31\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>He put another parable before them, saying, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32\u00a0<\/sup>It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 33\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>He told them another parable. \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n 4\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cThe 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.<\/em><\/p>\n 45\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cAgain, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46\u00a0<\/sup>who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.<\/em><\/p>\n 47\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cAgain, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48\u00a0<\/sup>When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49\u00a0<\/sup>So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50\u00a0<\/sup>and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.<\/em><\/p>\n 51\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>\u201cHave you understood all these things?\u201d They said to him, \u201cYes.\u201d 52\u00a0<\/sup>And he said to them, \u201cTherefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Holy Bible, English Standard Version\u00ae (ESV\u00ae) Copyright \u00a9 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.<\/p>\n \n The rich feast of the last two weeks continues this week, only we have progressed beyond the appetizers, the entr\u00e9e, and even the side dishes and will come soon to the dessert.\u00a0 And rather than being a frivolous sort of trifle or a bite of apple and smoked gouda cheese to round out the meal, this dessert will bring the meal to a glorious conclusion.\u00a0 These last few bites will bring clarity to everything experienced to date, and will, at the end, unveil the intent of our Master Chef.\u00a0 Fine as the feast has been, under every morsel of the Word of God the Church has chewed on, a greater glory is hidden, a greater transformation masked.\u00a0 That hidden glory and its corresponding transformation, is revealed in the very last parable of the lot.<\/p>\n So, more parables, those teaching stories that both hide and reveal what God is doing at the same time.\u00a0 Like those parables we have already experienced in the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel, they begin with these words, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 What follows are five stories that use the familiar things of this world to help us understand that which is much less familiar, the kingdom of heaven coming near us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 These parables are more of the nature of similes than the allegory of the seed and the sower of two weeks ago or the allegory of the weed and the wheat that was last week\u2019s parable. So,\u00a0 they are shorter and the comparison is much more direct, but still they have substance and draw our attention to the kingdom of heaven and away from the kingdom of this world, even though the comparisons mostly use every day sorts of material objects.<\/p>\n This is especially true of the first two parables, both of them so very familiar to us as a whole that even the secular world knows them.\u00a0 The first of the\u00a0 two parables is another sower and seed parable, though the mustard seed is smaller than what farmers usually plant. Few of us grow mustard these days for the greens or the seeds, which may be used whole in pickling or pulverized to a fine, yellow powder as a seasoning for potato salad and the like. So, we have not seen mustard seeds and, unless you see the necklace my Grandparents gave me at my confirmation, cannot gauge for ourselves how very small the seed is.\u00a0 But the plants that grow from those small seeds are not small themselves; those small seeds later manifest themselves in spreading bushes, a good ten or twelve feet in height and breadth.<\/p>\n There is, at least superficially, the same sort of dynamic going on in the parable about the yeast.\u00a0 \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened,\u201d Jesus taught His disciples.\u00a0 Yeast, of course, comes in powdered form or as a small block, but hidden within that powder or block form are millions of dried organisms suspended between life and death.\u00a0 Combine yeast with warm milk and a bit of sugar and the yeast revives, and in the process creates gas which makes big rolls like the ones I made for fellowship today when we add flour and let it rise.\u00a0 How much flour?\u00a0 Six or seven cups for my rolls, but Jesus tells us three measures worth of flour.\u00a0 What\u2019s a measure?\u00a0 This is where things begin to get interesting, for no one quite agrees what three measures of flour is, except that it is a lot, anywhere from 70 to 144 plus cups of flour.\u00a0 So, with just a bit of yeast, and a whole lot of flour, Jesus\u2019 recipe gives us an enormous amount of bread, maybe as much as 40 loaves of bread.<\/p>\n What the first two parables, similes both of them, seem to say to us is from small things much greater things can happen.\u00a0 That is undoubtedly true, especially where God is involved, but it seems more like a platitude than a parable.\u00a0 We could paint a wooden plaque with pretty flowers, write those words upon it and then hang it on a wall.\u00a0 But it seems like, given this is Jesus speaking to His disciples, including those far past and those here present, that there ought to be more to these parables than many a preacher has made of them.<\/p>\n And, of course, there is more, and we see that because the next three parables of\u00a0 the day open us up to see more.\u00a0 Here the theme is clearly not small things lead to greater things, but things hidden, revealed only in the transformations that they instigate.\u00a0 The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, a merchant in search of a precious pearl, a net thrown\u00a0 into the sea to gather fish of every kind.\u00a0 In each case, the desired object is hidden, by the dirt of a field or the waters of the sea, or in one of many possible oysters or jewelry shops.\u00a0 To obtain that hidden object of great value, someone sells all he has to purchase the treasure or the pearl, or goes through many hundreds of fish to sort through them all to pluck out the good fish and toss\u00a0 back the bad.\u00a0 In the first two cases, all that a man possesses is freely sold so\u00a0 that this one\u00a0 item may be held tight in his possession.\u00a0 After the purchase, he has nothing but that much desired object; nothing he might use to purchase food or to rent a roof to cover his head in the night,\u00a0 nothing but that much desired object.\u00a0 In the case of the third\u00a0 parable, time is spent culling out fish that cannot be used or sold, leaving him only with the desired fish that he will only possess so long as they have not spoiled.<\/p>\n In every one of\u00a0 these three parables, an earthly good has obtained at the expense of all other goods, an earthly good that would appear, by its very nature, to be both temporary and limited in its benefit to the one who has it in his possession.\u00a0 When looked at, though, in the context of the first two parables, the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, we see that it is the transformative power of these hidden objects that is the point. The treasure, the pearl, and the fish are of great and stupendous value only if they are\u00a0 let go and shared with others.\u00a0 The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of our salvation through faith in His atoning death and resurrection, obscured by the terror of the cross, hidden in the silent reaches of His tomb, held close by all who love our Lord and look to His mercy and saving grace, by its very nature transforms darkness to light, death to life.\u00a0 This living treasure, this pearl without price, brings light and salvation to all who might otherwise fear the judgment of God.<\/p>\n Judgment is more than implied as we get to the end of the parables.\u00a0 The fishermen sort the good fish into containers but throw away the bad, very much, says Jesus, as judgment will go at the end of the ages and Christ\u2019s return.\u00a0 Like the second parable of the sower and the seed, the angels of God will separate those who are righteous from those who are not, and there will be the weeping and gnashing of teeth among those separated from God by their own disbelief.\u00a0 In other words, darkness and despair will be all in all.\u00a0 But mine the hidden treasures of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit, and you will be made new.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ninth Sunday After Pentecost | July 30, 2023 |\u00a0Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 | Paula Murray | 31\u00a0He put another parable before them, saying, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32\u00a0It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,462,157,853,108,110,430,349,3,178,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-18664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-matthaeus","category-8-so-n-trinitatis","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-13-chapter-13-matthaeus","category-kasus","category-nt","category-paula-murray","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18665,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18664\/revisions\/18665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=18664"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=18664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}