Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Rev. Laura J. Collins
July 28, 2002
Today's topic is the kingdom of heaven. What in the world does this mean? Kingdom sounds like a leftover from the middle ages. Waves of immigrants coming to these shores have left behind talk of kings and kingdoms. And heaven, even in our religious context, is one of those words it is hard to hear without resorting to a childhood image of angels playing harps on clouds -- an image that doesn't do much for our adult understanding of God.
But the kingdom of heaven -- or of God, depending on which gospel you're reading -- is one of the Bible's favorite topics: kingdom appears 162 times in the New Testament and most of those are in the sayings of Jesus. Whatever Jesus meant by it, scholars agree that the kingdom was the central thesis of all Christ's teaching.
So let's take a look at these parables of the kingdom this morning. "The kingdom is like a mustard seed." Growing up in the Midwest, I didn't see many mustard shrubs. But we did have lots of oak trees. And, as we all know, the mighty oak begins as a tiny acorn. This truth easily become a metaphor for all sorts of self-help philosophies. One little person can make a big difference in the world! Or, just a little effort can reap big results!
So when I hear the mustard seed parable, I easily translate to the acorn principle: we all have what it takes to become giant oaks, if we'd only realize our potential.
The next parable is in a similar vein: "The kingdom of heaven is like ... yeast, which a woman took and hid in three measure of flour, till it was all leavened." A familiar interpretation of this parable is that we Christians are like leaven in society: a few of us doing good will raise up the whole sticky mess!
The problem with each of these interpretations is that they answer the wrong question. They answer what we are like; how we, like the mustard seed can grow to great heights. How we, like leaven, can have more effect on society than our size would merit.
But the question these parables are addressing is not about us. The question is about God. About what it is like when God reigns. That is like a mustard seed. God's kingdom is like yeast. Now, both a mustard seed becoming an extensive shrub and yeast tripling the size of dough are both natural events -- not miraculous at all. Yet seen through the eyes of a child, they are wondrous ocurrances. Do you remember watching your first plant sprout from a seed as a young child? You knew the little seed went into the ground and then a marvelous large plant eventually grew. How did it happen? It was wonderful -- like magic!
At Christmas time, my mother always made pan after pan of sweet rolls. After helping her place the little rolls in the pans, we would cover them with towels and leave them in the warm kitchen before cooking. I would go around peeking under the towels, to see how much the rolls had risen. I secretly hoped that I might catch one in the act, rising before my very eyes. But I never did. Still, they always rose. How did it happen? It was a fabulous mystery.
God's kingdom, too, is growing, expanding. Hidden, but right under our noses. It happen not by our efforts but by God's unseen presence.
I think many of us would prefer the other interpretations of the yeast and the seeds. When the focus is on us more than on God, we walk away feeling like we can do something. But if God's reign does not depend on us, where exactly does that leave us?
Well, the next two parables give ideas about our response to God's work. The parables of the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price, we see people who find something unexpected and wonderful. Something so valuable, in fact, that in each instance, the finder sells everything else they own in order to buy the thing they've found. Nothing else begins to compare with the treasure of God's presence. The response is pure joy, utter delight, a willingness to give up everything else that seemed important to pursue this one incredible find.
This abandonment to joy runs throughout Jesus's teachings of God's reign. Life with God is like a feast, he says, or a wedding -- it is a time of genuine pleasure. This is why we call what we proclaim good news! To know God is to know joy and peace and freedom unlike any other. The gospel of forgiveness and unconditional love and heartfelt hope is a treasure, a pearl of great value, a find not to be lost. Even getting a glimpse of this treasure, like the man who bought the field, is to be ready to leave behind all the substitutions and lesser values we have cherished.
Sometimes the gospel is preached as if it is not good news. As if it is a burden, a drudgery, a thing to endure, even a thing to fear. How can we have strayed so far from what Jesus intended us to hear? Well, this last parable from today's text may give us a bit of a clue. This last one, which is unique to Matthew's gospel, sounds a bit harsher than the previous four. "The kingdom is like a net that ... caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore; ... and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad."
Aha. The bad. The good and the bad. Here's where the bad news comes. Some get thrown out. Here comes the judgmental, punishing news that makes the good news of Christ sound not so good after all. But let us read it once again: "The kingdom is like a net that ... caught fish of every kind." The kingdom is the net that catches all. The good, the bad and the ugly. Matthew goes on to explain that angels at the end of time will separate the good from the evil, but the kingdom itself is like the net that catches all.
And note, it is the angels doing the separating: that is clearly not a job for human beings. We have no place to judge, no place to exclude, no call to cast out. We are called to be the fishers, bringing in the net, full of every kind of fish. Only a divine wisdom can separate out what is evil and what is not.
Still, it is a harder saying, isn't it? And yet, who among us doesn't think about the evil in the world? When men kidnap, rape and murder little girls, don't we wonder what has gone wrong? When the bones of hundreds of massacred people are discovered in a basement, don't we think about the evil that lurks in the hearts of humanity? When wars continue to destroy whole regions of the earth, while warlords of all stripes continue to flourish, don't we long for some kind of justice?
I have no idea what God's justice involves. I only know how God's mercy has surrounded me. God's mercy and presence and freedom and peace -- which are pearls of great value, treasures hidden.
God is an invisible mover in our world. We don't see how the work of the spirit gets accomplished in the dark ground with the seed or under the towel, in the dough. But the plants emerge and the dough rises. The spiritual mysteries of the universe continue to thrive: hearts are healed, lives are transformed, communities are blessed. And these things happen by the gracious activity of God.
God is the seed and we are the birds finding haven in the generous branches of the protective mustard tree. God is the yeast and we are the dough, lifted up because of God's presence with us.
We do not bring about the kingdom, but through the eyes of faith we see what God has done for us. We sneak into the kitchen and lift the edges of the towel and witness, with the uninhibited delight of a child, that the dough is rising. Praise God for this mystery. Praise God for this pearl of great price.
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