Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Texts: Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33; 44-52

Dear Friends in Christ, God’s grace and peace be with you. Amen.

Who would have guessed that what the world really needed right now was Barbenheimer[i]. Here we are, in the thick of what is being considered the hottest month in possibly the last 120,000 years[ii], trying to navigate post-pandemic reconnecting, at the beginning of a perhaps a new surge in infection, while the political will for compromise fades, and care for the stranger becomes an obsolete idea. But the release of two extraordinarily different movies in theaters at the same time seems to have triggered an odd, refreshing moment of joy that most of us haven’t seen in years.

I haven’t seen either one. There are absolutely no spoiler alerts here, but we all know what the major themes are, and they sound like parables to me. The kingdom of heaven is like a physicist who oversees the production of a chain reaction breaking the strongest bond of an atom, and unleashes power that changes the course of history. The kingdom of heaven is like an iconic, plastic doll who, in the midst of an existential crisis, enters our world, teaching us about the meaning of life, and reminding us that deep down, being who we truly are is the only beauty we need. The kingdom of heaven is like a society so stressed and overheated, that the juxtaposition of two ridiculously disparate themes can make even the most jaded among us smile and consider going back to the theaters. Who would have thought!?

“Have you understood all this?” Jesus asks. “Uhh…  yes?” we might want to reply.

In today’s gospel text[iii], Matthew throws together a bunch of Jesus’s short, seemingly simple parables and we hear them all at once. Where Jesus sometimes is asked to explain some of the parables we’ve been reading the last few weeks, these are just all offered to us in rapid succession, with no explanation or context.

The kingdom of heaven is like a small seed that grows into a shrub large enough for birds to build nests. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast hidden in dough (and although you and I don’t recognize the measurements, the Greek refers to a large batch of dough, made with around 50 or 60 pounds of flour or so, enough to feed a big community). The kingdom of heaven is like treasure in a field, which someone seems to sneak out to buy with the owner unaware. The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl, so wonderful that whoever finds it, liquidates the rest of their assets to buy it[iv]. The kingdom of heaven is like a net full of a great haul of fish, both good and bad, that will be separated eventually.

Do you understand all this? Uh…  sure? I wonder whether the disciples actually understood, or simply said yes to Jesus’s question so as not to appear as confused as we might be.

For years I’ve thought about these parables as individual lessons in discipleship. Jesus urges each of us to give up every other passion in order to realize a greater good, encourages each of us to dedicate our lives to find the treasure of faith. Certainly Jesus does call on us to dedicate our lives to God’s kingdom’s values – generosity, openness and transformation. Certainly we can trust that when we commit our lives to God’s ways, a vibrant, healthy faith will grow and offer us meaning. But parables written without explanation allow us to discover something new every time we read them, and I like to think that no parable means only one thing[v].

What I notice this time is that Jesus keeps describing simple ways in which the kingdom is hidden all around us. Like one of those, “Can you find the bear in this football stadium?” puzzles, Jesus invites us to notice the reign of God, closer than we might imagine. In fact, the reign of God is right beneath the soil, transforming the dough under our hands, teeming in the water underneath our boat.

The kingdom of heaven isn’t something for which we need to wait, and it’s not something we achieve or establish if only we search diligently enough, or study enough, or do anything enough. It’s woven into the very fabric of our lives. God’s love is already taking root all around us, ready to grow and challenge and change us, as effortlessly as a mustard shrub thriving in a field, or as dough rising in a warm corner of the kitchen.

In her 2014 memoir, Lab Girl, biologist Hope Jahren describes the incredible potential in every seed. “A seed is alive while it waits,” she notes. “When you go into a forest … just beneath your single footprint sit hundreds of seeds, each one alive and waiting…. The single birch tree towering over you produces at least a quarter of a million new seeds every single year[vi].” And every single one of those seeds has the potential to grow into a new tree, making enough new seeds to replenish a forest.

The kingdom of heaven is like a single birch seed, ready to reforest the landscape, ready to form something magnificent and beautiful that could thrive for eons to come. Do you understand this?

Maybe I’ve been reading these parables backwards all this time. Maybe I’m not supposed to be searching for a treasure but am supposed to be found. Maybe God is the actor in these stories, not us.

God takes the seed of goodness, and plants it in such a way that whether we tend it or ignore it, it quietly grows and takes over our life, creating a home and a future for the most vulnerable of creation. God takes some yeast, and kneads it into our stories, without any effort on our part at all, stretching us to become elastic and generous and equipping us to feed way more people than we could have imagined. God finds each one of us, and claims us as treasure, sees each one of us a pearl beyond value, delights in us by giving us the kingdom.

God drops a net to the bottom of the lake, and hauls up every part of us, the good, the bad and the ugly. God then patiently separates us from every hateful condemnation we’ve been taught, every abusive social structure we’ve inherited, or rationalization for our over-consumption or entitlement we’ve come up with. God burns off all our self-destructive baggage and ushers us into a kingdom which is only good. God holds us forever in the assurance that nothing can ever separate us from eternal love[vii].

In fact, maybe all the power and goodness of the universe is unleashing a chain reaction right under us, igniting an explosion of love and justice and reconciliation, to change the course of history. Maybe the God of love and mercy has in fact entered the real world to teach us something about the meaning of life, and finally to offer us our truest, deepest identity, as children of love, children of life, as the most beautiful jewels of heaven.

If God is for us, who is against? Who would have thought!?

 

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer

[ii] Laura Paddison, “This month is the planet’s hottest on record by far – and hottest in around 120,000 years, scientists say,” July 27, 2023, CNN https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/world/july-hottest-month-record-climate/index.html

[iii] Matthew 13:31-33; 44-52

[iv] Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, Harpers-Collins Press, 2014, p. 149.

[v]Levine talks about many of the parables this way, and includes full chapters to the parables of the yeast, mustard seed, and the pearl.

[vi] Hope Jahren, Lab Girl, Alfred A Knopf, 2016, p 30.

[vii] Romans 8:26-39