Matt. 13:31-33, 44-52
1 Kgs: 3:5-12
What is the kingdom of God? How do you know you are a part of it? How do you understand it?
Well, Jesus spends a lot of time telling us about the kingdom of God, as Matthew records it in his gospel. Continuing to build on his previous lessons, Jesus, in this week’s lesson, continues to teach the significance of the kingdom of God to those around him.
Putting today’s lessons into the larger context, let’s be reminded of some of what Jesus has already said concerning the kingdom of God.
Earlier Jesus expressed concern about his present generation (11:16-19) but his concern probably applies to any generation of believers—remember the teaching —we pipe and you don’t dance, we wail and you don’t mourn.
He warns that you are not paying attention to what God is doing. You can’t distinguish good from bad, joyful from sad. He warns his generation about being indifferent, blind to what God is doing not having wisdom.
Using john the Baptist and himself as the example he goes on to proves his point. John comes to them neither eating nor drinking and they call him possessed, Jesus comes eating and drinking and they call him a glutton and drunkard. So Jesus says they have no wisdom, no heart to discern truth.
Further on (11:25-30) he goes on to reveal his own relationship to the kingdom of God. There we see the kingdom is Jesus himself.
He tells us no one can know God except through himself; he is the revelation of God and his kingdom. To know the kingdom is to yoke yourselves to him, take my yoke upon you –be involved in his life and work and then you will find peace.
Today’s gospel lesson continues Jesus’ kingdom teaching. Today we hear that his kingdom, in the individual’s life, as well as in the world, starts as a small thing, like a mustard seed yet as it grows it becomes significant, noticeable.
As faith in Jesus grows from a small thing, the simple commitment, it grows to become perceptible to others—it becomes evident to the world that something is different in both the individual believer, and in the church at large in the world.
The kingdom functions like yeast working through a whole batch of bread to leaven it all. Likewise the kingdom works in and through the individual soul, and through the church to subtly yet continuously affect it and change it.
And that leavened soul, and that leavened community, then affects other relationships and the culture in which they live.
Jesus tells us that there is an inherent value in the kingdom. Its value is incomprehensible—like finding a hidden treasure in your field, or discovering the perfect pearl—it is worth all you have, all you can give to possess it.
Jesus tells us the kingdom is like a fishnet. It is intended to catch all the fish it can. Like the fields of the wheat and tares we heard about last week; the intent is to call, to involve, to capture all.
Yet he says there is also a point of discernment, a point of judgment, of discrimination between that which is good, from that which is bad, between that which is truth, from that which is lie, a distinction between that which is kept, and that which is ultimately destroyed, between those who have become part of the kingdom and those who chose not.
Jesus wants to impress the ultimate significance, the life and death nature of what he is saying about the kingdom. So he asks them: Do you understand this? Do you get this? This is important. I would imagine it is like the warning you give your child the first time you turn them loose with your car after they get their license.
And like those kids they answered him yes. We got it.
Now they probably didn’t understand everything. Who could possible know the entire mind of God but God himself, which is one of the points that Jesus makes earlier.
Jesus made the point that he is the one who reveals that mind of his father to those whom he chooses and he chose them. And they believed Jesus, and they believed all that he said was true. And that is the place of wisdom, knowing Jesus is to begin to know the heart and mind of God: In Jesus’ words, acting in belief.
In the Old Testament reading for today there is an example of that type of wisdom required by the kingdom. There we find David’s son Solomon worshipping at Gibeon: the Israelite worship center prior to the construction of the temple.
Solomon, David’s son has inherited his father’s kingdom, which is understood as God’s people. He is responsible for God’s kingdom as then understood.
And there God appears to him in a dream. I have discovered that God indeed uses dreams. I have heard of a number of stories where missionaries have mentioned how especially in the Muslim world, that God has used dreams to call Muslims to inquire about or even come to know about Jesus.
And in that dream God asks him a very piercing and telling question: “Ask what I shall give you?” He is asking Solomon—whatever do you want? Ask. It’s yours.
This is a kind of question that tends to reveal the soul, tells what is at the center of one’s life, discovering what is most important to a person.
It is such a significant issue that we see its type in literature— the German legend of Faust, Benet’s the devil and Daniel Webster, the Asian story of Aladdin and his lamp.
If you had someone who had the power to give you anything you wanted right now, what would you ask him for?
Now I could do an experiment and ask you what first hit your mind when I posed that question. I won’t but it is revealing, is it not?
God poses that question to Solomon: what shall I give you?
Solomon’s response is significant. It reveals himself to be humble, he acknowledges he doesn’t deserve what he has, that it all comes from God, through his father’s life.
What he has, he acknowledges is not of his own doing. And he recognizes his incapacity to do what is before him—that the job to lead God’s people is really beyond him and he needs God’s help.
Recognizing his utter dependence on God, that God is the source of all he is and has, he asks for an understanding mind, literally a hearing heart—a heart that is tuned to God’s heart—that he may discern the difference between good and evil.
And because of that, because he didn’t ask for riches, or power, but to have wisdom an understanding mind, a hearing heart, he gets the benefits of receiving the other things as well.
This is the same understanding Jesus has of what he called wisdom, that absolute quality of being in the kingdom of God.
A heart that wants first to know God’s heart, a mind that first of all wants to know God’s mind, so that, discerning good from evil, truth from lie, they would live accordingly, as if yoked to Jesus, doing his work. And thus their lives reveal the treasure have received, their lives become the flowering bush, the rich harvest, the leavened bread.
Having this hearing heart is the core understanding of the kingdom of God. It fulfills that petition we pray all so often—thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
It is what Jesus means when he calls us to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.
This wisdom; the hearing heart, the understanding mind, a heart and mind given to seek out the heart and mind of God, to discern between good and evil, to know truth from deceit, is at the heart of the kingdom of God.
I believe that question of God to Solomon is a question that he continually poses to us as believers anytime we pray, anytime we worship, and especially when coming to communion: “Ask what I shall give you” –what do you want from me?
And how we answer that question will give us the answer to the question Jesus asked his disciples about his teaching on the kingdom of God: “Have you understood this?”
May we pray this day, to have that listening heart, that understanding mind, that we might find our place in the kingdom of God.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Richard C. Marsden
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
7th Sunday after Pentecost
27 July 2014