Loving God with our minds
Commentary
The first great commandment that we should "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind" (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27) challenges our thinking that love is simply a matter of the heart or of the soul. The inclusion of strength implies the involvement of the body, and the mention of the mind (not in the Deuteronomy passage but in all three Gospel passages) certainly challenges us to consider the ways we love God with our reason.
The first lesson focuses on the gift of wisdom and discernment as the means by which Solomon executed justice in his reign. Indeed, when Christians encounter the problems of the world, particularly those of injustice, reason is often the means by which we work together with others for the good of all. Reason or intellect are God-given talents for the good of the world, and they are employed for the world to the glory of God. Our Gospel will also conclude with the notion that understanding through trained minds is the way the scribes of the kingdom comprehend and teach the treasures of the good news.
1 Kings 3:5-12
The verses comprising our pericope explain the origin of the tradition about the wisdom of Solomon. In one sense the positive thrust of these verses follows surprisingly on the footsteps of the story about the palace intrigue that led to the coronation of Solomon as king and most immediately following the report that Solomon had married an Egyptian princess and brought her (and her entire entourage) to Jerusalem. In another sense this pericope introduces us to the greatness of Solomon as it will be unraveled in one story after another for the next nine chapters.
One of the high places, traditionally places Canaanites worshiped Baal and his consorts, was Gibeon, indeed the principal high place. While spending the night there, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, just as the Lord long before appeared to Jacob at another such place (Genesis 28:10). It was as though the Lord had offered to become Solomon's genie in the lamp, for the Lord offered to give Solomon whatever he asked.
To Solomon's credit he placed his request in the context of what the Lord had already given, starting with the gifts to his father David: "great and steadfast love." The words "steadfast love" derive from one Hebrew word chesed that actually means "covenant loyalty." The covenant in mind is the one the Lord made with David (2 Samuel 7) that God would establish on the throne of David a successor "who shall come forth from your body," that is, a biological son. Solomon alludes here to that covenant promise and the Lord's loyalty to fulfilling it in the person of himself. That Solomon calls himself "a little child" probably does not reflect his age since he is already married but rather his humility. It might even have something to do with the messianic tradition that "a little child" will lead the creatures great and small, even prey and prowler, in the kingdom (Isaiah 11:6). Having thus established the Lord's greatness and his own inadequacy, Solomon makes his wish for "an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil." More literally, the words mean "a listening mind/heart to render justice for the people." When God expresses pleasure at Solomon's request, the Lord grants "a wise and discerning mind" (v. 12). Such listening, discernment, wisdom, and commitment to justice are the qualities that enable people in governing positions to do their work as "instituted by God" (Romans 13:1).
In the case of Solomon the following material demonstrates his stewardship of this gift from God. In the first place, following his resolution of the dispute over the two women about their claim to the same baby, the narrator concludes that the people of Israel "perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to execute justice" (3:28). Second, the conclusion of the following chapter speaks of Solomon's reputation for wisdom so spreading throughout the world that "they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom" (4:34).
In a larger sense, the lesson suggests that the abilities of the mind God gives us have as their purpose a responsible care for all that God entrusts to us.
Romans 8:26-39
The concluding verses of the pericope have become very comforting to many people when they experience the death of those they love, and that comfort comes through these words in at least three ways. First, nothing can separate their loved ones from the love of God. People who grieve often ask the question -- whether aloud or in the pain of their hearts -- about where the loved one is now. If we take seriously the promise of the resurrection of the dead at the last day, when the trumpet blasts, then these verses enable their comforters to respond with the words of Paul, namely that he or she is surrounded by the love of God.
Second, nothing can separate the mourners from that love in spite of the doubt and anger and loneliness that encompass the agony we call grief. The loneliness that overwhelms the ones left behind, even the feeling that the deceased has abandoned them, is often transferred to God. God, it often seems, has not been a very present help in time of trouble. Even the most devout can in grief question the faith in which they grew up, the faith the church proclaims, the God who promised help but did not deliver. Again these words address the lonely mourners with the announcement that nothing -- not even this unbearable pain -- can separate us from God's love.
Third, often at the time of death many questions are left unanswered. What actually happened? Why did this happen? How did it happen? The mourners want answers to those questions, but no answer will suffice. The words of Paul are powerful: in spite of many unanswered questions "I am convinced" (RSV "I am sure") that God's love will fight through all the barriers to be present. The final verse of the pericope is powerful indeed!
