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Shock-n-Awe

Matthew 13:3135; 44-52 (NIV)

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You’ve probably heard it said many times  “There are two types of people in the world.”.  As often as the phrase is used in different contexts, it’s obvious that there are more than two types of people.  But I am going to say this morning that there is a spectrum of people in this world. 

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At one end I see people who like the comfortable.  They like things they can explain and describe.  They like things to be able to be easily described.  Here’s the beginning… here’s the end…  This is where it starts… this is where is stops.  They like things neat and in their place.

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At the other end of the spectrum are people who find this kind of life boring.  They’re looking for adventure!  They’re looking for the new and the exciting.  They are always wanting to push the limits to see what’s possible.  If you’ve defined it, they’re always wondering if there’s something outside of your definition.

So where are you on this spectrum?

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Maybe to put it another way… if you went to an amusement park, would you be the first person who’d like to ride the carousel.  It’s been tested and proven faithful.  There are no surprises… you go around and around.  You’re perfectly happy not getting more than a foot or two off of the ground. 

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Or are you the type who would be first in line to be the guinea pig testing the brand new, ground breaking rollercoaster.  Is your idea of fun pushing yourself to the limits!  Seeing what’s out there to take you to the next level?

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Well, the Bible often get’s accused of being a book for the first group of people with nothing to say to the second group of people.  The Bible is accused of being a book of a bunch of “thou shalts” and “thou shat nots”.  It’s thought that it’s a clear cut book setting exact limits of what we can and can not do… of where we can and can not go… of what we can and can not say.  And on the one hand, there’s some truth to that.  The Bible contains absolute truths that are not up for debate.  God’s word is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

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But on the other hand the Bible is anything but clean cut and boxed in.  Every other book ever written is words on a page, but the Bible is a book with words on a page, but it also has a spirit, the Holy Spirit, which works in and through those words to change the lives of those who read it.  In “Christianeze” we say that the Bible is a living book.

Well, this morning’s passage at a quick glance may seem to be the same old predictable stories that Jesus told, but if we take a closer look, I think we may see that this passage is not for the faint of heart.  We’re going to be reading from Matthew chapter 13, beginning at verse 31.

The Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast

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³¹ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

³³ He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

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³⁴ Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. ³⁵ So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will utter things hidden since the creation of the

world.”

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

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⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

The Parable of the Net

⁴⁷ “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.

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⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹ “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

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⁵² He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

            Seems pretty straight forward, right?  Many of us have probably heard these parables before and maybe thought they were pretty neat stories, but I wonder if we realize how earth shattering – how ground breaking – these ideas of Jesus really were.  I wonder if Jesus asks us, like he asked his disciples, “Have you understood all these things?” and we quickly answer “yes”, but in our heart of hearts we, probably like the disciples, really have no idea what Jesus is trying to get at!

So let’s take this passage step by step and see if the Holy Spirit won’t reveal to us some of what Jesus meant when he spoke these words a couple thousand years ago.  As you probably know, Jesus liked to speak in parables… stories with a deeper meaning.  In today’s language we might say he liked to use little anecdotes, little stories, illustrations to make his point.  Why did he do that?  We may sometimes wonder why Jesus didn’t just say what it was that he was trying to say.  Well, there’s a bunch of reasons, I believe, why he used parables, but I believe one of them was because there was no way he could completely describe the things he was trying to describe.  There was no way to fully capture the truths of the spiritual realm in human language.  There was no way, as was the case in this morning’s passage, to box in the definition of what the kingdom of heaven was.

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My daughter, who’s almost 2, does this.  She doesn’t know the word giraffe yet, so she uses the word closest to giraffe that she does know to describe it. 

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For her, a giraffe is a horse.  Is a giraffe a horse? 

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Well of course not, but she doesn’t have any word in her language for a giraffe yet, so for her a giraffe is LIKE a horse.  That’s kinda what Jesus is doing in this passage. 

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Is the kingdom of heaven a muster seed? 

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Is it yeast? 

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Is it a pearl? 

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Is it a net? 

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Well of course not.  But there is no word that we as humans living on this earth have yet to describe the kingdom of heaven, so we use different illustrations… different parables… to describe different facets of what the kingdom of heaven is LIKE.

So we’re getting into why it is that I say this passage may not be for the faint of heart.  If you like clear cut explanations, you’re not going to like Jesus’ explanation of the kingdom of heaven here.  But I encourage all of us to give this passage a chance as we dig into it a bit.

But if we’re going to be considering what the kingdom of heaven is, or rather what it’s like, it would probably be good for us to consider what Jesus was referring to when he spoke of the kingdom of heaven.  It’s not language we use much these days. 

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We may talk about heaven,

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or earth,

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or the church,

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but the kingdom of heaven is largely absent from our language.  You may or may not have heard of the visible and invisible church before.  If you have, that comes into play here… if you haven’t, you may learn something new this morning.

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The church visible is not the church building, but the people.  All the people here in this church building, and in church gatherings around the world, make up the church visible.  They are the people whom we can see as members of the church. 

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The church invisible is made up of all those people who are truly sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father.  It is our hope and prayer that everyone in the visible church is a member of the invisible church as well, but we’ve likely all known people who attended church, and were maybe even members of a church, but whom we questioned if they were really Christians.  Only God truly knows a person’s heart, and only God knows if they are truly members of the church invisible.  All those who have died with their faith placed in Jesus Christ are also members of the church invisible. 

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The church invisible is simply a newer term, for the most part, for the kingdom of heaven.  The kingdom of heaven is essentially made up of all those people who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

So with that in mind, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.  Had the disciples truly understood what Jesus meant when he spoke these words, I can only imagine they would have been quite disappointed, as would every other Jew who heard Jesus that day. 

