Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who breaks open the expensive champagne and brings out the good china, as well as trying new recipes and sharing the latest gadgets and gizmos. Or, rather, being trained for the kingdom of heaven, the scribe holds nothing back from the guests, spares no expense to be a good host.
Has anyone here seen the film “Babette’s Feast”? It’s a beautiful story two sisters who have given up the idea of marriage to live with their father, who is a pastor, in a very remote village in Denmark, and their unexpected friendship. The wikipedia entry explains: “Babette appears at the[ sisters’] door. She carries only a letter [from one of the sister’s previous suitors], explaining that she is a refugee from counter-revolutionary bloodshed in Paris, and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters cannot afford to take Babette in, but she offers to work for free. Babette serves as their cook for the next 14 years, producing bland meals typical of the nature of the congregation. Her only link to her former life is a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery of 10,000 francs. Instead of using the money to return to Paris and her lost lifestyle, she decides to spend it preparing a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation on the occasion of the founding pastor's hundredth birthday.”
It’s a beautiful story, and the way that meal transforms the community is a delight to watch. Those villagers in 19th century Denmark are determined not to enjoy the meal, because it would simply be sinful, but among them is another surprise guest, a military officer, who is overflowing with praise for each and every appetizer, soup, main dish, desert, and drink, leading them through a little experience of the kingdom of heaven, opening their eyes to the gifts that are before them. Babette spent her entire self, gave of her previous life as a renowned chef at one of the best restaurants in Paris, and spent every last penny of the lottery winnings which would have paid for her return to France, in gratitude and love for this little austere village that chided her for using onion in the daily soup because it was too fancy.
The kingdom of heaven is like that.
This last week, my mother and sister drove in from Ohio with the remainder of the books I had stored in my parents’ basement, and it felt like I was finally all put back together again. All of this moving around, from college to seminary to Internship back to seminary to Massachusetts to New York, and I couldn’t cart my books around everywhere so I left them with my parents. You thought we had a lot of books at the tag sale. And even knowing that I already had all those books I nearly bought more there on Doug and Linda’s front lawn! But books are my history, my way of charting where (and who) I have been, as well as faithful fall-backs for when I need to answer a hard question and sort of remember the source of a conversation on the topic. If I didn’t have to eat and pay rent, I’d probably spend most of my paycheck on books... and on travel to see my best friend, where we’d swap books. So when I hear this parable about somebody finding a pearl of such immense value that they sell all they have to buy it, I imagine selling all of those books. All of that history. All of that proof that I’ve earned my degrees. All of those ways to escape for a day, or to remind myself of concepts I’ve studied and the people I studied them with. All of that impressive weight of education, that I’ve wrapped myself up in for so much of my life.
If I did, though, sell everything to buy a single pearl, it would mean I’d travel a lot lighter, though. Not have to worry about storage or unpacking or theft or misplacing things. I’d be able to get on my bike and just go... or, actually, no. To sell everything means to sell everything, so I wouldn’t have my books or my bike or my car or my sleeping bag or my computer. I’d only have that pearl, and be otherwise completely dependent.
Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that.
Or consider mustard seeds, and leaven (yeast). Mustard might have been a small seed growing into a big plant for birds to nest in, but it was pretty much a weed. Invasive species. Wild mustard is one of the few weeds I learned to identify at camp in Pennsylvania. And when birds nest, they stick around. And when birds stick around, they poop all over the place.
Yeast is big in the news lately, for the rise of celiac disease and the popularity of gluten-free diets. If you’ve got an allergy, you know when there’s gluten in your food as soon as you eat it, right? Or at least pretty soon after. Ants will find it even if you’ve vacuumed and swept a dozen times. And it’s everywhere, like added sugar, or like glitter after a crafting party when you just can’t seem to clean all of it up and you keep finding bits of it in odd places for days, weeks, months afterward.
The kingdom of heaven is like that.
Jesus asks his disciples, “do you understand what I’m saying?” and they nod knowingly and say ‘yes.’ They’ve just had a string of parables explained to them, that we heard over the last couple of weeks here, so by now they’ve probably caught on to the general idea, right?
