Proper 12 / Pentecost 10 / Ordinary Time 17
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Object:
Theme For The Day
Although heaven is a reality impossible for human minds to conceive, Jesus uses parables to give us some hints.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 29:15-28
Jacob Marries Leah And Rachel
Jacob has been bunking with his Uncle Laban for a month and has fallen in love with Laban's youngest daughter, Rachel. Laban proposes that Jacob work for him for seven years in order to earn the hand of his daughter. The seven years "seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (v. 20). When they are over, he asks to be married to Rachel, but Laban slyly substitutes his older daughter, Leah. Because his bride is veiled, Jacob doesn't discover until the next morning that he's married the wrong daughter. Jacob, the trickster, has met his match in Laban. Confronting his uncle with the deception, he learns that the marriage cannot be undone, but that Laban will cheerfully give him Rachel in a week's time, once the marriage feast is over -- provided Jacob agrees to work for him for another seven years. Realizing he's been had but that there's nothing he can do about it, Jacob reluctantly agrees. Leah will prove to be the more fertile of the two women, but Rachel will produce Joseph, the son who will one day save the entire family from disaster. Their two maids, Zilpah and Bilhah, will give Jacob children as well. Thus, Jacob's turbulent sojourn in the household of Laban will result in a large and complex polygamous family unit, from whom will spring the twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 8:26-39
Nothing Can Separate Us From The Love Of Christ
Picking up where last week's passage left off, Paul concludes with a triumphant celebration of the invincible love of Christ. Not only does the Spirit provide us moral support, as we patiently await the unfolding of God's plan, but when we find ourselves bereft of even the ability to pray, the Spirit prays for us, interceding before God "with sighs too deep for words" (v. 26). For faithful believers, "all things work together for good" (v. 28). This is more than an airy, mindless optimism. Paul is well aware of the intensity of suffering experienced by some of his readers. He is more interested in the long-term outcome: eternal life for those who persevere in the faith. Paul's next line, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son," has become a foundation of the ever-controversial doctrine of predestination (v. 29). His overall message to suffering believers is not to worry, because God is in command, and all is unfolding according to plan. Predestination, to Paul -- as it is for Augustine, Calvin, and others who have advanced it -- is a supremely comforting doctrine, for it contains assurance of salvation. Finally, he shifts his focus to a courtroom setting, imagining long-suffering Christians standing before the judgment seat of God. Who will be their advocate, arguing on their behalf? Their advocate will be none other than Christ himself (v. 34). Nothing -- in heaven, on earth, or anywhere else -- can separate us from his love (verses 35-39).
The Gospel
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Parables Of God's Reign
Last week's gospel lesson bracketed the first part of this one -- leapfrogging over it, to get to the interpretation of the Parable of Weeds. Now, the lectionary editors return to where they left off, covering the Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, before jumping ahead to present three more short parables: the Treasure in the Field, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Net. The five parables included within this week's lection are quick snapshots, each revealing different facets of the wondrous reality that is the reign of God. The first two, the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, depict God's reign as a growing presence that is for now small and insignificant but whose growth into a substantial reality is inevitable (verses 31-33). The other three parables, the Treasure, the Pearl, and the Net, focus on the giddy joy of discovering God's reign in the midst of the ordinary world (verses 44-52). God's grace is real and will yield abundantly.
Preaching Possibilities
"Mom, Dad -- I've got a question for you. What's heaven like?"
"What's heaven like... Well, son, let me think how to put it. Heaven is like... uh... let me find the right words. Heaven is like... I've got an idea -- why don't you go ask the pastor?"
So what is heaven like? People in white choir robes lolling around on cottony clouds, plucking on harps? That's the iconic image of the newspaper cartoons -- based, in part, on the dreamlike visions of the book of Revelation, all thrown together randomly. Or, maybe it's a gleaming, celestial city, whose streets are paved with gold. (That comes from Revelation, also.) The prophet Isaiah seems to think heaven's a great banqueting table, groaning with food and wine -- a sumptuous feast spread out upon a mountaintop. The Vikings would have liked that one well enough because their image of heaven was a vast, smoky mead-hall with joints of mutton forever turning on spits over the fire and drinking horns that never run dry.
From time immemorial, human beings have tried to speculate about the nature of this place called "heaven" -- with very little success. The Bible speaks of heaven on numerous occasions but rarely provides any detail (and such detail as we do get in its pages resembles free-flowing poetic imagination as much as anything else).
