Sermon for July 16, 2020
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 2<sup>nd</sup> Corinthians 13:13
The following are quotes by a few children ages 7 to 9. They are trying to explain love:
“If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long.” — <em>Glenn, age 7</em>
“Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life.” — <em>John, age 9</em>
“I think you’re supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be so painful.” — <em>Manuel, age 8</em>
“My mother says to look for a man who is kind. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll find somebody who’s kinda tall and handsome.” — <em>Carolyn, age 8</em>
Love is an emotion we all have a problem putting into words. Poets, writers, musicians, and all kinds of artists have made attempts at making the emotion of love some sort of descriptive reality. While many of these people have made excellent attempts at describing love, until one has experienced it, only that person know.
Today, in this short gospel reading, we have five parables—parables that Jesus uses to describe the kingdom of heaven. He and his disciples were proclaiming the good news that <em>“the kingdom of heaven is near!”</em> now he was trying to explain in these parables what that meant. And it was as if you were trying to explain to your dog or cat what Disney Land is like.
The first parable Jesus tells concerns a small mustard seed that grows so large that it can give rest to birds. We’ve all seen mustard seed and know how tiny they are. While they might not be the smallest of the seeds, they do produce comparably large plants. But Jesus is stretching our imaginations. Look around and if you think the kingdom of heaven is present now, just you wait!
The parable of leavened bread is similar. The woman took yeast and mixed it with three measures of flour to make bread. How much is three <em>measures</em> of flour? About ten gallons! It would be enough to feed 100-150 people. This the same amount of flour Sarah used to prepare the meal, or banquet for the three heavenly visitors, along with a whole calf! It was extravagant! The Greek word used for “mixed in” is also used for “hid”. When we think of this it brings about the thought of the kingdom being presently hidden and silent, working by unexpected means so that the future will reveal its reality.
The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl are very similar in that the main character stumbles on something of great value. He sells everything he has to obtain the thing of great value. They gave up everything to purchase the thing of value. Jesus had asked the rich young man to do the same and he went away in sorrow.
The chapter ends with a parable about casting a net into the sea and catching fish of every kind. The story is very similar to the parable of the weeds mixed in with the wheat. The fish are sorted with the good fish going into baskets and the bad being thrown out. Again, Jesus says the angels will come and separate the bad from the good and throw the bad into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Remember, this parable is not about evangelism (casting the net), but about final judgement.
These parables are not about the natural and the expected, but about the supernatural and the surprising. A modern analogy to these parables would be “The kingdom of heaven is like a preacher who preached every Sunday to a congregation of 25 people in a city of two million. The preacher kept on preaching until the whole city believed the gospel.”
These parables are about the kingdom, not about the church. The parables speak of the final victory of the kingdom despite all appearances, and they challenge <em>us, the church</em>, to respond to their message.
We live in a world full of divisiveness, hate, turmoil, and downright sinfulness and evil. But those of us who live loving God and believing that Jesus Christ died, resurrected, and ascended into heaven live in a slightly different world. With all this stuff going on around us we are comforted in the knowledge that all of this evil is temporary. We live in a world where we know everything is not perfect, but in between all of that, there is joy, love, laughter, friendship, the beauty of relationships. There is God’s love for us and our love of God in return. We, who acknowledge that we are God’s children, know that. But even beyond that, we know that we’re in for a big surprise, one that is big enough that even Jesus couldn’t explain it to us in terms we can understand. We trust in his love, for that we have in great abundance. Maybe we can’t explain it, but we can feel it.
Look around. Listen. Hear his voice. “I love you. You are mine.” Listen. Listen.