The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like...

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

    How would you complete Jesus’ sentence, “the kingdom of heaven is like (fill in the blank)?  Here’s an example I thought of this week.  The last week of school, our kindergartener came home with a pumpkin plant seedling in some dirt in a plastic cup.  You probably remember doing something similar, right? Starting the seed between moist paper towels to see how a seed opens, and then putting it in soil and sunlight to continue to learn about a plant’s life cycle?  Well, of course, we had to plant it at home.  The problem was, where to put it?  Our front yard doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, and is already landscaped.  Our backyard is the Nursery School playground. To be honest, I didn’t think too hard about it and let Grace pick the spot – a definitely not big enough spot on the side of our house by our driveway.  We planted it the end of June.  We have done nothing with it – no weeding, no water, no fertilizer.  We went on vacation for two weeks.  This picture is what we found when we got back – a giant pumpkin plant, with several blossoms, that is threatening to take over our driveway!  The kingdom of heaven for me this week, is like a pumpkin seed that a six-year-old planted in faith, hoping it would grow, not knowing exactly HOW it would grow.  Despite the odds of drought, heat, weeds, and neglect, grow it did.  God shows up in unlikely places, persistently growing faith in and among us despite the odds!  Where do you see signs of God’s kingdom among us?  What might the kingdom of heaven be like for you?
    In today’s gospel, Jesus gives five ordinary, everyday examples of what the kingdom of heaven is like:  a mustard seed that grows as big as a tree.  Yeast mixed in with three measures of flour, treasure hidden in a field worth selling all someone has, a merchant finding one pearl of great value, a net that catches fish of every kind.  I could preach a sermon on each one of these powerful examples.  I wonder, though, if we can do the same thing that Jesus does here and think of our own?  Where do we see signs of God’s kingdom breaking into our everyday, ordinary world?  Where does God’s Spirit give us encouragement and confirm God’s active presence among us?  What would you say that the kingdom of heaven is like?
    First of all, Jesus’ phrase, “the kingdom of heaven,” has a double meaning.  We can imagine what heaven is like in God’s eternal realm, of course.  What might heaven be like?  What are our loved ones experiencing who are already in heaven?  But even though Jesus uses the word heaven, he’s not just talking about waiting to see God’s kingdom in its fullness when we get to heaven after we die.  As a Jewish Christian, Matthew is particularly sensitive to using God’s name in vain. In the Jewish tradition of refraining from saying God’s name, Matthew changes Jesus’ phrase in the other gospels, “kingdom of God,” to “the kingdom of heaven.”  And in fact, Jesus is not talking about a certain place but rather the power and RULE of God as something we can experience anytime, anywhere.  
Understanding that background, then, Jesus’ teaching points us not just heavenward, but encourages us to look around and pay attention – to see God at work in the world today and every day, here and now.  And Jesus encourages us to imagine what the world would be like if God had God’s way – if we truly lived out the Lord’s prayer, “Your kingdom come, on Earth as it is in heaven.”  What would be different?  What might stay the same?  What is God calling us to do to bring God’s kingdom about here on Earth, as it is in heaven?  How might we look at our everyday experience differently, with eyes of faith?
One of the joys of being a pastor is being a regular collector of other people’s stories of how they have seen God at work in their lives in small and really big ways.  Just the other day, someone told me about a powerful experience they had of a sense of peace followed by three taps on her shoulder while she was hospitalized with a life-threatening condition.  I get to hear about coincidences that we as believers would say can’t simply be explained away as simply coincidences, or events happening just at the right time.  Then there are the simple, everyday experiences of God’s grace that even the most faithful of us might miss.  Yeast in bread.  A tiny seed growing into a large bush.  A fishing net full of fish of every kind.  A pumpkin plant that grows fruitfully and persistently despite the odds of where it was haphazardly planted.  In his teachings on the kingdom of heaven today, Jesus encourages us to take time and pay attention to the signs of God’s presence, power, and rule in our lives because we’re just moving too fast or trying to explain everything rationally away, to keep everything within our own control and limits rather than giving it over to God.
This week, I challenge you to be on the lookout, more intentionally, for signs of God’s kingdom active in your daily life.  What ordinary things help you receive and be aware of God’s growth, joy, the treasure we have in Christ, the mercy and justice of the Lord?  When have you, like yeast, like the mustard seed, experienced a small beginning with a great ending?  When have you felt called to value both the old and the new, as Jesus teaches at the end of our gospel for today?  When has God’s presence surprised you in the unexpected of both good and bad?  Maybe it would even be a helpful spiritual practice to meditate on a different phrase from our gospel lesson each day this week.  Tomorrow, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed – just sit with that phrase in reflection, and then the next day like yeast and so on.  In paying attention to the kingdom of heaven among us, we like that merchant, will find our deepest treasure.  Amen.