As a progressive, I believe there are many names for God and many ways to God – this article reflects one of those ways. Take from here what works for you. Celebrate life with joy and peace!
Eureka, the California state motto, came as a result of the famous California gold rush from 1848-1855. At the beginning of the famous gold rush, gold nuggets could be picked up right off the ground, just lying there like stones. This brought a lot of people out west looking to get rich quick. They were called “forty-niners” because most came out in 1849. (San Francisco 49ers!) It wasn’t long before the gold disappeared off the ground and people had to look for gold in less obvious places like rivers and stream beds. This is where a method called “panning” was created.
I was blessed with being able to take my mom on her dream trip: a cruise to Alaska. At one of the ports, she and my stepdad decided to go panning for gold; I don’t think they found any on that cold and rainy afternoon. But they did find out that it wasn’t easy.
So, here’s a quick lesson on panning for gold as you never know when it might come in handy! First, you go find that “special place” along the banks of a river and then use something that looks like a strainer that fits inside the pan. It’s called a clarifier or screen. With a little hand shovel put several scoops of the amalgamated mass of river gravel, mud and sand into the strainer. Then, the process of sifting out and washing begins.
In this multi-step progression that requires more finesse than you might imagine material is gradually washed out until you get down to just a tiny amount of sediment left in the pan and, lo and behold, in the bottom of the pan you might be blessed with a few tiny fragments of gold! Eureka!
An interesting fact is that gold, even in tiny fragments, is the heaviest and most-dense of all the material from the river bed in the pan. If done correctly, with finesse, after almost everything else has been washed away, the gold will be revealed and be the last thing left in the bottom of the pan.
Gold panning is really a process of sifting and discernment that removes the “stuff” that is not important, and allows you to get to and reveal that which is really important!
Panning for gold could be a good analogy for what is going on in I Corinthians 13, found in the Bible.
Let’s look at the context around the faith community in Corinth. Corinth was situated in the heart of the Roman Empire, and for a long time the Greco-Roman culture was dominant, bringing a common language as well as other cultural norms.
Hierarchy was one of the foundational cultural norms. It framed and structured everything. From Zeus to the emperor, the city magistrate to the head of the household, clear lines of status, worth and power were drawn.
The little congregation in Corinth was a diverse group. Different social classes, gender hierarchy, religious and ethnic hierarchy, places of origin, different levels of knowledge and spiritual giftedness all contributed to their diversity and also contributed to their resulting problems. Some people thought their spiritual gifts were better than the gifts of others creating division and lines and separation. Jesus’ command to not judge others and to love God and love your neighbor as yourself had all but been thrown out the window!
Paul sees this problem and decides to address this hierarchy and factionalism from many different angles in his letter to the church, and by the time it reaches chapter 13, it reaches a crescendo.
Let me make a short digression. When I lived in Colorado, I loved to go hiking and I noticed in some of the rocks, they just shimmered with what looked like tiny gold nuggets when the sun hit them just right. So beautiful! I thought, wow … could this be some left over gold?
I was told it was called fool’s gold, iron pyrite. Fool’s gold was all over the place, and called that because it fools many people into mistaking it for the real thing.
Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians was trying to help this diverse, divided, fractured and stressed-out community of faith discern the difference between gold and fool’s gold; between what is authentically of Jesus and what is not.
Paul is panning for gold, panning for the real thing, and in chapter 13 he reaches the point where everything but the gold has been washed out of the pan. And, lo and behold, there in the bottom of the pan is the gold nugget, love!
“And the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” “And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Paul’s personal experience of Jesus caused him to put the gold nugget of love ahead of everything else. Listen how Paul is panning for gold here:
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” In other words, if I think I speak the very language of the Spirit of God, but speak without love I am nothing more than an obnoxious noise-maker.
“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” In other words, If I think I am speaking Divine words and will; if I think I have more insight and knowledge than everyone else; if I am convinced my faith is the most correct; if I think I have unraveled all mysteries and answered all questions, but don’t have love, it all adds up to nothing!
“If I give away all of my possessions and even hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” In other words, if I make extraordinary sacrifices for the sake of the cause, even make the ultimate sacrifice, but do it without love, it’s as if I never did it!
Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth is both panning for gold and helping the congregation discern between fool’s gold and the real gold! I like how theologian J. Holub put it:
“Whenever Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, has become exclusive, judgmental, narrow, oppressive, obsessed with power and control or any other negative, it is always because it has mistaken something other than love for the real thing.”
The point I’m trying to make this morning is that the gold nugget of God’s love is at the very center the teachings of Jesus. Love can reconcile. Love can heal. Love can harmonize.
Let’s not mistake fool’s gold for the real thing. Love, the first fruit of the Spirit is greater than faith and hope and any other spiritual gift.
When a community of faith lives in this authentic love, it results in ministries of compassion and mercy, reconciliation and advocating for the marginalized; living in authentic love results in being inclusive of those whom conventional churches and religions have thrown aside; living in authentic love results in celebrating diversity.
May we learn from the church in Corinth about the importance of love and staying connected to the source of all love, so that love may grow in us, and we’ll be able to say to one another, “Eureka!” Look at that real gold nugget of God’s love in you!
Amen.
