9th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

One of the chief ways to understand Jesus’ ministry was he was proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven. In everything he did – his teaching, his healings, his setting people from demonic forces – everything was a proclamation: “This is what God wants for you. These are God’s values and priorities.”

And by calling this the “Kingdom of Heaven,” it was his way of saying, “As God values these things in heaven, so are they God’s values for earth.” And so he taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as in heaven.”

Christ’s mission was to draw us “image bearers of God” into a true embodiment of God’s likeness.

And, time and again, Jesus’ go-to method of teaching was to tell parables – tiny little stories he’d make up to illustrate his point. There’s something about the way our brains work that prefers stories and images and metaphors to outright teaching. They’re more accessible, more memorable.

And in the portion of Matthew’s gospel we heard today, we’ve got a collection of six parables, back-to-back stories that keep repeating the same formula: “The kingdom of heaven is like… The kingdom of heaven is like…”

And the first two parables he tells – that of the tiny seed that becomes a big tree and the yeast that leavens all the flour – they’re variations on the same theme. Namely, the kingdom of heaven is something that starts out very small, and then grows and grows into something very big and very recognizable and very useful.

Which makes sense – since everything in this creation functions that way. Everything begins as such a tiny thing – often tiny to the point of invisibility: Plants begin as seeds. Children begin as embryos. Rivers and oceans begin as water vapors. Novels begin as fleeting concepts. Romances begin with a glance.

And then, everything grows – step by step, day by day. Rarely is one step or single day noteworthy unto itself. But together, they become movement. They become something visible and good, worthy and necessary.

The seeds of God’s kingdom and the leaven of God’s kingdom are scattered and hidden throughout this world – alive and growing, all around us – God’s witnesses to truth and holiness and hope. Children are coming of age and taking the mantle of leadership in the crises of this age. Elders are continuing to take seriously their own formation and self-knowledge, embodying the Kingdom of God within them: believing in their worth, forgiving those who’d harmed them decades before, giving their lives away to bless those around them. Growing seeds are everywhere.

And when the Kingdom of Heaven has grown and been made manifest in our midst, it becomes our duty to run with it. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field; it’s like a pearl of great value. In both these parables Jesus makes the same point – whether you stumbled across the treasure unexpectedly or were out seeking it deliberately – when you find it, you know its worth, and you do everything you can to make it your own.

The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t something you will ever be argued or forced into. No coercion is needed when your heart has met its true yearning. And I am quite convinced, beneath everything and every desire, our hearts’ truest yearnings are for God and the substance of all holiness that emanates from God, a holiness that has stretched out its arms to catch hold of us all and say, “Oh yes, you belong here, too, within me and within my firm embrace.”

For this is the truth of God’s kingdom: we do all belong; we do all have worth. Even the most broken among us is God’s beloved. In all the vast cosmos – this endless expansion of God’s unstoppable creating, God’s unstoppable kingdom – we belong.

But how little we believe it. And how readily we turn to unholy things to fill that void. And we absorb the guise of that same unloveliness. It is hard to believe our worth, especially when – all around us – we see those who seem to be doing so much better.

As it is in any faith community. There will always be those who seem to have more faith, who are more kind and loving, who are more like Jesus! You can fill in for yourself whichever aspect of faith makes you feel most inadequate. And because of this, the worst thing I could do at this point in the sermon would be to share a story of some dazzling example of faith – of someone who “found the treasure” and gave up everything to be transformed into some super-Christian.

Those are appealing stories, of course. Who doesn’t love a good Cinderella story?

But our “pearls of great price” are more often the case, just little seed pearls – little nuggets of clarity worth claiming: a line in a book; a message from a friend; something you say in a conversation that you didn’t know you believed until it emerged out of your mouth.

I was in a texting conversation the other day with a friend and I wrote, “Virtues are often just concealed fears.” And, once I wrote it, I was quite taken aback. “Huh,” I thought, “maybe you need to think about that a moment, Eric.” And I did. And I found that I believed it to be true. I could look at any number of virtues I’d claimed in my life that really were – at their core – more about fear of the unknown than they were about true goodness. And so, just a little comment that came out of me became, for me in that moment, a pearl worth claiming in this ongoing story of growing and becoming and finding my rooted place in this Kingdom of God in which I, too, belong.

How often in Jesus’ ministry was this the same pearl – the same treasure – that was discovered and embraced and rejoiced in? The leper who was healed, the sinner forgiven, the outcast embraced. And, of course, in the glow of that love and mercy and inclusion, they called Christ, “Lord,” and followed him. Who wouldn’t? Our hearts know the treasure when it’s there before us.

And so we spend the span of our lives in search of God and the truth of God. And, bit by bit, we let go of those false treasures, that we may take up that which we’ve now found to be real and holy, the abode of our true belonging in God.

And in the end of days, be it the end of our particular life or the life of this entire world, it will be God’s duty to sift out what remains in God and what must be cast away.

I remember the night my mother died. All that evening there’d been a howling wind outside. And now that she lay lifeless in her bed, I went out in the dark to walk out all this energy and emotion that had been growing within me. And the wind – it just kept blowing, ferociously and relentlessly – with an intensity that matched my own. And as I walked, I began to speak out to that wind (a prayer of sorts): “Oh, wind, blow away everything that was untrue of my mother. Blow away every false thing she’d ever absorbed into herself. Blow it all away. And, God, receive unto you, the true Anne – beloved, complete, and restored.”

For so shall it be at the end of the age when the angels separate the evil from the righteous – the false from the true, the redeemed from the corroded.

For so shall it be at the end of the age, when the seed of God’s grace will have grown into the tree; when the yeast will have leavened the entire loaf; when that which was hidden – overlooked and disregarded – will be manifest for all the world to see, that God is God. And “if God is for us, who can be against us?…. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[1]

And if this be our hope for the life to come, let it also be our hope for these days in which we live. May all these “hidden things” of the Kingdom of Heaven – all God’s grace and mercy, all the hope and inclusion of God’s redeeming – may they be as so many treasures that God is pulling out before us: “This and this and this (!) is what I have for you!”

Years ago, I was a guest in the home of a Japanese family. They were quite wealthy. And one day the grandmother, who spoke no English, motioned for me to come and follow her. She led me into this very traditional, Japanese room. The floor was covered in tatami mats; there was no furniture at all. But one of the walls was entirely composed of thin, wooden drawer-fronts – each about three feet wide and five inches tall. She pulled open one of those drawers, unfolded the rice paper, and pulled out this extraordinary kimono – this burst of color and pattern and artistry. Then she folded it back up, covered it again, and closed the drawer. Then she opened the next one. Again! another explosion of beauty. And over and over again, drawer after drawer, she pulled out her family’s treasures for me to delight in. And I did. That moment embedded itself within me – an icon of the hidden beauties of this world and the glory of discovering them.

And so may this life be for us – that everywhere we go, each hardship we experience, each person we meet – may they all be as that kimono room, unremarkable at first (perhaps even severe) until the drawers are opened and we discover the glory within. Everything God made is beautiful. Every broken thing in this world is the place of God’s redeeming and love. Seeds are growing within the soil. Yeast is multiplying in the dough.

The life Christ lived was a participation in this reality. He became incarnate – a single cell in the womb of Mary – that grew and grew, and burst into this world, a splendor whose story is still being told. He was given to the tomb, but burst forth again, now victor over death and the first fruits of all who will follow. This Cosmic Christ is Christ incarnate in everything, in you and me, and every place we thought to despair. There is life, and there is hope, for there is God, a God who is making all things new.

And so shall it be, and so shall it be, this day and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Romans 8:31b, 39-39