The Kingdom of Heaven

By the Rev. Eric O. Ledermann July 24, 2011 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time First Presbyterian Church, San Bernardino, CA

Romans 8.26-39
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.
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And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against Gods elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us
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from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor 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.

Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

He put before them another parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it 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. 33He 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. 44 The kingdom of heaven is like
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treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. 47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the

age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 51Have you understood all this? They answered, Yes. 52And he said to them, 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.

The kingdom of heaven is like a preacher, who preaches to a congregation of 25 people in a city of two million. The preacher kept on preaching until the
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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

whole city believed the gospel.1 This is a modern day example of the kind of parable Jesus might tell us. It is based on real experience, especially when we consider that more than half of the congregations in the United States have fewer than 100 members. Yet, it is also unreal in that somehow the preacher can change the hearts of two million people by only preaching to 25 each week.

The mustard seed is a very tiny seed, but the plant is a garden herb: depending on where it is grown it is only between 2 feet and 6 feet tall, and certainly does not have branches like an oak tree or any other tree. It is an herb. In the Gospel of Mark, the author has Jesus saying the tiny seed becomes the greatest of all shrubs. A lot closer to the truth. But Matthew makes it into a tree. What is Matthew saying about the kingdom of heaven? What is Matthew saying about God?

And yeast is more often used in scripture as a symbol for corruptionit ruins the flour, it breeds and spoils that which it touches. Not only that, three measures of flour is enough to feed over 100 people! The proportions are enormous and it is only one woman doing this? Add to the fact that in the original Greek, the yeast is not mixed in with the flour, it is hidden in with three measures of
M. Eugene Boring, The Gospel of Matthew in The New Interpreters Bible: A Commentary in Twelve Volumes, Leander E. Keck, ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 311.
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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

flour. The kingdom of heaven is hidden, but still there. It does not take much, either, to change a whole lot of flour.

Doug Adams, former Professor of Christianity and the Arts at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, took the absurdity of the yeast parable even further. He wrote: For a first-century Jew the type of bread symbolizing the kingdom of heaven was the unleavened bread of the Passover Seder service, which father took and gave to them as they remembered the exodus. One would spend the month before the Passover sweeping out the house symbolically and literally to get rid of any leaven. In the popular mind, yeastor leavenhad become a symbol of the polluted or immoral life; therefore, one aimed to live the unleavened life. For Jesus to say the kingdom of heaven is like yeast is to say it is like an immoral thing. Perhaps he is going to clean it up? No; for that immoral thing is then taken not by a man but by a woman (who would not even be allowed in a place of worship in first-century Judaism). She then puts it in fifty pounds of pure meal until the whole thing is leavened; that is, until the whole thing is immoral. So the kingdom of heaven is an immoral thing taken by a person not allowed in worship and put into a huge quantity of pure meal until the whole things is immoral.2

Douglas Adams, The Prostitute in the Family Tree: Discovering Humor and Irony in the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p. 25-26.
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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

Parables are to make us think. Jesus often used hyperbole and strange examples to jar peoples thinking away from the ordinary and consider, even for a moment, the extraordinary. Both of parables of the mustard seed and yeast, plus the one with the preacher, are examples of how small, ordinary things, in the kingdom of heaven become large, life-giving things. In the kingdom of God, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. In the kingdom, nothing is impossible. In Pauls words from his letter to the church in Rome: all things work together for good for those who love God.

In other words, God is actively engaged in the work of the kingdom, and is actively working to change the hearts and minds of Gods children to realize the immediate presence of the one who loves us beyond measure. We are being leavened with yeast, the growing and multiplying love of God. We are the shrubs, the herbs, that will grow strong enough to be shelter for those who need it, even beyond our natural ability to do so.

I have come to realize that the kingdom of heaven, despite many of the images we have been given of it being a grandiose place, maybe even far away or in another dimension of existence, is right there all the time, under our noses,
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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

hidden in plain site. It is the mustard seed (the smallest of all seeds) that grows into a shrub; it is the yeast that can turn fifty pounds of flour into something else; it is the treasure sitting there in a field waiting to be discovered; it is the one and perfect pearl you have spent your whole life seeking after. The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, is the place where God resides. It is when we are able to finally open our eyes and see how extraordinary the ordinary really is.

The kingdom of God is as near to us as the breaking of bread together. We share in our communion every month, the Eucharist as it is sometimes called (which means to give thanks)with our meals we give thanks to the one who provides, the one who guides us, and the one is with us all the time. The kingdom of God is as near to us as the plants we have in our gardens, which give fragrance and color to our worlds, but which we so often take for granted. The kingdom of God is here on earth as it is in heaven.

I posted on my blog this week some musings about how my understanding of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven (terms used interchangeably in scripture) has shifted over time. Some of the comments people posted were a lot of fun to read, and very insightful. I also received a number of e-mail responses (in other words, these folks chose to send me a private email rather than post
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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

their comments publicly on my blog). One was particularly insightful, from our own Chuck DuClos. I asked him if I could share part of it, and he agreed. He wrote: I see mankind looking, striving, yearning for perfection and completeness, as perfection is in our relationship with our Heavenly Father with whom (hopefully) I walk daily. Heaven is a component of this relationship that I live now... As we seek to understand who we are, we also often seek to understand who we are in relationship to the rest of the world. In God we find our completeness. In our relationship with God we find our place. In so doing, we discover heaven that place or state of existence wherein we discover our true selves as God intends. We realize we are not unleaven bread, but leaven bread, full of holes, but it is those holes that make us human. We realize we are small, but very much a part of the landscape of creation and an integral part of it.

We realize that no matter where we are or what were doing, no matter our position in life, 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. We begin realize that not only do we matter, not only does God love us

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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.

beyond measure, we also realize that God is alive and infused in us as much as yeast was infused with the flour. We realize that even as the mustard plant is a part of the landscape of all creation and that God cares about that mustard plant, so we, too, are a part of this creation and an important part of it. We begin to realize how interconnected everything is and how interdependent we all really are with every other thing on earth. We begin to realize that the kingdom of heaven is as far away as our own hearts and minds, as far away as the person sitting next to us. Then we may realize that God has given us the ultimate freedom: to choose to live in that kingdom with God, or not. For we do have a choiceGod gives us a choice. But, we must live the consequences of that choiceto live in the kingdom of God here on earth, or not. While nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, for it is always with us even when we are unable to see it, to live in the kingdom is a conscious choice to be the people God has created us to be, and to grow into the people God knows we can be. What will you choose today, tomorrow, or the next day?

And may Gods will be done here on earth as in heaven.

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2011 The Rev. Eric O. Ledermann, San Bernardino, CA. All rights reserved.