As for the initial verses, they cannot be interpreted without the preceding paragraph about Christians waiting in suffering, along with the rest of creation, for the glory of God to come. Indeed the destiny of the Christian, made child of God through the gift of the Spirit, is the theme that will continue through verse 30.
The role the Spirit plays in the first paragraph of our pericope is intercession. Since we are yet part of the groaning creation, we are by no means skilled in the act of prayer. The Spirit helps us in our weakness by interceding "with sighs too deep for words." The Greek word used here for sighs is of the same root as the word for our groaning (v. 23) while we await the final resurrection. The Spirit, therefore, knows our pains intimately and can intercede for us, for all the saints, to God, assisting in the feeble prayers we offer. This intercession is not an independent or random act on the Spirit's part; it is "according to the will of God" (literally, "according to God"). The Spirit's assistance in our prayer is part of God's plan to care for us until the day of glory.
In the second paragraph of our lesson Paul lays out the divine plan for those who have become God's children through the Spirit. The plan involves the working out of good for those who love God, that is, Christians who have been made God's children. Christians are (1) "called according to his purpose," God's establishing of a new community called the church, part of the plan God had designed from all eternity; (2) "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son," not an emphasis on a double predestination in which others are condemned, but the nature of those who have been baptized in the Spirit: they are such new creatures that they will share the image of Christ. Elsewhere in the New Testament baptized Christians are said to bear the image or likeness of God (see Ephesians 4:24; perhaps also James 3:9), but since Christ is the "image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15) our new nature will one day conform completely to his to such an extent that we become his siblings "within a large family" (v. 29).
The sequence of God's plan as Paul lays it out is that those who have been predestined to share in this glorious family are called here and now to be the church in the world; those who are so called already have the gift of justification by which they have peace with God (see Romans 5:1); then, like the prophets of the Old Testament who spoke of God's future actions in such certain terms that they used the past tense signifying an act already accomplished, Paul concludes the sequence with the words "and those whom he justified he also glorified."
That plan, already in full swing but not yet completed, is what provides the assurance of the following paragraph about God's love in Christ Jesus. Predestined to the final glory and armed with the gift of justification here and now, the Christian can be assured of the love of God in Christ in spite of anything that might try to separate us.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
While Jesus has already explained the purpose of his teaching the public in parables to expose their unbelief while saving the deeper issues for his disciples' comprehension of his word, we might do well to look again over all the parables of the kingdom in this chapter. The teaching about the kingdom in parables demonstrates there is no option to parables when it come to talking about what human beings have never seen or experienced. The kingdom that Jesus announced is so contrary to human experience that only some form of parabolic language was sufficient to convey its dimensions and its glory. One after another of Jesus' parables begins with the words "the kingdom of God is like...." Only comparisons based on everyday experiences could possibly convey the reality of the kingdom to the people of this world. Since we do not really know "God talk," we are limited to "human talk," and in his parables of the kingdom Jesus put into our means of understanding that which lies beyond our frame of reference. Such is part of what God's incarnational involvement in the world is all about.
The parables about the kingdom in our pericope are those of the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl, the net, and the householder. Some of these appear also in Mark, while others, because they are not in Mark but in Luke as well as Matthew, belong to Q.
While Mark uses the parable of the mustard seed to demonstrate the difference between the small beginnings and the huge bush representing the kingdom, Matthew appears more interested in the notion that the tiny mustard seed is transformed into a tree, an eschatological miracle (vv. 31-32). In the Old Testament a tree appears in eschatological prophecies in a variety of ways. In the preaching of Ezekiel, the Lord promises to take a tender little shoot from the lofty top of a cedar, plant it on a high hill, and watch it become a noble cedar under whose branches all kinds of beasts will dwell and all kinds of birds find shade (Ezekiel 17:22-23; see also 31:6). The growth of a tree to such height that it became visible to the ends of the earth, gave fruit to all, and provided shade for the beasts of the field and protective nesting for the birds of the air is the core of Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 4:1-12, 20-21). There, however, the tree represents the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar that will fall in the near future (vv. 22-27).
That these Old Testament images include the mention of the tree as a place where feathered friends hang out appears to point to the kingdom as the gathering place for the people of God while simultaneously emphasizing the immense stature of the tree in contrast to the small, even tiny, beginning. Perhaps Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" will provide an interesting point for comparison and contrast if the sermon should focus on this one image in the pericope.
