July 27, 2008
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Anita Hill

The Kin-dom of Heaven

1 Kings 3:5-12; Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen

Years ago, I came home from a week’s vacation to my apartment in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When I went into the kitchen, I saw the strangest thing. There were long weird strands of what appeared to be dried up sinew reaching all the way from the floor up to the small freezer compartment. It looked like something scary out of an old science fiction “B” movie.

What was it? Do you remember when it was popular to buy frozen bread dough in loaves ready to thaw out, let it rise, and bake it? I finally figured out that the strange stuff I found was the remains of five loaves of frozen bread dough. A breaker switch had been tripped in a storm, and the lack of electricity ruined everything in the refrigerator.

I can picture what happened in the freezer. The yeast in the wheat responded to the warmth and moisture. The dough swelled up until it pushed open the door. Not only that. The yeast continued to work until the dough stretched all the way down to the floor. The strange sight I saw was the result of five loaves of bread rising up on their own.

What a little yeast can do!

It’s not the first time five loaves of bread have made an impact. But the multiplication of the five loaves and two fish is for another day.

We might ask: “What are the conditions under which the yeast of God’s Spirit will rise in us, to leaven the world with possibility??

Today, we have Jesus telling stories called parables. He helps us look at things with holy eyes. Jesus’ stories use ordinary, everyday things, even homely things like lumps of bread dough. It’s like the sacraments we celebrate using ordinary elements like water, wine, and wheat.

Jesus uses imagery in his telling of parables this morning to explain the extraordinary realm of God. To explain what is hidden from view most of the time and what is otherwise inexplicable, Jesus gives us some hints. The kin-dom of heaven is like a woman making bread, who adds in a small measure of yeast to leaven lots of flour. It’s like the farmer who finds a treasure in a field, like the shrewd business man who knows a good investment, like the gardeners who marvel at the growth that comes from tiny seeds, like someone fishing with a huge net that draws in everything in sight. And like the image I wanted to evoke with my own story about five loaves of bread rising up on their own.

Today, when we want to make bread, we buy packets of yeast sealed away from light and moisture to mix with flour. The woman in our parable probably used something like “sour dough starter” or what some of you will know as “friendship bread.” Both of these refer to gooey mixtures that contain yeast at work and have to be fed more flour and kept moist so they continue to grow and don’t dry out.

Our reading uses the language “kingdom of heaven” which is the same thing as the kingdom of God. Invoking our understanding of royalty, Jesus reminds us that God is absolute. I like to use the term “kin-dom” because I believe that we are all kin who take on the same un fathomable name in our baptism: Child of God.

Matthew is writing to a primarily Jewish-Christian community and he honors the devout tradition of not saying the name of Yahweh. That’s why he uses the term “kingdom of heaven” when we will find the term “Kingdom of God” elsewhere among the gospels and throughout the new testament.

Back to the parables of today’s reading. Both the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven tell the story of small, hidden things that become great. They illustrate the kin-dom of heaven in ways that let us know that even when it is seemingly imperceptible, God’s action is still at work in the world and in us. It’s like the phrase recorded in Romans 8: “the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us in sighs too deep for words.”

Our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures offers us a model of faithful prayer. Young Solomon, when God offers him the chance to have any wish fulfilled, asks not for success or glory, rather he asks for “wisdom and discernment.” Solomon is often held up as an example of one who recognized the importance of putting God’s kingdom first.

The parables of the treasure and the pearl of great price have to do with finding the kin-dom of God and giving all one has to obtain it. Both parables speak of once in a lifetime opportunities, the kind of event one only dreams about, to describe the immense worth of God’s realm and the necessity to do all we can to gain it.

Even more so, we need God to own us. Another implication of Jesus’ parables in this chapter is that we are under orders. The kin-dom of heaven is like a wide dragnet that catches fish. It’s not like a single hook waiting for a fish to bite. We are saved in community. The parable of the fishing net reminds us that we are not saved to pat ourselves on the back. We are saved to spread the nets so that others can know the love and commitment of God toward humanity.

When Jesus tells the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast, we receive a picture of the kin-dom of heaven that grows larger until it becomes the primary factor that shapes our lives. Change takes place within the seed and within the grains of yeast.

The kin-dom of heaven has the power of God within itself and invites us along on the journey. In other words, we do not create the kin-dom of God; it creates us and sustains us even as we seek to spread the yeast, plant tiny seeds, invest ourselves in the treasure of God, and spread the nets ever wider so that others may also experience God in community.

We are reminded though these parables that the power of God can be and is working in us if we let ourselves be open to it and take it into ourselves. God is in us, offering us the treasures that come through change and the transformation of our lives.

Remember what a little yeast can do when it’s mixed with flour. Just imagine what the hidden power of God can do among us, in every aspect of our lives and community. Like five loaves of bread, God is in us waiting to rise, to push open the doors so there is no boundary between inside the church and outside.

What do you need in your life to grow in wisdom and understanding of God and your capacity to love your neighbors? It takes nurture and action. Yeast has to have warmth. It can’t grow in freezers. Frozen hearts have to thaw. Hospitality, love, and compassion bring the warmth needed to extend friendship and care.

When we pray for God’s will to be revealed, depression can be turned into hope, sadness into joy, hurt into forgiveness, and the world into God’s kin-dom. The Lord’s prayer brings us in line with Solomon’s wish for wisdom and capacity.

The love of God is warm light expanding and growing in us. The love of God is magic when it is stirred up. Each of our parables says we should look for that which is hidden in us that responds to the love of God. When we invest everything in that, the kin-dom of heaven here and now will turn weeping and gnashing of teeth into bread for all, justice for all, and abundance for all. Amen.

Amen

Resources: Margaret Guenther, Christian Century July 15, 2008; Emphasis July/August 2008; Dale Allison, Working Preacher.org