The only honest answer is: Heaven is a mystery. It's a well-attested mystery in the Bible, but a mystery nonetheless. Our view of heaven, in this life, is rather like the view from a ship at sea, sailing through a dense fog. The lookout stands at the rail, peering into the gloom. From time to time, shapes seem to loom up and then vanish as quickly as they came. The chart says that somewhere out there is land, and the instrument readings confirm it, but even the sharpest-eyed lookout is unable to take it in.
In Matthew 13, Jesus teaches of heaven by means of parables. Most of Jesus' best-known parables are stories -- the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Laborers in the Vineyard. But not these. The parables at the end of Matthew 13 are brief, evocative images, presented in a staccato, rapid-fire fashion.
Each of them, in its own way, provides an answer to the question, "What is the kingdom of heaven?" Notice that I didn't say, "What is heaven?" as I was asking earlier; Jesus is speaking here about the kingdom of heaven. There's a difference -- although not a huge one. The kingdom of heaven is not so much a spiritual reality beyond this world, as a spiritual reality breaking into this world. For Jesus -- as for many wise, spiritual teachers -- the boundary-line between earth and heaven is thin. In the gospels, Jesus begins his preaching ministry by proclaiming, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" His mission is to wake people up and to make them aware of this dazzling new reality: the nearness of God in day-to-day life.
Such is the message of these mini-parables in Matthew 13. Here's the first one:
"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
-- Matthew 13:31
A mustard seed is a tiny seed, but it grows rapidly, maturing into a very large plant. Biblical scholars think Jesus' mustard plant is what the botanists call "black mustard" -- more of a shrub, really, than a tree. It grows as large as six feet tall (Bruce J. Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003], p. 76). Black mustard is essentially a weed -- the sort of plant gardeners with a sense of humor refer to as a "volunteer." No self-respecting farmers let it grow up in their fields, if they could help it. Once established, it's extremely difficult to root out.
But notice that, in Jesus' parable, the farmer intentionally sows the mustard seeds. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field..." Go figure! It's kind of like Jesus is saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a bunch of dandelion seeds that someone sowed on the front lawn." Why would anyone do a crazy thing like that -- sowing dandelion seeds? You know how rapidly they spread, and how persistent they are -- but maybe that's exactly what Jesus is trying to tell us about God's heavenly realm. The seeds of heaven may seem tiny and insignificant, but once they take root in the ground, there's no stopping them!
That's parable number one. The next one is like unto it:
"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
-- Matthew 13:33
Anyone who's ever baked knows what yeast can do. Sprinkle the tiniest bit of the stuff into your wet dough, knead it thoroughly, and let it sit for an hour or so to rise in a warm place. Punch down the dough and let it rise again. Repeat. Then, place your loaf in the oven. Before you know it, that small wet, unappetizing lump of goo has been miraculously transformed into a large warm, crusty loaf. Break it open while it's still warm, and you'll see that Jesus is right -- the steamy fragrance of it is like a little bit of heaven.
So, the influence of heaven is growing in our world, just as a yeasty loaf expands in the oven. Yet Jesus is saying even more than that. The woman, in his parable, mixes the yeast with three measures of flour. That's an enormous quantity -- about fifty pounds of flour. This baker is not a housewife, serving up a single loaf for her family's dinner. No, she's running a big, commercial operation. The bread baked from that amount of dough would feed more than a hundred people (Newman, B.M., & Stine, P.C., A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew [New York: United Bible Societies, 1992], p. 426). It all starts with a tiny, insignificant pinch of leaven -- and look at the result! In just such a way, the inbreaking reality of the kingdom of heaven has power to transform the world.
Today's reading then skips over some explanatory material about the nature of parables to get to another series of mini-parables -- three in number. All of them likewise have to do with the kingdom of heaven. Jesus delivers them one after the other, supplying very little in the way of explanation. Here's the first one:
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
-- Matthew 13:44
Imagine an agricultural laborer -- a farm worker -- pushing a plow behind a pair of oxen. The sun is high overhead, the day is hot, and he's growing weary. Suddenly he hears the sound of metal on metal, looks down, and sees something gold glinting back at him. His plowshare has broken into a clay jar buried in the ground. The jar is filled with gold coins, hundreds of years old -- way too many for him to pick up and take home. So, what does the farm worker do? He covers the treasure over with dirt. Then, he runs home and scrapes together all his savings. He goes to all his friends and relatives, cajoling them into loaning him all their cash -- for a sure-fire investment, he tells them. Then he goes to the farmer who owns the field and makes him an offer on the property. The farmhand holds his breath while the man considers it -- it's all he can do to conceal his excitement -- and, when the farmer finally agrees, the farmhand hands over the purchase price in a businesslike way. Inside, though, he's bursting with happiness. His heart is racing for he knows the treasure in the field is at last his.