The emphasis on growth occurs in the parable about the leaven. That Jesus uses yeast at all in a parable addressed to a Jewish audience is striking, particularly because yeast is considered unclean in Jewish law. It is no accident that the Jewish people celebrate a Festival of Unleavened Bread in connection with the Passover. Perhaps Jesus, as Matthew tells it, is already eliminating the distinction between clean and unclean as he promises a kingdom that will include Gentile as well as Jew (see the preaching of Peter at Acts 10 following his vision of the net full of fish). In any case, the effect of yeast is to work its wonders silently and without much notice. The effect of preaching the word of the kingdom will hardly be noticed until the end when "it was all leavened" -- a comfort to all witnesses of every generation who have no way of measuring the success of their testimony.
The following two parables, that of the treasure and that of the pearl, emphasize the call to "seek first the kingdom of God." The discoverer of the valued item gives up everything else for the sake of the kingdom.
As for the "treasure" in particular, the image appears in proverbial literature to describe "wisdom." At Proverbs 15:6 treasure is what fills the house of the righteous or wise person, and according to Proverbs 21:20 the treasure will remain there for the wise. In wisdom-like teaching Matthew has Jesus make the contrast between the good that comes out of the treasure of a good person and the evil that arises from the treasure of the evil person (Matthew 12:35). Further, in a more eschatological vein Jesus promises "treasure in heaven" to the one, who, like the man in our parable, would sell everything in order to follow him (Matthew 19:21). The apostle Paul, of course, considers the "gospel" itself to be the treasure that God gives to us crack(ed) pots (2 Corinthians 4:7).
The final parable in this tightly connected collection is that of the fishing net. Quite similar in its intention to the parable of the weeds, this one indicates that the kingdom preaching commissioned to the disciples will gather all kinds of folks, the good and the bad to be separated only at the close of the age by the angels of God. On the positive side the parable promises a favorable response to the preaching entrusted to the church. On the negative it warns against the assumption that such response is pure and unadulterated. As a result, the church cannot and should not try to measure its successes at the risk of failing in its faithfulness to the word of the kingdom.
Like the fate of the weeds (v. 42), the bad fish netted here will be cast by the angels "into the furnace of fire." The words appear in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in terms of the threat to anyone in the land of Babylon who would not bow down to the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up (see Daniel 3:6). The fate once offered to those who would not worship an idol is here the fate of those who are not faithful disciples of the Lord. That they will spend eternity in "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is consistent with the expression of eschatological judgment elsewhere in Matthew (see 8:12; 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). That response is a far cry from the comfort promised to those who mourn here and now (5:4).
Finally, Jesus concludes these parables by asking the disciples if they understood all this. He must have broken into a smile when they answered in the affirmative simply because it was so rare an occasion. Their response, however, means they fit the qualifications for "scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven." As such, they know how to value in the treasure chest of their learning both the old as well as the new as they go about their witnessing to the kingdom. Perhaps what comes to mind is the discernment to know the meaning of Jesus' earlier words: "I have not come to abolish (the law and the prophets) but to fulfill" (5:17).
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 29:15-28
We find before us a very worldly story of love and deceit on the part of two very worldly men. All through these stories of Jacob and Laban we find two scoundrels who seem bent on trying to outdo the other in trickery. Far from dealing with only some ethereal, spiritual realm, the Bible throughout deals with the grubbiness of human life as it is actually lived. And it is in the middle of that sordidness, with its power-plays and pettiness, that the scriptures find God at work.
Jacob has fled toward his Uncle Laban's house in Mesopotamia to escape the wrath of his brother Esau, whom Jacob has cheated out of his right and blessing as the firstborn of Isaac. As Jacob nears Haran, he encounters a group of shepherds keeping their sheep, who point out Rachel, Laban's daughter, to him. It apparently is love at first sight. Rachel is "beautiful and lovely" (v. 17) and Jacob knows that he must make her his wife.
Because Jacob is going to stay with Laban for awhile and work for him, Laban asks what wages Jacob requires. Jacob, in an extravaganza of love, says that he will work for Laban for seven years if Laban will consent for Rachel to marry him (v. 18).
The clinker in the story is that Laban has two daughters, Leah, which means "cow," and who has "weak" eyes -- that is, her eyes are not dark and lustrous, but pale and shading toward blue. She apparently is not very attractive, but she is the older of the two sisters (vv. 16-17). Rachel, which means "ewe," on the other hand is lovely, and because Jacob loves her so much, the seven years that he works to obtain her seem to him like a few days (v. 20). His is definitely a relationship of deepest love with Rachel, not a commercial arrangement.
