Sermon 7/24/05
Kingdom Come - Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, Romans 8:26-39
(view lectionary notes for this text)
I had a hard time deciding which text to preach on today. From our Old Testament lesson, we get a story that I find hilarious – Jacob marries the wrong woman, and doesn’t notice until the morning after. I didn’t want to preach on this text, though, for fear that I would make too many jokes about Jacob, gender, and brains. Then, in Romans, we have a spectacular text that starts off bogged down by Paul’s wonderings about predestination, but ends with the undeniable truth: nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from God’s love. Nothing. But I just can’t look over the gospel lesson, because it is such a unique collection of verses. Today we get five parables, five mini-stories in one. But though we have five separate illustrations, clearly, all are intended to make one general point that Jesus clearly thinks is of essential importance. Jesus is talking kingdom talk, and he wants to make sure we are listening.
We hear about the kingdom of heaven throughout the gospels. From John the Baptist, Jesus’ forerunner, at the opening of the gospels, and through Jesus’ teaching and preaching, the message is repeated – God’s kingdom is at hand – God’s reign has come right here, right now, to earth. What will you do about it? Here, in these parables, Jesus talks in more detail about what he means by the kingdom of heaven. These five short parables, in addition to the two we heard in the last two weeks about the wheat and the weeds and about the sower sowing good seed, they all are told by Jesus to give us glimpses of the kingdom.
At the end of telling these parables, Jesus asks the disciples, “have you understood all this?” “Yes,” they say, without elaboration, and I am skeptical. They don’t seem convincing in their brief response. I think they are hoping if they just pretend their understanding, Jesus will move on and talk about something else that they have a better shot of getting. Maybe we feel that way too. We may have some vague ideas about the kingdom of God. But if asked for too many details about what it means, we’d probably quickly become speechless. But let’s not move on too soon – Jesus’ repetitive lessons cry out for understanding – we can’t doubt that Jesus was saying something he truly wants understood. Each parable we hear today tells us something about the kingdom of God, what it is like, what it means for us, what it requires of us. One pastor suggests that each parable is like a turn of the chips in a kaleidoscope, each giving a slightly different picture for us to ponder. (1) So let us turn the kaleidoscope, and ask: What is the kingdom of heaven like?
Jesus says it is like a mustard seed that grows into a great shrub that becomes a tree in which birds nest. You probably know from other gospel stories that the mustard seed is a very tiny seed, and it does indeed grow many, many times larger. But, it doesn’t grow to be a tree. It would never get to be that big, as anyone in Jesus’ day would know, and it certainly can’t claim the title “the greatest of shrubs.” So Jesus is exaggerating, making a hyperbole. (2) Then he speaks of the woman mixing the yeast into three measures of flour. But three measures of flour would make enough bread to feed 100 people – this must be some pretty powerful yeast. Again, Jesus makes an exaggeration. What is he telling us about the kingdom? The kingdom of God is pervasive and spreading and can multiply from something very small into something very big. The kingdom of heaven doesn’t function in a logical way, but a miraculous one – we get much more than we expect from what we sow. And it can spread through much more of us and the world than we could have imagined. Like we talked about in children’s time, we can be reminded that our own contribution to God’s kingdom can total up to much more than our eyes can see or our minds can imagine.
Jesus then tells a pair of parables about finding something of value. First, a person stumbles upon a treasure hidden in a field. So he sells all that he has, so that he can possess the field. In the other parable, a person is systematically searching for treasure, and he, too, finds it, finding a pearl of great value. So he sells all the he has so he can own the one pearl. (3) Jesus teaches that the kingdom is a treasure that is priceless. Nothing else we’ve encountered is worth as much as the kingdom is worth. And we can find God’s kingdom by searching for it, but sometimes we also stumble upon God’s kingdom when we least expect it. Either way, we recognize something of great value when we see it.
Lastly, Jesus tells a parable about fish being caught in a net, and how this is like the kingdom of heaven. This net catches “fish of every kind” and it catches until it is “full.” In other words, all of us are drawn in by the kingdom – all of us, every kind, are invited in to share God’s reign. But then the fish are examined, and the good fish are kept, but the bad fish are thrown out. The kingdom is not about a select few being invited in, but about our own decisions and choices. All of us, Jesus teaches, are drawn in by the kingdom. But we must decide what Christ will find when he examines our lives. The kingdom is about being caught, in the best way, into God’s net.
These parables are not Jesus’ typical parables. They don’t have a simple, straight-forward message like the parable of the Good Samaritan for instance. They offer us glimpses of the kingdom. Each week we say together “The Lord’s Prayer,” a prayer we know so well that sometimes we don’t even pay attention to the words we are saying. In it, though, if we pay attention, we find more kingdom-talk. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus, then, taught us to pray for the kingdom to be a part of our day to day lives, for things to be the same right here and right now on earth as we imagine they will be when we are at home in God’s care. So the question we must ask ourselves is: how do we make this happen? How do we help the kingdom come? How do we invite God’s reign to start in us, work through us, spread around us?
Actually, it is the ultimate question. Jesus wants to know : is what you’ve found you’re your relationship with God – is the kingdom here on earth worth everything that you have? Jeff Krantz and Michael Hardin from Preaching Peace give this message to sermon-writers: “It's tempting, here, to preach that our congregations should 1) discern the presence of the tiny bit of Kingdom in their present lives, and 2) sell everything in order to "have" it . . . What, though, is the quality of the Kingdom? Well, when found, no one has to tell you to sell everything to buy the field, or the pearl, you can't help yourself. In fact, the Kingdom is something that, if you find it, you'll find that it owns you, not the other way 'round. That's why no one who "puts hand to the plow and then turns back is fit for the Kingdom of God." If you can turn back, if you can walk away from the field, if you can walk away from the pearl, then what you've found isn't the Kingdom. What will move our congregations is the evidence that we are owned by the Kingdom we've found. That'll show them just what it is that we so treasure, and having seen it, they'll be caught, too. They'll sell everything to own the pearl that owns them.” (4)
Jesus offers to us the kingdom of God, not once, but five times even in this one section of teaching. Jesus offers to us the ‘right now’ gift that matches our impatient nature. We don’t have to wait, for once, to experience the best. Jesus says that this kingdom is ours right now, right this instance. The only catch? Jesus leaves the decision to us – we are in control of whether or not we will invite the kingdom in. We want it, but we must make room for it, like the man who sells all to buy the field, or the merchant who buys the priceless pearl. We want it, but we must be prepared for the kingdom to take over our life in a big way, like the mustard seed that becomes a tree, or the yeast that will make bread to feed a hundred. We want it, but we must be ready to be caught up by God’s net, and ready to show the good life we have been living, the evidence of the kingdom at work within us.
Have you understood all this? Jesus has trained you for the kingdom of heaven. Let us pray that God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.
Amen.
(1) Carolyn Volentine. Since originally quoting her in a sermon three years ago, I have since lost the reference to site. If you find it, please let me know!
(2) Check out Chris Haslam’s notes: http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/apr17m.shtml
(3) Again, Haslam, this time in his ‘clippings’ section:
http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/apr17m.shtml
(4) Krantz and Hardin, http://www.preachingpeace.org/yeara/proper12.htm