Next parable:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."
-- Matthew 13:45-46
This parable, too, has a commercial setting. Let's think of it, though, as a modern tale....
An antiques dealer is making the rounds of the garage sales, looking for merchandise. He's hoping to find some costume jewelry, something he can display in his shop and sell for a few bucks. It is late morning, and he's about to call it a day when he sees some tables out on yet another front lawn. On impulse, he pulls his car to the curb, gets out, and walks over to look. He sees it immediately, gleaming translucently back at him: a huge pearl pendant on a chain, the largest he's ever seen. He picks it up, looking it over with his practiced eye. It's unquestionably genuine -- and it's got to be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Casually, he asks the owner how much she wants for it.
The owner obviously knows she's got something of value but doesn't know how much. "A hundred dollars," she says. "And not a penny less."
The dealer reaches into his pocket. Twenty dollars is all he has left. He thanks the woman, walks casually back to his car, and races to the ATM. He returns to the garage sale a few minutes later just as the homeowner is folding up her tables. There's cold worry in the pit of his stomach, and his heart is racing. "Please, let the pearl still be there," he mutters to himself. It is there. He buys it and returns home rejoicing.
A treasure buried in a field. An undervalued pearl just waiting for a knowledgeable buyer. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus is saying, is already present in our world -- hiding in plain sight, but in such a way that not everyone can see it. Having glimpsed its presence, we have only to reach out and claim it for our own.
The final parable belongs to the world of fishing:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad."
-- Matthew 13:47-48
Again, the gifts of God -- the signs of the kingdom of heaven -- are present among us in great abundance. Anyone who goes fishing knows the feeling of casting a line into the water again and again, hoping to reel it back in with some weight on the end of it. In Jesus' parable, it's a net rather than a line, and it comes back bulging with fish. In fishing, every cast is an act of faith. The vast majority of casts yield no results. Yet, it only takes one to make the day worthwhile.
Jesus then surprises us by changing the explanation of this parable. We began by looking at it from the standpoint of those who are casting the net, but he informs us that, in this story, we are not the fishers, but the fish. The "keepers" have to be separated from those that must be thrown back. "Thy kingdom come," we pray in the Lord's Prayer. Yet there's also the matter of "Thy will be done" -- divine judgment.
So what is the kingdom of heaven like? A mustard seed. Leavening in a batch of dough. A treasure hidden in a field. A pearl of great price. A net, fairly bulging with fish. This is no theological treatise Jesus gives us. It's more like a pile of snapshots. These parables are mere hints, suggestions, and intimations. They're probably the best he -- or anyone else -- could ever do. For the fault lies not in the explanation, but in the understanding of the listeners. How could our small, time-bound human minds possibly take in the reality of God's eternal realm? The best you and I can do, I'm afraid, is to trade in parables and dreams -- trusting that, one day, all will be revealed.
Prayer For The Day
God of all wisdom and of profound mystery:
we are grateful for the signs and intimations
you scatter in our world, like so many seeds.
By your grace, may they take root in our hearts, and grow:
that, one day, in the fullness of time,
we may not only be welcomed into your eternal realm,
but may recognize it as home. Amen.
To Illustrate
Billy Graham likes to tell a story of something that happened to him early in his ministry. He had just arrived in a small town, having been invited to preach at an evening revival service. Graham had a few letters to mail, so he asked a young boy if he could tell him the way to the post office. The boy gave him directions, he thanked him and turned away -- but then, on impulse, he turned back to the boy and said, "If you'll come to church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven."
"I don't think I'll be there," said the boy. "You don't even know the way to the post office."
***
There's a book that has something intriguing to say about the life beyond this one. Patricia Bulkley is a hospice chaplain of ten years' experience. She's heard many hospice patients over the years report vivid dreams they experience in the last days of their lives. Hospice chaplains will tell you this sort of thing is very common. Patricia Bulkley collected some of the dream-stories she's heard over the years, and teamed up with her son Kelly -- a psychologist -- to analyze them. The result is their book, Dreaming Beyond Death [Beacon Press, 2005].
