"Proper 12-A "

July 27, 2008

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

“Have you understood all this [all these parables and allegories and illustrations about the kingdom of heaven]?” Jesus asked his disciples.  The disciples replied, “Yes.”  A prominent preacher of our own time, when asked what he thought about the disciples’ veracity in answering Jesus’ question replied, “They lied.” 

When I want to understand something, one resource at my disposal is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, which almost always has something to say about a given topic.  What it has to say may sometimes be legitimately disputed, but I usually go away at least with the illusion of having a firmer knowledge about something. 

So after these relentless parables we’ve heard in church the past few weeks, one would hope that we would have a firmer knowledge about the kingdom of heaven.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,” or like “yeast that a woman took and mixed with flour,” or like “a treasure hidden in a field,” or like “a merchant in search of fine pearls.”  These don’t sound like Wikipedia sorts of answers. 

In Mark’s Gospel, after Jesus begins speaking in parables, Jesus’ disciples don’t waste much time before asking him, “why are you speaking in parables?”  “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God,” he replies, “but for those outside, everything come in parables; in order that they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand.”

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus answers the same question but nuances it differently.  “The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’”  The implication is that parables will help them listen and understand in a way that ordinary seeing and hearing will not.  Parables point to something larger, something deeper than what we could discern on our own.

I recently participated in an online forum that had devolved into a name calling match between militant atheists on the one hand and unbending biblical literalists on the other.  I entered into the conversation with what I hoped would be a more thoughtful articulation of the Christian faith, and if it’s any measure of success, one of the atheists responded to one of my posts, “now THAT is the kind of thoughtful articulation of faith that would get me back into the pews.”

I don’t share that with you for the purpose of patting myself on the back, but to underscore that the kingdom of heaven is not something to be understood in a rigid, formulaic way—“The Bible says this,” or “Empirical evidence contradicts it.”  Jesus healed on the Sabbath, after all, invoking the scorn of religious literalists.  He overturned tables in the Temple of otherwise faithful people who nonetheless seemed to be missing the very point of their faith. 

The kingdom of heaven is not something we can wrap our minds around in a Wikipedia sort of way; it’s something we see glimpses of and know that it’s real, even if we can’t exactly explain it; something that turns our assumptions upside down and challenges us, something that on one level is deeply mysterious, but on another level is very simple.  “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed … the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs.”

Theories of cell division aside, here is something mysterious and miraculous: so much pent-up energy in something as small as a mustard seed that it could be transformed into the greatest of shrubs.  “You want to know what the kingdom of heaven is about,” says Jesus, “well here it is, unfolding right here among you.”  It’s not something you wrap your mind around; it’s something that you embrace with awe as it grows into what God intended.

It’s kind of like when Episcopalians made baptism, not confirmation, the necessary prerequisite for receiving communion.  Baptized infants and small children would for the first time be eligible to be communed.  And some people questioned the change noting that “children couldn’t possibly understand communion.”  Advocates of the change, however, retorted, “Who among us does understand what happens in communion?  It’s a mystery by its very nature.” 

Or it’s like when, as a preacher, I yearn to say something profound, to convey some fresh new insight.  There have been sermons I thought were absolutely brilliant, and they flopped.  And there have been sermons that I thought were not my best, and people approached me afterward to tell me they were moved.  This is something that for the life of me I can’t understand, except to say that God is at work among us accomplishing far greater things than we could ask or imagine.

So here is this kingdom: taking root like a mustard seed, which itself seems a contradiction because kingdoms are supposed to be grand and flashy, powerful and domineering.  But this kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is different.  Jesus spoke about it in parables because we otherwise don’t have the language to talk about it.  It’s different.  It’s already here but yet to be realized; it’s a physical place but without physical boundaries.  It surpasses understanding.

The atheist who posted online was quick to point out that, if she came to church, it would be to ponder Jesus’ moral teachings and nothing more.  But I am convinced that Jesus’ teachings represent not just a noble set of ideals to which we might aspire, but a force, a realm, sweeping over and around and within us, encompassing us, transforming creation.  I can’t say I understand the kingdom of heaven, but I experience it, I embrace it, I place my trust in it.

I was tempted to end the sermon here: maybe adding some pep talk on how we might more intentionally articulate God’s kingdom and embrace God’s radical transformations of society.  But in all fairness, knowing that I speak as a more liberal-minded Christian, I also know that more conservative-minded Christians would probably not let me get away so easily with ending the sermon there, and their point would be well taken.

They would almost surely underscore the part of today’s Gospel I haven’t yet mentioned: the part about throwing out the bad fish, like “[the evil] thrown into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  This being a sermon about not being able to wrap our minds around the kingdom of heaven, here is something I cannot even pretend to understand.  This doesn’t mesh with my experience of God as all loving and reconciling.  

I am deeply challenged by these images, and yet I welcome them as a very important part of my faith.  I don’t understand them, but as I already indicated, neither do I understand other aspects of the kingdom of heaven.  That is never an excuse to avoid wrestling with and being challenged by such difficult passages.  God has given them to us for a reason.

One reason for these passages, perhaps, is that God’s pending judgment reminds us of our continual need to be self-critical, to hold ourselves accountable to a higher moral standard in our relationships with God and one another and in our stewardship over creation.  God promises to overturn the injustices of society that degrade, impoverish, and marginalize people, for example, and asks us to repent for our role and our complacency enabling those injustices.

Another reason for these passages, perhaps, is to be reminded that we are not called to judge one another; that is the role of God alone.  As a liberal-minded North American Anglican, I must confess my frequent temptation to judge our more conservative-minded Anglican brothers and sisters of the global South, but it is no more my right to judge them as it is for them to judge me.  I do not understand the oneness of the holy catholic and apostolic church, but I believe it is real.

And a third reason for these passages, perhaps, is to realize that there is evil in all of us to be thrown into the fire, just as there is goodness in all of us worthy of salvation.  We don’t have to and perhaps we shouldn’t interpret this as a good group of people being distinguished from a bad group of people, but as an assurance that the sin in all of us will be thrown into the fire, and that the good in all of us might more brightly illuminate the kingdom of heaven.

But to go back to my original point, ultimately I don’t understand; none of us do.  We believe.  We put our trust in God.  We embrace the mystery of the kingdom of heaven that is real, that surpasses all human understanding, that is unfolding even as I speak, through which God is radically transforming creation—including you and me.

Or, put more precisely, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, [and] the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Amen.