Sunday Worship 8 March | The Kingdom on the Way

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches". He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied. He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

So today we are spending time with some of Jesus’ parables, those stories-with-a-meaning that are so characteristic of his teaching ministry. They present us with images which at first seem dull and familiar, or at least would have done to those who first heard them, but which sparkle like gems when we hold them to the light. And they scatter that light in new ways as we turn them around in our hands, which is why we should keep being drawn back to them. Or to offer you a different simile, the New Testament scholar Kenneth Bailey said a parable is like a room we live in; the longer we live in it, the more we see. So let’s try and move into these parables this morning.

And there are plenty of rooms here, because Matthew 13 is full to bursting with parables of the kingdom. As well as the five we heard earlier, there is the parable of the sower, in which a farmer liberally scatters seed onto different types of ground, and the parable of the wheat and weeds, in which a farmer allows the weeds to grow up among his wheat. So right from the beginning of the chapter, there is a sense that the kingdom is something that grows indiscriminately, and not according to the usual rules. If you will forgive the detour to a different parable entirely, I recently read a book called The Prodigal God, in which Timothy Keller argues that in recklessly and extravagantly lavishing unconditional love on the wanderer, it is God who is the true prodigal. I think we see that reckless and extravagant behaviour running through these parables of the kingdom too.

The first two parables of our reading are perhaps the most familiar, in particular the parable of the mustard seed, which has been important for us here in recent years. As some of you will remember, there was a time when three guest preachers spoke on it in a matter of months, and it seemed that God was wanting to say something to us about growing into a place of sanctuary for birds of all kinds of feathers. We have returned to it a couple of times since, but still as I lived in it again this week, there were details I hadn't noticed before.

The first was that the mustard seed is planted. I think I had always imagined that the seed had been dropped by a bird and the owner of the field had just chosen to let it grow, but actually it is far more intentional than that. It is a single seed, so we can assume that this isn’t an attempt to grow mustard as a crop, but the owner of the field does deliberately plant it. This is a crazy move, because a mustard tree will cast shade and attract birds, and therefore make it more difficult to grow other crops. But perhaps the owner knows that and does it anyway. Perhaps he thinks the birds are important too. Perhaps the point here is that a more generous welcome doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen without sacrifice. We have to be willing to make space to grow something.

Another detail I noticed is that the woman in the second parable mixes yeast into a significant quantity of flour. And I mean that both in terms of it being a lot of flour, and also in terms of it being an important measurement. Again, this is unusual behaviour. It makes no sense to mix the yeast in before you are ready to bake the dough, especially not when you might need to make unleavened bread, but who needs to bake sixty loaves of bread at once? It would make sense if you were the village baker, but I think Jesus might have mentioned that. The answer may lie in the fact that the quantity isn’t random, it is the same amount of flour Sarah used when she baked bread for her angelic visitors. If that is a deliberate callback, then perhaps this is about extravagant hospitality, and recognising the presence of God in all those we host.

The remaining parables are perhaps not so well known. The parables of the pearl and the treasure are so short that it feels like there's not much to say about them. The message seems to be that the kingdom is worth upending your entire life and giving everything you have for it. Matthew specialist Warren Carter says that “finding the treasure disrupts normal daily life and promises a different way of life. The treasure is so valuable that it is worth doing new, joyful, risky, and costly things to possess it.”  I think it's fair to say that Jesus would not have made a great financial adviser, but then he was teaching us to be good Christians not good capitalists, and they are rarely the same thing.

I do have a question about the parable of the treasure though. Why does the man hide it again? And this is a genuine question because I really don't understand it. What good is it underground where even he can't enjoy it? Surely he is going to dig it up again anyway, so is this just about keeping it hidden so that no one else can get it? But  I thought we were meant to share the kingdom, not keep it to ourselves. I recently rewatched Bedknobs and Broomsticks with the kids, and the first half of the film sees the main characters trying to find the second half of a book that has been torn in two, only to later realise that the answer they were looking for is not in the missing pages but in a comic that the youngest boy has been carrying around the whole time. I feel a bit like there should be a second half of this parable, but that perhaps the answer lies in what we already have. 

Perhaps the solution to this parable lies in the great parties we see at the end of the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost sons. (Which by the way I have considerably more sympathy for, having spent yesterday tearing the house apart looking for my marriage certificate. I may be throwing a party of my own when that is found!) Perhaps the man buries the treasure to keep it safe from those who would use it selfishly, then goes back to the field once he has bought it and digs the treasure up again so that he can invite all his neighbours to the field to share it with him.

The words about judgement in the final parable about the net of fish are tricky. Every time I hear the phrase “weeping and gnashing of teeth” my heart sinks a little, because it seems so counter to what I think I know of the generosity and compassion of God that I feel at a loss to know what to do with it. There is a similar ending to the parable of the wheat and weeds, and the last time I taught on that I suggested that perhaps the final harvest is not about separating the good people from the bad people, but about separating the good from the bad within each of us. Perhaps there is weeping and gnashing of teeth because it is the place where our sorrow and our anger go. Perhaps the kingdom of heaven is a place where there will be no need for weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The Russian philosopher and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” It may be more uncomfortable to think that there are weeds or rotten fish in all of us - perhaps we would prefer to believe that we are the wheat or the good fish, and the weeds and the bad fish are elsewhere – but this feels more honest, and in truth it feels more hopeful too, because it means there is a chance that none are beyond redemption,

I also think it’s worth remembering that it is the angels who do the separating, both in the parable of the net and the parable of the wheat and weeds. Whatever these parables mean, they tell us that it is not up to us to judge. We are the fish - or perhaps we might even be the net, cast by God into the world to draw people to God  – but in this instance we are not the fishermen.

We have run through the parables now, but Jesus has a final word for his disciples at the end of this passage. “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” This tells us first of all that there are teachers of the law who have become disciples. It’s a small detail but an important one, because we usually see Jesus in opposition to the religious leaders. It seems they are not all bad fish, so there is certainly a challenge to any attempt to read that last parable as condemning entire groups.

It also tells us that the kingdom brings the old and new together. It is new blossom from old roots. There is still rich treasure to be found in the ancient scriptures, but there are also fresh pearls to be found in the ongoing word of God through Jesus and even now through the Spirit. And clearly those treasures and pearls are to be brought out, to be shared and rejoiced over with others, not hidden in a field. I wonder what we might bring out of our storerooms to share with others a little bit of this kingdom which is worth giving everything for.