July 26, 2020 Sermon

July 26, 2020                Sermon            Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52                      Rev. Peter Hofstra

“How the Little Things Undermine the Message”

            Our passage today is like a festival of similes; like a mustard seed…; like yeast…; like treasure hidden in a field…; like a merchant in search of fine pearls…finding one pearl of great value…; like a net thrown into the sea that caught every kind of fish…; and, if you understand all those parables, there is one more; the scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household…

            So lets kill it all, shall we?  Because the evil one will tell us Jesus messed up, don’t listen to him.  What?  What did Jesus do?  Well, Jesus says that the mustard seed is the smallest seed and it grows into the greatest bush, a tree even.  Yah, and?  Well, the mustard seed is NOT the smallest seed and it does NOT grow into the greatest bush.  Yah, and?  Well, Jesus is wrong, therefore he is not God because God is not wrong, therefore we cannot believe him, therefore the Bible isn’t really true, therefore Christianity is a falsehood, therefore…believe something else…

            Wait…what?

            I kid you not.  I have seen that train of thought rushing down the tracks, over the cliff, and into the chasm of oblivion.  Everything that is laid out in these parables by our Lord Jesus Christ, all of them derailed, ignored, and made fun of because ‘an error’ was found. 

            So when we talk about the kingdom of heaven growing into a tree with shade that allows the birds of the air to come and nest, when we are talking about the kingdom of heaven being the forgiving rest we find in Jesus, the one in whom we can create lives of peace and joy, surrounded in the ever expanding grace of God, that is nonsense, because Jesus got his agricultural information WRONG.

            So when we talk about the kingdom of heaven being like leaven, being like yeast, which mixes into every part of the flour to cause the bread to rise, when we talk about how the love of Christ, filling us with faith, so that no corner of sin and evil and darkness is not forgiven and transformed by the light of Jesus, toss that out, because Jesus’ mustard bush isn’t the greatest, its not even a tree.

            So when we talk about the kingdom of heaven being like a treasure in a field, something so valuable that a person would hide it and joyfully sell all that they had to possess it, when we talk about the gift of salvation, the single most life changing event in the life of any person, that all is forgiven, that all is infused with the love of God, that the healing of eternal life overcomes all, crumple it up and throw it on the fires of disbelief, because the mustard seed is not the smallest.

            So when the kingdom of heaven is like the pearl merchant who sold all that he had in order to buy and possess that one, truly valuable pearl, when we, who have been searching for the truth to happiness, to find the meaning of life, to joyfully overturning that age old depressive query, “Is this all, is there nothing more?”, when we have found the answer to all of that in Jesus Christ, who loved us so much that he gave his life for us, drop it on the ground and crush it under foot because it’s just wrong.

            So when the kingdom of heaven is like the fishing net that catches up ALL the fish of the sea and they are sorted into the good and the bad, when, at the End of Time, we are all gathered up by the angels to be judged by the one who loves us, where the evil will be throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (We talked about this one a lot last Sunday), don’t believe a word of it…

            Then we read in verse 51, Jesus said to his disciples, “Have you understood all this?”, their positive reply is actually the response of a pack of deluded fools, cuz the spice-the mustard-is wrong.

            "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."  Every scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven, that is not a Seminary graduate.  This is every disciple that Jesus has taught, from the original twelve through every disciple in our congregation seeking to live the life that Jesus offers to us.  But in this case, bringing out the treasures we value, the old and the new, the joy of faith we have been raised in, the new things that we discover in Jesus perhaps every day, all of that is vanity, because Jesus spoke wrong.

            The idea that drives behind this entire deconstruction of what it means to be a Christian is that Jesus needs to be perfect, because Jesus is God, and because Jesus used the words “smallest of all the seeds”, which mustard is not, and “greatest of all the shrubs”, which mustard is not, then Jesus was wrong, therefore not perfect, therefore not God.  Therefore, all the rest of Christianity is wrong.

            Notice how this is not a point by point rebuttal of Christianity.  It is not like someone has taken the time and effort to consider what Jesus has said and put real thought into what might be a way of arguing against being a Christian.  No, the whole argument, it all hinges on doubt.  It all hinges on two words taken out of context and used as a weapon to sour the whole passage, the whole message of Jesus. 

            I believe the reason for this is because there IS not point by point rebuttal of Christianity.  There is not way to stand up to the plan of God and jab it full of holes.  Every parable that Jesus tells us today, every simile that he uses points up one more of the incredible, marvelous, most joyous truths of what it means to be a Christian.  So pick one verse and make a big noise to shake people’s faith. 

