July 26th Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Matthew 13: 31–33, 44–52
Lord, may we hear your voice in the words spoken in Your name. Amen.

As you read through the Gospels you almost never find Jesus at a loss for words. He always seems to have just the right word for each person who approaches him. But this morning, as he tries to describe the Kingdom of God to those of us who don’t understand it, the language of earth is having trouble describing the realities of heaven. Even Jesus’ words can’t describe something that’s beyond words. So instead of giving us a single image or a single story to direct our understanding, this morning Jesus offers us, in quick succession, a series of images –– like pearls strung along a string, each one of them full of meaning. Taken together they begin to reveal the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.
Each parable, each image – the small mustard seed that grows into a good–sized tree, the yeast that raises a great quantity of dough, a valuable treasure discovered buried in a field, a pearl of great price hidden among ordinary pearls and – finally, of fish sorted out of a net – each one of these images describes objects with great potential. But their potential is only realized when someone does something with them, using them as they are meant to be used. So the mustard seed is of value when it is planted in the earth and grows into a small tree, providing shelter for many birds. The yeast becomes valuable when a woman works it into enough flour and water to produce a great many loaves of bread – enough to supply a great feast or neighborhood block party. In other words, each example Jesus offers to describe the Kingdom of God starts out looking small and insignificant. But put to its proper use, it has a way of growing, ever larger, until it can benefit others around it.
This, in fact, is the way the Hebrew people viewed things they owned. Their possessions weren’t good in and of themselves, to be put away and hoarded. Instead, the things they owned were good when they were put to use for the whole community. So the Kingdom of God could not be described in words alone. The words had to describe actions – actions that benefitted others. In fact, in Hebrew the word dabar means both “word” and “deed.” That’s how much value the Hebrew people put in words backed up by deeds. The words themselves didn’t count until they were backed up by actions. And when you understand that you begin to catch the significance of all these different metaphors. The Kingdom of God, as Jesus described it, was something that was happening all around them in their everyday world. It was ordinary people using ordinary things in a way that benefitted others. That is where the value lay. Look quick or you’ll miss it.
And there’s something else about the Kingdom. Like the mustard seed in the ground before the first green shoots emerge or the yeast worked into the dough, the Kingdom of God is often hidden. It’s close, but it’s just below the surface. It has to be searched for. It has to be discovered to be delighted in. Then, like the poor man in Jesus’ illustration who discovers a treasure buried in a field, the delight of the person who uncovers it is magnified by his surprise at finding it at all. It’s like finding the lucky four–leaf clover hidden amongst the more ordinary three–leaf sprigs. It’s like discovering some rare, first edition of a book hidden in the library of an enormous estate sale. You have to know what you’re looking for. But when you find it, like the pearl merchant who suddenly spies the pearl of great price – you’ll be more than ready to let everything else go to get it.
The final image of the Kingdom of God is of a net full of fish being sorted once it’s been brought to the surface. And this last image adds a darker, more ominous note to Jesus’ string of metaphors. For though all kinds of fish, good and bad alike, are hauled in by that net, only certain fish are finally chosen. And we realize that the fish themselves are not the ones who make those decisions to keep or discard. So this final image becomes something of a warning.
Now, I say that that’s the final image of the Kingdom of God we are offered today, but there’s actually one more. There’s another one. It’s not in our reading this morning, but it’s so familiar, it’s so obvious – just at the back of our minds –– I think that all along this morning it’s been contributing to our understanding. It’s the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer that we say every time we gather in this place: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
You see, the Kingdom isn’t about carefully chosen words that describe some heavenly reward – pie in the sky, by and by. The Kingdom is about actions, about doing something by God’s direction – and growing thereby from small faith to large faith. It’s about searching for God in all the small details of our lives, where He’s been hidden, waiting for us to discover Him. It’s about working His will – to feed the poor, clothe the naked, comfort the afflicted – into our schedules every day. Just as the Hebrew term dabar means both “word” and “deed”, we can’t separate the presence of the Kingdom in our lives from actually doing God’s will. Not in great dramatic actions – like a Bill Gates–size donation to some favorite charity – but in smaller, more ordinary actions of caring and compassion.
Even in these times of the pandemic when we are self–isolating close to home we can remember to pray – earnestly and regularly – for each other and for the people on our Prayers of the People list. We can greet our neighbors – at a distance, of course, as we walk around our neighborhoods. We can pick up the phone – maybe this afternoon – and call a friend we haven’t seen in ages. It’s the little things we actually get around to doing that begin to reveal the Kingdom of God right here in our midst. As the words of our opening hymn, “Lead on O King Eternal,” put it this morning ––

   It’s not with swords loud clashing,
   nor roll of stirring drums
   But deeds of love and mercy the heavenly Kingdom comes.

It’s the actions of our lives, you see, and not our words, that finally describe the Kingdom of God among us.
Amen

 
 
 
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