In the book of Genesis we read of a man named Jacob, who looked upon the daughter of Laban, his uncle, and loved her.  In return for Rachel’s hand in marriage, Jacob agreed to work for Laban seven years.  A great price by any standard.  Particularly when one remembers that in the ancient near-East, it was usually the bride’s father, not the groom, who paid out the money.  Daughters were considered expensive liabilities to have around the household too long, so the sooner they could be married off, the better.  And the bride-price was considered a worthwhile investment towards achieving that end.  So we are left with the overwhelming impression that Jacob loved Rachel more than anything else in the world.  His love, it seems, made him a little mad.  Mad enough to put aside his rights as an eligible bachelor and his reputation as a man of considerable rank in the community.  Mad enough to work like a slave for that which he treasured so very much.

When Matthew recounts Jesus’ parables of the treasure and the pearl, I am sure he has the story of Jacob and Rachel in mind.  For Jesus speaks of people who, like Jacob, come across a treasure and forsake everything they have to obtain it.  One is a peasant, working as a farm-hand in somebody else’s field.  He is very poor, one who works for another because he has very little property of his own.  But one day, as he works the plough, clunk!  He finds a treasure.  We are not told what the treasure is.  But we are told that the treasure is so valuable that the man daren’t move it.  Instead, he hides the treasure in a deeper hole and goes off to sell everything he has in order to buy that field.  Clearly the treasure is worth far more than everything he owns!  The second parable is similar.  It tells of a merchant in search of fine pearls.  One day he comes across a pearl which absolutely captures his imagination.  Such is it beauty, such is its value, that the merchant is prepared to sell everything else he owns, a very considerable estate, in order to buy that one pearl.  Here is that madness again!  The madness which drives a person to renounce all that they are and all the many things they possess in order to obtain the one thing that has claimed their heart.  The psychiatrist, I am sure, would call the madness an ‘obsessive-compulsive’ disorder and warn us that the condition is very dangerous!

But these are stories about God.  Like the treasure and the pearl, and like Rachel in the Genesis story, God is one who takes our hearts captive in a moment of irreducible wonder.  Suddenly we become aware that God is all in all, that God is the heart which beats behind every heart, that God is the still-point at the centre of a turning universe.  And we realise, perhaps for the first time, that nothing but God actually matters.  So much so, that we are compelled to consider all else we possess, or all else that we long for, as mere rubbish in comparison to the incomparable vision before us in that moment of recognition.  In his great work which is, in many ways, a simple commentary upon these parables, Soren Kierkegaard notes that it is the desire for one thing, and one thing only, which is able to purify our lives and our hearts.  The advertisers are out to sell us many things, to make us desire and long for everything under heaven.  But the beatific vision of the pearl or the treasure compels us to turn aside from all that and desire the one thing which is of more value than all the wonders of the worlds put together.  God.

Make no mistake.  The love of God is a kind of madness.  It can make you obsessive, it can make you sick.  At least that is how others may come to view what you may become and what you may choose to do as a disciple of Christ.  It is no secret that I have a deep admiration for the monastic orders of the church in this regard. For these are people who have taken the word of the gospel quite literally.  They leave everything behind – family, possessions, status, career – in order to devote themselves to the life of prayer and the praise of God.  And there, in the secret life of prayer, these men and woman also seek to lose even their very selves, that they may know the surpassing beauty of knowing God.  But I believe in a kind of monasticism for ‘ordinary’, workaday, people.  A genuine following of Christ in the midst of the world, if you like.

The secular monk is a disciple.  One who has learned from Jesus that their land, their possessions, their skills, their talents, everything they have and everything they are, is for God.  Imagine what freedom could be ours if we really believed that!  That terrible anxiety we all experience with regard to our possessions and property would no longer be there.  We would be free to praise God for what we have, and share it willingly and joyfully with whoever is in need.  And we would no longer hoard our gifts and talents as though they were ours alone.  We would no longer hide our lights under bushels.  We would offer them to everyone out of love, and for the praise of God.   But most of all, we would no longer be afraid to talk about God with one another.  The anxieties we all have about being branded ‘religious fanatics’ or religious obsessives would evaporate because, in the joy of a genuine relationship with God, we would be happy to take the yoke of Christ, to become his ‘fool’ for the sake of love and of the gospel.

Are you catching the vision?  Can you climb the mountain and see the promised land?  How blessed is the one who sees visions and dreams dreams!  How blessed are they that glimpse the pearl of great price and treasure the vision in their hearts!  For that vision is like a beacon of hope when troubles and persecutions come, as they inevitably do.  When Paul wrote about the things which try to separate the disciple from the love of Christ, he was speaking from personal experience.  Paul was one of the many thousands of mystics and prophets and saints who knew the gritty, dirty, reality of discipleship - hardship, distress, persecution and famine for the sake of the gospel.  But for Paul, as for others, the vision which sustained was the sign of the cross.  The sign that God had withheld nothing of himself from us, but had reached out in love with the gift of his very own son.  For people who know this deeply, who have meditated upon the sign in the dark light of prayer, the ‘trials’ of faith become a participation in God’s own suffering love.  And so they are counted as a privilege.  Tangible signs that Christ is present and active as love.  In this perspective all things, all things - even those things which seem to tear us apart - can be seen to work for good.  And, for that reason, even the greatest darknesses can be embraced with a deep thankfulness.

So . . .  I have a question for you all this day.  What vision dominates your horizon?  Is it the vision of financial security?  Or perhaps the vision of an easy retirement, nestled in the bosom of your family?  Or perhaps the dream of professional success, and the admiration and respect of your peers?  Or . . .  is it the vision of God – that pearl, that treasure of great price?  How willing are you to renounce all that makes for commonsense and security and good management in order to obtain it?  How mad are you willing to become for the sake of Christ and of his gospel?  Only you know the answer to these questions.  You and God.  Remember that God is always at the heart of you, calling and whispering, calling . . .  and whispering.  How will you respond when you here that gentle voice today?

In the name of God – Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver.  Amen.