Proper 12
Matthew 1331 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’
33 He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with* three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’
44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’
Junk mail can change your life. Perhaps I overstate.
Many moons ago a catalog came through the door, the kind of junk mail that is generated when companies sell their mailing list and you get the result. This particular catalog was from “The Teaching Company,” also know as “The Great Courses,” a collection of recorded lectures from some of the best lecturers that schools have to offer. Carmen ordered a set of CD’s related to her field.
Imagine the scene where Harry is set to receive his invitation to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, letters by the hundreds streaming through the mail slot and you will understand what happens when you order something from the Teaching Company. They just don’t let up.
Fast-forward to today, and I find myself on my fifth set of lectures, Old Testament, Famous Romans, Famous Greeks, The Early Middle Ages and London: A Short History of the Greatest City in the Western World. I seem to have a monkey on my back. I have a learning addiction, or maybe I just spend too much time in the car. Whatever it is, I’m feeling better informed on things that may have very little practical application. Except in preaching.
The reason I tell you all this, beyond extending the Prayer of Confession, is to say that it is helpful to hear about your tradition from someone outside church-world. All academic writing strives to be non-confessional, meaning that it strives to present arguments in a neutral way, not in a way that would necessarily bolster your faith. It may have this effect, but that would be unintentional. The point of academic writing is to present an argument for the sake of presenting an argument, not to convince the listener that one expression of faith is better than another.
So various lecturers describe the Christian Church at a given moment in time, and try to be completely factual, presenting a scholarly consensus on what was happening and why it happened when it did. An example would be Dr. Philip Daileader, lecturing on the Early Middle Ages, describing who might be attracted to Christianity in the days before the great Constantine.
The Emperor Constantine was the first Christian Emperor, and as such takes the credit and the blame for what happens when Christianity goes from being barely tolerated to being the religion of Rome. There could be a whole series of sermons on this topic alone, but for today we will stick with the question of who would be attracted the Christianity back in the day where attending church would be somewhere between quirky and outright dangerous.
Slaves, freed slaves, women, and people who were new in town. And that was about it. If you belonged, in the sense that you had some personal power, or some standing in the community, you tended to steer clear of the church. The church was the purview of the powerless, the place you found some sense of community with the people who were just like you. And why the powerful attraction for people who had no power?
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed’
‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman mixed’
‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field’
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls’
‘The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’
Think for a moment about having great power, and vast wealth, and a following befitting someone such things, and then do a James Cameron “I’m the king of the world” thing in your minds eye, and then rewrite the parables. ‘My kingdom is like a mighty oak, my kingdom has the finest chefs, my kingdom has treasure enough that all can see, my kingdom has the finest pearls on display and my kingdom has nets filled with the really good fish, not the slimy kind or the fake fish you find in fish sticks.’
It’s a different kingdom from the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom with puny seeds and a little yeast and treasure you struggle to find and nets that don’t seem to discriminate. It’s a different kingdom altogether, maybe the kind of kingdom that would be attractive to slaves, freed slaves, woman, and strangers in town.
***
It’s a handy rule of thumb in these parts to never preach against the Bible. Kinda like biting the hand that feeds you, you might say, or at the very least preaching against the very thing we are here to promote. It is, therefore, difficult to address something in the lesson for the day that is such an obvious addition, without seeming to be preaching against the text. So I’ll try to be careful.
It’s unlikely that Jesus presented all these parables at the same time or in the order that we read them today. The Bible comes from an oral tradition, and all these parables were in the memory of the first audience, passed around, and eventually collected in the form of a unified passage. You can certainly hear it in the way the parables are presented: “The kingdom of heaven is like, and like, and like, and like…” People just don’t teach like that. They would pass by a mustard bush, lesson shared; they would spot a woman making bread, lesson shared, and so on. These were recalled and collected and presented together by the author of Matthew for maximum effect. It’s just what writers do.
But there is a problem with the pattern. In each case, save the last, it is expectation (‘the kingdom of heaven is like’), surprize (a mustard seed? yeast? a merchant?), and then great surprize (‘it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’) Expectation, surprize and great surprize. Then we get to the final parable of the set:
47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
It’s been a while since Sesame Street for me, but ‘one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong.’ Weeping and gnashing of teeth, how did that get in there? Let’s just call it ‘scribal error.’
The scribes, not the Jewish kind, but the Middle Ages-kind, were famous for making errors. Imagine spending year upon of year of copying ancient documents, read a line, write a line, read a line, write a line, and do it for ten or twenty years. I’m bored and making mistakes just thinking about it. Now imagine you come across something you don’t like, and can’t agree with, or think that somehow misses the point. The Abbott is out of the room, your colleagues are all busy, and you add a word to the text, maybe a ‘not’ like a famous cabinet minister I shall not name. See, no harm done, and in his tiny monk mind there was no real problem with the change. In fact it’s better he might think, just correcting something that some other scribe should have done long ago.
I’m willing to bet that the last parable of the bunch probably read something like this: ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind.’ Jesus was cryptic, he loved to be a little vague, he loved to tease the imagination with brevity, and he was never really one for weeping and the gnashing of teeth. That would be our imaginary scribe. And the scribe even leaves us a clue, heck, his finger prints are all over it. From verse 51:
51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’
This guy had some nerve, he even inserted himself into the text. Jesus talked about scribes (the Jewish kind) and Pharisees, and teachers of the Law, but he didn’t talk about a ‘scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven,’ that would be future tense, that would be an addition, that would be ‘ah ha, caught you red-handed,’ or red-lettered.
The kingdom of heaven is not about throwing the evil fish into the furnace of fire. Creative, but not true. The kingdom of heaven is not about weeping and gnashing of teeth. The kingdom of heaven is not about dividing one from another and assigning some to hell. And how do I know? Expectation, surprize, and great surprize.
I’m fairly certain that each of us has pondered the question, ‘I wonder what the kingdom of heaven is like?’ We might have a vague sense, we might have a fond hope, or we may just live with a strong sense of expectation. Jesus knew this. So we hear the words “the kingdom of heaven is like” and we lean in. Then he serves up a surprize. It’s like yeast, that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour, until it was all leavened. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is not like entering the spiritual olympics and hoping to win, it is something both commonplace and wonderful at the same time. That’s the great surprize. It is something remarkable that you also see everyday. Like forgiveness, and love, and all the other things that Jesus preached. Some will try to insert judgment into the kingdom of heaven, but it just doesn’t fit. Rather, God thinks we’re treasure, hidden treasure, and is willing to spend everything to include us in the kingdom of heaven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:17 AM
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