Sermon for July 27, 2008

A sermon preached by Bishop Townsend on July 27th, 2008
The text is Matthew 13:31-33,44-49a

In the name of God, whom we name Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.

The people who set up our lectionary and decide what we will read from week to week have wrought great mischief on us in the Gospel readings for last Sunday and today. Since I was not here last week, preaching on the text from Matthew, I will take last Sunday’s and today’s readings together. Our editors have somewhat scrambled and edited the text of the 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, and I think we have lost something in the process.

What Matthew intended in this chapter is to throw a rapid cascade of word pictures at us all about the kingdom of heaven, like a swirl of confetti as the bride and groom emerge into the summer sun.

But instead, what we had last Sunday was just the frame of the stories - the fairly obvious parable of the weeds among the wheat which Jesus then interprets, detail for detail. There’s hardly any work left for the preacher to do. The rest of this flurry of images about mustard seeds and yeast and hidden treasure are what we heard this morning.

And edited out entirely from the readings is the gem which in my bible is titled, “The Use of the Parables.”
34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”

When speaking of God and holy things, Jesus always speaks in parables and metaphors because that’s the kind of language that seems to fit for such deep truths.

Over the years and especially at times of confirmation, I have heard people speak of their experience of coming into the Episcopal Church. After a while of exploration in other traditions and finally arriving at an Episcopal Church, a man told me, “It feels like coming home.”
- A woman one time told me of her new rediscovery of a long dormant childhood faith – “It's like falling in love.”

We tend to talk of our experience of holiness in terms not of what it is, but of what it is like. And such comparisons allow us to be a little poetic about things that matter to us. We might describe someone we admire as having eyes as blue as the petals on a corn flower. While the color description might be more accurate, we are less likely to say she has eyes the color of a plastic re-cycling container.

There is good precedent for this way of speaking about the holy. In the Gospels, Jesus does not speak of God and heaven in absolute terms but by simile and metaphor. God is a loving father or a good shepherd or the host at a banquet. And sinners are like lost sheep. The word of God is like seed sown on different kinds of soil, the kingdom of heaven is like a wedding feast, God is like the owner of a vineyard.

Jesus did this all the time, teaching by making comparisons and telling indirect stories.

In last week’s and this morning's gospel Jesus delivers a rapid-fire volley of images. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a good seed sown into a field; it is like a mustard seed, like yeast, he says. Like buried treasure, like a fine pearl, and like a net cast into the sea. We have no time to reflect on all that. Jesus just tosses them to us and it's rather like trying to catch six basketballs all at once. These are not like the grand canvases of stories like the prodigal son and the good Samaritan. These are more like snap-shots in an old family album.

It's a lot to digest in one or two sittings, but there is a thread that holds these particular images together. They are all hidden. The wheat is hidden amidst the weeds. The mustard seed hidden in the ground, the yeast in the dough. The treasure is hidden in the ground and the pearl is something discovered. The net is hidden in the depths of the sea as it does its work of catching fish. Jesus seems to be saying that the K of G is not obvious but concealed. It is something for which we must search. The heartbeat of God is pervasive, but subtle. Yet what Jesus is saying in these five snap shot images is that the kingdom is hidden in what is in plain view.

If we would speak of heavenly things, Jesus seems to say, then we must begin by speaking of things we know and understand. So he spoke of farmers planting their harvest, of women searching for a lost coin, of meals together and of going fishing. The kingdom is like these things. The kingdom is even concealed within these things, waiting to be brought to light.

It is in the ordinariness of our day to day lives that the Kingdom of God is held and revealed, so I will tell you a parable from my own experience while on vacation last week.

I know that when you are in North Carolina, then you had better eat barbecue. My son-in-law Chris and I had asked a local where to get the best barbecue near to us in Kitty Hawk. “Saul’s” he replied without hesitation. “It’s 4 miles onto the mainland past the bridge on 158.” “What about ‘High Cotton?’” we asked, naming a barbecue place closer to our cottage. “That’s OK, but if you want the real thing, go to Saul’s.”

So we called Saul’s to check on directions and to order food to be ready when we got there. “Don’t worry about that. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to put your order together,” the girl said. “Be there in 15 minutes,” Chris said, and we set out.

When we got there, the place looked deserted. We opened the door and there were a couple of families at tables. We spoke to a woman at the reception counter and said we wanted take-out. “Oh we closed 20 minutes ago,” she told us. We were puzzled and a little annoyed. Why hadn’t they told us that they were closing when we called? Why on earth would they close at 7:30 any way? People are on vacation don’t necessarily want to eat early. They still had food in the kitchen, but they weren’t offering any of it to us.

We left significantly put off by there attitude of non-helpfulness to their would-be customers. We headed back across the bridge and went to High Cotton. A cheery girl took our order, which was fairly big. She chatted as we waited. In a couple of minutes our order was brought out in two large bags. The girl explained, “We ran out of french fries so the cook gave you an extra rack of ribs and a container of mashed. Will that be OK?” It was OK. And it was pleasantly courteous. A couple of nights later when we wanted barbecue again, we didn’t bother going to Saul’s, even though we had the time. We went to High Cotton, where we had been treated well. We never got to compare the actual product of the two restaurants.

I say to you that the Kingdom of Heaven - yes and even the Church at her best - is not like Saul’s but is rather like High Cotton, treating people as individuals and as of great value.

And how do we measure up? Is Emmanuel Church like Saul’s or High Cotton? Do we expect strangers to fall in line with the way we do things? Or do we go out of our way to make people feel welcome and appreciated? When we cannot provide exactly what they are seeking, do we say, “tough” or do we give them something of greater value? Ribs instead of french fries. The Kingdom of Heaven is hidden in such small details of our daily lives.

That is where our gardens are to be planted. That is where we are to dig and search. Our lives are where the seeds of the kingdom are sown and where priceless treasure is buried. Seek and you shall find.
In Name of Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. Amen.