It is not proper for the younger daughter to marry prior to the older, however, and so when the wedding night comes, Laban substitutes a heavily-veiled Leah for Rachel in the wedding tent. Imagine Jacob's shock the next morning, after the marriage has been consummated, when he awakes and "behold, it is Leah" (v. 25). Jacob is furious, as well he might be. But Laban promises him that if he will go along with the week of wedding festivities and then work seven more years, he may have Rachel as a wife also at the end of the festivities. So Jacob gets his heart's desire and Rachel is his at the end of the seven days, but he must continue to work for seven years as the bridal price paid for her (vv. 26-30).
It is not a happy arrangement. Jacob hates Leah and loves Rachel, but Rachel is barren, while the Lord in mercy opens Leah's womb. God, it seems, always favors the despised, the outcast, and the helpless. And it is Leah who becomes the mother of the forbears of four of the tribes of Israel -- Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. With the birth of each son, poor Leah hopes, apparently in vain, that the child will cause Jacob to love her too (vv. 31-39). We never hear that such love is given, however, and indeed, the narrator's interest is entirely centered on the sons who are born.
What is such a secular story doing in the Bible? Other than revealing to us the mercy of God toward one despised, does it say anything to us about the working of the Lord? Well, yes, it does, because from Leah, the ugly and hated wife, later comes forth David from the tribe of Judah and Moses from the tribe of Levi. God has used, as he so often does, a seemingly distasteful situation to continue to further his purpose for his people Israel. God takes the most unlikely situation and turns it into a cause of blessing. Here he uses Laban's deceit, and Jacob's love, and Leah's pitiful longing to set the stage for the future deliverance of his people from slavery under Moses and for the coming rule over his people of their greatest king, David. Only a God whose purpose spans all time can do such deeds.
Perhaps that is a revelation to us of the fact that even what seems to us at the time to be the most dreadful situation may be an integral part of the ongoing purpose of God that he is working out through our lives. While we know only the moment, God knows the outcome, and he uses even our most desperate moments to work out his loving purpose.
Lutheran Option -- 1 Kings 3:5-12
With this text we enter into the world of Deuteronomic theology. It has long been the view of scholars that everything in the books of Judges through 2 Kings has been edited about 550 B.C. by those who are known as the Deuteronomic editors. Typical of those editors in our text is the high estimation of the faithful kingship of David (v. 6) and of the initial wisdom of Solomon, around whose name many Wisdom traditions clustered.
Most important for our purposes, however, is the Deuteronomic view of the davidic kingship that is found in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. The preacher should read that passage and note that its main requirement for a good king is that he not accumulate for himself the trappings of other oriental monarchs (Deuteronomy 17:16-17), but that he faithfully follow the Deuteronomic covenant law, walking in God's ways, cleaving to God, and loving the Lord with all his heart and mind and strength.
We are told immediately, therefore, in our text that Solomon loved the Lord and walked in the covenant statutes, as did his father David (v. 3). Solomon does not yet worship only at Jerusalem, as Deuteronomy prescribes, because the Temple has not yet been built (v. 4), but following our passage, Solomon does offer his thanksgiving sacrifice in that holy city (v. 15).
But in our passage, Solomon is granted a revelatory dream at the place of worship in Gibeon (vv. 5, 15) and, because of his love for the Lord, is allowed to ask a gift of the Lord (v. 5). Rather than choosing long life or riches or military victories (cf. v. 11), Solomon asks for an understanding mind to discern between good and evil, to make judicial judgments rightly (which is the meaning of v. 11), and to have wisdom to rule his people. In short, Solomon chooses the pattern of kingship laid out by Deuteronomy. His request is framed in the most humble terms -- three times he calls himself God's "servant" (vv. 7-9), and he further states that he does not know "to go out and come in," which is a general expression for leadership. In short, Solomon's desire is to have the wisdom which will prosper the welfare of his people. He wants not his own glory, but that wisdom which will allow him faithfully to fulfill his covenant duties to God.
Because Solomon has chosen thus, God grants him also, as a free gift, riches and honor (v. 13) and long life, if Solomon will continue faithful to the covenant law (v. 14).
In the brief space allotted, we cannot discuss Solomon's subsequent disobedience (cf. 1 Kings 11). But because governments are ordained by God to promote right among the populace (cf. Romans 13), we can point to the ideal for rule that this passage sets before us. A ruler, a leader, a president, who is concerned primarily for the welfare of his people, and who wisely promotes that welfare by discerning between good and evil and by knowing what is right -- surely in our day those are the qualities to look for in those whom we elect to govern us.
