When we tell stories, using the mundane stuff of our daily lives, like the seeds of faith being planted through singing songs in the car or being impacted by the love of God in Jesus through creation, the kingdom of God comes in us. When we recognize that God makes God’s presence known in the world through the physical stuff of creation…like rocks and trees, fields and mountains, bread and wine…the kingdom of God comes in us.
Pentecost 9A: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (Interlake Regional Shared Ministry, Selkirk, Manitoba)
One of our family road trip activities growing up was singing through the alphabet. My mom would start with the letter A and choose a song that began with that letter. We’d sing at least one verse or chorus, and then move on to the letter B. And so on, until we lost interest, got to our destination, or actually made it to the song about Zacchaeus. We had other games we played in the car, and as we got older, I suspect our family singing was replaced by everyone listening to their own devices. But the memory of singing in the car is still deep in my soul, and even now when I am feeling unsettled or anxious, I can take a breath and find comfort in the songs associated with those memories.
Singing in the car was one way my parents planted the seed of faith in my life. I don’t remember a lot of sermons from the many hours we spent in church, and I remember very few specific lessons from Sunday school, youth group or Bible class at school. But I do remember a lot of the words that we sang in the car as a family.
In today’s gospel reading Jesus seems to be trying to find metaphors and imagery that will resonate with his audience. He is trying to help them be attentive to how God might be showing up in the world and how they can be part of what God is doing. He uses language and word pictures we assume his audience would be familiar with—although I’d like to know how often people really found buried treasure or discovered a pearl of great price. But the point—or at least one of the points—of these parables is to use imagery and language from daily life that expresses something about God and God’s relationship with creation. I wonder if part of why Jesus taught this way was because he knew that people who had a really deep religious history, tradition and culture can get some tunnel vision when it comes to understanding God—or thinking we understand God. We get really good at rituals, traditions and words that are engrained in us. But in doing that, it’s easy to restrict the presence of God to the structures and systems that are familiar to us, and we stop paying attention to the many ways that God continues to show up in the fabric of our daily lives and experiences.
If I were to ask you to share a story about how God shows up in your life, would that question make you uncomfortable? Would you be able to tell a story as simple as the one I told, about my family’s practice of singing songs in the car, to say something about what it looks like for you to be part of what God is up to in the world? But isn’t that what we’re invited to do today? Aren’t we who have been transformed by the good news of God’s love for us invited to talk about it?
Our reading today includes a somewhat random string of comparisons that Jesus makes between the Kingdom of Heaven and the stuff of daily life in his context. I think part of why Jesus does that is to remind people that God shows up in and through the daily stuff of our lives. God’s kingdom is not something that is far off in the cosmos or separated from our lived experience. It’s tangled up in the way we talk about the patterns of growth from seed to tree. It’s tangled up in our discussions of value and priorities, of what we do with our time and money. It’s tangled up in how we make sense of the various roles we play in life and what we do with those roles. The kingdom of God is made present in and through the physical stuff of mustard seeds, fields, fish nets and yeast.
But most importantly, and this is something I was particularly struck by when I discovered Martin Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, I think Jesus is pointing out that the kingdom of heaven is something that happens to us more than it’s something that we control, manipulate or bring about through our own efforts. A seed doesn’t have much to do with whether it becomes a tree, but when it does become a tree, it provides shelter and refuge to the birds. The impact that yeast has on flour is greater and more mysterious than probably even the baker can always control. But when yeast is added to flour, it transforms and grows into something that provides nourishment. And we could probably go through the list and discover that in each of Jesus’ descriptions, there’s a sense of what Martin Luther says about praying “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Luther said, “The kingdom will come whether or not we pray for it, but we ask in this prayer that it comes in us.”
The kingdom will come whether or not we pray for it, but we ask in this prayer that it comes in us. When we tell stories, using the mundane stuff of our daily lives, like the seeds of faith being planted through singing songs in the car or being impacted by the love of God in Jesus through creation, the kingdom of God comes in us. When we recognize that God makes God’s presence known in the world through the physical stuff of creation…like rocks and trees, fields and mountains, bread and wine…the kingdom of God comes in us. When we extend a loving hand or a word of peace to those who are different than us, or those who are marginalized in some way, and when we invest our resources so that the treasure of life and hope can be protected and preserved, the kingdom of God comes in us.
