Thoughts going in, Sunday July 24th

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches." 33 He told them still another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough." 44 "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. 45 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. 47 "Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51 "Have you understood all these things?" Jesus asked. "Yes," they replied. 52 He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

Well, we have more parables from Matthew’s Gospel this week. Without even getting into the nuts & bolts of the text, I wanted to share something that I saw online that I thought was QUITE relevant:

“…there is a growing awareness that the Jesus of “Christendom” (the institutional Jesus) and the Jesus of “Science” (the technical Jesus) are not the same as the Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus who loves people, who cares for people.
We have learned from Women’s theology, Liberation theology, Afro-American theology and Indigenous (fourth world) theology that there is a very concrete specificity to Jesus’ actions that had implications that resonated on all kinds of levels: social, political, spiritual, ecological, interpersonal, etc. More so, there is a modern hunger for an authentic Jesus. It is the work of the Spirit to create that hunger and it is the work of the Spirit to sate that hunger.

Christianity is constantly being offered the kingdom, the reign of God in the gospel of Jesus. Just like it is offered to the world. But to so many people, Christians and non-Christians alike, the gospel is folly, because the gospel focuses on Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus’ atoning forgiveness, Jesus’ power-full powerlessness. And the kingdom of God is misperceived as some abstract ideal and confused and melded with human notions of politics, fame, fortune, success and power ….and then sought after. Where we live, in the United States, this can be seen on an almost daily basis in the news and on television sermons.

We, however, are not beholden to the institutional Jesus nor to the scientific Jesus. The One we worship is constantly dying, arms outstretched in love and forgiveness and we see him everyday in the news. We hear about innocents attacked, accused or killed. And because of the gospel we weep. Because of the gospel our eyes are opened to human suffering, our hearts are softened with empathy; our voice is empowered to speak. We adopt a different perspective, a new hermeneutic, a renewed self-understanding. The reign of God has always been present. May we be blessed with open eyes.”

I could not have said it better myself.
In a lot of ways this sort of gets to the point of 'relevance' when it comes to the parables of the kingdom like what we’ve been seeing lately in Matthew’s gospel.

In Jesus' day the parables had relevance because to the extent that anyone was thinking about 'the kingdom of God,' they were no doubt imagining it as a political triumph of the messianic figure; God destroying national Israel's enemies. This is merely anthropological thinking dressed up in religious sentiment, that says: *my enemies are God's enemies; and since God loves *me it follows that God hates them.

Today, some things have changed, yet the relevance remains the same. Today....even in faith traditions that are quite familiar with Jesus' words, there has nonetheless grown up a mythical repackaging regarding the kingdom he preached. That mythical repackaging says that the kingdom triumphs when: America is the only international power & can bully every other nation into submission; when America re-institutes prayer in the public schools; reverts to its patriarchal-dominate culture of the "Leave it to Beaver" era; repeals Roe v. Wade, etc.

When all of this happens, the mythical repackaging believes that the true believers will then shine like the sun in the here & now as they bask in the tangible monetary & material rewards of being professing/born-again/god-fearing believers. In other words.....**false messianic ideas are as rampant (if not more so) today as they were in Jesus' day, which make his kingdom parables just as necessary for our attention in the here & now.

The kingdom Jesus offers is *never the sword--even a red/white/& blue one. It is always, and always has been, the capacity to love and forgive our enemies by the power of God's life-giving Spirit active in us.

[From the New Int. Bible Commentary]
“In both the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast, we find not the natural and the expected, but the supernatural and the surprising. The big tree growing from the tiny mustard seed is like those comic post card illustrations of a farmer with a gargantuan tomato strapped to the back of his flatbed truck. That one, lone woman working with a massive amount of flour has either lost her mind or is working for the ‘kingdom bakery.’ Jesus’ parables undermined preconceived ideas of how God ‘must’ work to bring the kingdom. Contemporary readers who tend to respond a bit too smugly to ancient Jews’ rejection of the Christ—because Jesus did not conform to their (biblical & traditional!) images of what the Christ was supposed to be—may learn form the parables not to have fixed images of what the kingdom of God must be. The presence of God’s kingdom in our own world may scandalize our own (biblical & traditional!) ideas of where and how God’s kingdom is supposed to be present.

MUSTARD SEED PARABLE: The main thing here is not that a man purposely planted something that grew wild as a ‘weed.’ There is evidence that this plant was desirable for seasoning/condiment and medicinal purposes, hence it was known to be cultivated. The SURPRISE is the result. Calling the grown plant a “tree” with “branches” that “birds can nest in” is like a Jack & the Beanstalk sort of story. The point is that something of humble and disrespected origin could/would actually become an alternative—even a threatening alternative—to trees such as oak, cedar or even olive. Jesus is teaching the unexpected & surprising kingdom of the mustard bush-turned-tree over and against the kingdom of the world with its oaks & cedars. This makes sense when one remembers that the same person made his “triumphal entry” on a humble donkey as opposed to a white charger.

YEAST/LEAVEN PARABLE: Just about every commentator seems to note that leaven is typically seen as a sign of corruption in the bible. During the Passover, Jews were forbidden from even having leaven under their roof. Jesus’ parable doesn’t seem to concentrate on the negative connotations of leaven, but rather on its “hiddenness” (the literal rendering in the Greek, describing what the woman did with the leaven in the flour), and also on the AMOUNT of bread the woman was making. 60 pounds of flour is a TON! It’s beyond extravagant. This is not the ‘family baking’ that would typically be done. She has enough to make a hundred loaves or more. The point seems to be that what is hidden now is going to have an extremely extravagant outcome when all is finally revealed.

HIDDEN TREASURE/PEARL: These parables illustrate similar truths—the fact that the kingdom is not readily apparent to all right now in its fullness, but is worth…and worthy of our entire devotion.

THE DRAGNET: This parable is almost a parallel to the wheat & weeds parable. It explains the presence of evil in the world and hypocrites in the Church.


cheers,

TM