First Reading: 1 Kings 3:5-12
5At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask what I should give you.” 6And Solomon said, “You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. 7And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. 8And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. 9Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?”
10It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. 11God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.”
Psalm: Psalm 119:129-136
When your word is opened, it gives light and understanding. (Ps. 119:130)
129Your decrees are wonderful;
therefore I obey them with all my heart.
130When your word is opened it gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.
131I open my mouth and pant
because I long for your commandments.
132Turn to me and be gracious to me,
as you always do to those who love your name.
133Order my footsteps in your word;
let no iniquity have dominion over me.
134Rescue me from those who oppress me,
and I will keep your commandments.
135Let your face shine upon your servant
and teach me your statutes.
136My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your teaching.
Second Reading: Romans 8:26-39
26The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gospel: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
31[Jesus] put before [the crowds] 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.”
33He 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.”
CHILDREN’S SERMON: I have told the story before of the blind men who encountered an elephant, but let me share it again. The first blind man touched the side of the elephant and exclaimed, “An elephant is just like a wall!” The second man felt a tusk and shouted, “No, my friend, the elephant is just like a spear.’ The third touched the trunk of the great beast and was convinced his brothers were wrong so said, “The elephant is more like a snake.” The fourth was led to put his arms around the leg, “An elephant is like a tree,” he exclaimed. The fifth man, the tallest, grasped hold of the elephant’s ear and told his friends that an elephant is like a huge fan. The last man, upon grabbing the tail of the beast, corrected the rest. “Any person would agree the elephant is not like a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree or a fan but is more like a rope!” The men argued among themselves and could not decide what an elephant looks like for they could not see the beast. In the same way, we come together today to ponder five parables about the kingdom of heaven and how it informs our relationship with a God we cannot see face to face.
Let us pray. Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptible in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.
SERMON
We have been looking at the parables Jesus told that talk about the kingdom of heaven. He compares himself to a farmer sowing seed, the word of God. It falls on four types of soil. We are not all the same and some days we may even be just plain rocky! Or Jesus is like an owner of a wheat field that has weeds growing in it, sewn by an enemy. Good wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest. God is patient and tells the workers, tells us, to let good and evil grow together until the harvest when all will be made right. Jesus now continues with five more parables, snap shots of the kingdom. “The kingdom of God is like…” a tiny mustard seed sewn in a field, like yeast put in dough, like a hidden treasure in a field, like a pearl of great price and like a net thrown out to catch fish. It feels a bit like our men trying to understand that elephant!
Our text today concludes with a question, “Have you understood all this?” Like the bind men and the disciples, we think we do, we hope we do. In truth, we are learning and Christians disagree all the time. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know him even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)”
Small is a Window to Big
The blind men each see a piece of the elephant. They cannot see the whole picture. It is hidden from them. We do not see God face to face and we do not see the whole picture of why events happen or our friend, much less our enemy, is struggling today. The mustard seed is planted in soil and so small as to be hard to see. The yeast is working in dough and cannot be seen as it does its thing. We only see the dough rising. The treasure is buried in a field that is not ours. The pearl of great price is among other pearls and the net pulls out fish that are in the sea, under the water. Have you ever prayed, “Lord, please send a fax so I will know what you want me to do!” I have. I do not see God face to face and which path to take is not always very clear. Our faith is small but calls us to venture forth into a broader experience of God’s grace. We must plant that mustard seed, kneed that dough, buy the field, purchase the pearl and cast the net. The small calls us into a bigger world.
Then the hearer must be patient and wait to see how the mustard seed will grow and become seen. The bread is not feasted on until the yeast has done its work on the flour. Relating to God starts as a seed of faith or a granual of yeast and grows in us as we mature, hopefully. The shrub that grows does not look like the seed nor does the loaf of bread look like the yeast. The kingdom of heaven does not look exactly like any single Christian. Like those blind men, we gather today to share our experience of God and the journey we are on.
Each of our relationships does not look like those first days when we started to grow into faith. If we do not tend to that seed of faith, that grain of yeast, we will be like the seeds planted on rocky or thorny soil or like a bowl of dough that refuses to rise. Neither fulfills its potential. We cannot see the future that is hidden from us and so the hiddenness of God calls us into trusting him.
