Reflection by The Ven. Dr. Deborah Broome

God’s hidden work of love

[Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”  He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.  Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”                      Matthew 13:31-33,44-52

What’s the kingdom of heaven like?  Here Jesus has a lot of different answers to that question.  You can sense him wanting to connect with the experiences of different people.  The mustard seed and the yeast for those who know the land and the kitchen, hidden treasure and the pearl for those who understand risk, the marketplace, and the surprise of a lucky find, the dragnet full of fish for those whose livelihood depends on the sea.  Hopefully we can all find ourselves in there – word pictures that show us what the world of God is like.  A world that seems to work differently from the world we’re used to.  Where the things God values and the way God acts are not like how it would be if we were running the show.

These are stories about what living in relationship with God is like.  Because that’s what the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, is about.  It’s not a place – not something way out there somewhere.  Certainly not something up in the sky, and certainly not something we have to wait until we die to see.  When Matthew’s Jesus refers to the kingdom of heaven it’s his way of talking about life in the here and now, life lived in the present reality of the holy.  The kingdom of heaven is within us.  It’s the state of living in the presence of God, living with God’s values driving us, living and loving in the knowledge that God is part of us.  The kingdom of heaven isn’t something we have to wait for.  It’s here and now.

The mustard seed and the yeast tell us about God’s action – how from small, almost invisible, beginnings great things will come.  Both the seed and the yeast disappear from sight – into the ground and into the flour – and yet they keep on working.  Jesus assures us God is at work, even though our human eyes can fail to see what’s happening.  And the small seed growing into a huge tree is a sign of God’s commitment, God’s promise, God’s ability to create.

The discoverers of the treasure and the pearl joyfully reorder their lives around what they’ve found.  The kingdom of God, the reign of God, isn’t a possession – it’s God’s way of working, the sphere into which God invites us to enter.  What do we value most?   What is it that shapes our priorities, our spending, our time and commitments?   The gospel isn’t one treasure among many but the treasure.  When people discover God’s reign, they realise they’ve found what truly matters.  Then Jesus adds one final image: a dragnet gathering fish of every kind.  The kingdom is open and expansive.  The Church is mixed: God welcomes widely – but the final sorting is a task for God, not for us.  We’re not called to decide who is finally in or out. We’re called to trust God’s judgement while living confidently in God’s love.  That’s what living in God’s kingdom is about.

Image credit: Nadya Spetnitskaya, Unsplash