The first lesson focuses on the gift of wisdom and discernment as the means by which Solomon executed justice in his reign. Indeed, when Christians encounter the problems of the world, particularly those of injustice, reason is often the means by which we work together with others for the good of all. Reason or intellect are God-given talents for the good of the world, and they are employed for the world to the glory of God. Our Gospel will also conclude with the notion that understanding through trained minds is the way the scribes of the kingdom comprehend and teach the treasures of the good news.
1 Kings 3:5-12
The verses comprising our pericope explain the origin of the tradition about the wisdom of Solomon. In one sense the positive thrust of these verses follows surprisingly on the footsteps of the story about the palace intrigue that led to the coronation of Solomon as king and most immediately following the report that Solomon had married an Egyptian princess and brought her (and her entire entourage) to Jerusalem. In another sense this pericope introduces us to the greatness of Solomon as it will be unraveled in one story after another for the next nine chapters.
One of the high places, traditionally places Canaanites worshiped Baal and his consorts, was Gibeon, indeed the principal high place. While spending the night there, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, just as the Lord long before appeared to Jacob at another such place (Genesis 28:10). It was as though the Lord had offered to become Solomon's genie in the lamp, for the Lord offered to give Solomon whatever he asked.
To Solomon's credit he placed his request in the context of what the Lord had already given, starting with the gifts to his father David: "great and steadfast love." The words "steadfast love" derive from one Hebrew word chesed that actually means "covenant loyalty." The covenant in mind is the one the Lord made with David (2 Samuel 7) that God would establish on the throne of David a successor "who shall come forth from your body," that is, a biological son. Solomon alludes here to that covenant promise and the Lord's loyalty to fulfilling it in the person of himself. That Solomon calls himself "a little child" probably does not reflect his age since he is already married but rather his humility. It might even have something to do with the messianic tradition that "a little child" will lead the creatures great and small, even prey and prowler, in the kingdom (Isaiah 11:6). Having thus established the Lord's greatness and his own inadequacy, Solomon makes his wish for "an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil." More literally, the words mean "a listening mind/heart to render justice for the people." When God expresses pleasure at Solomon's request, the Lord grants "a wise and discerning mind" (v. 12). Such listening, discernment, wisdom, and commitment to justice are the qualities that enable people in governing positions to do their work as "instituted by God" (Romans 13:1).
In the case of Solomon the following material demonstrates his stewardship of this gift from God. In the first place, following his resolution of the dispute over the two women about their claim to the same baby, the narrator concludes that the people of Israel "perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to execute justice" (3:28). Second, the conclusion of the following chapter speaks of Solomon's reputation for wisdom so spreading throughout the world that "they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom" (4:34).
In a larger sense, the lesson suggests that the abilities of the mind God gives us have as their purpose a responsible care for all that God entrusts to us.
Romans 8:26-39
The concluding verses of the pericope have become very comforting to many people when they experience the death of those they love, and that comfort comes through these words in at least three ways. First, nothing can separate their loved ones from the love of God. People who grieve often ask the question -- whether aloud or in the pain of their hearts -- about where the loved one is now. If we take seriously the promise of the resurrection of the dead at the last day, when the trumpet blasts, then these verses enable their comforters to respond with the words of Paul, namely that he or she is surrounded by the love of God.
Second, nothing can separate the mourners from that love in spite of the doubt and anger and loneliness that encompass the agony we call grief. The loneliness that overwhelms the ones left behind, even the feeling that the deceased has abandoned them, is often transferred to God. God, it often seems, has not been a very present help in time of trouble. Even the most devout can in grief question the faith in which they grew up, the faith the church proclaims, the God who promised help but did not deliver. Again these words address the lonely mourners with the announcement that nothing -- not even this unbearable pain -- can separate us from God's love.
Third, often at the time of death many questions are left unanswered. What actually happened? Why did this happen? How did it happen? The mourners want answers to those questions, but no answer will suffice. The words of Paul are powerful: in spite of many unanswered questions "I am convinced" (RSV "I am sure") that God's love will fight through all the barriers to be present. The final verse of the pericope is powerful indeed!
As for the initial verses, they cannot be interpreted without the preceding paragraph about Christians waiting in suffering, along with the rest of creation, for the glory of God to come. Indeed the destiny of the Christian, made child of God through the gift of the Spirit, is the theme that will continue through verse 30.
