The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

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The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12), July 24, 2005
I Kings 3:5-12, Romans 8:26-34, Matthew 13:31-33, 44-49a
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

I am getting somewhat confused and torn by these readings in Matthew regarding Jesus' teaching style. I'm not sure he is, or as Matthew is writing, giving us a list of images for the kingdom or God or if he is just using the shotgun approach in teaching. Mmm, they didnt get the one about the wheat and the weeds, let's try a mustard seed. Ok, they are not getting the agricultural images, how about a woman baking bread. Well that didn't work let's try buried treasure.

One thing I am clear on, however, is that Jesus is not about to spell out in detail what the Kingdom of God is like. He continually points to it, alludes to it, tells stories about it, but never describes it in everyday terms grounded in hard facts and reality. Jesus points to the promise and the hope of the reign of God, but never describes it fully, that is left up to us as we live into it and discover the buried treasure and pearls of great value in our own faith journey.

The first two parables point to something small or hidden that changes the whole world around it. A mustard bush or tree will grow to 6-10 feet, an impressive plant. But it is the next parable, the shortest that holds a greater message for me: “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.” One sentence.

Here we have the over-the-top generosity of God shown in a woman baking bread. But this is not a few loaves for their Worship on Wednesday. The “three measures” is the equivalent of a bushel of flour, that's 128 cups or 16 five-pound bags. So mix that with the over 40 cups of water needed to make the dough and you have over 100 pounds of yeasty, lively bread dough.

If we understand the dough as representative of the world, then we have this powerful, generous woman baker representing God, creating the world and all that is in it. And into this mass of creation some yeast is dissolved and mixed. Yeast that now is invisible to the eye, yet we see the results as the lump of dough rises. The reign of God is the yeast. You are the yeast. You are the ones who can make a difference in the world that God has made and for which Christ died.

The next two stories are about pricey things that are hidden. A treasure in a field and a pearl of great value. Jesus speaks of a person who sacrifices all that he has in order to have this treasure, this pearl. Again he challenges us to think and to act. What are you willing to sacrifice for the value of the kingdom of God in your life? What is it worth to you?

Yes, yes, I know: Grace is a free gift. Im not talking about the grace and mercy of God. Im talking, and I think Jesus is talking, about what are you willing to do, to give up, to be in order to feel the reign of God in your life? If our faith is really about relationship, loving God and others, then what is it worth to you to feel the bounties of those relationships in your life, in your world? What value is Jesus to you? What value is the gospel of Christ to you? Does it matter?

Then the net, dragged through the sea collecting all in its path. The fishermen sort what they want to keep from the rest. Another parable of judgment reminding us that God is in charge and that our lives are in his hands. As with all aspects of judgment, I feel it important to jump to the end of the story, where Jesus gives the ultimate truth of judgment as he suffers on the cross: Father, forgive them. The judgment that should befall us, he has taken to himself and intercedes for us, even from the cross.

And therein lies the crux of the kingdom of God: Jesus' life of teaching and healing, dying and rising again, and ultimately interceding for us with God.

Paul, in one of his more lyrical moments, comes directly to the point: when in our sin and our weakness, our busyness and our neglect we do not know how to pray or cannot pray, the “Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” With sighs too deep for words, is the will and love of God for us. It is the will of God that prompts the Spirit to intercede for us and it is Christ who through the incarnation who offers intercessions at the “right hand” or directly with God. In other words, one of the divine properties of what we call the Holy Trinity, is to intercede for us when we cant even know what we need or desire, to intercede for us according to the ultimate will of God, to intercede for us with “sighs too deep for words.”

Such is the judgment of God: a judgment of intercession and prayers beyond human expression, a yearning for the immortal souls of humankind that all be glorified for all have been known and loved of God, for all are bound in the intercessions of the will of God that goes beyond our comprehension. A loving God who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.