Readings:
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
Devotional:
The town of Wrangell, population roughly 2,100, is on the north end of an island within the Inside Passage of Alaska. Only accessible by boat or plane, it sits at the mouth of the Stikine River, with cruisers and ferry-goers bringing in tourist dollars and trade to sustain the economy. Despite its tiny size, Wrangell is recognized worldwide for one particular tourist souvenir: garnets. But not just any garnets. Uncut, rough-hewn, imperfect garnets that are not traditional gemstone quality for easy cutting or polishing. This begs the question: why would anyone want that? And why travel all the way to Wrangell to get one?
Just seven miles by boat from Wrangell township, over on the mainland, sits a 38-acre preserve known as Garnet Ledge, full of ruby-red almond shaped garnets. While the area is formally owned by the local Presbyterian church, there is a local tradition dating back to the early 1800's that only the children may have free access to the area. For decades, the children have gone over to chisel out rough-hewn garnets, then returned to peddle them at the ferry stop, port of call and local shops. Even today, no power tools are allowed, but the children of Wrangell can collect garnets with their families, and then, in turn, sell them to visitors. The tradition is beloved locally, and many families choose to create memories together at the ledge hunting for garnets. Most who purchase the garnets never choose to have them cut due to the quality, instead drawing the value from the tradition and natural beauty. Collectors, too, leave the uncut gems as is, recognizing the origin as the primary value driver.
Ask someone who cuts gems, or a faceter, and they would likely acknowledge that you rarely know what you’re going to end up with from a rough, uncut gem. In the case of the Wrangell garnets, most have inclusions of quartz, which would cause the stones to fracture if you cut them. However, for gemstone quality specimens, faceters would say that it’s not until you begin cutting that you can reveal the best form.
While origin matters, faceting itself is a delicate art that can impact the ultimate value of the stone. Each gem has to be inspected, turned from each angle, and studied. Most stones will have imperfections, but the seasoned faceter can orient the stone to maximize its positive qualities and bring out the most beautiful result. The gem is placed on white paper in natural light to get a sense of the true color when cut. Misjudge the stone, and you could lose too much of it cutting out an imperfection that would compromise its strength. Facet it poorly, and though you would have all the angles, you lose the color of the gem. Move too quickly, and you risk the gem being damaged by losing its position. With each cut, the faceter looks again and assesses what has been uncovered. Ultimately, it’s a matter of patience, watching the slow progress of holding the stone in position against an abrasive wheel as each cut is formed.
And it might be a long metaphor by plane and by boat to get from garnets to God, but this is the process that comes to mind as I read this week’s passages. In the metaphors and pictures of these readings, I imagine the Father as a master Faceter, carefully and patiently bringing out the most beautiful results, but with none of the earth-bound limitations of inevitable inclusions or imperfections. Look at the stories of how He calls, how He restores, what He reveals, what He crafts.
To start, Isaiah’s passage takes place with Judah exiled in Babylon, facing oppression and discouraged, and offers hope in their extreme circumstances. So Isaiah focuses their attention on the legacy of their God. This is the same God who met Sarah and Abraham in their barren age, who blessed them in a literal and metaphoric desert. Then, if we look closely, Isaiah draws a parallel to a previous time that Judah was exiled — in Egypt. Where that first Exodus brought them hastily running into a wasteland desert of limited resources, this new exodus takes them to a place where wastelands become gardens, where we wait expectantly for help. This salvation of forever isn’t thwarted by an aging earth or smoggy skies; there is no corner or coastland excluded from His present rescue.
The encouragement is to pay attention from the rock from which you were hewn: as in, your collective origin story comes from God taking the least likely gem, the one that has imperfections and problems, the one that comes from a wasteland, and turning it into multiplied blessings. This is the advantage of having the Father as our faceter — there’s no such thing as a gem that can’t be cut. He places beauty where He pleases.
Psalm 124 builds on the encouragement. This Psalm is part of the Psalms of Ascent, recited, among other times, when the people and priests went up to the Temple. They almost always feature an epigram, or a surprising, sometimes humorous satirical statement. In this case it reads like, “Could you even imagine the Lord not being on our side?!” Then you see the exaggerated condition we would be left in: swallowed alive, overtaken in waters, ensnared, devoured.
