To Be Rather than To Seem
Year Delivered or Published: 2006
Author: Particia M. Lyons
Author's Faith: Christianity
Date Submitted to Inspiration and Issues: December 22, 2006
Topic: Spirituality
Citation: Gospel of Matthew:13-14
To Be, Rather than To Seem
A Sermon for Students by Patricia M. Lyons
Delivered at
St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes Upper School, Alexandria, VA
Text: The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13:44
“Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again and then in his joy went and sold all that he had to buy that field.’
I really do not like airplanes. Actually, it’s not the airplane itself. My problem is only with those airplanes that leave the ground with me in them. I have flown often and will continue to do so when necessary, but I really do not enjoy the experience. This past summer I had a conference to attend in Detroit and was so unexcited about flying that I decided to drive instead. So I went out and bought myself a Rand McNally Atlas with 50 states worth of road maps. You can see I’ve got it right here, taking up half the pulpit.
While in a traffic jam outside of Toledo, I began reading through this super-size-me scripture for the American motorist. One of the first things I noticed was that the page for each state includes the state motto up in the corner. Somewhere in my mind I knew that every state had a motto, but this stand-still traffic was my first focused investigation into the sound-bite articulation of the mores of states in the Union. I have to be honest and tell you that once you start reading through these mottos, it’s hard not to get bored. I started with Alabama and made it about half way through the alphabet before I quit. The problem is that many use the exact same words and ideas, just in different order. Words like ‘Liberty,’ ‘Peace,’ and ‘Freedom’ are listed again and again, in all different combinations. There are some unique mottos, however, that you may already know. Many of you know that Missouri is “The Show Me State,” probably because it is printed on the state license plate. But if you’ve ever wondered why not everyone wants their state motto on display, just ask the smart people of the state of Maryland who have wisely left off their license plate, “Manly Deeds, Womanly Words.”
I got as far as the ‘N’ states when I decided I had had enough. But then came North Carolina and instantly I decided that this road atlas was worth every penny. I had stumbled across the motto to beat all mottos: “To Be, Rather than To Seem.”
It was my favorite of fifty by far because it’s more than a motto, it’s a creed. It’s a total philosophy. But for Americans, I suspect that our relationship to this philosophy would best be described by our math students in this room as asymptotic. I think it’s really hard, even scary in this culture to not pretend to be more than you are. All of us know what it is like to worry that something that is true about us will disgust someone, let someone down, annoy someone or require them to forgive us, help us, or give us another chance. Who in this chapel has not done something in the last month or even in the last week to make someone think something about you that is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Hamlet said that the question was whether “to be or not to be.” But in the frenetic first world economy of America, there is another choice that is tragic in its own way: to seem.
When I look around, it looks like we are all working hard at seeming to be things that may not be true to who we really are. The truth is that no two of us are alike, but look around. We wear a lot of the same brands and we drive or aspire to drive similar kinds of cars. We vacation or talk about dream vacations to the same hot spots. We apply to similar colleges. We use the same vulgarities and slurs and tease the same kinds of people every day. What I love about visiting elementary and middle schools is that I see students who dress very differently than one another and act and speak like individuals. But something happens in or around 9th grade, doesn’t it? You know what I mean. Some of you become more muted in the areas that made you unique as children. I see so many of you trying to be more like other people in your grade or the grades above you. Many of you who were writing your own script before high school arrive here and become timid and uncertain, as if you are waiting to see what you should say, rather than what you feel driven from the inside to say to the world. Personally, I can say that the forces that make the ninth grader feel less certain of their worth and less confident to share their truths with others only press harder against you as you get older. We all feel the pressure to fit in and seem successful, no matter how old we are. In fact, if our nation as a whole needed a motto, what I see around me says America’s motto should be “To Seem, Rather than To Be.”
There is such shame in our culture for any feature of our lives or bodies that appears to lack perfection. Have you noticed how the purveyors of plastic surgery have sharpened the knives of their advertisements by calling every kind of elective construction ‘corrective?’ Don’t miss the meaning of that word. It positions the face-makers and body-sculptors as the bridge, not between you and perfection, but between you and normalcy.
The reading from the Gospel of St. Matthew has a lot to say to those of us getting tired of dressing up for life in America. “Jesus said, the kingdom of God is like a treasure buried in a field, that when a man found it, he buried it again and went in his joy and sold all that he had to buy that field.”
