11 PENTECOST, PROPER 12, YEAR A
SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE
THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY
27 JULY 2008
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Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Mt. 13:31-33, 44-52
Today we have not one of Jesus’ parables, but six, all for us to hear in one gospel passage for this Sunday. Six parables in rapid succession. Multiple sermons could be preached about any one of them. How in the world is a preacher supposed to speak about six of them? What was Matthew up to when he organized them in his gospel in this way? And this larger question: What was Jesus up to when he told parables in the first place?
If any of you has come up with a single theme unifying these parables, talk to me at coffee hour. There’s the mustard seed, the yeast, the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl, the net, the master and his treasure. Take any one of these little vignettes and, like a diamond, you’ll find multiple ways to see it, multiple facets, Which is why people have been talking about these parables for centuries--they never get stale!
So a single theme for six of them? Impossible!
You may have noticed, if you’ve been listening to the gospels this summer, that the gospel-writer, Matthew, has been laying out a teaching section for weeks now. Jesus’ teachings, both to the crowds and to his disciples. Today’s staccato series of parables marks the end of the teaching section.
Notice, too, that each parable begins with, “The Kingdom of heaven is like….” Followed by the parable. Over and over again. “The kingdom of heaven is like….” “Heaven” used not as the destination for the afterlife but as a way of talking about what the other gospels call the “kingdom of God.” And as Fred Craddock explains, this was the way a pious Jew (Matthew) could avoid using the divine name. So instead of the “kingdom of God,” in Matthew’s gospel it’s the “kingdom of heaven.”
So what Jesus is up to when he tells parables, then, is describing the kingdom of heaven, God’s kingdom, God’s realm. “The kingdom of heaven is like….”
Not what the realm of God IS, but what it is LIKE. That is important. Jesus doesn’t ever define the kingdom of God. He tells us what it is like, the many things God’s realm is like. And what it’s like is described in all the various ways Jesus points out: like the mustard seed, like the yeast, like the man in the field….. Scholars have pulled Jesus’ parables apart six ways to Sunday, scrutinizing them, analyzing them, arguing about them—all in an attempt to explain them to us. Scholarship is important (God gave us brains, after all) and research helps us get inside the parables. But Jesus’ parables aren’t ordinary stories. In fact, they aren’t stories at all. As one observer puts it, parables are like jokes or jazz. “If you’ve got to have parables explained, don’t bother.” But we so want an explanation, don’t we? What does this mean? we beg to know.
But Jesus’ parables are meant, not to be explained but to be understood. Parables are invitations for us to open ourselves to God’s world, invitations for us to have life in a new way. God’s invitation. To understand things in new ways, to understand ourselves in a new way, to understand our lives anew. Jesus told parables so that we would understand ourselves and our world as God understands us and our world. To see as God sees, to draw us close, therefore, to God. They are invitations to us to let God, who is in us already, do God’s work in us, invitations to let God loose in us, even if that means disruption and change. For most of us mortals, of course, letting God loose in us WILL mean disruption
and change.
In today’s six parables, what is God’s inviting us to understand about the kingdom? How does God ask us to let God loose in us?
There’s the tiny mustard seed, basically a weed seed, which, when allowed to grow, ends up becoming huge enough shelter all manner of birds: small beginning, huge results. The kingdom of heaven is like that.
There’s the yeast, that dark, disgusting stuff, which the ancient world equated with corruption, but which, when allowed to “do its thing,” helps to create lovely bread to nourish and feed the world. The kingdom of God is like that, too.
There’s the man who discovers the treasure in a field, treasure just waiting there for him to discover it. And he does, quite by accident. And the treasure grabs him and fills him with joy—the realm of God is like that. No matter that he as soon as he finds the treasure, he hides it so the owner of the field won’t know it’s there. And so he can buy that field, presumably on the cheap. There is no guarantee that we’ll use God’s kingdom gift well, either.
There’s the merchant who is on a search for pearls and ends up finding one. The kingdom of heaven is like those who search and find, too.
There’s the net, which catches all kinds of fish---“fish of every kind,”said Jesus. God’s inclusive realm is like that, too. With God’s righteous judgment occurring at the end of time, in God’s own way, not ours.
There’s the master who brings out from his treasure the old and the new, both. The kingdom of heaven is like that, too, although what Jesus meant by it is anyone’s guess.
Which points to something else about the parables of Jesus. We are invited by parables to use our imaginations. There is no one answer or moral of the story. Remember, parables aren’t stories. They are art, inviting us in, stirring us up, challenging us, helping us see ways God works in our lives. And realizing how we might work in the lives of others.
Jesus looked around him wherever he went. Everywhere he went he saw things that showed how God works. Everywhere. Jesus knew that God is “above all, through all and in all,” as the writer to the Ephesians (4:6) puts it. That is the Good News, God everywhere WE go, too, the Good News for us to discover in all the parables. The kingdom of God is like….The kingdom of heaven is like….” What have you discovered? What has God’s kingdom done with you? And what have you done it?