In both Isaiah and Psalms, it's easy to imagine the impact as singular: the Father calls me, comforts me, blesses me, builds me. But the words are collective. God's righteousness restores the peoples, all the way to the coastlands. The Lord is on our side, not against us. Our soul would have been overtaken, but has escaped. Our help is in Him. It's not just me and my gemstone being crafted toward wholeness and beauty, it's the communal work too. Can you even imagine what it would be like were He not faceting us all together?! No, that would be absurd. Our help is in Him, maker of heaven and earth, the One fully equipped to hew anything He wants.
Paul speaks to what and how He equips, to us as individuals and to the community at large. It's like a custom setting in a ring, with each stone aligned and put in place. All stand alone, and all fit together, positioned exactly to compliment and enhance. Cut any one of them poorly, and the whole suffers. Arrange the whole poorly, and an individual stone can be damaged. It's all for one and one for all.
There's a mutual dependency in this effort, too. As we noted before, the faceter needs only patience. They must hold the gem in position, then cut it with something stronger to produce its final form. This illustrates beautifully the idea of a living sacrifice: be still, held by Him, as His strength shapes you.
This is also the idea of conforming versus transforming. Conforming says that your outside shape follows a pattern of whatever is around it. But transforming, or transfiguring, matches your exterior shape to the internal reality. Beauty is revealed in the alignment of the outer shape to the core being.
And look at the grace of what that beautiful alignment produces! Prophets speak in faith. Teacher, exhorters, servers each teach, exhort, and serve. Givers are generous. Leaders are diligent. The merciful are cheerful. The reality is that the grace goes with the invitation. He gifts according to the calling. For those He calls or invites to be a giver, generosity is of course there. If not, we would call it an exchange or transaction rather than a gift. For those He invites to be leaders, of course the diligence is there, because to not be so would mean lagging behind.
So accept the invitation, of course! Be transformed, be faceted, be the living sacrifice so that the beauty that pleases Him might be seen! At the collective level too, may we the Church accept the invitation He offers, to give gifts that the nations might praise Him, to belong to each other and to Him all at once.
So here we are, collected and called by Him, crafted and cut by Him, positioned and patterned. But what exactly is the pattern? Faceters follow a cutting pattern. It's why round or princess or any other cuts can become popular, by applying the correct pattern to the gem. The angles are prescribed to match a specific design and extract a specific quality, with some patterns suiting better than others.
This is the piece at play in Matthew. Over the past many weeks looking at passages in the book, a theme has emerged: the identity of Jesus. Over and over again, the people surrounding Jesus are trying to determine exactly who He is. So now we get to hear the disciples and Jesus chat it out. Who do others say that He is? A prophet or John the Baptist. And who do they say He is? The Christ, the son of the living God, declares Simon.
And here's where we might be tempted to think that our declaration is the pattern. Because we jump straight to Simon's renaming and the rock upon which the church is built, thinking somehow that we can copy Simon's words or posture and also get the answer to identity right. But the pattern He builds from is in the sentence before. “Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” It was the Father's doing, always, not something we (flesh and blood) reveal. He reveals Christ to us. It was Him calling, blessing, and multiplying. It was Him on our side, saving and helping. It is Him who allots our faith. It is the Father who reveals Christ, who confirms His identity. This is the pattern that transforms us and renews our minds: the Father's revelation.
Oh and that rock? The word is actually pebble. A little rough-hewn gem awaiting His hand, steady and patient, to transfigure us by His strength, to reveal to us identity: His and ours. And from this patterned pebble comes great power, to knit and bind together what should be strengthened, to let go and loosen our hold on what would mar the beauty He imagines.
Take heart, small gem. Take heart, humble pebble. He puts us in position, like the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. He holds us close to His strength, bringing wholeness to us. He sees the full brilliance of our being because He is the One who made us. The Father is fashioning beauty from barrenness, taking His careful, patient time to ensure that as one and together, we become all that He desires.
A Prayer for Each Moment
God of Detail,
You craft with astute precision, and you position with loving attention. You reveal Yourself and Your Son, that we could know You, and in turn know ourselves. Open our eyes to see the brilliance You imagine and express gratitude to You, oh Maker of heaven and earth.
Amen.
A Prayer for Each Other
Our Father,
You're always on our side, never against us. We hope in Your constant help, expecting the joy and gladness, gratitude and praise You promise.
Amen.
Blessing
Let us breathe our collective sigh of relief and rest, secure and comforted by the knowledge that God Himself is at work polishing us with promises of life and grace.