The role the Spirit plays in the first paragraph of our pericope is intercession. Since we are yet part of the groaning creation, we are by no means skilled in the act of prayer. The Spirit helps us in our weakness by interceding "with sighs too deep for words." The Greek word used here for sighs is of the same root as the word for our groaning (v. 23) while we await the final resurrection. The Spirit, therefore, knows our pains intimately and can intercede for us, for all the saints, to God, assisting in the feeble prayers we offer. This intercession is not an independent or random act on the Spirit's part; it is "according to the will of God" (literally, "according to God"). The Spirit's assistance in our prayer is part of God's plan to care for us until the day of glory.
In the second paragraph of our lesson Paul lays out the divine plan for those who have become God's children through the Spirit. The plan involves the working out of good for those who love God, that is, Christians who have been made God's children. Christians are (1) "called according to his purpose," God's establishing of a new community called the church, part of the plan God had designed from all eternity; (2) "predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son," not an emphasis on a double predestination in which others are condemned, but the nature of those who have been baptized in the Spirit: they are such new creatures that they will share the image of Christ. Elsewhere in the New Testament baptized Christians are said to bear the image or likeness of God (see Ephesians 4:24; perhaps also James 3:9), but since Christ is the "image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15) our new nature will one day conform completely to his to such an extent that we become his siblings "within a large family" (v. 29).
The sequence of God's plan as Paul lays it out is that those who have been predestined to share in this glorious family are called here and now to be the church in the world; those who are so called already have the gift of justification by which they have peace with God (see Romans 5:1); then, like the prophets of the Old Testament who spoke of God's future actions in such certain terms that they used the past tense signifying an act already accomplished, Paul concludes the sequence with the words "and those whom he justified he also glorified."
That plan, already in full swing but not yet completed, is what provides the assurance of the following paragraph about God's love in Christ Jesus. Predestined to the final glory and armed with the gift of justification here and now, the Christian can be assured of the love of God in Christ in spite of anything that might try to separate us.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
While Jesus has already explained the purpose of his teaching the public in parables to expose their unbelief while saving the deeper issues for his disciples' comprehension of his word, we might do well to look again over all the parables of the kingdom in this chapter. The teaching about the kingdom in parables demonstrates there is no option to parables when it come to talking about what human beings have never seen or experienced. The kingdom that Jesus announced is so contrary to human experience that only some form of parabolic language was sufficient to convey its dimensions and its glory. One after another of Jesus' parables begins with the words "the kingdom of God is like...." Only comparisons based on everyday experiences could possibly convey the reality of the kingdom to the people of this world. Since we do not really know "God talk," we are limited to "human talk," and in his parables of the kingdom Jesus put into our means of understanding that which lies beyond our frame of reference. Such is part of what God's incarnational involvement in the world is all about.
The parables about the kingdom in our pericope are those of the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl, the net, and the householder. Some of these appear also in Mark, while others, because they are not in Mark but in Luke as well as Matthew, belong to Q.
While Mark uses the parable of the mustard seed to demonstrate the difference between the small beginnings and the huge bush representing the kingdom, Matthew appears more interested in the notion that the tiny mustard seed is transformed into a tree, an eschatological miracle (vv. 31-32). In the Old Testament a tree appears in eschatological prophecies in a variety of ways. In the preaching of Ezekiel, the Lord promises to take a tender little shoot from the lofty top of a cedar, plant it on a high hill, and watch it become a noble cedar under whose branches all kinds of beasts will dwell and all kinds of birds find shade (Ezekiel 17:22-23; see also 31:6). The growth of a tree to such height that it became visible to the ends of the earth, gave fruit to all, and provided shade for the beasts of the field and protective nesting for the birds of the air is the core of Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream (Daniel 4:1-12, 20-21). There, however, the tree represents the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar that will fall in the near future (vv. 22-27).
That these Old Testament images include the mention of the tree as a place where feathered friends hang out appears to point to the kingdom as the gathering place for the people of God while simultaneously emphasizing the immense stature of the tree in contrast to the small, even tiny, beginning. Perhaps Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" will provide an interesting point for comparison and contrast if the sermon should focus on this one image in the pericope.
