Aug 07 | “God’s Hidden Work,” (Sermon, July 30th 2017)

“Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; ³²it is the smallest of all the 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 yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

44 ‘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.

45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he 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 caught fish of every kind; ⁴⁸when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out 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 furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

 

Good morning, St. Margaret’s. I’m Clare and I’m filling in for Heidi today.

I consider St. Margaret’s to be my new parish home. I just finished my curacy – which is kind of like an apprenticeship for new priests – at St. Philip’s in Dunbar Heights, where I primarily worked with children, youth, and families. The place has a robust Church School program, and one of the curricula we used was called Godly Play, a Montessori-based curriculum designed for children but often very meaningful to adults as well. Children are taught, with great respect and dignity, to learn bodily and mental stillness while in places of worship, told the stories of the Bible and the rituals of the church using accessible language and concepts, and encouraged to reflect and respond theologically in many ways, particularly through art.

There are three types of stories told in Godly Play, and each one comes with tactile objects that the children can play with themselves once the story is told. One type is Sacred Story, which focusses primarily on stories from the Bible. Another is Liturgical Action, which teaches the children about sacraments and things done or seen in church. And another is Parables.

In Godly Play, Parable stories come in gold boxes. The children are led through the same reflection each time a Parable is introduced, with the storyteller encouraged to use a voice of quiet wonder.

You say, “This box looks old. Parables are old. They are thousands of years old. Maybe this box has a parable inside.

You know, this box also looks like a present. Parables are like presents. They were given to you before you were born.

This box is also the colour gold. Gold is valuable. Parables are also very valuable, maybe even more valuable than gold.

And look, this box has a lid. It’s like a door that is shut. That is also like a parable. Sometimes it can be hard to open. If it is hard to open, don’t be discouraged. Come back to it again and again, and one day, it may open to you.”

I can’t talk about Parables in church without remembering this opening set of statements.

Wikipedia says that the word “parable” comes from a Greek word meaning “comparison.” They are different from fables in that they feature human characters rather than animals. Many scholars believe that the ones in the New Testament are the closest we have to the original words of Jesus. Some of them, like the Parables of the Sower we heard a couple of weeks ago, come with explanations, and some, like today’s, come with none. Some are very long, and some are only a sentence or two. All of them are about the Kingdom of God, which Matthew calls the Kingdom of Heaven.

While I was on vacation last week, I spoke with the dear friend I was visiting about this morning’s passage. She’s a schoolteacher and so I was interested in her perspective on them as a teaching tool. She told me she saw these parables as a way for Jesus to reach a wider audience – whoever didn’t understand one might understand the next. She thought the use of everyday scenarios helpful to ground listeners in their daily lives. She confessed complete bafflement at the one about the treasure in the field, and together we giggled wondering if the disciples’ answer to Jesus’ question, “Do you understand this?” was whole-hearted, or whether it was more like the half-mumbled answers of her teenaged students.

Like Godly Play, parables are accessible to all ages as teaching tools, which is likely why Jesus used them. But despite the fact that Jesus used familiar scenarios and characters, this doesn’t necessarily make them easier to understand.

So there’s an element of mystery to them. We’re given no explanation of how the Kingdom of God is like a mustardseed, or yeast, or treasure in a field, or a merchant, or a fishing net. And yet in one of the verses missing from today’s passage, we hear,

“Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet:
‘I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.’”

This is hidden knowledge.

That word “hidden” is important, I think, because there is an element of hidden mystery in each parable that we hear, like the lid of that gold box that’s hard to open.

A mustardseed germinates and grows in secret. A loaf of bread is leavened in some mysterious way that can’t be witnessed, except through the rising. Treasure and valuable objects are hidden. Fish under the blanket of waves swim into a net and are drawn up.

What is striking, maybe even a little troubling, is how the work is not entirely dependent on our participation. We can plant and care for a mustardseed bush, but they grow wild as well, and only God controls the sun. We can add yeast to bread, but how did we ever discover the properties of yeast in the first place – surely it was discovered by accident, rather than through the scientific method! Who hid the treasure before it was found? Who was the seller of the pearl of great price? What draws fish into a net? Again, bait attracts them, but fishers know that you can spend hours and catch nothing one day and catch dozens the next day with the same bait.

There are forces at work in each example that are beyond our control.

I think this is an extremely important truth for the church today.

We focus a lot on what we can do to bring about the Kingdom. Parables become a chance to trawl for examples of behaviour, for things we can do to open ourselves, to sow the seeds of God’s word and God’s justice and God’s love. And make no mistake: this is important. Your work within and beyond these walls – your work as you, the teacher, the doctor, the salaried and the wage-slave, the parent, the lover, the relative, the friend, and your work as St. Margaret’s – is vital to the germination, the flowering of the Kingdom of God. The whole Body of Christ needs your truth, your story, your family, your faith, to grow, and it will be far greater than a mustardseed bush.

AND…

When we fail – not IF, but WHEN – and indeed when the world fails to hear and act, we should come together and rejoice in the secret work that is done; the secret work done not just by God, but indeed by all of creation.

The seed that dies, and by dying bears much fruit, which feeds a world.

The bee that flies from flower to flower, feeding herself and her own little corner of the world, and so many more.

The cells that live inside your body, that somehow, without any measurable consciousness, know the cruciform way of life, dying in order to allow new life to flourish.

The star that expands outward and eventually explodes into a nursery for new life, and indeed imparts life to others, to which we carbon-carriers can testify.

The rain that falls on just and unjust and then like angels on a ladder ascends, and descends again.

When we are weary, when we are asleep, when we are in despair, when we stumble, when we forget to be kind or to let go of what needs to die for new life to begin, the universe, having been made holy by the divine presence that lived and walked among us, continues to sing the song of enfleshed divinity, of death and resurrection, of self-giving love.

There’s a saying: Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.

My prayer for all of us is that we continue to try our best to take instruction from God’s Holy Word – Son and Scripture – and never cease to praise the One who has taught all the cosmos to participate in the work of new life, in the revealed and in the hidden places, in the dark and in the light, in the known and in the unknown.