Okay, so it doesn’t have the appeal of a faceted diamond. No flashes of color, no sparkles, no clarity, no quality in the cut.
But guess what? Rough diamonds are becoming increasingly popular among wealthy trend-setters, people who crave whatever is new and different in the world of jewelry. There is a company called Diamond in the Rough that sells these gems, and De Beers has featured rough diamonds in their Talisman collection. You can now buy rough diamond rings, necklaces, and medallions. The gems have a certain natural, earthy, organic appeal, and they are sometimes a bargain — for instance, you can get a small, rough diamond in a ring for about $600.
On the other hand, you can drop a cool $750,000 at Tiffany for a one-of-a-kind necklace of uncut diamonds and pearls.
So these rough rocks are not always a steal.
The biggest problem with these diamonds is that you cannot easily ascertain their value. Faceted diamonds are priced based on cut, color, carat, and clarity, but there are no industry standards for evaluating uncut diamonds. Some people wonder if these gems will have much value at all once the fad for natural diamonds fades away.
As for this rock — it’s just a piece of gravel.. Worth almost nothing. But it looks a lot like a diamond in the rough.
How can you tell when you’re looking at a truly precious gem?
The apostle Paul wonders the same thing as he examines the Christian community in Ephesus, a large seaport city in Asia Minor. These Christians have a Gentile background, and because of this they have a lot to learn about being in relationship with God. At one point, they were “without Christ,” recalls Paul, “being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel … having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
“But now,” Paul points out, “in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (vv. 13-14).
What an amazing transformation. The Ephesians were diamonds in the rough, and through the sacrifice of Christ they have now come into relationship with God, right along with the Jewish members of God’s family. “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens,” writes Paul, “but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God … with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone” (vv. 19-20).
Paul has the same vision for community that we do here at FPC. He wants to create a Meeting Ground, a place for people of diverse perspectives to come together for worship and service. He wanted to include Jews and Gentiles, residents of Jerusalem and citizens of Ephesus. The most important thing is that everyone come together to have an experience of Jesus Christ — an experience that can turn people from rough diamonds into polished gems.
In today’s passage, Paul reminds the Ephesians that “once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light” (5:8). At one point, they were rough diamonds — natural, earthy, and organic. But now they have an opportunity to sparkle, shine, and transmit God’s light like a cut, shaped, and perfected gem. The key is to “live as children of light.”
Is this difficult? Yes. But is it worth it? Absolutely. The Ephesians are going to have to undergo some cutting — the cutting away of falsehood and stealing, as well as “all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.” They’re going to have to turn away from fornication and greed, as well as “obscene, silly, and vulgar talk” (4:25-5:4).
This is what it means to “live as children of light.”
Paul wants the Ephesians to remove all the impurities that keep them from being brilliant and beautiful diamonds, able to receive and transmit the light of God. And Paul wants the very same for each one of us. Take a minute to think about the actions and attitudes in your life that tend to block God’s light. What can you do to strip away impurities and become the glistening gem that God wants you to be?
- Put away falsehood, and start to be honest with yourself and others about who you really are.
- Give up stealing, by being truthful in business, by filing a complete and accurate Form 1040.
- Strip away all bitterness and wrath, by reaching out to a relative that you’ve been feuding with.
- Turn away from fornication and greed, as well as obscene and vulgar talk — behavior that might have its momentary pleasure, but always leaves you feeling dark and dirty in the long run.
“Live as children of light,” says Paul, “for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true” (v. 9). When you live in such a way, you find yourself changing from a dark, rough, uncut stone into a bright, smooth, and multi-faceted gem of a Christian.
Now it’s true we will often say that a person is “a diamond in the rough.” That may be a compliment of sorts, but it leaves the impression that a person should not remain in this condition. There is still work to be done, in terms of cutting, polishing, and shaping the person into a beautiful gem. The class that Jessica Tate and Cate Rodman are teaching throughout this season of Lent is a class on the disciplines of Christian life — disciplines that can shape us and polish us into the people that Jesus wants us to be.
Point is, we’re not supposed to remain diamonds in the rough. The challenge Paul lays before us is to “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (v. 10). The Greek word for “try to find out” is dokimaz?, which also means “discern” or “test.” It is an active verb, one which challenges us to put effort into trying to discover what is the best Christian behavior in the face of challenging real-life circumstances.
So go ahead — put some effort into finding out what is pleasing to the Lord. Attend Jessica and Cate’s class. Participate in the Basic Bible Class. Join the Sewing Group or the Midlife Men on a Mission. As you cut away what Paul calls “the unfruitful works of darkness” (v. 11), you’ll find yourself getting ever more clear about what a Christian life looks like.
The goal of all this work is complete transparency — transparency to the light of God. In her book Night on the Flint River, Roberta Bondi sets out on a canoe trip near Atlanta, along with a colleague named Pam.. They intend for the trip to last for the afternoon, but the outing quickly turns into a disaster — the water level is high, and the riverbed is littered with dead trees. When night falls they are completely lost. They leave the river and begin to hike through a wilderness so dark that they cannot even see their own hands.
Through this ordeal, the colleague Pam remains optimistic. Roberta writes that “Pam’s love carved out for me a space in the wilderness in which it was safe to breathe,” and accept “what I thought was my own impending death.” She discovers that “an ordinary human being” such as Pam “never ceases to be the tattered image of God.” Pam is “completely transparent to God” for Roberta, so that for a little while she “can see God truly through that human being.”
For Roberta, Pam becomes a brilliant gem. In her beautifully polished compassion and patience, the light of God shines brightly through her. In that dark night near the Flint River, the words of Paul to the Ephesians come true for Roberta Bondi, “Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (v. 14).
This is the goal of all our cutting and polishing — becoming transparent to the light of God. When we focus on what is good and right and true, we turn from “diamonds in the rough” into beautiful, brilliant gems. Our compassion and patience and love create a channel — a channel for the light of the Lord to shine through us.
So try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. You have nothing to lose but your darkness, your roughness, your impurity. You are a diamond — beautiful, precious, and able to sparkle with the light of God. Amen.
Sources:
Wu, Ying. “That’s quite a rock.” The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2007, P1.
Montgomery-Fate, Tom. Review of Night on the Flint River: An Accidental Journey in Knowing God by Roberta Bondi. Christian Century, April 12, 2000.