Almost Beyond Description

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; Romans 8:26-39

Romans 8:26-34

²⁶ Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

³¹ What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

Romans 8:35-39

³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

³¹ He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

³³ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

⁴⁴ “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.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

⁴⁷ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; ⁴⁸when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹ “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” ⁵²And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

The Sermon

A few years ago, when you could still say the name of the writer Maya Angelou without being accused of being cravenly subservient to political correctness, Frederick Buechner reflected on his first meeting with her, when they had been invited to deliver lectures at the same event, one right after the other.

He said, “We were both there to tell our stories one way or the other. I told some of my story in the first lecture, and the same man who introduced me got up to introduce Maya Angelou. He talked about who she was, and how she grew up in the little town of Stamps, Arkansas, in the 1930’s, the height of racism, segregation, dire poverty, in continual fear of their lives in many ways. After he introduced her that way he said, ‘She will now tell you her story and you will find it is a very different story from the one you have just heard from Frederick Buechner.’

“As he said, ‘She is going to tell a very different story from the one you have just heard from Frederick Buechner,’ I could see Maya Angelou sitting in the front row shaking her head back and forth.

Buechner says, “When she got up in front of the microphone, the first thing she said was, ‘No, he is wrong. My story is not a very different story from Frederick Buechner’s. It is the same story.”

Buechner said he found that to be “terribly moving, because,” he said, “in every obvious way, you could hardly imagine two stories that were more different. She a woman; I a man. She black, I white. She growing up in direst poverty; I, by comparison, growing up in the lap of luxury.”

“But,” he said, “she was right. We all do have the same story at a certain level, that is, when it comes to the business of how are we going to be human beings in this world. How are we going to believe in a just and loving God in a world which gives us so many reasons every day for not believing in a [single] thing? How are we going to survive what happens to us, especially very often the sad things that happen to us as children? At that level indeed, we all do have the same story. That was the opening of this moment of grace to me, those words she spoke.” [1]

First of all, I wouldn’t want to be the emcee who just got called out by Maya Angelou, which produced a revelatory moment for Frederick Buechner. For one thing, you’d just have to sit there, while two luminaries go, “Wow, that sure was wrong!” And then, because those two write so much, you always know that somebody, somewhere, is going to end up using your mistake as a sermon illustration.

But that person should not feel so bad. Sometimes—but especially when we’re talking about God and God’s claim on our lives—it’s tremendously hard to get the words right.

And sometimes, when talking about God, and trying to define or understand the kingdom of God, we find that our language can be so precarious as to be almost useless. And we see how limited words really are.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” says Paul; “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

We rejoice in the majesty of the King James Version of the Bible, to the point that millions of people still use that one, even as a study Bible, despite four hundred years of corrections to the original Hebrew and Greek translations and changes in the language. But we find the King James Version to be magisterial because of the words.

We venerate Shakespeare, not for originality or for marvelous stage directions, but because of the words.

Bob Dylan didn’t achieve near-deification in the 1960s because of his lovely singing voice. It’s the words.

So there is no question that words matter—it’s a hallmark of both Presbyterianism and civil law that getting the words exactly right matters. Nor is there any question that in the hands of a Shakespeare or a Maya Angelou or a Thomas Jefferson or a King James Version, words can be exhilarating, exalting, threatening, devastating, heartening, heart-breaking.

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry
(Hank Williams, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”)

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

But even at their very greatest, at the pinnacle of achievement in language, words will always be inherently limited.

For some things, there are no words.

I know you love your spouse, your parent, your friend, your child. But you can’t possibly explain it to me with words. I don’t know how you love those people because you are able to describe it to me—much less to define what love is, what marriage is, what friendship is or what parenthood is.

I know it because I’ve lived those relationships too, and if there’s one thing that makes me know exactly what you’re talking about, it’s that I know that you know that I know that for these things, at the absolute core of their reality, there are no words.

For some things, the best we can do is try to come close.

It’s been said, and I agree, that the task of preaching is not for me to study up for a week and then deliver to you the point of the Bible text under consideration—and then, “all right, you’ve got that one down; next week we move on to another passage and I’ll tell you what the point of it is.”

In fact the only “point” any of us can aim for when we talk about God is to try to point beyond ourselves to the author and giver of life, and try to use words the best we can, remembering the words of Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel constantly; use words if necessary.”

And so when Jesus addresses the disciples about the kingdom of heaven, they don’t get a detailed description; there are no architectural plans, or data, or a hologram, or anything else that would say, “Here is exactly what it is.”

For some things, there are no words. But we can try to use words to point our mortal hearts and minds in the right direction.

If you don’t believe that, try using Jesus’ words in Matthew 13:33 the next time someone asks you to clarify what you believe.

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast…that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

It’s like yeast.

“Oh.”

That clear things up pretty well for ya?

“Well, no wonder you go to church. It’s like yeast.”

Jesus says, in rapid fire succession:

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

“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.”

Well, wait a minute; you said it’s like the treasure, but somebody buried it in a field, but it wasn’t their field, so they sold everything and bought the field. OK, so, which one’s you, Jesus, and which one’s me? Or am I not in this one?

“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.”

The kingdom is like the merchant? Or is God the merchant? Wait, wait; the kingdom finds the pearl of great value, or are we supposed to sell all that we have to buy the pearl?

“The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.”

And then he says, “Have you understood all this?” And they answered, “Yes!”

And I so badly want him to say, “No you don’t!” Are you kidding?

“Sure we understand: the kingdom of heaven is like mustard, yeast, and a merchant.”

For some things—for the most important things—words can only come close: they can only point our feeble minds in the right direction. But in everything Jesus said and did, the kingdom of which he spoke was made real for the people around him, and for you, and for me.

Sometimes, for the deepest things, the most powerful things, the most important things, you and I will not have the words. But I know that the Spirit will intercede for me—the Spirit prays for me—with sighs too deep for words.

And she tells me the truth I need to know.

She says, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Do you know how much that means, when they say, “that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom”?

She says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Do you know what that means when I’m so lonesome I could cry?

I know you know what it means, but you can’t adequately explain it to me. And I can’t explain it to you. Only with sighs too deep for words can we begin to communicate the truth of Jesus Christ, the breathtaking beauty of God.

How does the creature say peace, joy, awe, care, home?

For some things, there are no words. All we can do is try to do the best we can, and give thanks to God that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor rulers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Keith Grogg

Carolina Beach Presbyterian Church

Carolina Beach , NC

July 27, 2008

[1] http://www.30goodminutes.org/csec/sermon/buechner_3601.htm