Good grows in the presence of bad
The hiddenness of the kingdom also speaks to our lives in community. Jesus puts each parable in a context of other people. The seed needs soil to grow. The yeast needs flour and fluids to fulfill its purpose. The treasure is sitting within a field, the pearl is undiscovered, hidden in community and the fish swim with the good and bad under the water.
The last parable is almost a mirror image of last week’s parable except instead of talking about a field with wheat and weeds, Jesus talks about water and a net that catches good and bad fish. Again, Jesus tells us that the angels will do the dividing at the end of the age when evil is punished. We do not know the eventual judgment on the soil or the dough or the other pearls but we are told that the kingdom does coexist with that which is not-kingdom. We are encouraged that the kingdom influences the not-kingdom. The seed becomes a bush that gives shelter and home to the birds. The yeast does change the dough that is the foundation for making bread and feeding people. The treasure and the pearl empower the buyer to do good. We grow in the presence of not-kingdom and we impact it for good. The weeding and the sorting of who are the good and bad fish is for the angels. Our role is to be the new creation and grow into whom the Lord wants us to be. None of the blind men had the whole picture but they shared with each other their experience and hopefully if they talked long enough, they would come to a clearer picture of the unseen.
Growth requires work
Not only are we like the blind men, not seeing the whole picture of who God is, and not ony do we live with not-kingdom others, the parables challenge us that we must work to grow. Sometimes Christians give testimonies that would make us think that the emotional experience of “conversion” is the whole story. Praise the Lord. When faced with suffering and trials we know God is in control and the result is to his glory and so “Praise the Lord.” All five parables add more texture to the journey of faith.
The mustard seed must persevere and grow on sunny days and rainy days. Not all days are sunny. I am guessing trees don’t experience pruning as delightful. Being corrected when we are wrong is humbling. Growth takes time and patience. Some of us know about the Dark Night of the Soul when the sun is not shining and the moon is only a sliver. We hold on by our fingernails. Likewise the yeast must be softened in liquid and kneeded into the dough. We pray the master is gentle as he pushes and shoves on us!!! Being buried and unseen like the treasure is hard. It’s hard to be unappreciated and unrecognized, to be passed over, or to be dismissed. Again, the pearl must wait for the right person to come along and discover it. Being scooped up like the fish in the larger events of our world like Coved or like war or famine, tests anyone’s faith. Hanging on to the kingdom is work.
Likewise the flip side is to think how we are like the agent in these parables. We plant little seeds in our children, at our work, in our world and we must wait and help them grow, not knowing the final result. It is work for the baker, for us, to knead the dough. It’s not easy to push back on others and question them and encourage them to be their better selves. The man must sell everything to buy the field with the treasure. Everything is a big word. The one who spies the pearl of great price is looking. The pearl does not just drop into life as a blessing but that person must learn to distinguish what makes a pearl of great price. Some of you are fisher people and know the work of getting ready to go on a trip preparing gear, boat, transport and the patience of waiting.
Our blind men would never have had their experiences of the elephant had they sat in their homes and allowed life to deal with them. They had to venture out of their comfort zone and touch that which may well have been threatening. They had to trust their guide. They had to interact with their friends and allow their experiences to be challenged and to grow in their limited understanding.
And so we are back to our original question asked by Jesus, “51“Have you understood all this?” I suspect the honest answer is, “We’re trying.”
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.”
“Scribe,” Jesus calls us scribes. We are scribes. The scribes were the people who “scribbled” “scripture”, who copied the texts that were given them. We are called scribes because we are the carriers in real life of the teachings of God. Our lives are a book others read and learn about God. We are parables not unlike those we learned about today. We are the mustard seed that says some little word that may lead someone to question about faith. Or we might be the yeast that helps another grow in faith. Each of you is a treasure of experiences, old and new, of God’s grace in your life. You can be a pearl of great price as you encourage the discouraged, speak the truth to the deceived, love the downtrodden, or heal the broken hearted. You are the scribes, the living parables God is using to speak to the world today.
We do not know what is to become of our efforts but we do know the God who is working in our lives. We do know we live in community. We do know it is not easy to choose God’s way over our selfish desires. God will make sure evil is held accountable. You are important and God has your back.
Let the people of God say, “AMEN.”
On the Way to Wonder 