Disciples of the Kingdom: Change-Bearing Disciples
July 27, 2008
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
As we reach the end of this series of reflections on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves where we left off two weeks ago with Jesus instructing his disciples about the nature of the Kingdom of God.
For Christians, the Kingdom of God is one of the most important beliefs that we hold. And that may seem strange since there is a tendency in the American evangelical tradition to not talk much about it. In fact, one of the problems we have had both in our contemporary and traditional services is finding songs that you know that address the Kingdom!
How strange when the New Testament itself has over 100 references to the Kingdom of God or heaven! And the Kingdom was the major point of Jesus' teaching. He called on people to repent and believe that the kingdom was at hand. He invited us to enter into it. He said a little child was closer to it. He taught us to pray asking for the Kingdom to come on earth as in heaven. Jesus talked about the kingdom constantly! You would have thought he would have preached a sermon giving us exact details of what it is, where you find it, what we should do in response to it. Instead, he usually told us stories. Rather than a map, he gave us beatitudes and parables. So let's listen in as Jesus shares some stories about the kingdom.
31He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." 33He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51"Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." 52And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that becomes a great tree, some yeast that produces an enormous amount of bread, a hidden treasure and a pearl that you should be willing to sell everything you have to possess; a net that catches both fresh and rotten fish; teaching that contains treasures both new and old.
It's as if Jesus felt that just one story couldn't begin to explain it. So he told one parable after another after another to give us an idea of what the kingdom was like. Each story giving us a glimpse of the kingdom but none of them fully explaining it on their own. So today, while I'm going to concentrate on just one of the parables in our passage, we need to hear it in context of the others.
"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."
Remember I shared a few weeks ago that we needed to listen for the unexpected in Jesus' parable? On the surface, there is nothing too surprising her-when you mix yeast with flour, it will leaven the flour. But the disciples would have been very surprised by several aspects of this parable.
First, Jesus compares the Kingdom to yeast. For a 1st century Jew, yeast was not a positive illustration. Yeast was considered everyday-ordinary-an unholy thing. When you wanted bread for a special purpose-for an offering at the temple or celebration of Passover-yeast was not allowed. In fact, I have a Jewish friend who told me that they would often scour the house in order to rid the house of every scrap of leaven or yeast before the celebration began. And here Jesus is telling good faithful Jews that the kingdom of God is like a common every day item!
Which makes me wonder how often we miss chances to make a difference for the kingdom of God because we overlook the opportunities that occur in our every day life? How often do we limit our thinking about serving God to the big events-mission trips, Vacation Bible School, Emmaus Walks-when every day we are given opportunities to touch lives with the gospel? How often in our every day lives do we miss opportunities to give the world a taste of the Kingdom and in the process provide leaven for our world?
We are given the opportunity to leaven our world when we choose not to engage in gossip or racial joke. We are given the opportunity to leaven our workplace when we do our job to the glory of God rather than to our own benefit. We are given the opportunity to leaven our world when we are kind to those who everyone else makes fun of or ignores; when we lift someone up who has fallen; or when we listen to a friend's problems; pray for a co-worker or a neighbor; take a casserole to someone who is grieving; or simply have patience with a child who is driving us crazy.
The kingdom of God is in the midst of our everyday lives and often-very often-we are as unaware of its presence as we are unaware of the yeast at work in flour.
Have you ever made yeast bread from scratch?
Before arthritis kept her from being able to knead bread, my grandmother made the best yeast rolls in the world. As a child, she taught me how to make bread. I've unfortunately have forgotten most of what she taught me. But I do remember taking the yeast and mixing it into the water until it disappeared and all that appeared to be left was the wonderful aroma. Then we took that water, combined it with other ingredients, and we made bread all day.
Have you ever known a person whose very life gave off the aroma of God? It wasn't that they were constantly quoting scripture to you. They sure didn't preach at you. But there was something about that person that made you feel loved and accepted and gave you the feeling that God was present.
In what I often refer to as my "former life"-my life prior to entering the ministry-I worked with a man named Ken. Ken was an ordained Baptist minister but he wasn't serving a church at that time. Instead he worked, like I did, as a management analyst doing efficiency studies for the Department of the Army-a thankless job if there ever was one!
I was young-just out of college. I went to church occasionally, but not much. And I am sure there was not even a whiff of the smell of the Kingdom on me at that time. Yet Ken didn't preach or admonish. He was simply Ken. His life was a sermon. And there was something about Ken that drew me to him and made me want to be like him. There was something about the way he didn't enter into the office gossip and complaining. There was something about the way he treated others. He was leaven to our office. And I wanted what he had.
