A, Post-Pentecost 9 Proper 12 - Romans 8:37 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 "Treasured Conquerors"
In the Lord’s Prayer we
pray, “your kingdom come”. What hinders
God’s kingdom from coming? The answer to
this is also prayed in the Lord’s Prayer.
We pray, for God to “lead us not into temptation”. In other words, we pray for ourselves and for
each other for God to protect us from being led into temptation, by ourselves,
someone, or something else, to seek other kingdoms.
Luther tells us in his
explanation to the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer that, “God’s kingdom
comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace
we believe his holy word and live a godly life on earth now and in heaven for
ever.” (Luther’s Small Catechism:
Lord’s Prayer, 2nd Petition)
Luther also demonstrates
in his explanation of the sixth petition that temptations shut out God’s
kingdom from coming, saying, “God tempts no one to sin, but we ask in this
prayer that God would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world,
and our sinful self may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair,
and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so
tempted we may still win the final victory.” (Luther’s Small Catechism:
Lord’s Prayer, 6th Petition)
The kingdom of heaven
comes when God gives us his Holy Spirit so that the devil, the world, and our
sinful selves are not led to a faith in ourselves. A faith in the self ends in death, in vain,
vainglory, or vain despair! Those living
in the ways of the world, practise a faith in the oneness of great and shameful
sins, which end in despair and death.
The devil stands as the
master of this world, deceiving people that they are either, too good to need
help, or too bad to deserve help. The
devil, the world, and the sinful self, tempt people into isolation and
opposition to God.
The parables of the
kingdom of heaven calls for acute listening, measured up against the entirety
of God’s Word. They call you to pray and
ponder over what Jesus is saying! They
call you to take time in the Word of God!
The disciples asked Jesus
why he spoke in parables, “And he answered them, “To you it has been given
to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been
given. For to the one who has, more will
be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even
what he has will be taken away. This is
why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing
they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
(Matthew 13:11–13 ESV)
In Romans chapter ten we
are told, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17 ESV) So, to those who have ears to hear, what is
the belief the Holy Spirit seeks to enlighten within us, from Jesus’ teaching
in the parables before us today?
The picture Jesus paints
in the parable of the mustard seed is full of hyperbole to get the hearers
attention.
“The kingdom of heaven
is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it
has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that
the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31–32 ESV)
Mustard seed is from the
brassica family, the same as canola. It
shares its genus with vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, turnip, and
cauliflower, to name a few. When these vegies
go to seed, the flowers displayed are yellow cross-shaped blooms, hence they
are called cruciferous vegetables.
Jesus uses hyperbole here
to shake the hearer’s expectation. These
seeds are tiny, and we do not expect them to grow into trees. The kingdom of heaven seems hidden but once
the cross is planted and Jesus is lifted up, what seems small will grow greater
than any human expectation.
Even today the kingdom of
heaven is somewhat hidden! Just after
hearing this parable the disciples saw Jesus feed the five thousand, leaving
twelve baskets of leftovers. Still today
we do not understand how this works with only five loaves and two fish! Yet, we believe, and, like the birds in the branches
of the mustard tree, we trust we’ll be nested and rest in the kingdom of heaven
eternally!
The parable of the leaven
is next. “The kingdom of heaven is
like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was
all leavened.” (Matthew 13:33 ESV)
What on earth is
leaven? Today we might say yeast. It’s the raising agent in bread! Once when bread making was an everyday affair
in the home, one would keep back some of the leavened dough to put into the
bread mixture for tomorrow. One gets a
picture of succession here! Perhaps an
eternal loaf of bread being raised.
Every loaf of bread is borne of the dough from the day before.
Elsewhere, Jesus refers to
leaven negatively as an unhealthy teaching, spread by the Pharisees and
Sadducees. (See Mat 16:5-12) Paul
refers to the leaven of malice and evil, needing to be lifted from amongst
believers. But not so here!
The leaven is added to
three dry measures of flour. That’s
three measures of thirteen litres, thirty-nine litres of flour, yet to
rise! That much bread dough not only
overwhelms the mind, but it also makes the hearer realise Jesus is raising a
point.
Like the mustard seed that
produces cruciferous flowers, that grows into a tree in the parable. So too, the leaven that’s sometimes bad, here
is good leaven, that’s raised up on the tree of the cross. And it’s placed in the flour by a woman, just
as Jesus Christ is nurtured in the world by the church.
The mustard seed and the
leaven seem insignificant and hidden but becomes something great. One is unexpected to grow so much, the other
is expected to overwhelm everything!
Such is the kingdom of
heaven! What one would have expected to
end in death after the crucifixion, flowers and flourishes into eternal fruit
that raises up you and me and all who believe.
This leads us to the next
two parables.
“The kingdom of heaven
is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in
his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a
merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value,
went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46 ESV)
Many times, we’ve probably
been told these parables are about what we should “do as disciples”! But the cost of discipleship is not our cost,
we cannot buy the kingdom of heaven.
Rather these two parables are about “being disciples”.
What do I mean by
this? Jesus pays the cost, and he does
so because you and I are the treasure and the pearl that costs Jesus his
Sonship, making us Sons of heaven, Sons of God.
It cost him his human life. In
complete selflessness he served, suffered, and died to save us from our
sin. So treasured are you as the
pinnacle of God’s creation, he became weak so you would become more than
conquerors despite your weakness.
To that end, we are so
treasured by God, he sends the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness, to help
us in our discipleship. And even so
today, as the Spirit intercedes for us with levelling groans that straighten out
our prayers, they are presented to Jesus, “who is at the
right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34b ESV)
Jesus Christ treasures you
so much, that through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit
our prayers are joined with all those treasured of every time and every place,
and are united with the eternal petitions of Jesus, our great high priest, who
intercedes for us at the right hand of God, until he comes as the victorious
merchant man to unveil you and me, his treasured possessions!
The parable of the dragnet
is possibly the easiest of these parables to understand.
“The kingdom of heaven
is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every
kind. When it was full, men drew it
ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the
bad. So it will be at the end of the
age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In
that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:47-50 ESV)
This parallels the parable
of the weeds that come up in the wheat.
They too will be burned in the eternal furnace, painting a picture of
suffering an eternal mental and dental living hell. This simple parable warns the unbelieving
hearer will be red flagged from the kingdom of heaven.
Finally, Jesus asked the
disciples if they understood what he was saying. They said, “yes”. But desertion at the cross shows they still
had much to learn.
Yet they were Jesus’
apostles, his twelve baskets of treasured leftovers! Even Judas was treasured, who in unbelief
would turn and betray him! He said to
them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven
is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what
is old.” (Matthew 13: 52 ESV)
God trained his Apostles
to be the scribes of the kingdom of heaven, so having been sent you might
believe the old and new treasures of his Word.
This is the death of original sin inherited in us from the old Adam and
eternal life into which we’re born by the new Adam, Jesus Christ.
Having receive these
treasures of the kingdom of heaven, we who are treasured are given the Holy
Spirit. He gives us relief as he leads
us to repent, and belief in knowing we are being loved by God.
The kingdom of heaven is Jesus’ victory for you. He treasures you so much he makes you more than conquerors! Those who have ears, let them hear! Amen.
