I have to admit that when I first
read this scripture I was scared, worried and frustrated. Having grown up in a tradition where
Christianity was many times reduced to what you have to do to get your ticket
into heaven and your fire insurance policy to keep you out of hell, I have
spent much of my adult life avoiding the subject of hell altogether. Images of burning furnaces, gnashing teeth
and wailing people are not images I want to leave people with when I proclaim
the good news of God’s Kingdom. I don’t
want people to come to know Christ because they are afraid of what will happen
to them in the after life. I want people
to come to know Christ because they have experienced the extravagant Love God
pours out on all of us. I want people to
come to know Christ because they have experienced Grace and Mercy. I want people to come to know Christ because
they have experienced the support of fellow humanity within a community who
follow the teachings of Christ. So, I am
going to confess ahead of time that I am not going to tackle the questions of
heaven and hell in this sermon. That is
a very small portion of this large text that has much more to do about what it
means to share in the Kingdom of God.
You might say, But Kelly, the scripture here says that Jesus is telling
us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
You are right, that is what it says.
You see Matthew wrote for a primarily Hebrew audience. In Jewish life it was seen as an abomination
to speak God’s name outloud so Matthew replaces the word God with Heaven, the
place from which God reins. If you look
at the equivalent scripture in the Gospel of Luke, Luke uses the phrase
“Kingdom of God.” But isn’t heaven the
Kingdom of God?” Certainly it is. Don’t forget though the prayer Jesus models
for us. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be
done, on EARTH as it is in heaven.” (insert reference) The realization of that little phrase “on
earth” has got to be the most
transformational realization I have had in my Spiritual journey. We can have and should strive to have the
Kingdom of God rein here on earth as it is in heaven. Our prayer should daily be for God to bring
heaven to earth. When we turn on the
news and our screens are filled with the evidence of evil in this world, it is
sometimes hard to have hope that this can even happen. This week our screens and radios have been
filled with the news of the shot down Malaysian airliner that claimed 298
lives, 80 of them children. This
occurring just 4 months after another Malaysian airliner disappeared and still
has not been found. The Israeli-Gaza
conflict continues taking the lives of 4 innocent children this week. As I wrote a prayer for peace on my facebook
page this week one response was “there will be no peace until Jesus
comes.” Yet, in the midst of these
tragedies stories of kingdom living come out.
Churches open their doors to give people a place to come and pray and
grieve and find comfort. Memorials are
erected, hotels open their doors to family members as a gathering place of
hospitality to grieving family members as they wait. Our passage in Romans reminds us that God
works good in all things. So, my prayer
will always be to live a life that will aid bringing about the Kingdom of
God. To live lives that will bring about
the rein of God on earth we must understand what it means to be the Kingdom of
God and that is what Jesus is teaching in chapter 13 of Matthew.
First,
Jesus tells two parables about the growth of the kingdom from small beginnings
into something large. In the parable of
the mustard seed he describes the smallest of seeds growing into a large
tree. In the parable of the yeast he
describes a small amount of yeast multiplying the size of dough. The interesting thing about both of these
things, mustard plants, and yeast is they can be seen both in a positive light
and a negative light. I could eat my
weight in yeast rolls. Missy just
made some for the luncheon on Friday and
oh my they were good. There is nothing
better than a freshly buttered yeast roll at a steak house. Yet we know that yeast can be a source of
infection and disease as well. One of
the things I found out about the mustard seed is that mustard is much like what
we know of Kuzu today. The seed
germinates immediately and spreads rapidly and once one mustard seed gets
planted it is nearly impossible to get rid of it in that place (GOBD and
Wikipedia) These two objects of these
parables have the propensity to be used for both good and bad. Jesus points to
the good aspects of each. Jesus sees the
good. In a Kingdom where God reins it is
the good that shines through. In the
Kingdom where God reins something that starts out small turns into something
that is big. In the Kingdom where God
reins , like the birds who find shelter in the branches of the mustard plant,
people can find shelter and comfort, respite from the worries of the
world. In the Kingdom where God reins
there is hope in the midst of tragedy. It
doesn’t take much. Just like the old
campfire song says, it only takes a spark to get a fire going. As Kingdom livers and Kingdom seekers we are
to be that spark in the world.
Next
Jesus tells two parables about treasure.
First, he states the kingdom of God is like a treasure. Once found it is buried and the person
finding it goes and sells all he has to buy the field that the treasure is in
so that it is his. This parable suggests
to us that the rein of God should be so valuable to us that obtaining it should
be worth all that we have. Can we say
that today. Can we say that the most
important thing in our life, worth all that we have, is seeking and working for
the rein of God, on earth as it is in heaven?
The
second of the two parables says that the Kingdom of God is like a merchant who
finds a pearl and goes and sales all he has to obtain it. Many people see these two parables as saying
basically the same thing. I don’t. The first parable says the Kingdom of God is
like a treasure. The second one says the
Kingdom of God is like a merchant. A
merchant is one who goes out and looks for goods to sell to others. In this parable the merchant finds a pearl
and sells all he has to obtain the pearl.
Perhaps humanity it the pearl and Jesus is the merchant. In the Kingdom where God reins people are
seen for the treasure that they are. It
brings to mind other parables of Jesus such as the woman with the lost coin,
the shepherd with the lost sheep, the story of the prodigal son. In God’s eyes each and every one of us are
worth being sought after and each and every one of us is greatly treasured. If
we are to be Kingdom seekers and Kingdom Livers we must view each person that
we come in contact with the eyes of the merchant, eyes that see the pearl. One thing I read about pearls is that unlike
other gems which have to be polished and refined to bring out its beauty the
pearl is beautiful as it comes right out of the oyster, it is naturally
beautiful. With God’s eyes we see the
beauty in everyone just as they were created to be.
This
brings us to the final parable Jesus speaks about in this chapter of
Matthew. The parable of the net. He says the Kingdom of heaven is like a net
that gathers up lots of fish. The
fishermen pull in the net and began sorting the good from the bad. I think it is important here to focus on the
net. When a fisherman casts a net out,
he brings in all the fish that get into the net. ALL fish.
When we are kingdom livers and kingdom seekers it is not our job to
judge which fish are the good fish and which fish are the bad fish. This parable is much like the parable of the
wheat and weeds which Janet will get into more next week. The point is that God is the only judge of
who is good and bad. As workers in the
Kingdom we are to accept all that enter into the net. We are to treat all people as members of the
Kingdom with those fruits of the spirit that we talked about last time. With patience and kindness and
gentleness. It is God’s business who is
righteous and who is evil. It is our
business to accept all into the net, to see all as pearls, to seek the kingdom of
God for the treasure that it is willing to give all to obtain it for in the
Kingdom of God we find refuge.
Jesus
ends this section by asking the disciples if they understand and then giving
them the responsibility for spreading the Kingdom of God through the spreading
of these lessons! That is our
responsibilities as disciples of Jesus Christ. As seekers of the Kingdom we
need to be a place of refuge, we need to be in search of the treasure that is
in each human being, we need to value the kingdom of God more than anything
else, we need to accept all into the net and we need to teach this to others as
we spread the good news of God’s rein, growing the kingdom from something small
to something big.
Go from this place today casting
your nets wide!
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