The Kingdom of God is Like…
Matthew 13:31-32
July 24, 2005
Toni and I like to get away for a couple of days every once in a while, just to get reacquainted with each other. It often happens over our anniversary in the middle of July. We like to go to Chicago to do all the tourist stuff: Michigan Avenue, Navy Pier, and a boat ride on Lake Michigan.
We of course have to eat when we go there. I always insist that we go over to Portillos on W. Ontario, down by the Hard Rock Café. They have been voted by the residents of Chicago as the home of the best Chicago hotdog in town. My wife, naturally, wants to find someplace romantic: a place with candles and table cloths and real menus. Sometimes we do that, but not before I get my hotdog.
They load on the peppers and the relish and the pickles and the tomatoes and onions and spices. In my humble but well-fed opinion, it is by far the greatest hot dog anywhere. And it gets even better when you slather it with mustard. Anyone who puts ketchup on this hot dog ought to be taken out and tossed into the lake.
Have you ever thought about mustard? It is truly a wonderful condiment. According to the Montana State University Extension Service (accessed from www.ampc.montana.
edu/publicatiions/briefings/briefing59.pdf), mustard was one of the first domesticated crops in the world and is found in three types: yellow, brown, and Asian. In 2002, the last year for which I could find statistics, world production of mustard reached 469,000 metric tons; 55,997 metric tons of which was grown in the United States. Mustard as a condiment dates from around 1300 AD when they first mixed unfermented grape juice and mustard seeds.
“The kingdom of heaven,” says Jesus, “is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it 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 Kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.
I spent some time in my library looking up references to kingdom. I found all sorts of interesting definitions. For example:
• The kingdom is God’s reign
• The kingdom is soteriological (referring to salvation)
• The kingdom is the realm of redemptive blessing
• The kingdom transcends the totality of this life
• The kingdom is the final meaning of history
• The kingdom is here and it is yet to come
I read articles about the political kingdom, the apocalyptic kingdom, and the a temporal kingdom. I read an article about the mystery of the kingdom.
I was amazed when I was finished with this research. Some of the greatest minds and most able scholars in the world have written millions upon millions of words to describe the kingdom of heaven. Liberal scholars and conservative scholars, Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant scholars, pastors and professors, high church and free church, Th.D.’s and Ph.D’s; they have all written about the kingdom. I quite frankly, am not smart enough to read some of those articles because they use words I don’t know and concepts that I don’t understand.
I remember my first year in seminary. There are, honestly, days when I am amazed that I graduated. This is a true story. I was sitting in a discussion group in an introductory level theology class and didn’t have a clue what was going on when one of the other students asked me a question. In order to confess my ignorance, but at the same time dress up my lack of knowledge by pretending to have the attitude of an earnest search for truth, I replied, “My background is in the social sciences and I am having trouble with that concept because I am still struggling to think theologically.” What a bunch of hooey!
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.” Forget about learned scholars with publications a mile long. Forget about well-intentioned, but naïve’ theology students. Forget about all the dissertations and sermons and lectures and twenty dollar words. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.”
I found the web site of a group called “The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic.” Their motto is “We don’t know, and we don’t’ care” (apatheticagnostic.com). They have a serious issue with Jesus and the mustard seed.
They quote from Matthew and Luke.
…if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you (Matt. 17:20).
…if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.
The author of this web article continues. “We see no mountains moving in response to requests from the faithful… We see no trees heading down the highway en route to the ocean in response to petitions from the faithful.”
My response to that is that these folks are not asking enough of Jesus. Moving mountains and uprooting trees is kid’s stuff, mere child’s play, not enough to bother the Lord about.
The kingdom of God is about the really hard stuff. The kingdom of God is like…the T-ball program here at Calvary.
Do you know how tough it is to be a kid nowadays? My wife reports that when she was in school, she was the strange one because her parents were divorced. There just weren’t that many divorced parents when we were kids. Our daughter now reports that she is often the odd one out among her friends because her parents are still married.
It’s tough being a kid today. I suppose that there are difficult times in every generation, but it is fairly clear that the family is under stress like no time before. Broken homes abound. Stable family structures are becoming harder and harder to find. Sometimes kids don’t know if they are coming or going, where they are coming from or going to, or who really loves them.
