Gospel: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
In writing this sermon I found myself moving from a very particular set of questions that I started with to a completely unexpected answer at the end. For me, it was a strong example of how reflection and thought lead to revelation, often in the most unexpected moments. So allow me to invite you to walk this path from question to unexpected answer.
In the beginning, my Alpha moment, I found that today’s passage from Matthew really annoyed me. I wasn’t frustrated because of what’s there, but rather because of what’s missing. As important as the Sunday lectionary cycle is for providing structure for the Church year, there’s one thing I don’t like about it. Several times – and this reading is a good example of that – important transitional passages are left out. Verses relating to a shift in location, voice, or audience are simply excluded or are used in readings for other weeks.
In this morning’s reading, the first three verses are a continuation of a long series of parables that Jesus has shared with the crowds gathered around him. The very beginning of the chapter reveals that the crowds are of such an enormous size that Jesus gets into a boat and goes out from the shore so he can address them. Throughout the chapter and including the three verses we just heard on the kingdom of heaven being compared to a mustard seed, the crowd is hearing parables based on things that would have been familiar to them.
Parables are ways of sharing deeper spiritual meanings through familiar stories of everyday life, and it’s those familiar things they’re hearing Jesus speak of here: seeds and sowers; weeds and grain; different types of soil; baking and fishing. The mustard seed itself with which we begin would itself have been a well-known image to them, an image of something so incredibly tiny that grows into something of tremendous size – about 10 feet in height in areas near the Sea of Galilee.[1]
Then he talks about the kingdom of heaven as a hidden treasure that’s discovered and sold, and a pearl that’s been found and bought, and an abundance of fish being separated, the good from the bad. To hear all of it straight through, as it’s structured for the lectionary, we might think nothing has changed and the teaching of the crowds is continuing uninterrupted. If you dig a little you discover a lot has changed. What I find odd and problematic is that those important transitional phrases, those indications of what has changed, were in last week’s reading.
How helpful can this possibly be for someone who missed last week’s reading and is now hearing today’s? How helpful can it be for one to be aware of the change that’s occurred and another to think that everything continues as it always has?
For instance, between his words on leavened flower and those on treasure hidden in a field, Jesus stopped talking to the crowds. In fact, he came back to shore, left the boat, and went into the house. The parables being shared for much of this passage are for the benefit of the disciples, not the crowds who had gathered. Additionally, we miss an important verse that identifies the actions of Jesus as being the fulfillment of Hebrew tradition – namely, his use of parables as a hearkening back to the words of Isaiah and of Psalm 78.
In my view, the transition of place and audience are particularly important in today’s reading. What Jesus is sharing with his disciples in the final verses is that inheriting the kingdom that God has promised will require everything from us, like the one who sold everything he had to buy a treasure-laden field or the other who sold all he had to buy a pearl. “The kingdom is a treasure, and those who really believe it will sacrifice everything else in their lives for the Kingdom’s agenda.”[2] Yes, that idea would end up holding particular and strong relevance for the lives of the 12, many of whom would themselves be martyred because of their work in carrying the message of the kingdom to the far corners of the known world.
What Jesus is sharing as well is the idea of judgment and of the revelation of “who was truly committed to the kingdom, and how wise the committed were to invest their lives in it.”[3] Using the imagery of fishing, the good fish – the righteous – would be kept while the bad fish – those deemed to be wicked – would be cast aside. Finally, Jesus is sharing with the disciples the necessity of taking what they’ve learned and being “prepared to teach others the value of the kingdom.”[4]
But isn’t it also relevant and important to everyone who would follow Jesus, disciples and crowds alike, both in his time and ours?
It’s here that I reached my Omega moment. The answer to that question is “yes,” and it’s precisely because the answer is yes that it would have been wrong to include the transitional verses I so desperately wanted to be part of the boundaries of today’s reading.
The transition from boat to shore and then to house would have been wrong. The shift in teaching from crowds to disciples would have been wrong. Why? Because in eliminating those slight transitions we also find the elimination of distinctions. In eliminating those transitions we remove the importance of place and audience and shift the focus to the message. In eliminating those transitions we see that the words of Jesus are for everyone: crowds and disciples; the named and the anonymous; sowers and fishermen; farmers and bakers.
God’s message isn’t a message for some; it’s a message for all.
Our lives and our world always seem to be in a time of transition. Sometimes the transitions are joyful, but many times they bring hurt, suffering, and anxiety. Transitions sometimes reveal deep wounds and division. Despite all of that, however, there’s good news: the good news that there’s hope and a promise.
The hope is that we use times of transition to learn and grow, to overcome obstacles, to work for the healing of our bodies, communities, and world, and to reach the time when – as we read in one of the prayers in our prayer book – “barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease [and] that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace.”[5]
The promise is the message that’s found in the parables of the past several Sundays and in my discovery that transitional verses aren’t always important. The promise is that the message is for all. The kingdom can be for all. We can achieve the kingdom if we give our all.
Amen.
[1] W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann. Matthew, n. 32, p. 169.
[2] Craig S. Keener. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, p. 391.
[3] Keener, p. 392.
[4] Keener, p. 393.
[5] “Prayer for Social Justice.” The Book of Common Prayer, p. 823.