Here are some of those vivid and provocative dreams Patricia Bulkely collected (excerpted in "A Dream Before Dying," Newsweek, July 25, 2005)....
Charles Rasmussen was a retired sea captain, who was dying of cancer. He was filled with fears about his dying until, one night, he dreamed of sailing the high seas. He felt the same thrill he had often known as a merchant-marine captain: sailing his ship at night through a black and empty sea, knowing he was on course. "Strangely enough," Captain Rasmussen told the hospice chaplain, "I'm not afraid to die anymore."
A woman patient told of how she dreamed of a candle burning on the windowsill of her hospital room. Suddenly, the candle was snuffed out, engulfing her in darkness. For a moment she was filled with terror -- until, in her dream, she saw the candle spontaneously re-light, but this time outside her window.
Another female patient, a cancer victim, was struggling with doubts about the existence of God. For three nights in a row, an image appeared in her dreams: a collection of huge boulders that pulsated with eerie blue light. Reflecting on the meaning of this strange image, she knew intuitively that the boulders were symbols of a divine being who was very real. "I don't need to know anything more than that," she told the chaplain. "God is God." Then, the night before she died, the woman had a final dream. It began the same way as the others had begun, but then the boulders morphed into stepping-stones. In the distance, she could see a golden light. "It's calling me now, and I want to go," she told the chaplain. She died the next day.
The Bulkleys make the point in their book that these dreams don't prove that heaven exists. They're dreams, after all. They originate within the human mind. But they do speak powerfully of our hopes and aspirations as human beings. And for those family members and friends who are left behind, they're powerfully suggestive signs of what the life beyond this life may be like.
***
The psychologist, Carl Jung, also had a comforting dream in old age. Jung had spent a lifetime helping patients analyze their dreams, and he'd recorded quite a few of his own. The very last dream he communicated to his followers was of a great, round stone. It had these words chiseled into it: "And this shall be a sign unto you of Wholeness and Oneness." Jung took it to mean that his life's work was complete.
***
I remember when our son, Benjamin, was a pre-schooler, we were playing a game at my mother's house. That house was laid out in such a way that you could walk in a circle from the front hall into the kitchen, then into the dining room, then into the living room, and then end up back in the front hall where you started. The two of us weren't walking, though. We were running! He was chasing me in circles with great delight.
I was a lot faster than him in those days and was so far ahead on that circular course, I'd just about caught up with him. It was then that I decided to break the cycle. Quickly, I sat down on the couch, motionless. Benjamin continued to gleefully run the circuit, passing me by several times -- convinced I had to be just ahead of him. Finally he realized the deception, and collapsed beside me on the couch, dissolving in laughter.
I had been hiding in plain sight. So, too, Jesus is saying, signs of heaven are hiding in plain sight. For those who have eyes to see, let them see.
***
"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket... To have running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God."
-- Flannery O'Connor
***
Philosophers may be right about the paradoxes of personal identity that arise when we try to imagine journeying to heaven after death, but similar paradoxes dog us throughout the course of our natural life. In life as in death we are creatures of inconsistency, discontinuity, and self-contradiction. Dying only makes this more dramatic. We can never be sure that we are who we seem. Our only reliable identity card is a baptismal certificate, testifying that the One who made us has remade us in Christ, who, in Paul's words to the Thessalonians, "died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him" (1 Thessalonians 5:10). Now and in the world to come, our identity consists of this communion and cannot be secured by any philosophical guarantee. Conversely, if we begin by ignoring God we will never make philosophical sense of the survival of death.
Certainly it is paradoxical, if not downright preposterous, to speak of someone, previously known to us only as this embodied person whom we meet for coffee, suddenly and unaccountably checking out of our space-time lodgings and showing up -- in the twinkling of an eye -- in a realm beyond all telling. Have you ever been struck by the oddness of dying? Along with the sorrow, when a friend dies, it sometimes hits us: What a very strange thing for Harry to have done on a Sunday afternoon. But this is the kind of paradox that comic artists, rather than philosophers, handle best. Leaving the body is not so much a logical contradiction as a particularly ungainly and undignified thing to do, in the same way that sex is ungainly and undignified and that being born is ungainly and undignified. It is essentially comical and has all the marks of a pratfall....
Humor trades in incongruity. The practical joker pulls the chair out from under the guest of honor, revealing that he, no less than the rest of us mortals, is a helpless subject of gravity. The divine joke is to pull the gravity out from under the chair....
