Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 | Göttinger Predigten im Internet

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost | July 30, 2023 | Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 | Paula Murray |

³¹He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³²It 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.”

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

⁴“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, ⁴⁶who, 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 that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. ⁴⁸When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹“Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” ⁵²And he said to them, “Therefore 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.”

The rich feast of the last two weeks continues this week, only we have progressed beyond the appetizers, the entrée, and even the side dishes and will come soon to the dessert. 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. These last few bites will bring clarity to everything experienced to date, and will, at the end, unveil the intent of our Master Chef. 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. That hidden glory and its corresponding transformation, is revealed in the very last parable of the lot.

So, more parables, those teaching stories that both hide and reveal what God is doing at the same time. Like those parables we have already experienced in the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel, they begin with these words, “The kingdom of heaven is like….” 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. 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’s parable. So, 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.

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. The first of the 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. 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.

There is, at least superficially, the same sort of dynamic going on in the parable about the yeast. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened,” Jesus taught His disciples. 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. 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. How much flour? Six or seven cups for my rolls, but Jesus tells us three measures worth of flour. What’s a measure? 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. So, with just a bit of yeast, and a whole lot of flour, Jesus’ recipe gives us an enormous amount of bread, maybe as much as 40 loaves of bread.

What the first two parables, similes both of them, seem to say to us is from small things much greater things can happen. That is undoubtedly true, especially where God is involved, but it seems more like a platitude than a parable. We could paint a wooden plaque with pretty flowers, write those words upon it and then hang it on a wall. 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.

And, of course, there is more, and we see that because the next three parables of the day open us up to see more. Here the theme is clearly not small things lead to greater things, but things hidden, revealed only in the transformations that they instigate. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, a merchant in search of a precious pearl, a net thrown into the sea to gather fish of every kind. 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. 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 back the bad. In the first two cases, all that a man possesses is freely sold so that this one item may be held tight in his possession. 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, nothing but that much desired object. In the case of the third 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.

In every one of 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. 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 let go and shared with others. 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. This living treasure, this pearl without price, brings light and salvation to all who might otherwise fear the judgment of God.

Judgment is more than implied as we get to the end of the parables. 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’s return. 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. In other words, darkness and despair will be all in all. But mine the hidden treasures of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit, and you will be made new.