Over the last few months, I’ve spent a little bit of time with the shared ministry council and with some other leaders from within the IRSM. We spent time together talking about how God’s story connects with our story, and what that has to do with the story of those we are called to minister to and alongside. We talked about the different stories being told in and through the congregations within the IRSM, and the new story that God might be crafting in and through the experience of being a shared ministry. I believe that as we stay attentive to this process of connecting our story to God’s story, we might actually be surprised as we stumble across the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
One of my all-time favorite movies is “While You Were Sleeping.” Actress Sandra Bullock plays Lucy, an unassuming L-train attendant in Chicago who has a secret crush on this guy who comes through her booth every day to get on the train. She has never talked to him, but when she unexpectedly saves his life after he is mugged and knocked onto the tracks, a misunderstanding in the hospital leads to his family thinking she’s his fiancée. Fast forward through some holiday and family systems chaos and hilarity, and the guy wakes up from his coma on New Year’s Eve. When Lucy is talking to him in his hospital room, they get to talking about her heroic action of saving his life. He makes a comment about how he has never done anything heroic. She responds by saying that she noticed that he would give up his seat on the train to let someone else sit down. He says, “well, that’s not heroic.” She says, “It is to the person who sits there.”
It might seem like we have to do these big things to recognize God’s presence in our lives and in the world. But Jesus’ parables point to a whole range of ways that God shows up in world. God shows up through the rhythm of growth from seed to tree. God shows up in the mysterious impact of yeast mixed with flour. God shows up in those small acts of kindness like giving up your seat on the train or in family traditions like singing songs to pass the time on a road trip. In a few minutes we will be reminded of the immeasurable way God comes to us in the simple elements of bread and wine. Part of our sacramental theology reminds us that God comes to us through physical elements like water, wine, and bread combined with the Word of God. And we, created in the image of God and claimed by God in the waters of baptism, get to be part of witnessing to the presence of God in the world and inviting others to participate in God’s abundance.
We all have stories to tell about how God has shown up in our lives and how we’ve been compelled to participate in what God is doing. Part of exploring where God is calling us into the future is discovered in paying attention to these stories in our past and in our current realities. Next week we get a familiar story about the disciples being faced with a community need they felt they don’t have the resources for, but when they obey Jesus’ invitation to use what meager resources they had, they are amazed to discover that they have plenty and more for what they are being asked to do. Using the ordinary stuff of your life…using the ordinary stuff of your congregation…you have what you need to do the work that God has called you to. You have what you need to participate in and witness to the kingdom of heaven.
So what stories do you tell about the presence of God in your life? Because the kingdom of heaven will come, whether or not we pray for it, but in this prayer we pray that it comes to us. God is at work in and around us. God has come into the world through Jesus and is calling all creation into reconciliation and renewal. And while a part of that happens when we are gathered in community around Word and sacrament in what we call congregations and worship, a lot of it happens outside of the walls of our sanctuaries. As we become attentive to what that looks like and as we get better at telling stories and putting our own language to our experiences of God’s presence and love in our lives, the kingdom of God becomes real for us and for those around us.
One of the conversations I have with congregations and leaders who are facing questions and uncertainties about their future is to ask “what drew you to this community and what keeps you connected to this community.” In a context when there are plenty of other pressures for people’s time and resources, and where our religious and ethnic history, tradition and practices are losing their positions of privilege and influence, what keeps us connected to a faith community? What keeps us attentive to the new thing that God might be up to in the world? What keeps us hoping for renewal and vitality?
We might each have different stories to tell as we answer those questions. I would encourage you to listen to one another’s stories and celebrate the nuggets of insight and wisdom you discover in each other’s stories. In these stories you will discover what matters to you, what are the core values that continue to motivate and inspire your community, and what particular gifts and strengths you bring to the suffering and pain in the world. And hopefully, as you tell these stories, you will also discover that what keeps us connected to one another is more than our history, our congregational name, our family background or our geography. What keeps us connected to one another is the good news of a God who spoke creation into existence, who breathed life into creation and made humanity to reflect God’s self, who continually and relentlessly pursues restoration and renewal, who came into the world in the person of Jesus and who defeated and promises to ultimately defeat the forces of death and evil. This God calls us into community, gathers us as beloved children, nourishes us with the Word and gifts of love and forgiveness, and sends us into the world to be witnesses…to be story-tellers…so that others may know that they, too, can be caught up in this kingdom. This is the message that strengthens us. This is the message that sustains us. This is the message that transforms us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.