-- Carol Zaleski, "When I Get to Heaven," The Christian Century, April 5, 2003
Although heaven is a reality impossible for human minds to conceive, Jesus uses parables to give us some hints.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 29:15-28
Jacob Marries Leah And Rachel
Jacob has been bunking with his Uncle Laban for a month and has fallen in love with Laban's youngest daughter, Rachel. Laban proposes that Jacob work for him for seven years in order to earn the hand of his daughter. The seven years "seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her" (v. 20). When they are over, he asks to be married to Rachel, but Laban slyly substitutes his older daughter, Leah. Because his bride is veiled, Jacob doesn't discover until the next morning that he's married the wrong daughter. Jacob, the trickster, has met his match in Laban. Confronting his uncle with the deception, he learns that the marriage cannot be undone, but that Laban will cheerfully give him Rachel in a week's time, once the marriage feast is over -- provided Jacob agrees to work for him for another seven years. Realizing he's been had but that there's nothing he can do about it, Jacob reluctantly agrees. Leah will prove to be the more fertile of the two women, but Rachel will produce Joseph, the son who will one day save the entire family from disaster. Their two maids, Zilpah and Bilhah, will give Jacob children as well. Thus, Jacob's turbulent sojourn in the household of Laban will result in a large and complex polygamous family unit, from whom will spring the twelve tribes of Israel. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 8:26-39
Nothing Can Separate Us From The Love Of Christ
Picking up where last week's passage left off, Paul concludes with a triumphant celebration of the invincible love of Christ. Not only does the Spirit provide us moral support, as we patiently await the unfolding of God's plan, but when we find ourselves bereft of even the ability to pray, the Spirit prays for us, interceding before God "with sighs too deep for words" (v. 26). For faithful believers, "all things work together for good" (v. 28). This is more than an airy, mindless optimism. Paul is well aware of the intensity of suffering experienced by some of his readers. He is more interested in the long-term outcome: eternal life for those who persevere in the faith. Paul's next line, "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son," has become a foundation of the ever-controversial doctrine of predestination (v. 29). His overall message to suffering believers is not to worry, because God is in command, and all is unfolding according to plan. Predestination, to Paul -- as it is for Augustine, Calvin, and others who have advanced it -- is a supremely comforting doctrine, for it contains assurance of salvation. Finally, he shifts his focus to a courtroom setting, imagining long-suffering Christians standing before the judgment seat of God. Who will be their advocate, arguing on their behalf? Their advocate will be none other than Christ himself (v. 34). Nothing -- in heaven, on earth, or anywhere else -- can separate us from his love (verses 35-39).
The Gospel
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Parables Of God's Reign
Last week's gospel lesson bracketed the first part of this one -- leapfrogging over it, to get to the interpretation of the Parable of Weeds. Now, the lectionary editors return to where they left off, covering the Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, before jumping ahead to present three more short parables: the Treasure in the Field, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Net. The five parables included within this week's lection are quick snapshots, each revealing different facets of the wondrous reality that is the reign of God. The first two, the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, depict God's reign as a growing presence that is for now small and insignificant but whose growth into a substantial reality is inevitable (verses 31-33). The other three parables, the Treasure, the Pearl, and the Net, focus on the giddy joy of discovering God's reign in the midst of the ordinary world (verses 44-52). God's grace is real and will yield abundantly.
Preaching Possibilities
"Mom, Dad -- I've got a question for you. What's heaven like?"
"What's heaven like... Well, son, let me think how to put it. Heaven is like... uh... let me find the right words. Heaven is like... I've got an idea -- why don't you go ask the pastor?"
So what is heaven like? People in white choir robes lolling around on cottony clouds, plucking on harps? That's the iconic image of the newspaper cartoons -- based, in part, on the dreamlike visions of the book of Revelation, all thrown together randomly. Or, maybe it's a gleaming, celestial city, whose streets are paved with gold. (That comes from Revelation, also.) The prophet Isaiah seems to think heaven's a great banqueting table, groaning with food and wine -- a sumptuous feast spread out upon a mountaintop. The Vikings would have liked that one well enough because their image of heaven was a vast, smoky mead-hall with joints of mutton forever turning on spits over the fire and drinking horns that never run dry.
From time immemorial, human beings have tried to speculate about the nature of this place called "heaven" -- with very little success. The Bible speaks of heaven on numerous occasions but rarely provides any detail (and such detail as we do get in its pages resembles free-flowing poetic imagination as much as anything else).
