the midst of -a-political malaise in which by--passing: our:
magnificent constitutional system of: government.—-: for. which-so ‘many. have
lived-and died is celebrated, and in which lying is called heroic-and
systematically deceiving not only the people but the people's elected

“representatives — is called patriotism...:in the middle of this malaise —
-someone has the. courage to say. what nust be said, to.call.us: back: to. sanity
by. telling -the «truth.

When the Kingdom of God happens, said Jesus: when love, justice,
intimacy,- hope, redemption... .break into the ordinary life of: the: world,
drop what you are. doing and. jump into it, or at. least stand there. witha
lump: in your. throat and tears in your -eyes and -cheer.:-.."Sell: all- you: have
and buy the fieldi"

And sometimes. the Kingdom comes. because you've been Jooking-for it. en
It has been. your: quest all along. -And although you have not always. been
certain. about what the object of your quest. looks like... in fact, you may
never. have thought of. it as:a-spiritual quest and would 1 never. have used
religious language to describe it ~- you know when you see it, or hear it,
or feel it, or receive it, because you have been looking for it so long.

; The Quest... To. be.a.Christian... is to allow Jesus the Christ. to
define its object. That's one of the ways to tell a Christian. .:: Jesus does
the defining... He- called it.the Kingdom.

One time a man lived out his life as an expression of God's love. He
taught its meaning and ideals, he lived them out, he expressed: them in the
way he related to people...

In the way he lived and died he embodied a new and blessed Kingdom in
the middle of life... A bit of it was there, in their midst. One time
when he sat in a boat, with the sun setting and-the waves gently slapping
the hull... :

Whatever else it is, il is when you live in that Kingdom --and one
thing further... God's Kingdom is that place where you know. yourself. loved
by.God... Where - because.-you have known. Jesus,... have listened: to him,
have heard his gracious word because you have actually lowered your: guard
and allowed yourself to be loved by him. In that you have known that you
are loved by God... are a child of God... That is a very good. place to be.
{t is the object of your. quest.

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If it. were a buried treasure - you should buy the field.
If it were a pear] — you should do what you have to - to own it.

It is neither, or course. It is where there is life and beauty and
justice and hope. It is where God is God, and where - in the very midst of
life, you know yourself to be loved. It is what you have been looking for
ali your life.

When you find it... or stumble on it... or when it finds you... hold
on to it for dear life.

Amen.

Praise be to you great God for the quest to which you
call us.

Praise to you for that sense of incompleteness and
dissatisfaction you have created in us.

Praise to you for the Kingdom for which we have
been looking and which surprises us with
love and beauty and justice and hope in
the midst of the world.

Praise to you for Jesus, the story teller, who
hid your truth in tales of buried treasure
and pearls of great price, and who is
himself, our Lord and our Christ,

Praise to you great God, through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.

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