Photo by Ramiro Pianarosa on Unsplash
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
Devotional:
The town of Wrangell, population roughly 2,100, is on the north end of an island within the Inside Passage of Alaska. Only accessible by boat or plane, it sits at the mouth of the Stikine River, with cruisers and ferry-goers bringing in tourist dollars and trade to sustain the economy. Despite its tiny size, Wrangell is recognized worldwide for one particular tourist souvenir: garnets. But not just any garnets. Uncut, rough-hewn, imperfect garnets that are not traditional gemstone quality for easy cutting or polishing. This begs the question: why would anyone want that? And why travel all the way to Wrangell to get one?
Just seven miles by boat from Wrangell township, over on the mainland, sits a 38-acre preserve known as Garnet Ledge, full of ruby-red almond shaped garnets. While the area is formally owned by the local Presbyterian church, there is a local tradition dating back to the early 1800's that only the children may have free access to the area. For decades, the children have gone over to chisel out rough-hewn garnets, then returned to peddle them at the ferry stop, port of call and local shops. Even today, no power tools are allowed, but the children of Wrangell can collect garnets with their families, and then, in turn, sell them to visitors. The tradition is beloved locally, and many families choose to create memories together at the ledge hunting for garnets. Most who purchase the garnets never choose to have them cut due to the quality, instead drawing the value from the tradition and natural beauty. Collectors, too, leave the uncut gems as is, recognizing the origin as the primary value driver.
Ask someone who cuts gems, or a faceter, and they would likely acknowledge that you rarely know what you’re going to end up with from a rough, uncut gem. In the case of the Wrangell garnets, most have inclusions of quartz, which would cause the stones to fracture if you cut them. However, for gemstone quality specimens, faceters would say that it’s not until you begin cutting that you can reveal the best form.
While origin matters, faceting itself is a delicate art that can impact the ultimate value of the stone. Each gem has to be inspected, turned from each angle, and studied. Most stones will have imperfections, but the seasoned faceter can orient the stone to maximize its positive qualities and bring out the most beautiful result. The gem is placed on white paper in natural light to get a sense of the true color when cut. Misjudge the stone, and you could lose too much of it cutting out an imperfection that would compromise its strength. Facet it poorly, and though you would have all the angles, you lose the color of the gem. Move too quickly, and you risk the gem being damaged by losing its position. With each cut, the faceter looks again and assesses what has been uncovered. Ultimately, it’s a matter of patience, watching the slow progress of holding the stone in position against an abrasive wheel as each cut is formed.
And it might be a long metaphor by plane and by boat to get from garnets to God, but this is the process that comes to mind as I read this week’s passages. In the metaphors and pictures of these readings, I imagine the Father as a master Faceter, carefully and patiently bringing out the most beautiful results, but with none of the earth-bound limitations of inevitable inclusions or imperfections. Look at the stories of how He calls, how He restores, what He reveals, what He crafts.
To start, Isaiah’s passage takes place with Judah exiled in Babylon, facing oppression and discouraged, and offers hope in their extreme circumstances. So Isaiah focuses their attention on the legacy of their God. This is the same God who met Sarah and Abraham in their barren age, who blessed them in a literal and metaphoric desert. Then, if we look closely, Isaiah draws a parallel to a previous time that Judah was exiled — in Egypt. Where that first Exodus brought them hastily running into a wasteland desert of limited resources, this new exodus takes them to a place where wastelands become gardens, where we wait expectantly for help. This salvation of forever isn’t thwarted by an aging earth or smoggy skies; there is no corner or coastland excluded from His present rescue.
The encouragement is to pay attention from the rock from which you were hewn: as in, your collective origin story comes from God taking the least likely gem, the one that has imperfections and problems, the one that comes from a wasteland, and turning it into multiplied blessings. This is the advantage of having the Father as our faceter — there’s no such thing as a gem that can’t be cut. He places beauty where He pleases.
Psalm 124 builds on the encouragement. This Psalm is part of the Psalms of Ascent, recited, among other times, when the people and priests went up to the Temple. They almost always feature an epigram, or a surprising, sometimes humorous satirical statement. In this case it reads like, “Could you even imagine the Lord not being on our side?!” Then you see the exaggerated condition we would be left in: swallowed alive, overtaken in waters, ensnared, devoured.