            It is a tool of the devil.  Go to Matthew 4: 1-11, where Satan tempts Jesus.  Satan carefully selects verses to undermine Jesus’ resolve.  But Jesus overcomes, verse for verse, because Jesus understands the whole message of the Bible.  

            So how do we understand the whole message of the Bible?  That’s a huge question, way bigger than arguing over a couple of words.  If you think this whole experiment in ‘word play’ is excessive, it ties into the belief that many hold that every word of the Bible is sacrosanct.  Every word is sacred, is truth, is fact, that there are no errors and no contradictions.  These are the people who have written entire books to explain around apparent contradictions. That is why the “Left Behind” series of books and movies did so well back around 2005, because the book of Revelations MUST be literal.  And why I have a book on my shelves called “The Institutes of Biblical Law” that outlines death penalties and punishments for the present church drawn from the words of the Bible.  From this Biblical interpretation, homosexuals and transgendered people are thrown out of the church, and Christians shout out that they should die. 

            This is the abuse of proof texting.  Somebody believes something and they go find the bible verses that back their belief.  Abused proof texting was used to justify slavery.  When done wrong, some children of God suffer.  When proof texting is done right, it draws from the whole truth of Scripture, not just the preferred bits.

            So what do we do with words like ‘smallest’ and ‘greatest’?  What do people do when they see me wearing a T-shirt that says “World’s Greatest Dad”?  I didn’t win a contest.  I didn’t even take the test.  It’s my kids telling me that they still think I’m pretty awesome.  It’s a device used in literature called ‘hyperbole’ to make a point by overstatement.  But its not the ‘language of perfection’, true enough.  But it is the language of how people talk to one another, and Jesus is translating the language of perfection into ways that we can understand. 

            What does the parable tell us?  That the kingdom of heaven is like the smallest seed-one man come down among us, and became the greatest tree-the biggest religion in the world, the biggest place for birds to come and build their nests-the biggest place for all those who respond to Jesus’ words from Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  I think we shared that verse a few weeks back.   

            What do each of these parables tell us?  They tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.  It is what we can expect from the faith, it is what the faith does in our lives, it is the preciousness of this one thing, the gift of grace by our Lord Jesus Christ, expressed in the forgiveness of our sins, in the gift of eternal life, that love of God, even as all else fades away.  It is, as the last parable tells us, that the kingdom of heaven is the netting of all the fish, of everyone, where the good and the evil will finally be sorted out.

            Because this is how we interpret the bible.  What is the whole message of Scripture-it is God’s plan for us?  What has Jesus taught us?  Done for us?  Continues to do for us?  We cannot fight the Word of God, so it gets bent, it gets twisted.  Take the eyes of Christians off the plan of God.  Get people obsessed about the End Times.  Get people ‘helping’ Jesus as judge by pointing out who deserves hell.  Find the ‘jot and tittle’ of Scripture that does not seem to make sense and build the case for why the Bible is, every word, a fact.  Basically, make the words of Scripture into an idol.       

            This is why people who nitpick the words of Jesus are so damaging.  In announcing that they have found an ‘error’ in the text, they bring doubt into the whole of God’s Word.     

            Be aware.  The Almighty has a plan that has been worked out through our Lord Jesus Christ.  It was accomplished at Easter.  Jesus uses these simile parables to lay out what this plan will accomplish, what it means for us and for the world.  Be aware that the devil will use whatever means necessary to throw us off message.  It could be as simple as twisting the words of one verse to kill an entire passage of wonder and joy.  It could be an attempt to do nothing less than create an idol of the very Word of God, to pull us off message, to pull us away from the joy of Christ and down such rabbit holes as End Times and Sin Theory.  It could be as simple as making us so tired of trying to move forward in our own journeys of faith because of everything else that is thrown in our paths.

            Know instead that we have found the one pearl of great value among all the others.  The love of God in our Lord Jesus Christ gathers us to rest in the shade of that one tree from that one seed.  To believe in Jesus is to provide a yeast, a leavening, that will permeate our entire existence, so that our whole lives are changed by the love and forgiveness of Jesus.  It is a treasure for each one of us to find and to embrace with our whole being.  In the end, all will be taken up by the angels and the good brought to the Lord.

            We are the scribes, the disciples, trained in what it means for the kingdom of heaven to be upon us.  May we take the old treasure, of a life lived in Christ, and the new treasure, the new understandings and joys and wonders we continue to find in Christ, and share it with a world that so needs the love and joy and wonder that we have found in our Savior.  Amen.