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The people thought Jesus was to be their Messiah, their Savior, and he was, but not the way they expected.  They expected Jesus to be their king and to overthrow the Roman occupation of their land.  They were expecting grand things from Jesus.  They expected an extreme rebellion from Jesus, the king of the kingdom of heaven. 

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But he’s describing his kingdom as a tiny seed.  You can plant a field full of mustard, and it isn’t going to look any different than it did before.  The Jews didn’t want a kingdom that would leave things the same as they always had been.  “Change” seems to be the key word for the upcoming election.  I suppose that was a bit of how it was in Jesus’ time, only more so.  The people wanted change, and Jesus was saying that, at least in the immediate future, the kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ kingdom, wasn’t going to change the outward appearance of anything.  Sure the mustard plant grows very large over time, but that takes time, but the Jews wanted change now.

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But since the mustard seed doesn’t describe the kingdom of heaven in its entirety, Jesus compares it to something else… yeast.  The kingdom of heaven goes into the world like yeast into a lump of dough.  And again, the effect is a bit underwhelming.  It takes time to see any change that yeast causes.  The Jews wanted to the kingdom of heaven to change things NOW!

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But there’s still more to the kingdom of heaven.  Surely the people wanted and were expecting the kingdom of heaven to be like a mountain.  Immoveable… substantial… unmistakeable…  But again, Jesus’ agenda doesn’t seem to be winning him many votes.  He says it has a great value, like a treasure… like pearls.  It has great value, but still, in the grand scheme of things, it seems rather insignificant.  Another underwhelming example.

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The final parable in today’s passage seems to describe another aspect of the kingdom of heaven.  Sort of like how “horse” may describe some aspects of a giraffe, it doesn’t describe them all.  To get a more accurate picture of what a giraffe is, you’d need to make more comparisons.  And so Jesus uses another comparison.  The kingdom of heaven is like a fishing net.  The kingdom of heaven is like a net collecting people from every corner of the world.  But as the kingdom of heaven collects people, some are true believers, while others never truly submit to the lordship of Jesus and accept him as their savior.  That’s why the church visible contains both believers and non-believers.  But there will come a day of judgement when the angels will separate the good and the bad fish… the wicked and the righteous.  Only then will the invisible church be made clear to us.

So where does this glimpse into the kingdom of heaven intersect with our lives?  Well, there’s any of number of ways that it may, not the least of which is the timing of the separation of the good and the bad fish… the selection of the invisible church from the visible church.  It is not until judgement day, and it is a decision made, not by you and me, but by God and carried out by his angels, so we must never grow weary of bringing the good news of salvation to someone, assuming they will never believe.

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But I want to focus primarily on what it means for us that the kingdom of heaven didn’t come the way the Jews expected it to come.  They wanted it to come in all of it’s glory and they wanted to do all they could to make sure it happened their way. 

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I wonder if we still struggle with this sometimes today.  I wonder if we don’t want the kingdom of heaven to come into the world in our way and in our timing… in other words, right now… with all it’s glory.  We want to force the world, or our country, or our neighborhood, to reflect the kingdom of heaven.  But I wonder if we need not worry so much about the visibility of the kingdom of heaven. 

What do I mean by that?  Well, it’s no secret that around our nation and around our world, Christianity is known for what it’s against.  It’s known for what it boycotts and what it protests.  For many people, when they think of Christians they think of people who are angry with the way the world is going… who are angry about the decisions of non-Christians… who are angry about changes from yesteryear.  And I don’t know about you, but when I hear Christians getting characterized by this I get defensive.  We’re not like that, are we?

While we may or may not be, the boycotting and protesting and judging is often the most visible aspect of the Christian faith.  But I wonder if that’s the image Jesus really wanted his followers to have?  I wonder if we are trying to force something that doesn’t need to be forced.  I wonder if we as a people are not allowing Christianity to grow naturally.  Maybe the face of Christianity isn’t supposed to be anger.  After all, Jesus didn’t say, “They’ll know you are Christians by what you get angry about,” but by your love.

This is not to say there isn’t much in this world that isn’t right.  This is not to say that there isn’t a lot in this world that we ought not get involved in.  But I wonder if there isn’t another approach to take than boycotting and protesting these things.  Is there a way to make a difference in the world with a heart of love rather than a face of anger?  I think there is.

I like to watch Dr. Phil sometimes, and one of his favorite phrases is “How’s that working for you?”  When someone is stuck in their way of doing something, but it’s clearly not helping the situation, he asks, “How’s that working for you?”  And clearly the answer is “Not well.”  Well, it seems the church has been trying to force the growth of the kingdom of heaven for some time now through anger over all that’s wrong, and I think it’s time for us to ask ourselves “how’s that working for us.”  And I fear the answer is not well.  People are turned off to the church because it’s perceived as being judgemental and hypocritical.  An ever widening wedge is being driven between the church and those outside the church as the moral decay of our society seems to ever increase the anger in the church.  I wonder how things would change if, instead of letting our neighbor know how much they’re doing wrong, we were to really love them today, just as they are, just like Jesus loved us even while we were still sinners.  You see, we in the church aren’t really that different from those outside of the church.  The only difference is that we’ve been forgiven and shown a better way. 

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We can either yell across the street, telling “the others” that there’s a better way,

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or we can come along side our brothers and sisters and SHOW them in LOVE that indeed, there is a better way.  Like an aerial assault, we can bombard them with scriptures, the weapon of the kingdom of heaven, proving we’re right, using a Shock-n-Awe technique.  Or we shock-n-awe them with the love that Jesus, the king of the kingdom of heaven, has for them, regardless of where they’ve been.  Which one do you think will have better results?  Which one do you think Jesus would have used?

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Its pretty hard to hug somebody who’s trying to kill you