The Parable Trap

Sermon

It might be a hazard of the modern mind to think that we of the 20^th and 21^st centuries are so much smarter than those who lived a few hundred or a few thousand years ago. Certainly, we know more in terms of science and technology. But we didn’t invent languages or alphabets; we didn’t discover how to make fire or how to craft a wheel. We didn’t figure out that the sun and moon could help us tell time.

And when it comes to Jesus, I must say he was a pretty smart guy. The parables he told are unrivaled in depth and even cleverness in the ways he used principals of rhetoric before there was even a book about that sort of thing.

Today’s text presents us with four pithy parables as Jesus works to evoke an image of the empire of heaven. And yes, throughout today’s sermon I’m going to refer to the “empire of heaven” rather than the “kingdom of heaven.” The word in the Greek text, basileia, can be translated into English as either kingdom or empire, but I think Jesus was deliberately calling out the Roman empire as he talked about heaven’s empire. Plus it helps our ears to pay a little more attention.

So, Jesus is teaching his disciples about what they’re getting themselves into by following him. He tells them they might be citizens of a colony of the Roman empire, but really, they are citizens of the empire of Heaven, and that is very different from Rome. The empire of heaven is like a mustard seed, like yeast, like hidden treasure, like a merchant. Sounds good, yes?

No! These are not good metaphors at all, at least for the hearers of these parables in the first century. Mustard seeds grew into mustard weeds, which we might call an invasive species.

In Jewish lore, yeast was considered a bad thing, something that caused bloat, a symbol of corruption and impurity, something that had to be banished from the home before celebrating Passover.

The guy who buys the field with the hidden treasure is essentially a thief, scoping out his neighbor’s property, buying it, and then saying, “Finders keepers!” to the guy who unwittingly sold treasure.

And yes, it’s all fine and good for a merchant to find an incredible pearl, but back in Jesus’ day merchants were not considered very trustworthy; one commentator compared them to the stereotype of the used-car salesman.

In other words, Jesus is poking the bear with these unexpected images of the empire of heaven. They are not savory, these images. They are not good or pure or given a triple-A rating. Rather than evoke some kind of utopic existence, these parables might have evoked a response of annoyance or disgust or just plain bewilderment.

Jesus, in his clever, brilliant way, is calling out the disciples’ prejudice about things, about the value of things, about the ranking of goodness. And he’s doing that to make a point.

We have our own prejudices, of course. We have devised systems of valuing things – just look at the discussion around college admissions, affirmative action, and legacy admits at Ivy League colleges. We put things into categories and worse, we put people into categories.

Last week during our vacation I had the pleasure of delving into Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead. The book is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, his story of an orphan and his protest against the reality of poverty and orphans in his Victorian England. Kingsolver sets her novel in modern-day Appalachia, amid the opioid epidemic.

I did not know that Kingsolver, an author I have long admired, is herself from Appalachia and lives there now. In an interview she said this about why she wrote this story.

“I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I wanted to write the great Appalachian novel. I wanted this novel to hold the entire story, the whole background, of why, why it is we are who we are, all of the things that people look down on, how they are not our fault, how they were perpetrated against us as, sort of, an economic program exploiting us, and, also, all of the good stuff, that we are people made of community, that we are the most resourceful Americans you’re probably going to find anywhere.”

She mentions a deep-rooted shame she has always carried with her, and says, “So what is that shame that I had internalized? Well, look, it wasn’t just in college. It was everywhere. Just about every time you speak with someone who is from outside of your region, they make some remark like, you seem really educated for a Kentuckian or, more crudely, ha-ha, you’re wearing shoes — I’m not kidding — or, more subtly, are there any people there you want to be friends with in MAGA country?” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-barbara-kingsolver.html?searchResultPosition=1)

We make derogatory assumptions about people because of where they’re from, or who they support politically, or what they do for a living. Our modern day worldly empire values status and wealth, education from the “right” schools, certain professions, a narrow definition of beauty. I could go on, but you get the idea.

We allow ourselves to be sucked into the world’s empire and forget that as followers of Jesus, we have our souls, if not our minds and bodies as well, in the empire of heaven. And the values espoused in the empire of heaven might cause some people to look down at us, scoff at us, but… where would you rather be?

I do wonder if, upon hearing these four parables, the disciples thought to themselves, “A place with weeds and corruption and deceit—really, Jesus?” But maybe they let the parables sink in, and followed Jesus some more, and listened to all that he had to say—these parables and others,  and his teachings—and watched him care for the outcast and heal the sick. Maybe when they put all of that together, it started to make sense, if not in the logical mind, then in the loving heart.

If we look a little deeper at the images that Jesus uses in these parables, we see a different picture. Yes, a tiny mustard seed might grow into a great, annoying weed but that weed provides shelter for the birds, and from that tiny, tiny thing an enormous thing emerges. So it is with the empire of heaven.

Yes, yeast was considered a corrupting agent but when added to three measures of flour – the result would be a hundred loaves of bread. Think about all the people you could feed with a hundred loaves of bread!

And yes, perhaps the man acquires the hidden treasure by unsavory means, but—maybe Jesus is trying to tell us that the empire of heaven is all around us, hidden, but present. Likewise, perhaps that oily merchant does not possess the best of character, but he does know treasure when he sees it. Maybe Jesus is inviting us to see the priceless value of belonging to God and having a home in the empire of heaven.

When looked at again and again, when delved a little more deeply, we begin to understand that the empire of heaven is a place of abundance, where tiny seeds grow to six-foot bushes, where a tablespoon of yeast allows hundreds of people to eat. The empire of heaven is a place of inclusion, where sneaky land-buyers and questionable merchants have a place. More than that, the empire of heaven is a place of hospitality, offering somewhere to rest and be nourished.

One pastor put it this way. “For Jesus, God’s realm is not some esoteric kingdom in the sweet by and by, but as close as the next mustard bush or loaf of bread. That nearness…is the basis for his call to belief. … [These parables] envision God in every nook and cranny of daily life, from kneading dough to plowing fields. Jesus transforms life not by scaring the hell out of people, but by helping them see the heaven close at hand. …If God can use mustard seed and corrupt leaven to grow the kingdom, imagine what God can do with you.” (Talitha Arnold, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, p. 286)

So maybe, the empire of heaven could be like a used-car salesman in his poorly fitting cheap suit and wide tie, talking a good game but in his off hours searching for a 1955 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. When he finally locates one, he sells his business, his house, and his 2010 beige Buick Regal and travels to where the Mercedes is so that he can gaze upon it wonder.

Or maybe the empire of heaven is like Costco, where people from all walks of life, all nationalities, all beliefs gather so that they can provide for their family, or their restaurant, or their faith community, or the local foodbank.

Then again, the empire of heaven is like your neighbor’s lawn that’s full of dandelions. In early spring, your neighbor eats the leaves and decorates her salad with the blossoms. Our pollinator friends the bees feast on the nectar. A few weeks later, the neighborhood children come make wishes as they blow on the puff balls, ensuring there will be more dandelions to come.

Wherever you find true hospitality, wherever you see an abundance of goodness, wherever your assumptions about God’s children are exposed and corrected, wherever you see something priceless to the soul: there is the empire of heaven.