The only honest answer is: Heaven is a mystery. It's a well-attested mystery in the Bible, but a mystery nonetheless. Our view of heaven, in this life, is rather like the view from a ship at sea, sailing through a dense fog. The lookout stands at the rail, peering into the gloom. From time to time, shapes seem to loom up and then vanish as quickly as they came. The chart says that somewhere out there is land, and the instrument readings confirm it, but even the sharpest-eyed lookout is unable to take it in.
In Matthew 13, Jesus teaches of heaven by means of parables. Most of Jesus' best-known parables are stories -- the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Laborers in the Vineyard. But not these. The parables at the end of Matthew 13 are brief, evocative images, presented in a staccato, rapid-fire fashion.
Each of them, in its own way, provides an answer to the question, "What is the kingdom of heaven?" Notice that I didn't say, "What is heaven?" as I was asking earlier; Jesus is speaking here about the kingdom of heaven. There's a difference -- although not a huge one. The kingdom of heaven is not so much a spiritual reality beyond this world, as a spiritual reality breaking into this world. For Jesus -- as for many wise, spiritual teachers -- the boundary-line between earth and heaven is thin. In the gospels, Jesus begins his preaching ministry by proclaiming, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" His mission is to wake people up and to make them aware of this dazzling new reality: the nearness of God in day-to-day life.
Such is the message of these mini-parables in Matthew 13. Here's the first one:
"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
-- Matthew 13:31
A mustard seed is a tiny seed, but it grows rapidly, maturing into a very large plant. Biblical scholars think Jesus' mustard plant is what the botanists call "black mustard" -- more of a shrub, really, than a tree. It grows as large as six feet tall (Bruce J. Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003], p. 76). Black mustard is essentially a weed -- the sort of plant gardeners with a sense of humor refer to as a "volunteer." No self-respecting farmers let it grow up in their fields, if they could help it. Once established, it's extremely difficult to root out.
But notice that, in Jesus' parable, the farmer intentionally sows the mustard seeds. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field..." Go figure! It's kind of like Jesus is saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a bunch of dandelion seeds that someone sowed on the front lawn." Why would anyone do a crazy thing like that -- sowing dandelion seeds? You know how rapidly they spread, and how persistent they are -- but maybe that's exactly what Jesus is trying to tell us about God's heavenly realm. The seeds of heaven may seem tiny and insignificant, but once they take root in the ground, there's no stopping them!
That's parable number one. The next one is like unto it:
"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
-- Matthew 13:33
Anyone who's ever baked knows what yeast can do. Sprinkle the tiniest bit of the stuff into your wet dough, knead it thoroughly, and let it sit for an hour or so to rise in a warm place. Punch down the dough and let it rise again. Repeat. Then, place your loaf in the oven. Before you know it, that small wet, unappetizing lump of goo has been miraculously transformed into a large warm, crusty loaf. Break it open while it's still warm, and you'll see that Jesus is right -- the steamy fragrance of it is like a little bit of heaven.
So, the influence of heaven is growing in our world, just as a yeasty loaf expands in the oven. Yet Jesus is saying even more than that. The woman, in his parable, mixes the yeast with three measures of flour. That's an enormous quantity -- about fifty pounds of flour. This baker is not a housewife, serving up a single loaf for her family's dinner. No, she's running a big, commercial operation. The bread baked from that amount of dough would feed more than a hundred people (Newman, B.M., & Stine, P.C., A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew [New York: United Bible Societies, 1992], p. 426). It all starts with a tiny, insignificant pinch of leaven -- and look at the result! In just such a way, the inbreaking reality of the kingdom of heaven has power to transform the world.
Today's reading then skips over some explanatory material about the nature of parables to get to another series of mini-parables -- three in number. All of them likewise have to do with the kingdom of heaven. Jesus delivers them one after the other, supplying very little in the way of explanation. Here's the first one:
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
-- Matthew 13:44
Imagine an agricultural laborer -- a farm worker -- pushing a plow behind a pair of oxen. The sun is high overhead, the day is hot, and he's growing weary. Suddenly he hears the sound of metal on metal, looks down, and sees something gold glinting back at him. His plowshare has broken into a clay jar buried in the ground. The jar is filled with gold coins, hundreds of years old -- way too many for him to pick up and take home. So, what does the farm worker do? He covers the treasure over with dirt. Then, he runs home and scrapes together all his savings. He goes to all his friends and relatives, cajoling them into loaning him all their cash -- for a sure-fire investment, he tells them. Then he goes to the farmer who owns the field and makes him an offer on the property. The farmhand holds his breath while the man considers it -- it's all he can do to conceal his excitement -- and, when the farmer finally agrees, the farmhand hands over the purchase price in a businesslike way. Inside, though, he's bursting with happiness. His heart is racing for he knows the treasure in the field is at last his.
