The Kingdoms We Are Offered Matthew 13:31-33,44-49a July 24, 2005, Year A, Proper 12 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. The earthly kingdom is like Bernie Ebers who on finding a way to quick wealth, regardless of the lives destroyed, pursued it, and has now lost all that he owned paying for his defense and faces a 25 year sentence, basically a life sentence. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. The earthly kingdom is like Texas third graders who were surveyed as to their life's ambition and over 60% responded to win the state lottery. The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. I'll let you decide which kingdom belongs the following email I received from an organization know as Prayer Power, and I quote exactly: "Have you been searching for a way to think and pray that really works for bringing Financial Blessings into your life? Are you tired of praying only to have your Financial Prayers remained unanswered? Are you ready right now to begin dramatically accelerating your mental ability to connect with God and start living a RICHER life?" It then offers a money back guarantee for CDs that will teach you how to pray to financial wealth. Starting with king Herod's attempt to extinguish the infant Jesus and culminating in the messianic king dying on a cross, the Gospel of Matthew is one continuous comparison of the kingdom of heaven and earthly kingdoms. What makes the kingdom of heaven any better than what can be gotten at the mall or off the Internet? Is it bigger than the consumer paradise promised every 7 of the 30 minutes while we watch Lost, Desperate Housewives or one of the so-called reality shows? Is it something that can only be had in the next life, so we must patiently suffer in this life to earn it? Are we any closer to the kingdom of heaven if we religiously vote Republican or Democrat? Sure, these may sound like banally rhetorical questions. But I must confess that I regularly let things much less valuable than the kingdom of heaven take on ultimate importance in my life. As much as I wish to deny, repress and shove this thought into my unconscious, possessions and earthly security obscure my cognizance of the kingdom of heaven. Even in the life of the church, we allow our personal preferences for hymns, liturgy, and musical instruments to obscure the church's mission of making the Good News known to those who have never heard it. We can become so preoccupied with our "churchy" distractions we fail to hear a hurting world crying, "What is the kingdom of heaven like? If we listen to Jesus' parables, they say to us, "The kingdom of heaven is so far beyond your imagination, you will never grasp it; the kingdom of heaven is so simple that it is like that which you encounter in your every day living." He doesn't use elaborate dictionary definitions but stimulates the imagination. Our life with God is better than the most breath-taking thing we can imagine. We plant tiny seeds, we search the fields for it, we scour the marketplace and when we find the divine presence, nothing else can compare. Any one of these parables has homiletical potential, however, isolating any one of them, is seeing a photograph from a movie and thinking we had seen the movie. Each offers a series of snapshots taken from a different perspective, giving us insight into the kingdom of heaven. No single picture is definitive, but each provides a glimpse that reveals a different quality and adds to our understanding. Each is surprising; each proclaims abundance. In the middle East the mustard bush might be better compared to our Kudzu. Once it takes hold, it overwhelms all other plants - yes, providing havens for birds and small animals, but not a mighty tree but a large bush. Why not compare the kingdom of heaven to a mighty oak or one of the infamous cedars of Lebanon? Perhaps a king born in a manger rather than a palace, a king who operates in meekness and rides a donkey instead of a war horse is more symbolically represented in a shrub than in a great tree. In first century Judaism yeast was a sign of repulsive decomposition. Yet Jesus uses this metaphor to show the transforming abundance of the kingdom of heaven. Three measures of flour, equivalent to about 10 gallons, was enough to feed 150 people. While our NRSV says she mixed it in, the more accurate translation is hid it in. The kingdom is at present hidden and silent, working by unexpected even scandalous means, although the future will reveal its reality. In the parables of the treasure found in a field and the pearl of great value, we find contrasting methods of finding the great prize. The person working the field is not seeking treasure but being faithfully obedient, who when stumbling upon the treasure, recognizes its value and sells all to obtain it. The merchant, on the other hand, is seeking valuable pearls, but upon finding one beyond imagination is prepared to give up everything else to obtain it. The net parable, as did last week's parable of weeds among the wheat, reminds us it is not our job to do the sorting, not our task to label who should be received and who rejected from God's kingdom, but simply to be dragged into the net of God. Both Jesus' and Matthew's audiences would have had familiarity with these parables. While many would have rejected these images of the kingdom of heaven, the metaphorical representations would have been clear. Today, it would be hearing Jesus say, "The kingdom of heaven is like a physician who entered medicine to heal people but one day having tired of HMO hassles and worrying about malpractice insurance, sells his gaited-community home and BMW and joins Doctors without Borders providing medical care in third world countries. The kingdom of heaven is like the crack addict waking up with a clear head and is free to choose a new life. The kingdom of heaven is like the young aggressive financial broker seeking to be independently wealthy before the age of 35, who after serving as a volunteer Big Sister for an inner-city youth, leaves her brokerage firm and uses her skills directing the local Boys and Girls Club. The kingdom of heaven is like the couple who releases their frenetic lifestyle, begins praying together daily and teaching a youth class in their parish. Jesus says the kingdom belongs to those with eyes to see it and with the guts to stake it all on the treasure. Except for the parable of the net, these parables are about the here and now. If we only understand the kingdom of heaven as after life or end of time and not here and now, we have missed the point. Few of us pursue the earthly kingdom suddenly or even knowingly. Instead, we're sucked in one inch at a time. If anyone of us had a child or spouse with a terminal illness and if doing so would allow this child or spouse to live, each of us would sell all that we have or give up our career. However, how easy we let material possessions or financial concerns cause us to neglect that child or destroy that marriage. Jesus' parables challenge us into a daily awareness of the kingdom of heaven breaking in all around us. Greater intimacy with God awaits our vision to sweep us in a new direction. Some of us find those hidden treasures through sudden and complete conversions that change our whole life. For others, however, the kingdom of heaven seems to come in inches, like the measures of flour gradually transformed by the hidden yeast, and we must learn to celebrate every small glimpse we can find. There we talk about finding the kingdom in the unemployed person who finds a job, the addict who gets through one day and then the next and the next without chemicals, the troubled teenager who with love and guidance from a mentor stays in school and graduates. These are the mustard seeds of hope that surround us. Regardless of how it happens, when we encounter the kingdom in our midst, it is worth everything we own, everything we are, and it requires a total commitment from us. It is worth everything, and it requires everything. We have a choice of two kingdoms. If you'd like the web address for the Prayer Power CDs that guarantee you financial wealth, let me know. Or, let me know what small and insignificant seed of great importance you need to put into the ground, and together we'll work to have it grow into the greatest of shrubs, where birds of the air come to make nests in its branches. We are approximately. . . people who gather today to share flat, tasteless wafers and sip watered down wine. Can we the be the yeast that will transform this community, the world? Dare we dare to dream the dream?