But you know what? I never told him.
At the time, I really didn't understand what was going on. By the time I did, I'd lost touch with him. He had a profound influence on my life because he taught me that you could be a Christian example in your work life without preaching or judging or seemingly better than others. But he never knew.
Which leads to the second surprising thing about this parable, by likening the kingdom to yeast, Jesus was saying that the Kingdom would occur gradually and in a hidden manner.
The disciples were expecting the Kingdom of God to show up in a big way-in such a way that the entire world would see it and know what was happening. They didn't expect it to be gradual and they especially didn't expect it to be hidden!
In our world of instant and already prepared foods, events, and experiences, I think we have an equally hard time with the hidden and gradual nature of the Kingdom of God. We fall on our knees and give our lives to God and expect him to change us overnight and get frustrated when the change takes a life time. We pray for God to fix things and people then get frustrated when God doesn't work fast enough for us.
But notice that Jesus says that the Kingdom is like the yeast-not the woman. And I believe that means that disciples of the kingdom are those called to place the yeast in the flour, but it is God-not us-that brings about the change. And like yeast, God often works slowly and in ways that we can't see.
In our tradition, we talk about that hidden work of God in our lives in a variety of ways. We speak of God's prevenient grace-God's grace at work in our lives before we profess belief. God's grace at work drawing us to him, creating within us a desire for relationship with him, and a desire for the world that God desires-a world where the hungry are fed, the lost are found, the weak are protected, and justice reigns.
We also speak of God's hidden work when we talk of God's sanctifying grace-God's grace at work in our lives after we become a Christian. The grace of God that is at work in our lives rooting out sin, opening our heart to God and others, and transforming us into living, breathing examples of the reality of reign of God in this lifetime. This is the grace that enables us to leaven our world and give off the aroma of God.
And when we are faithful in leavening our world, the most amazing things happen!
Growing up, I loved to watch "I Love Lucy." I still find it fun to see Lucy deal with the consequences of her crazy ideas! One thing about Lucy, she never entered into anything half-heartedly. Like the person who found the treasure and the seller of fine pearls when Lucy wanted something she put her all into getting it-even if what she simply wanted to do was show Ricky a lesson.
In one episode, she was complaining about all she had to do in cooking and cleaning and keeping a house. Ricky reminded her that the pioneer women did all her work without all the technology she had available to her (and that was 1950s technology!), so they make a bet to see who can last the longest without using anything invented after 1900. One of the most memorable scenes occurs when Lucy and Ethel try to bake a loaf of bread. Not knowing much about yeast, they put too much yeast in their flour-saying, "It's just a little." The result is dough bubbling over the top of the bowl which then rises in the oven to become a giant 18 foot loaf of bread!
Lucy with her dough bubbling over and her giant loaf of bread exploding out of the oven gets to the heart of the surprise in this parable. God takes our little bit of yeast and turns it into more than we ever dreamed!
You have already seen this at work numerous times in the short life of this congregation!
Let me share just one example. This past week, Penny Maddox shared with me the story of the prayer quilts that New Life made for injured soldiers. I was moved to tears as I read about how a small idea-a prayer quilt for one injured soldier, a member of this congregation-grew and grew until it was 80 quilts delivered by members of this congregation to Walter Reed. One quilt to comfort one soldier became many quits for many soldiers, but they not only comforted the solders-but they comforted contractors, families, caregivers, workers and the community at large.
Like yeast, it was an ordinary thing, and yet it had extraordinary results.
Mother Teresa once said, "Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing." I believe that is very close to the meaning of the parable of the yeast.
But we can't stop there. And I think that is why Jesus followed up this parable with the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price. While we are called to be faithful in all the little things in our lives that doesn't mean that we are called only to give a little of our lives to God!
All too often I think Christians settle for giving just small parts of their lives to God-an hour or two on Sunday, a hundred dollars here or there, an afternoon for missions, and a quick prayer before dinner.
But to say that God is at work in the small things is not to say that we should only give small things to God. In fact, it is only when we recognize that the Kingdom is worth our entire lives that the small things in our lives make a difference in the world. Actually, I believe it is that very willingness to give our all that allows us to live without knowing the results of what we do for God.
And that is a good thing! Because the hidden and gradual nature of the work of God in the world means that often we don't get to see the results. Just like Ken doesn't know the impact he had on my life, we don't know the difference that an act of kindness, a prayer, a scripture shared, a hug given, a can of food donated, or a lesson taught might make in the life of another -in God's time.
Little things are indeed little but in God's kingdom little is much!
How willing are you to give God your all, so God can make much of the little you have to offer?
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