Homily Yr A Proper 17 July 27 2014
St. Albans
Readings: Gen 29.15-28; Ps 105.1-11, 45b; Rom 8.26.39;
Mt 13.31-33, 44-52
“The
Kingdom of God is like . . .”
My niece is on a
bicycle trip. Not just any bicycle
trip. No, she is on a solo, around the
world bicycle trip. At this very moment
she is somewhere in Iran cycling her way to the Afghanistan border. A few months ago, she gave up her apartment, left her job, sold most of her things and left with her bike on
her trip. If all goes well, and you can
just imagine all the things that could go wrong, she should be back in about a
year.
The kingdom of God is like a
young woman who has a dream of cycling around the world. She gives up her home, quits her job, sells
everything she has, gets on her bike and goes.
Jesus came to proclaim the
good news of the kingdom of God, or as it’s put in Matthew’s gospel, the
kingdom of heaven. That is the number
one thing that Jesus came to do. He is a
prophet of the Kingdom of God. But what
is the kingdom of God. Jesus never gives
us a definition. He never just tells us
what the Kingdom of God is. Instead, he
speaks in parables: The kingdom of God
is like . . . a mustard seed, yeast, a treasure, a merchant in search of a
pearl.
Why does Jesus speak about
the Kingdom of God in parables? In part
because the Kingdom of God is a mysterious, even elusive metaphor, something we
can start to understand but never fully grasp.
But it’s also because
parables, these brief stories, are meant not just to describe something, but
they’re also meant to do something, to do something to us when we hear
them. To evoke a feeling, to move us in
some way. To help us to not only
understand, but to have an experience of the Kingdom of God.
When I tell you that the
kingdom of God is like my niece who leaves everything she has to go
on a bike trip around the world, it moves me.
It makes me feel a sense of longing, a yearning for something. I also feel the disruption, and I wonder if I
could ever do such a thing, what it would take for me to leave everything and
go. And I feel the danger, the
insecurity of a young woman traveling alone on the backroads of Asia.
Today we’re going to tell
parables. We’re going to invent some
parables, we’re going to make up our own parables about the kingdom of God.
I think it will be easier
for us if we use either the mustard seed and yeast parables, or the pearl and
the treasure parables as a model.
Let me give you a little bit
of context as a starting point.
In the parables of the
treasure and of the merchant who seeks a pearl we get a sense of something of
immense value, and the surprise and delight that is experienced when someone
stumbles upon it. We get a sense of the
single-mindedness of these apparently crazy people as they pursue their treasure,
and we realize that it is totally disruptive to their lives.
How would you tell this
parable? For me, maybe it would go as
follows:
The kingdom of God is like a
man sitting at his desk, who looks up and sees something amazing outside his window. When he sees it, he rips up his to do list,
shreds everything in his in-box, dumps his computer in the garbage and runs
outside to find it.
That’s what the kingdom of
God is like!
In the parables of the
mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the field, or the yeast that the
woman hid in a huge amount of flour, it helps to realize that in the culture of
the time, these were contaminants. The
mustard seed was a weed, something that you would normally try to keep out of
your garden. The yeast was actually a
clump of mold that was considered a contaminant. At least once a year Jewish people would make
a huge effort to get rid of all the yeast in their homes. So what we have in these parables is
subversive, a tiny contaminant invading a field or tub of flour. Is there some sort of warning here? Or is it a promise? The tiny invader infiltrates the host,
spreads and takes over. And, perhaps surprisingly,
it turns out well. The mustard becomes a
tree to which the birds come and nest.
The yeast leavens the bread, enough for a great feast.
How would you tell that
story? Well, how about this:
The kingdom of God is like a
man who starts dancing by himself on a hillside. Maybe he’s a bit annoying or strange at
first, but watch what happens!
[play
the Sasquatch music festival 2009 – Guy starts dance party video]
Did you feel something of
the Kingdom of God watching that video?
Now it’s your turn. On your own, or in groups, I want you to make
up some parables of the Kingdom of God, using today’s gospel as a model. If you like, write them down, and then we’ll
share a few together.
The Kingdom of God is like . . .
Parables of the Kingdom of God
Jesus put before them
another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone
took and sowed in his field; 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.’
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.’
‘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.
‘Again, the kingdom
of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one
pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
