Reflection: "The Kingdom of God"Sometimes, on a long drive, in an area that we’re not too familiar with, we can get caught in the trap of thinking that it’ll be the same old, same old, around the next corner.
Lynne & I have travelled across the Simpson Desert a couple of times and it never ceases to amaze us how much the scenery, vegetation and wildlife changes every few hours. You might think of a desert as a largely boring and desolate place, but nothing could be further from the truth. Just like we can never predict how the Kingdom of God will manifest itself. Take, for example, the parable of the mustard seed that Jesus tells in today’s gospel. What may not be apparent to us today, but what the early listeners would have understood, is that the mustard plant referred to by Jesus was the black mustard, that grows into a large bush and spreads prolifically. It was not cultivated, instead growing wild in the area around Judea. The mustard that we know today is the Indian mustard, which is smaller and easier to cultivate and harvest. Jesus is comparing the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew refers to it, to a plant that he knew would constantly, and inevitably, keep growing and spreading. Have you ever seen ivy, growing on an old wall, taking it over completely? Not difficult to visualise, as I’m sure we’ve all seen it. Well, that’s what the Kingdom of God is like. But keep in mind - that’s the endgame. The point Jesus makes in Matthew’s gospel is that the beginnings of the Kingdom are tiny. The Kingdom of Heaven starts small and can be barely noticeable. But when the Kingdom comes into its own, it is seen everywhere, and you can’t miss it. We are part of that growth, part of that Kingdom, whether anyone recognizes us for what we are, or not. The most important thing is that God knows. In our gospel lesson today, Jesus doesn’t stop there. He gives even more parables – more stories of ordinary things that possibly have extraordinary meanings. Parables like these should be wrestled with, delved into, to determine their hidden meanings. In his book “The Parables of the Kingdom,” C.H. Dodd wrote: “At its simplest, a parable is a metaphor or simile, drawn from nature or the common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, leaving the mind in doubt about its precise application, teasing it into active thought.” In Matthew 13, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like the yeast that the baker mixes with flour to make huge amounts of dough – enough for an entire wedding feast. In the scriptures of Jesus’ time, leavening was something that people understood to be unclean or evil. Unlike the convenient packets of dried yeast that we have today, leavening was done by letting some bread rot, just enough, in order to leaven a new batch of ingredients. The Kingdom of Heaven is being modelled after something that is seen by some as unwanted or unusable in everyday life - and yet, God makes it good. Jesus goes on to tell us that the Kingdom of Heaven is also like a treasure, hidden in a field, that makes a certain person sell all he has, in order to buy the field where he found that treasure. It’s also like a pearl of great price, that makes a merchant sell all he has, in order to possess just that one pearl. How valuable is the Kingdom of God to you? What we see as valuable in God’s Kingdom, others may see as junk. What possessions would you be willing to give up to enter it? Sometimes we can even try to contain the Kingdom, only to pull it out when we think we should. How often do we buy into the attitude that we carry Jesus in our pocket and take him out for a while on Sundays, only to put him back in as soon as we leave the church? We get settled back in our neat little daily lives during the rest of the week and forget whom it is we follow. We might think, “Oh I’m just part of a little church. We can’t do much, so why should I bother?” Lou F. McNeil, an American writer once said, “When one’s thinking begins with the parish and its members, rather than the gospel itself, it is likely that ministry and planning will not progress beyond the parish and its membership.” So, I ask again, why should we bother? Well, for one thing, we know that God bothers. In fact, God actually asks us to bother more than we usually want to. Jesus refers to the Kingdom starting out small like a tiny black mustard seed and yet it grows into a tree that shelters birds and the like. When that small mustard seed starts growing, it has an advantage, because it can grow in and around the landscape, sheltering those beneath it and giving a place to perch for those above it. This, too, is how the gospel is spread in neighbourhoods where churches discern which leaf to unfurl in their present landscape. A little branch here, a little branch there, and suddenly the place is alive with people in the neighbourhood being nurtured by the spread of the gospel. God’s gifts are unexpected, however they are so vast that they require a response. We should be willing to give up our self-centred attitudes and everything else for the task of spreading the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The process may take a lifetime to achieve and is easier said than done. Sometimes we don’t know what to do with the part of God’s Kingdom that we’ve been given. Even right now, we’re in flux – we don’t know what the future holds for our church. But even in that unknowing, we have an advocate – the Holy Spirit – that helps us in our weakness and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. As Paul says in today’s reading from his letter to the Romans, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” It might not look like what we think it should look like, but God knows better. We must trust God, because God uses what others think is unusable, calling us to love others with reckless abandon. God sees in us what others cannot see and by living this way, we show what the Kingdom of Heaven is made of. But we can’t just rest comfortably in our little patch of Kingdom, under the protective branches of the mustard tree. No, we’ve been tasked by Jesus to go far and wide to spread more seeds, so that others, who haven’t yet heard about him and his love for all of us, can also enjoy the fruits of living in the Kingdom. Therefore, as the church of God, we need to make sure that we don’t become too introspective, or inward-looking, only thinking of ourselves and our lovely service of worship. Instead, we need to continue with outward focussed activities - like the chaplaincy work Liam is doing with the Lane Cove Community and also those other missional projects we assist - like Saltbush (whose motto is “uniting the scattered communities”) and Bidwill Uniting - in the 2770 postcode in western Sydney. We must keep looking outside of the church walls and seeing what we, as individuals and as a group, can do to help grow the Kingdom. Hopefully, our tiny mustard seed, yeast, treasure, or pearl will become mighty in the Kingdom of God. But only if we share God’s love with those who are out there searching for it. I encourage you to be vitally re-invigorated and ready to work for the Lord in the Kingdom. Pastor Rick
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