Next parable:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."
-- Matthew 13:45-46
This parable, too, has a commercial setting. Let's think of it, though, as a modern tale....
An antiques dealer is making the rounds of the garage sales, looking for merchandise. He's hoping to find some costume jewelry, something he can display in his shop and sell for a few bucks. It is late morning, and he's about to call it a day when he sees some tables out on yet another front lawn. On impulse, he pulls his car to the curb, gets out, and walks over to look. He sees it immediately, gleaming translucently back at him: a huge pearl pendant on a chain, the largest he's ever seen. He picks it up, looking it over with his practiced eye. It's unquestionably genuine -- and it's got to be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Casually, he asks the owner how much she wants for it.
The owner obviously knows she's got something of value but doesn't know how much. "A hundred dollars," she says. "And not a penny less."
The dealer reaches into his pocket. Twenty dollars is all he has left. He thanks the woman, walks casually back to his car, and races to the ATM. He returns to the garage sale a few minutes later just as the homeowner is folding up her tables. There's cold worry in the pit of his stomach, and his heart is racing. "Please, let the pearl still be there," he mutters to himself. It is there. He buys it and returns home rejoicing.
A treasure buried in a field. An undervalued pearl just waiting for a knowledgeable buyer. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus is saying, is already present in our world -- hiding in plain sight, but in such a way that not everyone can see it. Having glimpsed its presence, we have only to reach out and claim it for our own.
The final parable belongs to the world of fishing:
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad."
-- Matthew 13:47-48
Again, the gifts of God -- the signs of the kingdom of heaven -- are present among us in great abundance. Anyone who goes fishing knows the feeling of casting a line into the water again and again, hoping to reel it back in with some weight on the end of it. In Jesus' parable, it's a net rather than a line, and it comes back bulging with fish. In fishing, every cast is an act of faith. The vast majority of casts yield no results. Yet, it only takes one to make the day worthwhile.
Jesus then surprises us by changing the explanation of this parable. We began by looking at it from the standpoint of those who are casting the net, but he informs us that, in this story, we are not the fishers, but the fish. The "keepers" have to be separated from those that must be thrown back. "Thy kingdom come," we pray in the Lord's Prayer. Yet there's also the matter of "Thy will be done" -- divine judgment.
So what is the kingdom of heaven like? A mustard seed. Leavening in a batch of dough. A treasure hidden in a field. A pearl of great price. A net, fairly bulging with fish. This is no theological treatise Jesus gives us. It's more like a pile of snapshots. These parables are mere hints, suggestions, and intimations. They're probably the best he -- or anyone else -- could ever do. For the fault lies not in the explanation, but in the understanding of the listeners. How could our small, time-bound human minds possibly take in the reality of God's eternal realm? The best you and I can do, I'm afraid, is to trade in parables and dreams -- trusting that, one day, all will be revealed.
Prayer For The Day
God of all wisdom and of profound mystery:
we are grateful for the signs and intimations
you scatter in our world, like so many seeds.
By your grace, may they take root in our hearts, and grow:
that, one day, in the fullness of time,
we may not only be welcomed into your eternal realm,
but may recognize it as home. Amen.
To Illustrate
Billy Graham likes to tell a story of something that happened to him early in his ministry. He had just arrived in a small town, having been invited to preach at an evening revival service. Graham had a few letters to mail, so he asked a young boy if he could tell him the way to the post office. The boy gave him directions, he thanked him and turned away -- but then, on impulse, he turned back to the boy and said, "If you'll come to church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven."
"I don't think I'll be there," said the boy. "You don't even know the way to the post office."
***
There's a book that has something intriguing to say about the life beyond this one. Patricia Bulkley is a hospice chaplain of ten years' experience. She's heard many hospice patients over the years report vivid dreams they experience in the last days of their lives. Hospice chaplains will tell you this sort of thing is very common. Patricia Bulkley collected some of the dream-stories she's heard over the years, and teamed up with her son Kelly -- a psychologist -- to analyze them. The result is their book, Dreaming Beyond Death [Beacon Press, 2005].
Here are some of those vivid and provocative dreams Patricia Bulkely collected (excerpted in "A Dream Before Dying," Newsweek, July 25, 2005)....