The emphasis on growth occurs in the parable about the leaven. That Jesus uses yeast at all in a parable addressed to a Jewish audience is striking, particularly because yeast is considered unclean in Jewish law. It is no accident that the Jewish people celebrate a Festival of Unleavened Bread in connection with the Passover. Perhaps Jesus, as Matthew tells it, is already eliminating the distinction between clean and unclean as he promises a kingdom that will include Gentile as well as Jew (see the preaching of Peter at Acts 10 following his vision of the net full of fish). In any case, the effect of yeast is to work its wonders silently and without much notice. The effect of preaching the word of the kingdom will hardly be noticed until the end when "it was all leavened" -- a comfort to all witnesses of every generation who have no way of measuring the success of their testimony.
The following two parables, that of the treasure and that of the pearl, emphasize the call to "seek first the kingdom of God." The discoverer of the valued item gives up everything else for the sake of the kingdom.
As for the "treasure" in particular, the image appears in proverbial literature to describe "wisdom." At Proverbs 15:6 treasure is what fills the house of the righteous or wise person, and according to Proverbs 21:20 the treasure will remain there for the wise. In wisdom-like teaching Matthew has Jesus make the contrast between the good that comes out of the treasure of a good person and the evil that arises from the treasure of the evil person (Matthew 12:35). Further, in a more eschatological vein Jesus promises "treasure in heaven" to the one, who, like the man in our parable, would sell everything in order to follow him (Matthew 19:21). The apostle Paul, of course, considers the "gospel" itself to be the treasure that God gives to us crack(ed) pots (2 Corinthians 4:7).
The final parable in this tightly connected collection is that of the fishing net. Quite similar in its intention to the parable of the weeds, this one indicates that the kingdom preaching commissioned to the disciples will gather all kinds of folks, the good and the bad to be separated only at the close of the age by the angels of God. On the positive side the parable promises a favorable response to the preaching entrusted to the church. On the negative it warns against the assumption that such response is pure and unadulterated. As a result, the church cannot and should not try to measure its successes at the risk of failing in its faithfulness to the word of the kingdom.
Like the fate of the weeds (v. 42), the bad fish netted here will be cast by the angels "into the furnace of fire." The words appear in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in terms of the threat to anyone in the land of Babylon who would not bow down to the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up (see Daniel 3:6). The fate once offered to those who would not worship an idol is here the fate of those who are not faithful disciples of the Lord. That they will spend eternity in "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is consistent with the expression of eschatological judgment elsewhere in Matthew (see 8:12; 13:42; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). That response is a far cry from the comfort promised to those who mourn here and now (5:4).
Finally, Jesus concludes these parables by asking the disciples if they understood all this. He must have broken into a smile when they answered in the affirmative simply because it was so rare an occasion. Their response, however, means they fit the qualifications for "scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven." As such, they know how to value in the treasure chest of their learning both the old as well as the new as they go about their witnessing to the kingdom. Perhaps what comes to mind is the discernment to know the meaning of Jesus' earlier words: "I have not come to abolish (the law and the prophets) but to fulfill" (5:17).
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Genesis 29:15-28
We find before us a very worldly story of love and deceit on the part of two very worldly men. All through these stories of Jacob and Laban we find two scoundrels who seem bent on trying to outdo the other in trickery. Far from dealing with only some ethereal, spiritual realm, the Bible throughout deals with the grubbiness of human life as it is actually lived. And it is in the middle of that sordidness, with its power-plays and pettiness, that the scriptures find God at work.
Jacob has fled toward his Uncle Laban's house in Mesopotamia to escape the wrath of his brother Esau, whom Jacob has cheated out of his right and blessing as the firstborn of Isaac. As Jacob nears Haran, he encounters a group of shepherds keeping their sheep, who point out Rachel, Laban's daughter, to him. It apparently is love at first sight. Rachel is "beautiful and lovely" (v. 17) and Jacob knows that he must make her his wife.
Because Jacob is going to stay with Laban for awhile and work for him, Laban asks what wages Jacob requires. Jacob, in an extravaganza of love, says that he will work for Laban for seven years if Laban will consent for Rachel to marry him (v. 18).
The clinker in the story is that Laban has two daughters, Leah, which means "cow," and who has "weak" eyes -- that is, her eyes are not dark and lustrous, but pale and shading toward blue. She apparently is not very attractive, but she is the older of the two sisters (vv. 16-17). Rachel, which means "ewe," on the other hand is lovely, and because Jacob loves her so much, the seven years that he works to obtain her seem to him like a few days (v. 20). His is definitely a relationship of deepest love with Rachel, not a commercial arrangement.
