July 28, 2002 -- TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST -- Proper 12
1 Kings 3:5-12
Psalm 119:129-136
When your word goes forth, it gives light and understanding. (Ps. 119:130)
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Color: Green
Title: “Wonder”
31 He 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."
The Parable of the Yeast
33 He 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."
Three Parables
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.
Treasures New and Old
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." 53When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.
The discourse, a collection of parables, comes to an end with three little parables each starting with “the kingdom of heaven is like…”
The first two parables in the last three, the treasure and the pearl, probably circulated as a pair. They stress the supreme value of the kingdom Jesus inaugurates. The third parable, the final one in this discourse encompassing chapter thirteen, stresses the finality of the separation between good and evil which will take place at the end of this “age.” All three parables are found only in this gospel.
The twin parables of the treasure and the pearl two Old Testament symbols for wisdom, differ from the other parables in this chapter in that they are addressed to and are concerned with the individual person rather than the group. The parable of the dragnet (vv. 47-48) has an interpretative explanation (vv. 49-50)attached to it and is a repetition of vv. 40-42, the interpretative explanation of the parables of the wheat and weeds.
Verses 31-33: Parables are frequently twinned or paired in the Synoptics. The first two make the same point: small beginnings yield great results. The first, that of the mustard seed, would appeal to men, while the second, that of the leaven, would appeal more to women. Subtly, Matthew, Luke not so subtly, overcomes his Jewish propensity to rate men above women or even to exclude them from mention. The message of Jesus was just too inclusive. However, compare Mark 10: 2-12 to Matthew 19: 3-12. The idea that a husband can commit adultery against his wife, found in Mark, is omitted in Matthew.
v. 31 like a mustard seed: The disproportionate magnitude between the beginning seed and the final plant or tree highlights yet another feature of the kingdom of God and heaven. The mustard seed was proverbial for its smallness, though not, in fact, the smallest of all seeds. Yet it grew to become larger than any of the other garden plants to the size of a veritable tree some eight to ten feet high. Its size attracted the wild birds, which would come and eat the black seeds of the “tree.” The point, of course, is that the kingdom may start out small but that it will grow to enormous size. Taking the long view, the eternal perspective, Jesus counsels his followers, a tiny minority at this stage, not to be intimidated by the size of the opposition or any other obstacles.
Verse 33 is like leaven: Leaven is a fermenting agent, like yeast, added to a batch of dough and causing it to rise and expand. Usually leaven is used as a metaphor for evil, seen as having a corrupting influence by virtue of its gradual permeation of the mass of dough. Here, it has a positive meaning for the very same reason, its permeating and penetrating quality. Normally a small piece of dough kept from a previous baking would be allowed to ferment and placed in the new batch, causing the dough to rise over a period of time. Bread could be made from yeast or leaven, but the continuing use of leaven from batch to batch increased the chances of disease, infection or corruption over time. Thus, once a year all leaven was to be destroyed (Ex12: 14-15) for hygienic as well as religious purposes, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread marked a new beginning.
Three measures of wheat flour: How much flour this represents can only be guessed. One estimate is that it is enough to feed about a hundred people. The exaggeration is intentional. It makes the same point as the parable of the mustard seed: the disproportion between the beginning stages of the kingdom the small amount of leaven and the final outcome the large amount of flour it can influence and bread it can produce. This parable adds the nuance of the pervasive action of the kingdom’s growth and its inevitable effect on human society.
Verse, 44 a treasure buried in a field: It was common practice in the ancient world to bury one’s valuables in a field for safekeeping. Palestine was forever being invaded and looting soldiers were a constant threat. One might be taken off into captivity and the buried treasure would be something to return to and for or to pass on secretly to one’s surviving children. Even going off on a journey perhaps to Jerusalem for a great feast, left one’s valuables in jeopardy. Jesus takes this common practice and turns it into a lesson about the kingdom. Not every one survived wars, captivity or even a journey. It was believed there were treasures hidden beneath the surface all over the country. However, even though many rabbis held that “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” others held the lucky finder should return the money to its original owner or his family or that he should inform the present owner of his hidden wealth. In the case of a steward or slave, some held the money belonged to his owner. Jesus is not interested in the morality or legality of the man’s action at this point, he simply uses a common practice- buying a field to ensure one has clear and indisputable title to it-in order to teach how one must give up everything else to enter into the kingdom, a treasure of inestimable worth. By re-burying the treasure, buying the field first, the finder removed all possibility of dispute. To become a kingdom member one must let go of all competing claims on one’s life and make the kingdom one’s one great possession.