Charles Rasmussen was a retired sea captain, who was dying of cancer. He was filled with fears about his dying until, one night, he dreamed of sailing the high seas. He felt the same thrill he had often known as a merchant-marine captain: sailing his ship at night through a black and empty sea, knowing he was on course. "Strangely enough," Captain Rasmussen told the hospice chaplain, "I'm not afraid to die anymore."
A woman patient told of how she dreamed of a candle burning on the windowsill of her hospital room. Suddenly, the candle was snuffed out, engulfing her in darkness. For a moment she was filled with terror -- until, in her dream, she saw the candle spontaneously re-light, but this time outside her window.
Another female patient, a cancer victim, was struggling with doubts about the existence of God. For three nights in a row, an image appeared in her dreams: a collection of huge boulders that pulsated with eerie blue light. Reflecting on the meaning of this strange image, she knew intuitively that the boulders were symbols of a divine being who was very real. "I don't need to know anything more than that," she told the chaplain. "God is God." Then, the night before she died, the woman had a final dream. It began the same way as the others had begun, but then the boulders morphed into stepping-stones. In the distance, she could see a golden light. "It's calling me now, and I want to go," she told the chaplain. She died the next day.
The Bulkleys make the point in their book that these dreams don't prove that heaven exists. They're dreams, after all. They originate within the human mind. But they do speak powerfully of our hopes and aspirations as human beings. And for those family members and friends who are left behind, they're powerfully suggestive signs of what the life beyond this life may be like.
***
The psychologist, Carl Jung, also had a comforting dream in old age. Jung had spent a lifetime helping patients analyze their dreams, and he'd recorded quite a few of his own. The very last dream he communicated to his followers was of a great, round stone. It had these words chiseled into it: "And this shall be a sign unto you of Wholeness and Oneness." Jung took it to mean that his life's work was complete.
***
I remember when our son, Benjamin, was a pre-schooler, we were playing a game at my mother's house. That house was laid out in such a way that you could walk in a circle from the front hall into the kitchen, then into the dining room, then into the living room, and then end up back in the front hall where you started. The two of us weren't walking, though. We were running! He was chasing me in circles with great delight.
I was a lot faster than him in those days and was so far ahead on that circular course, I'd just about caught up with him. It was then that I decided to break the cycle. Quickly, I sat down on the couch, motionless. Benjamin continued to gleefully run the circuit, passing me by several times -- convinced I had to be just ahead of him. Finally he realized the deception, and collapsed beside me on the couch, dissolving in laughter.
I had been hiding in plain sight. So, too, Jesus is saying, signs of heaven are hiding in plain sight. For those who have eyes to see, let them see.
***
"You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket... To have running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God."
-- Flannery O'Connor
***
Philosophers may be right about the paradoxes of personal identity that arise when we try to imagine journeying to heaven after death, but similar paradoxes dog us throughout the course of our natural life. In life as in death we are creatures of inconsistency, discontinuity, and self-contradiction. Dying only makes this more dramatic. We can never be sure that we are who we seem. Our only reliable identity card is a baptismal certificate, testifying that the One who made us has remade us in Christ, who, in Paul's words to the Thessalonians, "died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him" (1 Thessalonians 5:10). Now and in the world to come, our identity consists of this communion and cannot be secured by any philosophical guarantee. Conversely, if we begin by ignoring God we will never make philosophical sense of the survival of death.
Certainly it is paradoxical, if not downright preposterous, to speak of someone, previously known to us only as this embodied person whom we meet for coffee, suddenly and unaccountably checking out of our space-time lodgings and showing up -- in the twinkling of an eye -- in a realm beyond all telling. Have you ever been struck by the oddness of dying? Along with the sorrow, when a friend dies, it sometimes hits us: What a very strange thing for Harry to have done on a Sunday afternoon. But this is the kind of paradox that comic artists, rather than philosophers, handle best. Leaving the body is not so much a logical contradiction as a particularly ungainly and undignified thing to do, in the same way that sex is ungainly and undignified and that being born is ungainly and undignified. It is essentially comical and has all the marks of a pratfall....
Humor trades in incongruity. The practical joker pulls the chair out from under the guest of honor, revealing that he, no less than the rest of us mortals, is a helpless subject of gravity. The divine joke is to pull the gravity out from under the chair....
-- Carol Zaleski, "When I Get to Heaven," The Christian Century, April 5, 2003
