Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 “Go Again.”
Flashback to New Years Eve 2019. I asked the question so often asked around this time. “What’s your New Year’s Resolution?” Emma shared with the group that she wanted to run a marathon. My eyes widened. One of my brothers spoke up, “A marathon?” Really? My mom looked at me. “So, Andy, are you going to do a marathon too?” I remember Emma, who was at that time my fiancé, looking at me with hopeful eyes. “Will you?” she asked. I took a deep breath, sighed, and quipped, “Well, I guess I need to learn to like running.” An innocuous question, a dream, and an invitation; humble beginnings. I didn’t know it at the time, but our quest to run a marathon together began on that very day.
The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven are twins. Both recount the story of something small and hidden grow to become great. The growth of a mustard seed and the expansion of leaven, two humble beginnings that give way to a great and glorious conclusion. These opening parables are invitations to recognize that, between the minute beginning and the grand culmination, there is, despite appearances, continuity. The experience between Jesus and his followers in the present is intimately tied to their future in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, one is mysteriously an effect of the other, so that the end is in the beginning.
A few days after our party, Emma and I departed. She would be heading to South Africa for a six-month long mission trip, and I would be heading to Princeton. As I sat on my worn couch at my apartment in New Jersey, I remembered my resolution and my promise. I would learn to like running and I would run a marathon with Emma. I hated it. It was miserable—January is the worst time to begin to like running. Even though I set out slowly, I found those first months a slog. I ran three times a week and walked when I needed to. I ran in the cold with my balaclava, big gloves, and sweatpants. I ran in the rain as the wind pierced through my layers. I ran when I didn’t want to. But I didn’t quit. I went again and again. And, as time went on, unexpectedly, I began to discover God. I ran to explore new routes. I ran to express the anxiety I had when I wasn’t sure Emma was going to make it out of South Africa at the start of the pandemic. I ran to prove to myself that I could keep going even when the world around me seemed to be going to pieces. I ran through the fear that Emma and I wouldn’t be married on the date we had planned. I ran to yell my “Why God’s?” I ran and, unexpectedly, found God.
With the parables of the treasure and the pearl, the theme shifts. They have to do with finding the kingdom and giving all one has to obtain it. Both parables express the incomparable worth of the kingdom and the necessity to do all we can to gain it. They invite us to gladly risk everything to take accept of the unexpected opportunity presented by the presence of God’s presence with us. While we tend to highlight the treasure and the pearl, we find that it is the journey that is as important as the destination. One that Thomas Merton describes as “uncharted and freely chosen.” A journey to the divine that is “not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand… A God whom they alone could find, not one who was given in a set, stereotyped form by someone else.” A God who is truly a treasure of incomparable worth.
Two years later, Emma and I were living in Corvallis, Montana. We held onto our dream despite our many transitions: a cross country move, a new job, and a new home. We kept at it, until Emma finally took the leap. She saw an ad for a Disney Marathon and ran downstairs to show me. “It’s time. This is the one. This is the dream.” I took another deep breath. Even after all my training I felt that something this large was out of reach. “Are you sure? Can we even do this?” She replied honestly, “I don’t know, but we have to try.” And so, we returned to the well again and again; we ran. We went again and again. No matter the elements, conditions, or how we felt, we ran. It became our sacred routine. In ninety-degree weather and in the teens, blown by the wind and slipping on snow, in fall and in spring, on a trail and a treadmill, we ran together. We experienced the daily blessing of strength, courage, determination, and hope. Not only did we become runners, but we became a people daily touched by God’s grace.
In January of this year, we ran our marathon. We woke up at 3am, got dressed, and made our way to the start line. This was it. The race began and we set off amidst the seas of people. We waded through some of the sixteen thousand folks and got into the rhythm. We ran fast. We held our pace. Our years of training were paying off. We comfortably passed the half marathon point and continued on. Then the aches came. Hips hurt. Stomachs ran on empty. Ankles complained. We had to stop and walk more often, but we kept going. Step by step we carried on. By mile 20, I could visualize the finish. I expected our point of jubilation would come at the finish line, but it came sooner. As the people cheered us in on the last three miles, I found myself overwhelmed with emotion. I imagined each day we trained and felt the profound sense that God has been intimately close all those days. I heard all the voices who had said this was impossible and felt God show me that it was possible. My physical pain had not been taken away, but in that divine moment I found that so much of the pain in my heart had been. My eyes filled with tears as I realized that the treasure was not finishing this race, but that we had run it with God.
If we want to have the passion and single-heartedness of a faith alive, God must become as real to us as the problems and joys we face each day. If we want to be a connection and a church alive with the Spirit of God, then we must really want to pray, meet God, and uncover the strength of the ordinary. We must want to be with God as freely and easily as we talk about God. As grand and impactful as that moment with God on mile 23 of my marathon was, I find the greatest joy in the gift of faith that we are invited to go again and again to experience the profound glory, majesty, and love that is God.