Sermon: Investment Prospectus

Text: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

July 27, 2008

Scripture Introduction

Two weeks ago, parable of sower, seeds, and soil.
Last week (although it we did not read it) the parable of the wheat and the weeds in the same field. The farmer allowed them to grow together and only at the end separated them—using the wheat and destroying the weeds.
In chapter 13 Jesus gives some explanation of these two parables.

Today, five short parables, only one of which has any explanation.
According to Jesus all these parables illustrate in some way the Kingdom of God. Exactly how they do this can be, as Yul Brenner said in The King and I, “a puzzlement.”
We need to remember that the parable was an ancient form of comparison intended to illustrate only one or two points of similarity. We make a mistake if we try to turn the parable into a modern allegory, where every fact in the parable has some meaning. We should be asking what is the thrust or the main point of the story.
As we will see, that is not always easy. Jesus seemed to know this, and may even have told these stories not only as a way of teaching, but also as a form of humor. As I have suggested before, perhaps we need to think of Jesus telling the parables with a twinkle in his eye.
Because this is a “folk-music” service, I initially thought I would read the scripture from Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch version. But the fact is that the parables already are folksy enough. Jesus made them that way so they would connect with the folks he was teaching.

Sermon

(2 + 2 + 1) The first two parables seem to go together; they are told one after the other. The second two parables also seem to relate to one another. I will be focusing on these, which seem to have many things in common. As I understand it, the last parable—the one about the fish—makes a different point, one that already was made in the story of the wheat and the weeds growing together in the same field. That is, God will sort out the righteous and the unrighteous in the end.
The Kingdom of God is “hidden.” There is more to it than meets the eye. It is present even when we cannot see it.

When the person sowed a mustard seed in the field, it was “hidden” in the ground.
When the woman mixed the yeast in with the flour, the literal translation of the Greek is that she “hid” it. (Some of you may remember the wording that way because the King James Version says that she “hid” the leaven. It’s the Greek word from which we get the English words “cryptic” and “encryption”—something that is hidden or concealed.)
The treasure found by the person plowing the field was buried before the plowshare turned it up. Again, literally, “hidden.” And then the finder of the treasure “hid” it again until he could purchase the field.
In a way, even the pearl of great value was at first “hidden” from the merchant. This particular pearl was found only after a search. Until it was found, it was hidden.

We may not realize it immediately, but there is a weird quality to these first two stories. For someone in Jesus’ culture, the effect would have been arresting.

The mustard plant is basically a weed. There are ancient writings cautioning gardeners about allowing mustard plants to grow in their gardens. Jesus had just told another parable about weeds being bad. Now the weed is the good example.
In a similar way, yeast or “leaven” in Jewish culture is generally a sign of sin or impurity that must be removed. We might think back to the Passover ritual, which requires unleavened bread. We remember the Seder meal that we have celebrated in our church: before the meal begins, the children are given the job of removing all the leaven from the house. But as Jesus tells the story, the yeast seems to be a good thing, the thing that allows the growth of the Kingdom.
In a sense, the very weirdness of these two parables suggests that the Kingdom of God is unexpected, counter-intuitive, even “hidden” from our rational minds.

The Kingdom of God will grow large, even if it now is small. The things of the Kingdom may seem small, but they are large. Small actions in the Kingdom may have great effect.

The mustard seed was tiny. It would be hard even to plant a single mustard seed—about the size of a grain of sand. But it grew large enough for a bird to make a nest in it—a very large bush or a small tree.
The sourdough the woman hid in the flour was very small compared to the tremendous quantity of the flour—about ten gallons, enough to feed 150 persons. But the small amount of leaven, when mixed in, affected the entire quantity. This suggests not only the size, but also the richness that characterizes the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is precious, extremely valuable. A wise person would be willing to give up everything in order to obtain the Kingdom.

One found the treasure by chance; the other was searching for the pearl of great value.
The one who bought the field and wound up owning a treasure enjoyed a great return on his investment. The one who paid great value for the pearl probably gave up as much value to get it as he received.

The common message is that each sold “all that he had” in order to get the prize.
The Kingdom is something of great value; it is so valuable that we would be wise if we sold all that we had in order to receive it. That’s as much value as anything can possibly have to an individual, something that is worth everything we have.

Flatland, by Victorian author Edwin Abbot. Everyone and everything was flat—two dimensional. They were unaware of the third dimension of space.
The so-called “string theory” of modern physics suggests that there are not only three dimensions of space and one of time, but as many as 10 or 11 or 26 dimensions of space-time. Like the characters in Flatland, we may exist in many dimensions but only perceive four.
I have always been captivated by the idea that the Kingdom of God may actually be going on all around us, and we simply can’t see it. This would give new meaning to Jesus’ question at the end of our passage: “Have you understood all this?”

Like the mustard plant, which was really a weed; like the leaven, which was often considered ritually impure; even strange things and strange people have their place in the Kingdom. God can use everything and everyone in the plan of great growth and nourishment that typifies the Kingdom.