It is not proper for the younger daughter to marry prior to the older, however, and so when the wedding night comes, Laban substitutes a heavily-veiled Leah for Rachel in the wedding tent. Imagine Jacob's shock the next morning, after the marriage has been consummated, when he awakes and "behold, it is Leah" (v. 25). Jacob is furious, as well he might be. But Laban promises him that if he will go along with the week of wedding festivities and then work seven more years, he may have Rachel as a wife also at the end of the festivities. So Jacob gets his heart's desire and Rachel is his at the end of the seven days, but he must continue to work for seven years as the bridal price paid for her (vv. 26-30).
It is not a happy arrangement. Jacob hates Leah and loves Rachel, but Rachel is barren, while the Lord in mercy opens Leah's womb. God, it seems, always favors the despised, the outcast, and the helpless. And it is Leah who becomes the mother of the forbears of four of the tribes of Israel -- Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. With the birth of each son, poor Leah hopes, apparently in vain, that the child will cause Jacob to love her too (vv. 31-39). We never hear that such love is given, however, and indeed, the narrator's interest is entirely centered on the sons who are born.
What is such a secular story doing in the Bible? Other than revealing to us the mercy of God toward one despised, does it say anything to us about the working of the Lord? Well, yes, it does, because from Leah, the ugly and hated wife, later comes forth David from the tribe of Judah and Moses from the tribe of Levi. God has used, as he so often does, a seemingly distasteful situation to continue to further his purpose for his people Israel. God takes the most unlikely situation and turns it into a cause of blessing. Here he uses Laban's deceit, and Jacob's love, and Leah's pitiful longing to set the stage for the future deliverance of his people from slavery under Moses and for the coming rule over his people of their greatest king, David. Only a God whose purpose spans all time can do such deeds.
Perhaps that is a revelation to us of the fact that even what seems to us at the time to be the most dreadful situation may be an integral part of the ongoing purpose of God that he is working out through our lives. While we know only the moment, God knows the outcome, and he uses even our most desperate moments to work out his loving purpose.
Lutheran Option -- 1 Kings 3:5-12
With this text we enter into the world of Deuteronomic theology. It has long been the view of scholars that everything in the books of Judges through 2 Kings has been edited about 550 B.C. by those who are known as the Deuteronomic editors. Typical of those editors in our text is the high estimation of the faithful kingship of David (v. 6) and of the initial wisdom of Solomon, around whose name many Wisdom traditions clustered.
Most important for our purposes, however, is the Deuteronomic view of the davidic kingship that is found in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. The preacher should read that passage and note that its main requirement for a good king is that he not accumulate for himself the trappings of other oriental monarchs (Deuteronomy 17:16-17), but that he faithfully follow the Deuteronomic covenant law, walking in God's ways, cleaving to God, and loving the Lord with all his heart and mind and strength.
We are told immediately, therefore, in our text that Solomon loved the Lord and walked in the covenant statutes, as did his father David (v. 3). Solomon does not yet worship only at Jerusalem, as Deuteronomy prescribes, because the Temple has not yet been built (v. 4), but following our passage, Solomon does offer his thanksgiving sacrifice in that holy city (v. 15).
But in our passage, Solomon is granted a revelatory dream at the place of worship in Gibeon (vv. 5, 15) and, because of his love for the Lord, is allowed to ask a gift of the Lord (v. 5). Rather than choosing long life or riches or military victories (cf. v. 11), Solomon asks for an understanding mind to discern between good and evil, to make judicial judgments rightly (which is the meaning of v. 11), and to have wisdom to rule his people. In short, Solomon chooses the pattern of kingship laid out by Deuteronomy. His request is framed in the most humble terms -- three times he calls himself God's "servant" (vv. 7-9), and he further states that he does not know "to go out and come in," which is a general expression for leadership. In short, Solomon's desire is to have the wisdom which will prosper the welfare of his people. He wants not his own glory, but that wisdom which will allow him faithfully to fulfill his covenant duties to God.
Because Solomon has chosen thus, God grants him also, as a free gift, riches and honor (v. 13) and long life, if Solomon will continue faithful to the covenant law (v. 14).
In the brief space allotted, we cannot discuss Solomon's subsequent disobedience (cf. 1 Kings 11). But because governments are ordained by God to promote right among the populace (cf. Romans 13), we can point to the ideal for rule that this passage sets before us. A ruler, a leader, a president, who is concerned primarily for the welfare of his people, and who wisely promotes that welfare by discerning between good and evil and by knowing what is right -- surely in our day those are the qualities to look for in those whom we elect to govern us.