This parable is not a story about landscaping or purchasing real estate. No, to me, this is a story about what is hidden within every human life. I believe that YOU ARE the field. And there is something buried within every single person created by God that is unique – something that when we find it, brings us the joy of feeling that it is the one thing without price in our lives. We do not have to buy it, earn it or even protect it. We did not produce it and it can never be taken away. It is begotten, not made in our lives. I believe this treasure is the soul. I believe it is the presence of God in every person. Some people know they have this priceless presence of God within their lives and some do not think of themselves in that way at all. But I believe there is the presence of God in every person. I believe this presence is what gives us our dignity.
Our culture does a good job of reminding all of us of the fact that we are given only one life and that we should make the most of it. Throughout American history, we have collectively lionized individuals who were and are ‘self-made’ people. Our consumer culture offers a lot of suggestions about what you should (and dare not) build on the field of your life. That’s what all the shows and the malls and products around us are all about. ‘Make something of your self’ they all whisper, ‘and make it bigger and better than any one else.’ And so the competitive society is driving all of us to build mansions of material things or accomplishments to show the world that our field has more than others.
You seniors here in the front row of Chapel – you are right in the middle of this kind of sur-real estate game. After all, that is what a transcript is: a blue print of your business of the last few years. Everyone wants to see what you have built and how it stacks up to the fullness of the fields of others. But the process seems painful, doesn’t it? Being asked to measure yourself feels like an attack, it feels like you are vulnerable, like you are not enough in anything, like there are never the right words to express your worth, and all of a sudden everyone else is your enemy. Perhaps the reality is finally hitting you that filling a field is not the purpose of your life. And the process of being judged as if the only reality to ‘you’ is what you have built somehow does not seem or feel right. And it isn’t. And this parable is here today to remind you that you are more than the output on your blueprint. The Good News is that your worth is not of your making or modeling or mansion-ing. Your dignity, your individuality lies beneath the structures of your productivity. But to find them, you must dig. We all have to dig beneath the costumes of consumerism and find that treasure of our unique talents and truths. If you are tired of living above ground, then take a hint from Jesus, who when asked by followers ‘where is the kingdom,’ said, “Some will say ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is,’ but I tell you, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Have you ever cut into a golf ball? I remember the first time I did. It’s amazing in there! There are so many endless cords and mysterious bonds that uncover the secret of the momentum of the golf ball. To look inside is to learn how that ball does anything. Without looking at the inside, you could spend your whole life watching that ball take off from tees and never know how it manages to move and fly. You could live your life like that too: every busy day turning into the next without ever knowing the soul in your life that makes everything possible, bestows meaning and dignity to every breath, and holds the presence of God ready to guide and abide with your every step. The glorious gut of the golf ball is the image of the soul to me. There is in each and every one of you a buried network of truths and talents that exists in you and in you alone. When you live listening to these truths and following these talents, you are competing against no one because your individual collection of truths has never been the core of any other person in human history. In contrast, nearly anything you could make on your field has been made before or will be made larger or better by someone else in the present or future. As King Solomon declared: there is nothing new under the sun. But under the field is a different story.
So dig for your treasure. Finding it is powerful. Knowing what it is like will explain so much of how you move in this world and in what directions you can go in the future. It is the force that propels your life, and yet so many of you have yet to take it seriously or believe in it at all. You and I can get so wrapped up in life on the surface of our field that we forget the treasure buried within it.
But digging is hard. Finding and figuring out the truths and passions of your life is the hardest work, but you are not alone. It is no small or easy decision to dig beneath the layers of pretense – shall we say, manure? – that malls sell you to cover your field. But look at the teachers in your row this morning. Let me tell you something about teachers. Did you ever go to the beach as a kid and see some grown-up walking quietly and slowly with a metal detector? If you were like me, you teased them or at least felt sorry for them in some way. And when I did, it was not because they did not find anything; I always assumed they did eventually find something or they would not bother looking. Well, my childhood feelings about those treasure hunters is how many other professions view teachers. We are the people who move slowly, deliberately, and with unwavering hope across the land of lives, believing and occasionally finding buried treasure. And the experience brings us such joy that we cannot stop the searching in ourselves and in our students. We are here to help you find that treasure buried within your life and most of us don’t waste a minute thinking about what the sand castle builders giving each other aroma therapy on the beach think of our inefficient and idealistic treasure hunting. We have all the uncommon sense of a Shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to find one.
Finding your treasure is as simple as ceasing to seem and starting to be. If you are a freshman, it’s never too early. If you are a senior, it’s never too late. And to all of us sitting between or beyond those rows, there is no time better than this present moment. Start digging. I dare you. Amen.
