Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

‍I expect all of you at some time has had to have a clear out of your belongings.  Getting rid of ‘stuff’ that is no longer as precious as it once was, no longer useful, or because you are moving – into a different house or phase of life.  I’ve moved so many times I’ve lost count, yet each time I am surprised at what I’ve managed to accumulate in the intervening time when I start to clear out cupboards.   I am able to pull out old and new treasures and relive memories and dreams.

Jesus’ parables about the kingdom of heaven today have that sort of feel!  There’s the uncomfortable story of someone who trips over a treasure hidden in a field, which someone else must have buried, but never went back, while the finder hurries to sell all his possessions to buy the field – and doesn’t tell the seller what he has found.  The discomfort I feel is about such behaviour today causing heartburn at parish council if we discovered such unethical decision-making in a purchase, and also at the expectation we’d sell everything to acquire something different.

 
Then what about the pearl of great price?  While the first parable tells us about someone who has tripped over the reign of God by accident – this parable is about a beautiful pearl, and another person who has spent a lifetime searching for such beauty; and both have ended up selling everything they own to acquire something else. 

Both parables hold sheer grace and total cost in the same breath without telling us how they fit together in God’s kingdom. Treasures, pearls, in the open, in the dark.  They doesn’t explain how something will cost our whole life’s work, even life itself and still give us courage to give away everything for something others might not want, revealing the foolishness of faith, hope and trust as judged by the world.

Then we hear the third parable in Matthew’s gospel reading today (13:44-58); where this time, we’re told the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea which captures everything.  It sounds like a huge dragnet, gathering and capturing fish of every kind, all are welcome!  It’s not a single fisherman with a hook and line.  This is big, serious fishing, bringing us such wonderful news; there is no sorting as we all invite, gather, share and hope.  Like the story of the field of wheat and weeds last week, we have this story of a huge welcome, with an enormous net which can encompass everyone and everything. 

But the parable doesn’t soften for long: the fish are sorted, the good ones are kept and the rest are thrown out.  And Jesus adds: ‘So it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous’; and we have Matthew’s familiar apocalyptic promises of the furnace, weeping and gnashing of teeth.   But I hope you noticed, once again, Jesus is reminding us, it isn’t us who does the sorting and judging.  This is not what we are called to do.   

The passage leaves no room for our purity tests, our judgements, categories, labelling and scapegoating.  It isn’t our laws determining who is in or out or for any easy sentimentality.  We’re given a net to cast as wide as we can stretch, but we are not asked to sort.

In an earlier part of the story, (v.35), Jesus leaves the crowds outside and goes into the house where he is now having this conversation with his disciples.  Some of Jesus’ parables have been shared outside with the crowds; and some, like these, are spoken inside the house to his disciples (v. 44-52).  Matthew highlights a difference, perhaps a boundary, between those who simply hear, and those who also understand.  This is emphasised when Jesus asks them: ‘Have you understood all this?’ (v. 51)

‘Understanding’ is the sign of the person who is following, a disciple; but, the ‘reign of God’ parables are not stories of people being kept in or out. Just like last week’s Gospel, the weeds don’t pay attention to whether the good soil is expected to deliver a harvest!   The weeds come, and keep getting in the way and God makes the most of them.

Those who faithfully spend time counting how many are inside a church or who remain outside, with permanent grief around the numbers which never seem to satisfy, isn’t yet understanding the glory of God’s kingdom.  The treasure is often hidden, it’s not always in the places we expect to find it, everyone is invited but not everyone stays: and, through these stories we discover our relationships matter, our kindness, generosity, care, compassion and love matter as we encounter God through one another in community – it is this which makes a difference in God’s kingdom, here and now. 

And it seems to me, those involved in all the parables, the farmer digging in a field with muddy hands, the landowner from last week grappling with a wheat harvest full of weeds, a crew of fishermen hauling in a catch of epic proportions, are all examples of regular, normal labour and life.  It means, I think, the ordinary person, you and I, we are already carrying God’s reign in our communities, and many of you are doing it without recognition from others or from yourselves. 

As we look around at our ministries, our shared service with one another, and our stretching beyond our church community with new ministries, God’s call is being heard, and we are being sown, and the harvest is not ours to make.

However, I do want to remind us, God’s stories are being told in ways and places out of sight of the empire.  The produce and treasures in these stories would not have reached the tables of the empire, because there would be too many questions, too many rules and too much power to interfere with demands to change the stories to make them empire-owned.  God’s stories reach all the small nooks and crannies of life, they include all of us, invite all of us, and in the messiness, chaos, fun and challenges of God’s kingdom, its good to know we are all invited and can belong. 

Jesus reminds us, we discover God in all sorts of place, with all kinds of people in all sorts of interesting circumstances.  And, if we go back to the start of this reflection, what we clear out and what we hold onto in God’s kingdom, is God’s work and not ours.

However, with my final comment, I’m not sure this is an excuse not to empty out the cupboards, because as we bring out all our treasures, what is new and what is old, God is sorting for us: we find we can let go of what is no longer needed for our journey, as God sends us with all we need for the next planting.  

 The Lord be with you.