Sermon for July 30, 2023 – The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The Kingdom of God is like…  The Kingdom of heaven is like…  God’s realm is like…

I imagine each of us completed these lines in our minds differently. Some hearing again the examples from today’s gospel. Some picturing a far off place, that will take a long time to get to. And others might have called to mind moments in our lives where we have felt as near to the kingdom as we are to one another now.

For Jesus, God’s realm is not a place waiting for us after death, it is as close as a loaf of bread. That nearness is the basis for his call to belief and discipleship. The stories Jesus tells of his kingdom are common stories about ordinary people; a tenant farmer, a housewife, fishermen all doing everyday things. They are real-life women and men going about their everyday work. Through these parables, Jesus illustrates that within the reign of God, God creates entirely new realities that bring new expectations of what might be considered normal.

As Christians, we believe in the incarnation, the mystery of the meeting of the divine and human in the person of Jesus Christ. In these parables, Jesus puts that incarnational focus not on himself but on the world around him. “The kingdom of God is like” the most common things in human life. Like Jesus himself, this everyday world embodies the sacred meeting of divine and human, if only we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.

From the first two parables, we see that in the kingdom size really doesn’t matter. The “smallest of all seeds,” the mustard seed grows into a tree and Jesus emphasizes the size of the seed in reference to the modest beginning of the kingdom of heaven being realized on earth. He is telling the crowd that from these very modest beginnings, great things will come. Big things have small beginnings.

He also compares the kingdom of heaven to yeast. Yeast is a key ingredient for making bread because without it the bread will be flat. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is transformative and uplifting. Without God’s reign, our life would be flat and lack the depth of transformation. It is the presence of God’s kingdom that empowers us to rise above life’s circumstances and grow closer as the body of Christ. What is seemingly invisible can have an overwhelming impact.

In the third and fourth parables, the kingdom is both a valuable treasure and an unspeakable joy. The kingdom of heaven is like hidden treasure that when found brings joy. In the parable, Jesus speaks of a man who, “…in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.” The man that Jesus describes is so filled with joy that he risks it all to obtain more. In exchange for the possibility of finding more treasure, and therefore more joy, he sells it all! As such, the kingdom of heaven is not simply joy; it is a joy that is worth all that you have. Like the man who finds a hidden treasure, the merchant who is searching for a pearl sells all that he has to purchase it. In this Jesus teaches that the kingdom of heaven is a treasure; it is valuable and we should value it. Also, Jesus seems to underscore that the kingdom of heaven must be sought. It is not easily obtained or readily available without a seeking heart and mind.

In the fifth parable, the kingdom is all-inclusive. In this final comparison, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a net. The net “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.” As in the parable of the weeds, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven as diverse and inclusive. Again, the angels come to “separate the evil from the righteous”. However, the net contained various kinds of fish. Just as the fish exist together in the sea, we also must live together, exist peacefully, and leave the judgment to God.

The first set of parables emphasize God’s action in the world, while the second set stresses human response. Jesus shows us that God’s work in creation is slow but transformational. If God can bring forth abundance from something as small as a mustard seed, then imagine what God can do through us? Imagine just how we can transform our world if we responded to the movement of the Spirit with open hearts and minds. Like the merchant, we too must consider what we are willing to let go of so that we might bring about the kingdom more fully.

In the week to come, let us each ponder what we, individually and as a community, are willing to let go of so that we might more fully bring about God’s kingdom here and now, in Winnipeg and beyond. May we seek with heart and mind to see God’s kingdom in the ordinary; to see God at work in and through all things; to allow God to speak to us in parables. Amen.