What You Talkin' bout Jesus?

Romans 8: 26-38

Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

This morning in the Gospel of Matthew we hear Jesus using several parables to describe how the Kingdom of God will take hold. “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the field.” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast” “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field” All of these images are comforting to us in our modern day context but how would these sayings been heard by Jesus’ audience in his day.

You see when Jesus told a parable, his aim was not to make sense, but to make his audience think. He did not to want to make those in power feel justified, but to make them feel uncomfortable. These parables that we read this morning I am sure caused much bewilderment in his audience.

Take for instance, the mustard seed. To a farmer of Jesus’ day the mustard shrub was quite a horrible thing to say the least. It really was a nasty weed to be avoided at all costs. Once a mustard shrub sets into a garden, it will spread quickly, and will choke the healthy crops surrounding it. The birds aren’t good news either because they will eat whatever is left of the healthy crop. To our modern ears, what Jesus is really saying is that the kingdom of God is like crabgrass, like dandelions, like thistle, once it gets into your garden, good luck getting it out, and boy once it is in your garden, it will it spread like wild fire, and what ever the weeds don’t kill your crop, the birds who come, will. If I was in the audience I’d be scratching my head asking, “What you talking about Jesus? How can the kingdom of God be like the annoying weeds that I have to pull out so that my crops can flourish?”

However the majority of the people that heard Jesus preaching the sermon would have reacted differently. They probably started elbowing each other, nodding their heads and even snickering a bit. Perhaps yelling an “amen” here and there and even a “you say it brother.” They would have gotten the irony of his message because they were not the land owners, rather, they were the slaves who tilled the fields of the rich land owners and the flourishing of the field was for the advantage of the land owner rather than for themselves. Under the tyranny of Roman Occupied Palestine, most of Jesus’ audience consisted of the oppressed people living under the thumb of Roman imperialism. Scholars note that in the first century under Roman rule, a small elite class controlled all the production of wealth, resources and land. Those who were not of the elite class, which was most of the population of Palestine, lived in wretched poverty. The majority of the people living in under the Roman Empire lived in misery, danger, fear and despair.(1)  They heard Jesus not as some nice guy upholding the status quo but as a radical upstart saying watch out, because God is bringing on a new world order.

Jesus often used negative imagery and turned it upside down to show how the kingdom of God was about reversals. The last shall be first, the meek shall inherit the earth, the persecuted will attain treasure in heaven. Take for instance the woman who puts yeast into three measures of flour, what we might think of as comforting to us modern day listeners of the gospel, was offensive to the audience whom Jesus was preaching to. In Jesus’ day yeast was thought to be impure, something to be avoided. If Jesus were to use a similar metaphor today, he might say that the Kingdom of God is like a computer virus that infests a large corporation’s computer network, spreading from machine to machine until the infrastructure of this corporation is crippled. To us who benefit from the work of most corporations, this image is disturbing, but to someone who has been harmed by the corruption of said corporation, it might be comforting.

The kingdom of heaven is like a bad investment strategy, taking all you have out your various stocks and putting it all into one stock. The kingdom of heaven is like working harder and not smarter, throwing one’s energy into trying to make a lost cause work rather than working on something that is sure to produce.

Jesus’ Kingdom of heaven did not sense to those who were in power in his day, but it made all the sense in the world to those he reached out to, the people on the margins, those who lived on the underside of an oppressive community. These were the impoverished, the sinners, the impure ones, the poor, the crippled, the rejected. It was those people understood Jesus’ message clearly. They understood that the harsh ways of the Roman Empire are not God’s way. The Empire may live by rules of domination, exploitation and greed, but God’s way lives by love and justice and nothing, absolutely nothing can stand in the way of God’s reign.(2)

Jesus preached that the Kingdom of God was not going to come through a great army with Jesus at the head, but rather it would come about slowly, slyly, led by what some would call a small group of nuisances and nobodies who will through a small drip of a counter-cultural revolution create a new way of being (3) in the here an now by bringing about a world where all of God’s creation will have all they need to live to their fullest potential, where the generosity of all will mean scarcity for none.

The Christian Church has grown exponentially since the days of Jesus, we have moved from being a rag tag group of nobodies and nuisances to become an influential power in the world. However, in the time that the church has grown, the radical nature of Jesus has diminished. His gospel has been watered down through the years and he has been sanitized to become some nice whose only job was to die for our sins.

However in spite of that which would try to get in the way of God’s reign on earth, God’s will does prevail. There is nothing that can get in the way of God’s aim for all of creation to live in right relationship with each other. God’s will and way are going to triumph, it’s our choice as to whether we will work with God or just stand on the sidelines and watch it happen.

God calls each community of faith to take part in being the hands feet and voice of God in building God’s kingdom on earth. It is a particular calling for each church. What we need to do as a community of faith is to continually discern how we are called to take part in bringing on the kingdom. Where in this town of Smalltown and the surrounding communities are we called to spread the good news of God’s love as shown to us through the life and ministry of his son Jesus. What are the needs of our surrounding community and how can we use our resources to meet those needs.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, the good news is this, we have an opportunity to be open to God planting within us the mustard seed and together with the power of the Holy Spirit we will bring about the kingdom of God slowly, sometimes annoyingly, usually radically but most surely.

May it be so.

Amen.

(1) Bridges, Linda McKinnish, "Preaching the Parables in Matthew's Gospel in Ordinary Time: The Extraordinary Tales of God's World," Review & Expositor (2007): 325-362.


(2) Ibid., 337.

(3) Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 265-302.