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The Kingdom Hidden in Plain View
The Reverend Canon Elizabeth C. Knowlton
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Proper 12A
27
July 2008
When I was on retreat a few years ago I followed one of my typical morning habits. I rose on the early side, went to make a pot of coffee, and then took my first cup out onto the porch. When I stepped outside the morning was cooler than I expected, and I was stunned by what I saw all around me. There were hundreds of spider webs laden with the morning dew. After looking at the ones on the porch I went down the stairs and into the field. The abundance continued. There were small webs, large webs, ones that blocked my path, and some that hung harmlessly from trees. I had never seen so many and the dew gave the whole place the sense of entering a long lost fairyland. What I thought would be an ordinary start to my day, had been transformed into an encounter with the holy. The kingdom felt very near.
These past few weeks with Matthew we’ve encountered some of the most vivid imagery from the Parables of Jesus. Good seeds and bad seeds. Weeds and wheat entwined and growing together. And then this week reads like a top ten hit list. The mustard seed. Yeast leavening the flour. Jesus takes the disciples aside, at least according to Matthew, and tries to explain just what these images are meant to accomplish. They are to prepare us to think about the kingdom of heaven. And lest we had not connected with any of the earlier messages he gives us a few more. Treasure hidden in a field. The pearl of great price. The great catch of fish to be sorted. And then he asks the disciples the question. “Have you understood all this.” And they answer yes.
This is really a rather strange reply. It has more the sense of a teenager trying to escape halfway through a lecture by their parents. “Yes, of course I understood the implications my actions.” “Yes, I understand everything you are trying to explain to me about the meaning of life.” It is the type of response that evokes that old bumper sticker. It says, “Yes, you should move out of the house right now, since you still know everything there is to know.” It reminds us that often a proclamation of understanding is the first thing to be looked at closely.
If the kingdom of heaven was something easy for the disciples, or us, to understand, there would be no need for the parables. Parables are meant to confound or surprise us. They never are meant to state the obvious. So what is confounding about a mustard seed or yeast? In some ways absolutely nothing. There is an ordinariness to bread rising and seeds sprouting. But, when we really take the time to observe these phenomena, they are extremely mysterious. We may “know” that the bread will rise from the yeast, but every time it happens is still a little miracle. If you doubt me, try showing it to a small child. It is the same with seeds that push their way up through the earth. In some ways there is nothing more ordinary than that cycle. And yet many of us find ourselves stopping in the early days of spring to check out the bright green of new growth emerging.
What seems confounding is not the extraordinary nature of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus is painting for us today, but in fact the opposite. It is something very accessible, very ordinary, and very present. To fully steep ourselves in the awareness of the nearness of God’s kingdom is something that we only need to look for to find. But it requires that we retain some sense of wonderment to see. We need to resist the urge to state our quick understanding, and instead let it sink in and move us.
That urge to move too quickly to understanding is an intellectual temptation. We value our ability to acquire information and data points to describe the world we live in. But while this is a natural and good thing, we need to be a bit cautious. Because acquiring data and understanding mystery are two very different things. And, understanding mystery has a lot more to do with the kingdom of heaven.
This seems to be why Jesus keeps piling on the metaphors. It we can begin to believe that the kingdom is present in the most ordinary of events, like the rising of bread and sprouting of seeds, that opens the way to the more striking examples. If we can accept God in the ordinary, then we start to act in extraordinary ways. We in fact have the opportunity to give extraordinary amounts to further our knowledge of that kingdom. It becomes so precious to us that we are willing to give up anything to find that pearl or the treasure hidden in the field.
Mysteriously the kingdom is so ordinary and close that it becomes hidden. But when we start to look for it, to savor it in each day, then we have entered the mystery. Nature is one good way to look for these movements, but they are not just in the natural world. We can discover them in the polite inquiry of a stranger who notices our distress. We can glimpse it in an unexpected moment of family closeness or hilarity around the dinner table. Whenever we find ourselves prompted into an awareness of the sacred in the ordinary, we are in the kingdom. The long list we get from Jesus is just the beginning. We each have our own images to add. What are yours? When does the ordinary become extraordinary and mysterious for you? When did you last feel the brush of the kingdom? It is here. And as long as we are not too quick to assume our understanding, we can enter.
Amen
Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org