In both Isaiah and Psalms, it's easy to imagine the impact as singular: the Father calls me, comforts me, blesses me, builds me. But the words are collective. God's righteousness restores the peoples, all the way to the coastlands. The Lord is on our side, not against us. Our soul would have been overtaken, but has escaped. Our help is in Him. It's not just me and my gemstone being crafted toward wholeness and beauty, it's the communal work too. Can you even imagine what it would be like were He not faceting us all together?! No, that would be absurd. Our help is in Him, maker of heaven and earth, the One fully equipped to hew anything He wants.
Paul speaks to what and how He equips, to us as individuals and to the community at large. It's like a custom setting in a ring, with each stone aligned and put in place. All stand alone, and all fit together, positioned exactly to compliment and enhance. Cut any one of them poorly, and the whole suffers. Arrange the whole poorly, and an individual stone can be damaged. It's all for one and one for all.
There's a mutual dependency in this effort, too. As we noted before, the faceter needs only patience. They must hold the gem in position, then cut it with something stronger to produce its final form. This illustrates beautifully the idea of a living sacrifice: be still, held by Him, as His strength shapes you.
This is also the idea of conforming versus transforming. Conforming says that your outside shape follows a pattern of whatever is around it. But transforming, or transfiguring, matches your exterior shape to the internal reality. Beauty is revealed in the alignment of the outer shape to the core being.
And look at the grace of what that beautiful alignment produces! Prophets speak in faith. Teacher, exhorters, servers each teach, exhort, and serve. Givers are generous. Leaders are diligent. The merciful are cheerful. The reality is that the grace goes with the invitation. He gifts according to the calling. For those He calls or invites to be a giver, generosity is of course there. If not, we would call it an exchange or transaction rather than a gift. For those He invites to be leaders, of course the diligence is there, because to not be so would mean lagging behind.
So accept the invitation, of course! Be transformed, be faceted, be the living sacrifice so that the beauty that pleases Him might be seen! At the collective level too, may we the Church accept the invitation He offers, to give gifts that the nations might praise Him, to belong to each other and to Him all at once.
So here we are, collected and called by Him, crafted and cut by Him, positioned and patterned. But what exactly is the pattern? Faceters follow a cutting pattern. It's why round or princess or any other cuts can become popular, by applying the correct pattern to the gem. The angles are prescribed to match a specific design and extract a specific quality, with some patterns suiting better than others.
This is the piece at play in Matthew. Over the past many weeks looking at passages in the book, a theme has emerged: the identity of Jesus. Over and over again, the people surrounding Jesus are trying to determine exactly who He is. So now we get to hear the disciples and Jesus chat it out. Who do others say that He is? A prophet or John the Baptist. And who do they say He is? The Christ, the son of the living God, declares Simon.
And here's where we might be tempted to think that our declaration is the pattern. Because we jump straight to Simon's renaming and the rock upon which the church is built, thinking somehow that we can copy Simon's words or posture and also get the answer to identity right. But the pattern He builds from is in the sentence before. “Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” It was the Father's doing, always, not something we (flesh and blood) reveal. He reveals Christ to us. It was Him calling, blessing, and multiplying. It was Him on our side, saving and helping. It is Him who allots our faith. It is the Father who reveals Christ, who confirms His identity. This is the pattern that transforms us and renews our minds: the Father's revelation.
Oh and that rock? The word is actually pebble. A little rough-hewn gem awaiting His hand, steady and patient, to transfigure us by His strength, to reveal to us identity: His and ours. And from this patterned pebble comes great power, to knit and bind together what should be strengthened, to let go and loosen our hold on what would mar the beauty He imagines.
Take heart, small gem. Take heart, humble pebble. He puts us in position, like the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea. He holds us close to His strength, bringing wholeness to us. He sees the full brilliance of our being because He is the One who made us. The Father is fashioning beauty from barrenness, taking His careful, patient time to ensure that as one and together, we become all that He desires.
A Prayer for Each Moment
God of Detail,
You craft with astute precision, and you position with loving attention. You reveal Yourself and Your Son, that we could know You, and in turn know ourselves. Open our eyes to see the brilliance You imagine and express gratitude to You, oh Maker of heaven and earth.
Amen.
A Prayer for Each Other
Our Father,
You're always on our side, never against us. We hope in Your constant help, expecting the joy and gladness, gratitude and praise You promise.
Amen.
Blessing
Let us breathe our collective sigh of relief and rest, secure and comforted by the knowledge that God Himself is at work polishing us with promises of life and grace.
Photo by Ramiro Pianarosa on Unsplash
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