The kingdom is like..

8th Sunday After Pentecost

Readings: Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is the third Sunday in a row Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a Seed. This week the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which is an exceptionally small seed that yields a shrub/tree much larger than you might expect. Jesus here is giving us images to relate to the kingdom of God at work; from a tiny seed, sprouts BIG life! All of that life was hidden in that tiny seed and it truly is a mystery how something so big could take shape.

Jesus reiterates this point when he describes the kingdom of God as yeast added to flour, which

yields endless amounts of dough! In this parable, God (the woman) adds yeast to three measures of flour. Now I am not a bread baker, so this imagery could have gone over my head, but as I did some digging I found out that this would have not just been a woman baking for her own household/chosen few, oh no, this would have yielded so much dough she would have been forced to share it with her neighbors! Three measures is a bushel of flour; 128 CUPS or 16 five-pound bags of flour! Once the yeast is added, with about the 42 cups of required water, this would yield about 101 POUNDS of dough! Just like the tiny seed, the hiddenness and the mystery of the kingdom can be found in the yeast, which yields an abundant amount of life-giving bread.

What I also like about this image of the kingdom like yeast is the way it also reveals the pervasiveness of the kingdom. Christ the Word is the yeast, which enters the world/the dough and causes the entire thing to rise. If the dough is the world and the yeast is Christ – the dough’s life-force – there is not a single part of the world that has not been engulfed in God’s love. You cannot separate the yeast from the dough; you cannot even see the yeast; it’s transformed! It’s invisible! Yet it is in/with/and throughout the dough, causing it to rise and giving it life! Such is the kingdom of God; nothing, nowhere, no one is without God. As we heard in Romans, our first reading, NOTHING can separate us from the love of God – not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:38-39)!

Why then did Jesus end last week and this week’s parables with a word on judgment and separation? How do we hold this Word of Life from Romans in tension with the Word of judgment from Matthew’s gospel? Last week we heard that in the end the weeds would be separated from the wheat and thrown into the refining fire. This week we hear again that in the end the angels will separate the good from the evil and ‘throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (v. 50). If NOTHING can separate us from the love of God, if NOTHING can negate the redemption we have all received through the cross of Christ.. what then will constitute the separation of good and evil on the last day?..

I am not afraid or ashamed to say ‘I don’t know.’ God/faith/salvation/the kingdom is a mystery. The answer is hidden somewhere inaccessible to our human minds. But what I DO know, is that we need not be worried about such a thing. Because guess what? Judgment is not our job, nor is it what God has called and equipped us to do in this life. Judgment is a burden we don’t have to bear. Witnessing to the love, mercy, and salvation of God in Christ Jesus is our ministry and mission as God’s Church in the world. We as the Church are called to be the VISIBLE sign of God’s love and salvation in a world where the kingdom is present, but invisible. We as the Church are called to be this visible sign to the ENTIRE world; no picking

and choosing.. just spreading the good news of God’s love to ALL people.. yes, even the ones we think are ‘bad’ or ‘unworthy sinners,’ not to change them or mold them into who WE want them to be, but to proclaim the gift of the salvific love of God which sets us free to be who God created us to be. The Church is called to be a visible sign to the world, representing a Lord who came not to judge the world but to save it.

Another image Jesus uses in this morning’s parables for the kingdom is a net, which is thrown into the sea catching all kinds of fish, everything in its path. Jesus explains that it is not until the last day when the angels will separate what has been caught, throwing some into the refining fire. Robert Farrar Capon explains in his book on the Parables of the Kingdom, that the net, which gathers up everything in its path, is the death and resurrection of Christ. All things have been gathered up into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. The whole world - everything that exists - exists in the kingdom here and now, submerged in the invisible forces of love and grace, just as the yeast is immersed in the dough. Because of that, on the last day, when the net is pulled from the sea and we are all beached on the shore, we arrive there resurrected and redeemed – saved by grace. It is then the angels who do the sorting under the direction of a Lord who lived and died not to judge the world, but to save it.

So what can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Nothing - not death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:38-39)! Like yeast igniting life into copious amounts of dough – invisible, but at work – the kingdom is at hand, working life into all things. That is the way of God. That is the way of the kingdom which we were born into - ALL people, the whole created order, was born into.

Let us not get caught up in building walls to divide us, excluding God’s children from the Church. Rather, let us be the Church God has called and equipped us to be, making the invisible kingdom visible here and now. A concrete example of love, grace, mercy, and hope in a violent and vengeful world. Let us not get in the way of the work of God, but witness to it, pointing out whenever possible, ‘God is here! God loves YOU!’ The rest, the judgment, the sorting.. that is someone else’s job at a much later date that no one can possibly know.

At this time of great distress, may you find in the Church a beacon of hope, overflowing with love to share.. and when you encounter your neighbor, may you point to that great garden of grace, and open their eyes to the love, forgiveness, hope, and liberating salvation you know is a truer reality than the chaos we may be feeling. Like yeast in the dough, the kingdom is the life-force of this world, even if it’s invisible. May we help one another see, here and now, that this is true.

So rise Church! Be who God called you to be! Go and spread the good news of Christ Jesus, our lord who came to save the whole world! Tell of God’s love that cannot be separated or earned, no exceptions!

Amen.