Glimpses of God s Realm For Berkeley Chinese Community Church, UCC Berkeley, California July 30, 2017 By Rev. Sharon MacArthur, Acting Pastor Matthew 13:31-33,44-52 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it 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." 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." "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. "Again, 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. "Again, 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. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." And 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." ****** Last week we talked about one parable about wheat and weeds. You might have noticed that we skipped over some verses. Well, today we fill in the gap Jesus is telling a whole string of parables in addition to the one about wheat and weeds...just to be sure that the listeners get it! He s trying to explain what the kingdom of heaven is from all different perspectives. Trying to explain something that folks have not experienced is difficult. If the world they (and we) live in is far from the kingdom of heaven, far from God s Realm, God s Beloved Community, how can we understand what it s like? My granddaughter Leilee was invited by a friend to attend what she called Jesus Camp at her church Bayhills church in Richmond. I thought I had a lot of experience with Bible Day Camps after all, I was introduced to BCCC by my girls who were invited to BCCC by their cousins for Vacation Bible School! As pastor of Sycamore Church I was part of the staff of many years of Bible Day Camps! Page 1 of 9
But as Leilee was trying to explain to me what she did at Jesus camp called Gadgets and Gizmos, I have to admit I couldn t wrap my head around what she was trying to describe. Then she found on youtube the lively songs of Gadgets and Gizmos and began to play them and sing and dance with the music She sang about how God made her to shine and be alive! Footnote here this is a total transformation from the child who took issue with her friend who told her that God made her. Leilee s response - <<razzberry I don t know about you, but my PARENTS made me! Something happened at Jesus Camp that she s ok with the concept that God made her! Anyway - I began to get a glimpse of what happened from 6 pm to 8:30 each day this past week. Last Tuesday, I was the designated person to pick her up after Jesus Camp with a Check Out Card in hand. I arrived to the now familiar lively music that Leilee has been listening to and dancing to at home. - I saw the tents set up in the social hall which were the gathering spots of the small groups of kids. - I saw the craft tables they worked at to create the fun things she brought home. - I walked past the make shift water slides and slip and slides that she got wet on bathing suits were part of the Jesus Camp uniforms! It took some visuals to help me understand what THIS particular Bible Camp was about. If the church had a website to show photos of Gadgets & Gizmos Camp, I would be able to know better what Leilee and her friends were experiencing. So Jesus wasn t able to set up God s Realm, the Kingdom of Heaven, or God s Beloved Community as a field trip for his followers to explain what it was going to be like. So he used parables to try to explain.he painted verbal pictures and used everyday objects and common knowledge of his audience to make it more real. He tells stories that might grab the imagination and understanding of his listeners. But we have the technology now and if Jesus were to create a slideshow to illustrate the first parable Here s the mustard seed. Here s the soil. We plant the seeds and Page 2 of 9
it starts growing a seedling and grows bigger and bigger into a shrub into a tree tall enough that there could be a nest in its branches. The parable of the mustard seed! Then there s the parable of the yeast: Here s the yeast being added to the flour here is the dough rising AND rising Incidentally - I read somewhere that 3 measures here is not like 3 cups its more like 50 pounds! The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed...it s like yeast - Think about it - this kind of analogy might make sense to the listener in the crowd. These are ordinary everyday things known to everyone people were farmers or knew people who were from farming families they grow things they know mustard seeds! People were bakers they baked their own bread back then they know what yeast does! Page 3 of 9
Anyway folks then and now just might get it that the transforming power of the seed and the yeast are not dependent on human effort...human effort does not cause the growth...there is something much greater than human effort in the miraculous growth of the seed and the miraculous growth of the leaven. It s a God thing a God-sighting! The thing about the mustard seed/plant/bush/tree is this - have you ever noticed all those mustard plants that grow wild on the hillsides along many freeways? They seem to grow rampant - unattended - what does that say about the mustard seed and the kingdom of Heaven? Maybe readily available to everyone? And how about the yeast? Unleavened bread was thought of as holy. - What did folks think about the agent that leavens the bread? - What does that say about God s Realm? - Maybe that it s in unexpected places? In places that normally folks wouldn t think of? Whoa! Maybe not amongst church folks?! Maybe somewhere we least expect it? Whatever the reputation of yeast - the baker puts a small portion of leaven into the flour and it transforms the whole loaf! The seed and the leaven - and the Kingdom of heaven, God s Realm, the Beloved Community - whatever name we call it, seems to have a life of its own. Nothing illustrates this better than this story by Steve Kelsey...about his friend Judy. Everything always seemed to go wrong for Judy. If she went skiing, she would always fall and fracture a leg or an arm. Page 4 of 9
If she were walking down a country lane on a bright summer day and paused for a moment to lean on the end of a long picketed fence-it would fall over at that exact moment. Once, on the streets of the city where she lived, she was mugged-just outside her own apartment building! Wanting to remain unharmed, she cooperated with the mugger. But when she reached into her pocket to find money for him, she discovered that she had only two cents. The mugger wouldn't believe her until she emptied all her pockets before him! Something always went wrong for Judy. Well - one day, Judy decided to bake bread. She took out the recipe and carefully gathered all the ingredients it called for; then she began to follow the recipe. But Judy made one little mistake. Instead of adding one cake of yeast to the mix, she added one whole box-several cakes of yeast. You can imagine what happened. The dough began to grow and grow and grow. She added more flour-and it kept growing and growing. She added more water, and it kept growing. More salt, more oil-and it just kept growing and growing. She tried cutting the mound of dough in half, pounding it, caressing it, covering it, pleading with it-and it kept growing and growing and growing. How to stop her dough from getting any bigger???? Page 5 of 9
