The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost | Proper 12, Ordinary 17 [A], 26 July 2026 | A Sermon on Matthew 13:13-33, 44-52 | by Paul Bieber

Matthew 13:13-33, 44-52 Revised Standard Version

³¹ Another parable Jesus put before the crowds, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; ³² it is the smallest of all 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.”

 ³³ He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, ⁴⁶ who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

⁴⁷ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; ⁴⁸ when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. ⁴⁹ So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, ⁵⁰ and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.

⁵¹ “Have you understood all this?” They said to him, “Yes.” ⁵² And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

also

I Kings 3:5-12

Psalm 119:129-136

Romans 8:26-39

THY KINGDOM COME

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

At every Sunday Eucharist and each daily prayer office we pray, in the Lord’s Prayer, “thy kingdom come.” This great Thirteenth Chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, the parables of the kingdom, tells us a lot about what we’re praying for. In the last two Sunday Gospels, we have heard the parables of the Sower and the Weeds. Today we hear two pairs of short parables, the parable of the Net, and the conclusion of the discourse.

The parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven show us the small beginning of the kingdom and its prodigious growth. From Jesus and his small group of disciples, the kingdom that draws near in him has grown to be a home for us. Though hidden, it is working to great effect throughout the world. The parables of the Treasure and the Pearl point to the unsurpassable value of the kingdom, and the response it evokes.

The parables we have already heard, the Sower and the Weeds, spoke to the question of our proper response to this kingdom: the growth of the implanted seed and letting the weeds be—for now. Today’s second set of parables, the Treasure and the Pearl, tell us that the response is to give up all that we have in order to gain the kingdom. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom is at hand,” calling us to turn away from everything in our lives that is not God’s kingdom, and instead turn toward this treasure, this pearl, this growing seed.

Not everyone stumbles upon this treasure, though. Even some who are seeking the pearl do not find it. And the obstacles to the growth of the seed sown impede the mustard seed as well. But what about that most mysterious image of the kingdom, the yeast that leavens the whole lump of a person’s life? Whether we recognize it or not, it is present, though hidden, and working mysteriously throughout our lives, our whole existence.

The whole meaning of our human existence is at stake in this mysterious encounter, for what, finally, is this kingdom? The kingdom is God turned toward us in love and life and saving power, in Jesus. This happens now, in the complexity of our life in this world, and at the last, when God’s saving purpose is fulfilled in both judgment and grace. To find it or be found by it now is to find meaning and purpose in our own lives. Sometimes we are searching for these things, other times we come upon them, and in still other times we are simply swept up by them: a pearl, a hidden treasure, a net.

In whatever way the kingdom draws near to each of us, those who recognize its presence and its value find that the only adequate response is giving up everything in our lives that contradicts or undermines it. To recognize it and respond requires wisdom, and this, too, is God’s gift. Hence Jesus’ question at the conclusion of the parables of the kingdom, “Have you understood all this?”

“All this” is, in fact, quite a lot to grasp. The kingdom is like sown seeds sprouting and bearing fruit, despite the weeds and other obstacles. Despite the smallness of the seed, there will be great growth; indeed, a transformation of the whole batch brought about by the pervasive, almost invisible presence of the yeast of the kingdom. To find this kingdom is to respond by giving all to possess it, yet it gathers all, good and bad, and brings everything to a final eschatological sorting. It’s a lot of information.

But Jesus’ question is not whether his hearers have correctly catalogued knowledge about the kingdom; rather, whether they have, in wisdom, grasped what Matthew wrote in one of our omitted verses, right after the parable of the Leaven:

³⁴ All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable. ³⁵ This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”

“The prophet” is Asaph, a singer and musician at the Jerusalem Temple during the reigns of David and Solomon. Matthew is quoting Psalm 78, ascribed to Asaph and called a Maskil, a teaching psalm. When Jesus teaches in parables, he is not straightforwardly imparting information. Nor is he uttering some secret coded wisdom. He is uttering the truth hidden since the foundation of the world and revealed in him. All these images of the kingdom, piled up one on top of the other, give us glimpses of the mystery of the kingdom as revealed in no other way than in parables.

From the foundation of the world to the angels sorting everything out on the far shore, from generation to generation, the mystery of God, the kingdom, is revealed—definitively, of course, in the words and works, the dying and rising, of Jesus Christ; and finally at the end of days when the kingdom comes in its fullness.

Throughout our own lives, the kingdom, hidden and revealed, is drawing near to us and growing. Even in the midst of life’s complexities, the kingdom is present in even the bad things that happen to us—to work out God’s purpose, not to separate us from his love. God reveals his love in Christ throughout our lives, but not in some straightforwardly knowable way. To understand these things calls for the wisdom that does not overlook the kingdom in the seemingly insignificant moments of our lives, and throughout our life of faith grows in confidence in God’s providence.

We need not be ashamed of the smallness of the implanted seed: Jesus, one man who lived long ago and taught in quirky stories rather than footnoted treatises or bombastic spectacles. We who believe need not apologize for Jesus and his words, nor do we need some supplement to them to make him attractive in the face of powerful ideologies or postmodern disregard.

Jesus’ winsome stories reveal the mystery of the kingdom to those with ears to hear, making us who believe and speak of him like those who bring out of the treasury of Scripture the freshness of the apostolic preaching together with the ancient wisdom of Israel, pointing always to Jesus Christ, the ever-new fulfillment of the ancient promises.

Bringing new and old together is the Holy Spirit, the real treasury of blessings, revealing the kingdom in the midst of the ambiguity, disquiet, and suffering in our lives—the whole creation groaning in travail awaiting the full revelation of the kingdom we can only glimpse in our weakness. But the Spirit is moving through history—and all the ambiguities of our own lives in the flow of time—according to the Father’s will since the foundation of the world, from the first time we heard the call to follow to the promised glory, conformed to the image of the Son. In all this the kingdom continues to draw near.

As Luther reminds us in the Small Catechism, the kingdom comes by itself without our prayer, like a net dragged through the good and bad, the beautiful and ugly, the innocence and evil of this world. But we pray that it may come specifically to us, like a pearl we have sought or a treasure we trip over, seemingly insignificant but growing and finally permeating our whole lives.

This, then, is the kingdom for which we pray that it might come to us: ever present, ever growing, drawing near, mysterious yet glimpsed, calling forth our response, and working in our lives day by day. And so we may add to our petition for the kingdom the words that conclude the John Keble morning hymn, “New every morning,” “And help us, this and every day, To live more nearly as we pray.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

—

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net

Retired Lutheran Pastor

San Diego, California, USA