The Parables today

God, Source of all that is,

We come together because we need you,

We need each other,

And we need to hear your word.

And if we hear it here,

May we be so possessed by it

That we become servants of it out in your world.

In Christ who was and is and is to come. Amen

This past Tuesday, I was driving home from the Soo. I had gone there for some outdoor work in air that was merely “unhealthy” while the air here was “hazardous.” I stopped for gas in Newberry. I filled the tank and went into the store for a cup of coffee. I filled my old Coleman travel mug and took it to the counter to pay. As I reached for my wallet, the guy at the register said “Just the coffee?” I said “Yeah, just the coffee.” And he said, “then you’re good to go,” waving off my attempt to pay him. We shared an elevated, charged smile, I thanked him, and made my way home through the rain, warmed and energized, not just by the coffee, but by his unexpected and unnecessary moment of generosity. “You’re good to go,” is all he said. And I was. I share this story because it’s a crystalline manifestation of this morning’s gospel passage. I will explain.

The section of Matthew we just heard is, to put it plainly, a parable dump. Six parables right in a row, each presented to tell the disciples what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. It’s a fair question. What is the Kingdom of Heaven like? There’s the tiny mustard seed which grows into a tree that shelters the birds of the air; there’s the woman who leavens her bread; there’s the treasure found buried in the field; there’s the purchase of the one fine pearl; there’s the catching and sorting of fish; and then there’s the head of the house who brings from his treasure what is new and what is old. Each of these parables can be the source, undoubtedly has been the source, for many sermons. But Matthew gives them as a set, a six-pack of parables if you will, so let us take his cue and see what can be seen in them as a whole; not the house but the neighborhood; not the single bloom but the whole garden; not the single volume but the whole shelf.

And what we see is that every image of the Kingdom is not of a place but of something that happens.  And more than that, most of these analogies for the Kingdom of Heaven show us something small that becomes something great, something unknown or unexpected that is suddenly discovered. One of the parables tells of the separation of the righteous from the unrighteous at the end of the age, and the last of them, which is my favorite, tells of the host who offers what is old and what is new—but in every case the Kingdom of Heaven is an event, something that happens in a moment in time, not a place or a state of being, or something that is hard to imagine. It’s bread rising, it’s the finding of treasure or the purchase of a pearl. It’s the seed growing into a tree. It’s a cup of coffee, and “you’re good to go.”  Good to go. Think about that. From that small gesture, the great task of loving and being loved, which is why we are put on this earth at all, is what lies before us, and we are ready and able—if we are willing. . .we’re good to go.

What this means, is that in our real lives in the real world, the Kingdom of Heaven is happening every moment, when we gather the produce of our gardens (or our chickens) and share it with our neighbors, when we restore something that is broken or fill something that is empty, when we greet or are greeted with unexpected warmth—these, according to Jesus of Nazareth, like the events in the parables we hear this morning, are not steps towards a Kingdom we yearn for, they are the Kingdom of Heaven itself.

If we have ears and hear this, it is so simple and so glorious that it’s almost hard to take in. The promise of God—which is why we’re all here this morning, is now. In a few minutes we will say together “thy kingdom come, thy will be done,  on earth as it is in heaven.” On Earth, where we are, and not later. Today.

Amen.