“Kin-dom of God”
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-51
So. Do you understand all this business Mark just read, all these parables Jesus told about the kingdom of heaven, which we might also call the kin-dom of God?
Jesus asked the disciples if they understood, and they said “yes.” To be clear: I don’t believe for a minute they had any clue. Oh, I’m sure they wanted to understand, and I’m sure they wanted to please Jesus, their beloved teacher and friend, and they probably even wanted to please God.
God knows we tend to say all manner of things—some true, some not—when we’re trying to please someone or get them to like us.
But when it comes to the kin-dom of God, I’m not sure we or anyone else can ever truly understand what it’s like, and we fool only ourselves when we say that we do. Jesus himself is clear as mud on the issue, sometimes saying that the kin-dom of God is at hand and even within us, while other times describing it as something that has not yet arrived.
Indeed, he taught us to pray for its coming, which we did just a few minutes ago.
So, I’ll ask again: Do we understand what the kingdom of God is like?
Of course, not. Not entirely, anyway. After all, even Jesus mixes all kinds of metaphors and analogies in describing what it’s like: First there’s the mustard seed, which starts out very small and then becomes a bush that provides a home for birds. But mustard was also considered a weed, something most farmers would have wanted to pull out rather than allow to grow. Then, there’s the business about yeast or leaven, another thing most people in Jesus’ time considered unclean, but which is an agent of transformation. Then there’s unexpected treasure that’s first discovered, then hidden, and then bought for a great price. Then there’s a merchant looking for pearls who, upon finding a pearl of great value, sells everything he has—which is to say, puts himself out of business—to buy it. And, finally, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a great net that is thrown into the sea. When it’s pulled in, it is filled to overflowing with every kind of fish.
Mustard seed, yeast, treasure, pearl, net, fish. What are we to make of all this? Who could possibly understand what all these different analogies add up to—other than a holy mystery that bids us to open our hearts, minds, and eyes. What could it be, if not an invitation to live with hope and trust, to walk around on tiptoe, as if always expecting to see something wonderful around every corner.
This string of parables suggests, for example, that the long-awaited, often-overlooked kin-dom of God may well come from humble, marginalized, even despised beginnings.
These parables suggest that heaven is what happens when the healing, transformative love of God is mixed in with ordinary—even weak, rejected, or corrupt—things, situations, people, objects, and institutions.
They suggest that, whatever the kin-dom of God is, when we stumble across it or when we want it enough to go looking for it, it so speaks to our heart, it gives us so much joy and life and hope that we will do whatever is needed to get it and make it a part of us, even if that requires giving up what we once thought was important.
At the same time, Jesus says, the kin-dom of God wants to gather in everything and everyone, and it will. Maybe we—weeds and all, warts and all, brokenness and all, unclean and all—are God’s pearls of great value, God’s discovered and sheltered, purchased and protected treasures.
Yes, the kin-dom of God is a mystery. But Jesus wants us to know that it’s worth everything. And Jesus wants us to know that we’re a part of it, and that to God the farmer, God the bird, God the baking woman, God the treasure-hunter, God the merchant, we are worth everything.
That no matter what some people think of us, no matter how some systems treat us, we have something valuable to offer the world. That even if some consider us unclean—perhaps especially if others consider us unnatural or unworthy or unwelcome—we have within us the capacity to bring healing, hope, love, and sustenance to the world. That there is, within each of us, a treasure we may have yet to discover but that the God who made us in love for love sees and knows, cherishes and longs for.
Jesus wants us to understand that we are God’s pearl of great price, that to God we are worth everything. That God’s great big, all-inclusive net of tender mercy and healing love will catch us and hold us and everyone else, and that any person, institution, or system that dares try to cast us out or tell us we don’t belong—well, they will have hell to pay.
The kin-dom of God is like all of this—and more!
Jesus also wonders what, if anything, we would give up everything to have. Whatever it is, whomever it is, Jesus says the realm of God is also like that: Worth absolutely everything. And more certain that anything else to bring us joy, belonging, peace, and justice.
Now, perhaps it doesn’t need to be said but, it’s important to be clear: The church is not the kin-dom of God; nor is the realm of God the church. The realm of God is so much bigger than the church. The kin-dom of God encompasses everything and everyone.
But the church can be a window into the glories of the kin-dom. We can be the change agent that, much like yeast, helps to bake the kin-dom into being. We can be both a way station on the road to the kin-dom and the welcome center that makes sure everyone knows the kin-dom of God is within them, just waiting to be born.
Beloveds, the kin-dom of God is like a community that comes together to support farmers who have lost their crops to climate change.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a church that honors, celebrates, and blesses trans folks and people of every gender identity, sexual orientation, and relationship status.
The kin-dom of God is like a community that rejoices with those who rejoice, weeps with those who weep, offers blessings to go, and delivers hugs and casseroles on request.
The kin-dom of God is like a church of well-intentioned, if somewhat clueless, people who invite a stranger to take sanctuary in their building and then support him and his family for more than three years.
The kin-dom of God is like a church community that so values their relationships and so loves God, their neighbor, and one another that they will move heaven and earth to figure out how to keep worshipping when a pandemic shuts everything down.
The kin-dom of God is like church folks who do not think in terms of “wokeness” but continue to ask what Jesus would do in the face of climate change, white supremacy, and hateful laws and policies that target trans children, people of color, LGBTQ-plus folks, women, and immigrants.
The kin-dom of God is like church folks who take great care and not a little time to try to discern the will of God, and who will continue to love each other even when they disagree.
Beloveds, the God who is love has given us everything we need to co-create the kingdom of heaven. The kin-dom of God is what we and the world need, and it is worth everything we have.
So let us seek it first. Let us seek it always.
