30 July 2023 Pentecost 9
The RI lessons I teach in school sometimes revolve around parables. And I talk with the class about ‘what is a parable’ and I tell them parables were stories people used that had a simple superficial message, but if you heard the story as having a deeper message, you would find much wealth in it. Put simply, when Jesus told stories in parable form, he was putting God’s message out to those who ‘felt led’ to explore God more deeply for themselves, and for those who didn’t hear the ‘deeper message’, it was simply ‘a good story’. The parables we have heard this morning don’t so much ‘describe’ the kingdom of God, as they ‘prompt’ in us an element of God’s inbreaking reign and reality in our lives. The words don’t just ‘tell’ us about something, they invite us to ‘feel’ that something as well. The parables Jesus tells are more than just an intellectual idea, they are an experience of the creative and redemptive power of God that changes our lives and will continue to change our lives. Parables do more than just ‘tell the truth’, they tell it in ways that surprise us, leaving us gasping at the beauty and depth of God’s promises.
So what does a buried treasure, a pearl and a net full of fish have in common, and what is their ‘deeper message’. Jesus asks the disciples, he asks us, what does our commitment as participants in God’s reigning presence in the world mean. We are invited to ask ourselves, what do I need the kingdom of God to be. What am I looking for. Is it like treasure hidden in a field, which someone finds then hides again so they can lay claim to it. But that scenario asks more questions than it answers, who buried the treasure in the first place, and why, is there something wrong about the new finders actions. It reveals unexpected discovery, concealment, joy, total expenditure of resources and purchase of a field. This person risks everything they have for a treasure they never expected to find. Is the reigning presence of God in the world like that? Is it worth everything? This parable challenges us to embrace whole-hearted commitment to this cause. And a similar question is asked in regard to the pearl. The pearl merchant is on the lookout for exquisite pearls, and suddenly finds one. And he is so intent on obtaining it that he is prepared to sell everything he has to buy it. The disciples left their livelihoods to follow Jesus, they walked away from everything they had to follow an unknown itinerant man; this merchant abandons his business, and everything else, to lay claim to a beautiful object. An impractical choice certainly; it may be a beautiful pearl, but of what use is it. Like the field with the treasure, this plot asks – if the reigning presence of God in the world is like this, am I all in? What is my ultimate concern.
The third parable returns the disciples’ attention to the lakeshore. Field and sea alike – the whole earth – hold the good and the bad together, all mixed up together. The reign of God is pushing into the world, laying claim to it, transforming it, but it takes bold and imaginative vision to see it.
In the first two parables we find that the kingdom of heaven is our passion, we are willing to do anything; to do everything; to do ‘what it takes’ to be part of it. And in the image of the fish, Jesus adds that the kingdom is Creation cleansed, purged of all that is evil. Good fish are separated from bad, evil from righteousness. And while we may see this as a fearful warning, it is also a message of hope, because the kingdom of heaven cannot be a place where evil festers and destroys, it is the place where God’s goodness reigns forever and touches everything. Jesus and the disciples carry out their mission in a world that includes good and bad. Yet even though God’s reigning presence will not remove and eliminate all the evil and brutality in our world, people of faith can trust the future to the holy justice of God. As Paul tells us
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So let us not only hear these parables ‘describing’ the kingdom of God, let them also ‘prompt’ in us an element of God’s inbreaking reign and reality in our lives. These words don’t just ‘tell’ us about God’s reigning presence in our lives, they invite us to ‘feel’ that it as well. These parables are more than just an intellectual idea, they are an experience of the creative and redemptive power of God that changes our lives and will continue to change our lives.