Out of joy: Discovering what is hidden in the subsoil of ordinary life, the disciple is surprised by joy. A hallmark of a kingdom member is joy, sheer delight at one’s good and unearned fortune.
Sells all: The kingdom member counts all else as nothing, detaches from clinging to or hoping for false treasures and takes drastic action, whatever it takes, to enter this new realm. He or she cannot have both worldly treasure and otherworldly wealth, so he or she must liquidate earthly assets so they will flow away from him or her.
Verses 45-46: a merchant searching for fine pearls: While Jesus’ point is the same, that is, the supreme worth of the kingdom, he approaches it from a different vantage. Whereas in the previous parable the man stumbles upon the treasure by accident and luck, the man here searches deliberately for what he finds. More delighted than surprised, he takes the same drastic action as the first man and sells all to possess this one fine pearl. Pearls were highly valued in the ancient world for their financial worth and for their beauty and merchants would scour the world’s markets in search of these gems. The kingdom is like that pearl- of inestimable value and beauty- and like the man- realizing no price or cost is too high to enter it. The man lets go of everything else to obtain it.
Verses 47-48 like a net: This parable, comparison, makes the same point as that of the wheat and weeds. Unlike the two previous, twin, parables wherein Jesus challenges the individual to be discriminating and choose and cherish the kingdom over and above all else, here he returns to his teaching that that same individual is not to discriminate when it comes to people. While the disciple can and should discriminate between good and bad actions, that does not apply to good and bad people. God will be the judge of others and that will become clear only at the final judgment. The dragnet is an especially apt metaphor in a fishing economy. The dragnet had ropes at the top and weights at the bottom to keep it vertical. It could be secured to the shore at one end while a boat dragged the other end through the waters in the shape of a semicircle or each end secured to two boats. When the fishermen went ashore, hauling in the net, all the enclosed fish would be trapped. There is no discrimination about net fishing. Large and small, edible and inedible alike would be included in the catch. There are about twenty-four types in the Sea of Galilee. Lev11: 10-12 lists which were edible [having fins and scales] and therefore “clean,” and which were not. Like fish people will be separated only at the final judgment. For the present all are eligible to be caught and no prior or premature judgments about their worth are to be made by humans. Only later will the bad be discarded.
Verses 49-50 the angels will go out and separate: The angels, of course, represent God and reflect the human fact that several fishermen do the sorting on the shore. They will sort out those who lived evil and unrepentant lives from those who realized their defects and relied on God’s mercy.
Into the fiery furnace: In fact fish would be thrown back into the sea. This image, along with “wailing and gnashing of teeth,” connects this explanation of the parable with that of the wheat and weeds where burning weeds would be more appropriate.
Verse 51 Do you understand all these things?: “All these things” refers to Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom as they are expressed in the parables. They include the presence of the kingdom, its small beginnings, the varied responses to it, its extraordinary fullness in the future, and the judgment that will finally occur. For the present Jesus does not challenge their ready answer that they do understand them, despite evidence later that they do not fully grasp the implications of Jesus’ teaching. “Understanding” is more than intellectual comprehension. It is the end result of the gift of wisdom resulting in living a different way, encompassing both attitudes and actions which flow from them.