But the Calvary T-Ball program tells them that they are important, that people care about them, and that they are valued. Everybody gets a t-shirt and a hat. Everybody gets on base. They don’t have to measure up to some standard. They just have to show up to be accepted.
The kingdom of God is like the T-ball program. Show up at the kingdom’s door wanting to get in, and you’re welcomed at home plate.
This may confuse or upset you because it is probably not what you may expect your preacher to say, but I don’t think that there is going to be a lot of rules about how you have to act and what you have to believe to get into heaven.
I think that just showing up at the door of the Kingdom is evidence enough of your faith, because if you didn’t want in, why would you show up at the door? None of us, after all, are worthy to come in. If people had to be worthy to be accepted by God, heaven would be a pretty empty place. Showing up at the door means that at least you have the desire to get in. God can work with that.
It isn’t often that a kid gets a hit past the infield, but you don’t have to be Jose Conseco to play T-ball. Kids learn that they don’t have to be great ball players to be accepted around here.
Most of the adults I know, myself included, have a pretty messy spirituality. By that I mean that we’re often not too good at it. We don’t pray enough. We don’t study enough. We don’t attend church enough. We don’t give enough. We don’t focus enough. We fall down and fail a lot.
The things we know we need to be doing are those things that get pushed to the back burner. And those things that we really know we shouldn’t be doing are the exact things that occupy our time.
But T-Ball teaches us that God loves us despite our imperfections and sins. If we are willing to give God a chance; if we’re willing to take a step; if we’re willing to make a move…he’ll accept us and cleanse us, and make us fit for the Kingdom.
Moving mountains and trees is chump change compared to the reclaiming of a child’s life or the rescuing of an adult from the clutches of sin and death. It takes just a little faith, a little hope, and a little expectation.
The kingdom of God is like our flood wall. When it storms and the St Mary’s River rises, we know all too well of the damage that awaits. Before too many more weeks pass, construction will be completed on our flood control wall. The church will be saved from rising water. Our people will be saved from the devastating emotional and financial effects of flooding. Our wall will stand as a protecting sentinel when the forces of nature rage out of control.
Moving trees and mountains is no big deal. It takes just a little bit of faith to open our eyes and see the facts. God stands as our protection. God stands as the One who has and will defeat the threatening storms of life.
The kingdom of God is like our youth program. It is no secret to any of you or to Ronda, that we hired her as Youth Pastor for a program that didn’t really exist. But we have faith enough to believe that through her hard work, through faith in God, and through the excitement of the few youth we do have; the program will grow and multiply. We believe that, not too long into the future, we are going to have so many young people around here that they will always be under foot and in the way. And we will rejoice at that. That is what the kingdom of God is like: small beginnings that produce spectacular harvests.
Think for a minute what Jesus was actually saying to those gathered around him that day when he told them the parable of the mustard seed. They were used to thinking of themselves as being like the cedars of Lebanon, mighty towers of strength and righteousness. Israel’s glory days were generations in the past, but they still clung to their former status. They were legends in their own minds.
Along comes Jesus and tells them that the kingdom of God isn’t like the cedars of Lebanon. The kingdom is like the tiny, insignificant, lowly mustard seed. It grows into a bush, a shrub, more akin to a weed than anything else.
But like a weed, it grows…and grows…and grows…and grows. Nothing can stop it. Before too long, it has taken over the garden and birds of the air nest in its branches. The kingdom starts small but then takes over.
I think that we have to understand that there is danger in the mustard seed. There is danger in the kingdom. The danger is evident when it starts to take over and get out of control. We can’t control the kingdom. There is no telling where it will spill over into our lives.
In 1996, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote these words.
It is possible that we are on the verge of a new era in the history of the church, under circumstances very different from those we have faced in the past, when Christianity will resemble the mustard seed, that is, will continue only in the form of small and seemingly insignificant groups, which yet will oppose evil with all their strength and bring good into this world.
It starts small, but through the power of faith, it grows exponentially. Signs of the kingdom are found in some moments of life that seem to be the most insignificant. But never doubt the power of faith. Never doubt the power of God. Never doubt the coming of the kingdom of God.
