| First Reading |
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| I Kings 3:5–12 |
Psalm 119:129–36 |
Romans 8:26–39 |
Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52 |
The people, to whom Jesus originally offered the parables, knew only of the movers and shakers of history as great conquerors, who ominously appeared on the horizon from far off lands. Changes in the course of history and the rise of new kingdoms were the triumph of one culture and military organization over another, and inevitably meant social domination of the conqueror over the vanquished. The ancestors of the farmers, fishermen and shepherds around the Sea of Galilee, had seen a heretofore unknown Assyrian empire, swoop down and devour all the northern tribes of Israel. Later another foreign empire, from Babylon would force the remnant of Israel into exile in a foreign ghetto. Later still the Greeks would conquer the land, then the Romans, and so it went. Each time the conquerors attempted to impose their own foreign ways, suppressing Israel's own native heritage.
It should be no surprise that most people of Jesus' time believed that God's reign would be inaugurated like a cataclysmic thunderstorm from heaven, with fire cleansing everything and with God starting over from ground up, imposing divine righteousness. The messiah would be one who would finally and decisively impose God's will on the world.
Nor is it any wonder that Jesus used parables and stories, for Jesus taught something so different than the experiences or expectations of most people. In the series of sayings and parables of this section of Matthew, Jesus is stressing first of all the comprehensiveness of God's grace and concern for all humanity and secondly, that God's plan for the world is not completely foreign or totally disconnected or a radical break from one's own experience.
The commonwealth of God is not a privileged society with one people over others. The society of God involves universal citizenship; just as a sower who sows all the seed over all the ground, just as a farmer who waits to harvest the whole crop. It is like the everyday miracle of growth that we all have observed, like a seed which is planted, and without force, without imposing itself on anyone else, grows into a large ear of grain, producing a bountiful harvest.
The God's new world is not something from far away, swooping down, obliterating the present. It is not totally incomprehensible or inaccessible, or from another time, long ago or in the future. God's future is showing its growth now, among us, hidden to be sure, but nevertheless connected to the experiences of today.
Jesus compares God not to a foreign conqueror of absolute domination, but to a woman who is about to do some serious baking for a banquet. Three measures of flour are about 80 lbs. The woman mixes in yeast and water with the flour and makes the dough. The yeast acts within the whole 100 pounds of dough.
The new world of God is not like the seed all safely tied up in a bag, but the seed widely sown and going deep in the ground. The kingdom is not like yeast covered with a wet towel in a crock, but yeast mixed into the flour and water. God's vision is not disembodied, remote and separate from our problems or hopes. Just as there is not a world without seed, nor bread dough without yeast, God's vision is not separate from the basic circumstances of our existence. In one sense sin is the refusal to take seriously the presence and acknowledge possibility of God's vision germinating among us today.
To drive home these points, Jesus tells the story of one who found a treasure hidden in a field. After this person goes and reburies the treasure, he seeks to sell everything in order to purchase that one field. God is like that, buying the whole field and not just that part of the property the treasure was buried on, because that treasure redeems the whole property, just as the one great pearl redeems or justifies if you will, giving all what one had. That's what the love and intention of God reveals: a love that gives and bears all, intending the redemption of the whole world
Sometimes we wonder if our lives and those around us were totally in sync with God, what would it be like? How would things be different? The Gospel of Matthew offers us these various images told as parables, pointing to the ordinary experiences of today, July 24, 2005.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