Finally, in desperation, Judy went out and buried the huge lump of dough in her front yard, came back inside, and exhausted sat down in the living room to watch TV. Within an hour, her father came bursting through the front door screaming: "THERE'S SOMETHING GROWING IN OUR FRONT YARD!!!" You can guess what happened. It WAS summer and the warmth of the sun beat down on on everything including the mound of dough that Judy thought was safely buried in the ground. The heat brought the yeast back to life-and it had started growing again and BURST out of the ground! The life of that yeast that Judy had hidden in her bread dough was so strong in its quest to transform that even its grave couldn't contain it. Yes -- the kingdom of Heaven, the Kindom of heaven, God s Realm, God s Beloved Community IS like the yeast which a baker "hid" in three measures of flour. That life which God promised to all of us, has a life of its own, a life which we cannot destroy or even deter. This is life hidden within our lives together, and if we would only allow for it to happen and embrace it, it would be fully ours. And it WILL invade our lives, each of our lives, some day, and fill us with possibilities which we don't even dare to imagine for ourselves right now. Onto the next parable - Hidden treasure - Next we have a treasure hidden in a field that someone finds and hides. It is soooo incredible that the finder in absolute joy goes and sells everything so he can go and buy the field... Or it s like the merchant looking for pearls and found one so valuable that he goes and sells everything to buy this one pearl. Maybe that s a no-brainer, that God s Realm - is worth more than any human possession - that we could add up all of worldly possessions and they wouldn t be worth as much as God s reign in our lives - and isn t that what Jesus had been teaching all along? to love the Kingdom/Kindom more than anything? More than anything in the whole world? Page 6 of 9
I remember a Vacation Bible School experience right here at Berkeley Chinese Community Church when my girls were young probably over 30 years ago! The theme was Treasures of the Kingdom. All week long, VBS started with a skit about an expedition to an Island looking for treasure. Imagine the stage in the fellowship hall back there (gesturing) decorated with palm trees and treasure chests and hidden treasures. The song that the kids sang was about finding a treasure, finding a friend, finding Jesus and his love will never end. The comic relief was the Professor character - and the teenage actor played it to the hilt - complete with broad gestures, a mustache, and magnifying glass in search of the Golden Bananas... Throughout the week, everyone in his party found his or her treasure, but the professor always came up empty-handed. He became more and more discouraged. Finally on day five - someone came to help - the child looked at his map and said - you have the wrong map! He needed another map to find a different treasure so she gave him a Bible, opened it and explained that inside the Bible were clues to the REAL Treasure of life. I think she even directed him to the first clue with was from Matthew 13 - the very verse that we read about the merchant and the pearl. Yep - you could have written the script - on the last day of VBS and the Treasure Island Adventure - our friend the professor read the verse and it sank in...he joined in the finale and sang louder than anyone Page 7 of 9
I found me a treasure, I found me a friend, I found Jesus and his love will never end. Maybe in life, we are sometimes like the professor - referring to the wrong maps and looking in the wrong place for the wrong treasures. Question: how many of you all use a GPS? - GPS - Global Positioning System - amazing technology - GPS can tell you exactly where you are in the world, and can tell you how to get from where you are to where you want to go. What an amazing product of technology and human knowledge and creativity! Who would have thought that so many of us trust this new way of finding and following directions. I must say, I do appreciate that the GPS voice doesn t yell at me for making a wrong turn but merely announces RECALCULATING and patiently offers a revised set of instructions. But sometimes I hear this blip and the voice tells me Lost satellite reception. Sometimes that happens at the most inopportune moment just before the next turn or name of the street to turn at. I have this moment of panic until the voice comes back on to let me know how to proceed. That happened once AND I chuckled because I was reminded that humankind has always had a GPS of sorts - God Positioning System...it s not always so clear about where we are relative to God s hope for us...but it s definitely available if we choose to turn it on...to connect with the clues that God gives us to connect with God with the universe! We have our maps - the clues in the Bible, the lives of others who have been role models...we have our saints of yesteryear and yesterday - those saints who lived and loved among us AND the lives and spirits around us through whom God is still speaking. We have our legacies to guide us as BCCC as well... that doesn t mean we always continue doing exactly what has been done or leave everything alone...god is present now and Jesus is alive and well among us and the Holy Spirit binds all this and us together... Page 8 of 9
So did you catch a glimpse of God s Realm? The glimpses of God s Realm were not just in the mustard seed...the yeast...in the pearl... they might have been in Sunday School, or fellowship lunches or walks in the park or in the check out line at the supermarket... or in a conversation with a loved one or a stranger... or noticing a dew drop on a blade of grass Glimpses of God s Realm are all around... May those glimpses of God s Realm reveal themselves in such quick succession that God s Realm becomes a total Reality... Heaven on Earth God s Beloved Community. May it be so. Amen! Page 9 of 9