But here’s something else the kingdom of heaven is like.
It’s like leaving a little lump of bread dough in the fridge under a towel at night, and in the morning that little lump has expanded to spill over the edges of that bowl. It’s like dandelion seeds that kids just blow for fun, not knowing they’re going to plant dozens of weeds nobody wants. It’s like running the lawn mower over a mushroom to kill it, but releasing all of those delicious spores everywhere so you’ll have mushroom overpopulation next season. It’s also like those birds building their nests are unwashed, frightened children escaping violence to find asylum. It’s like Israelis and Palestinians who get together in groups of fours, fives, and sixes, to grieve together their loss of loved ones in a war that seems to have no solution. It’s like ex-gang members in Chicago stepping into violent neighborhoods to interrupt shootings before they happen. It’s like a few cans of Spaghetti-o’s, a jar of peanut-butter, some farm-fresh veggies, donated to a food pantry.
It’s like giving up all that we have to be part of something so much bigger it even takes our breath away.
The kingdom of heaven will destroy your comfort. It will disrupt your calm. It will make you do things you once thought were absolutely crazy and wasteful, selling all you have for the sake of buying a field full of hidden treasure.
Or maybe, maybe on that last one the parable has more than one meaning. I mean, of course it does. Parables are never direct in their meaning, there’s always another layer to them. Or two, or three, or five. Every time you hear or read a parable it’s going to hit you differently.
In any case, this other layer, this other, additional meaning... well, first, actually, let’s take a quick jump backwards into the Old Testament story about Solomon.
Solomon was the son of a king who had a beautiful relationship with God. He himself, however, took wives of other faiths, who led him to worship other gods on the high places. Solomon was the last king of the united northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. They split in two after Solomon, to be captured and conquered each half in their turn, thanks to Solomon’s un-faithfulness to the one God, Adonai. Knowing that he was following the leading of a great and well-loved king, who had many successes in his time, Solomon asked for wisdom to help him guide those people. To be a good leader. Which is a fine thing to ask, and God granted him not only wisdom but also all of the other trappings of a successful monarchy, the wealth and victories and such.
But wisdom did not save him. He was right in his humility to know he could not rule that many people well on his own. He was right in knowing he was a different king than the man he followed. He was right in many things, he made many good decisions, he was known far and wide for his wisdom. But wisdom was not enough.
“I am convinced,” writes Paul to the Romans, “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.” That means we cannot get away, no matter how hard we try to stand on our own. No matter how often we take the gifts of God and run off and forget the gift giver. No matter what gets thrown at us when we seek that pearl of great price. Because it is not a matter of our wisdom, learned or otherwise. It is not a matter of our successes or failures. It is not a matter of our ability to be ‘good Christians,’ of having the faith to sell everything and give to the poor. It is a matter of God’s ridiculous love pouring out into the world like the very water that makes this planet habitable. Like invasive weeds, like hidden gluten, like glitter, like sand after a vacation at the beach.
This other reading of that last parable, where the man sells everything he has to go and buy the pearl, can you picture how that last parable saves us? It is the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, who gives away all that he has, even to his final breath, to obtain us. The Son of God, Christ Jesus, who seeks us out, who throws out the fishing net and gathers us all together from the ends of the earth, all sorts, all sizes and shapes and colors and ages. It is the Immanuel, God-With-Us, who is the Kingdom of Heaven among us in the here and now, giving and giving and giving, over and over, all that we need, all that we share, all that draws us into deeper relationship and more challenging faith, shaking us up that we might shake off the things which keep us from living.
The Kingdom of heaven is invading. It looks like a scrap of bread and a sip of wine. It looks like a little parish of twenty or thirty on a Sunday. It looks like it’s just another annoyance to be swept away. But just you wait until it takes root and bears fruit. Just you wait until those birds build their nests. Just you wait until you find yourself by giving yourself away. Just you wait... or, rather, wait no longer, it has already started.
Thanks be to God.
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