Verse 52 every scribe…is like the head of a household: While this is not normally considered one of the parables it resembles them in the formula “is like” and its concern for the kingdom. Jesus brings out the happiness of the wise disciple who values both old and new. Scribes were originally charged with drawing up legal documents. The term basically means “one who can write and, presumably, read.” They developed skill in legal matters and by constant copying of the Scripture were considered “experts,” at interpreting the meaning and application of the Torah. The term is used pejoratively throughout the gospels. They were hostile to Jesus and his interpretation of Scripture. Jesus considered their “understanding” to be superficial and legalistically rigid. Here, however, the term is applied positively and may well be a self-portrait of the evangelist. The verb matheteutheis, “who has became a disciple” or “who has been trained” even sounds like the name Matthew. Jesus likens such a one to a householder who despises neither his old the Jewish heritage, nor new Christian possessions. Having received treasures through the instruction of Jesus the Christian is to “bring it out” in teaching others by word and example. There are fresh insights that are of value and old one which have stood the test of time. Jesus’ new teachings do not do away with the old, that is, Old Testament, but are the key to understanding them.
Sermon
Finding a treasure buried in a field describes just about any experience of wonder. We are surprised by meaning hidden beneath the surface of life. When we discover or uncover it, it produces delight. This experience can be had by contemplating a poem, reading literature, listening to music, finally understanding a mathematical or scientific theory. Falling in love and mutually realizing it, having a child, hitting the lottery, things like that, can also result in experiencing wonder, when the sheer, simple joy of being alive comes home to us. In fact, every and any experience, no matter how mundane, routine or taken-for-granted it might be, contains the potential for wonder. Wonder is the experience of God, the divine realm, the eternal dimension hidden in the subsoil of life. When we feel it we know it. We have a “wonder-ful” experience.
However, not everyone takes the experience seriously. It feels good at the moment or time, but the feeling will pass. The surprise, a lightning flash of illumination, and the sensational elements will fade and, in the aftermath, we return to “ordinary” time. Those who take the experience seriously and sense it is more than just a momentary or temporary lift out of the mundane, do what the men in the twin parables of field and pearl did. They put absolute priority on keeping it alive, never losing it. If that means giving up former aims, ambitions and dreams, so be it. If that means abandoning old habits and ways of life, so be it. If that means taking on a daily discipline so as not to leave, abandon, neglect or forget the Presence, so be it. Whatever it takes to remain in the joy, peace and vision of the Presence is a small price to pay, no matter how much it may hurt or deprive in the beginning, for what the Presence brings and gives. There is just no comparison.
We have many experiences of wonder before we identify any one of them as a divine experience, a “religious,” experience. Once we do so we, of course, we immediately learn that we cannot control it, conjure it up at will, make it happen. Jesus tells twin parables to teach that, even though we cannot conjure up the experience by some ritual or magic, we can dedicate our lives to being on the lookout for the experience again and to so conduct our lives that we are in a mentally and emotionally receptive state at all times. The merchant who dedicated his life to searching the world for that one fine pearl describes what we must all do. And, like the merchant, even though we are constantly focusing our consciousness of the eternal presence, it is still a surprise when we actually feel that Presence. Paradoxically, we cannot make it happen or control it and, at the same time, we must act in such as way as to let it happen whenever God wants it to. That involves a life totally oriented to the eternal, valuing earthly matters only in its light.
The Christian “scribe,” learns how to read and write in the eternal language. As such there is really no “old” or “new” in eternity, only “true.” Unlike the “liberal” who treasures the earthbound new too highly, and unlike the “conservative” who treasures the earthbound and chronologically “old” too highly; both unable to sell off their investments or vested interests, the Christian scribe is wise, thanks to the mysteries Christ has inducted and instructed him or her into, values truth whatever its “age.” A fresh insight, discovered in time only recently, is not really “new,” to God or in the eternal realm. It’s like the surprise of the man in the field or the merchant. Coming at the beginning as a stroke of good luck or at the end of a long search, it is the same experience. The sage does not overvalue age, be it young or old. The sage dismisses what is false, not what is untried. Jesus is saying that new teachings do not do away with true old ones but are rather the key to understanding them better. Jesus himself set the example. Using “old” familiar realities- a sower, weeds among wheat, a buried treasure, a valuable pearl, a dragnet- he shed the light of eternity upon them to bring out “new,” but always there, meaning, meaning we can live by, set our earthly clocks by, trust in, live. Amen.
