God Here and Now
30 July 2023
Proper 12A
Said Mass with Hymns 9:00 a.m.
Parish Church of St. Mark the Evangelist, Medford (Oregon)
The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b or Psalm 128; Romans 8:26-39;
Matt 13:31-33, 42-52
God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen
What would the world look like if things were as they ought to be, if God were
truly in charge, right here, right now? What does the Reign of God, or as
Matthew puts it, the “Heavenly Domain,” look like? Jesus regularly asked
himself this question. He tells parables to try to get at the
matter. We heard several today: the
Mustard Plant, the Yeast, the Hidden Treasure, the Costly Pearl, and the
Dragnet.
What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now? The people around Jesus gave various answers: The Sadducees and Herodians said things were already as they ought to be: they were part of the powers that be, controllers of the Temple and collaborators with the Romans, wealthy and happy. How could God’s Reign be any different? The Essenes argued that the world would not be set to right until their kooky little sect had conquered the world by force of arms in an apocalyptic struggle between the Sons of Light (them) and the Sons of Darkness (everybody else). The Zealots thought it would come through violent revolt against the Roman occupiers and a return to an independent Jewish state. The Pharisees taught that it lay only in personal piety, scripture study and prayer, and putting a fence around the law so as to separate Jews from gentiles more and more.
Jesus’ parables give a different answer. They grab you and throw you for a loop—demand a change of perspectives and expectations.
God here and now, in charge—It’s like a mustard plant: a tiny seed that produces a huge plant, growing in unusual places, unplanned, apart from human control. It does not measure up to the usual ordered, stately images for God’s kingdom—vineyards, olive trees, or the great cedar tree, which in Ezekiel shelters the wild birds in its branches. For Jesus, the birds seek shelter in a huge volunteer weed.
God here and now, in charge—is like a woman who stirs in a couple of spoonfuls of sourdough starter into three measures—about fifty pounds—of flour. With a little time, that huge amount of dough is raised. God in charge is not the pure, unleavened bread kosher for Passover, but the impure bread of ordinary life, bread produced by adding rotten corruption to the flour. God in charge is not the holy work of male priests, but the ordinary domestic work of women!
God here and now, in charge—is like a peasant working someone else’s field who uncovers a treasure hidden there. Excited, he reburies it, and then scrapes together everything he has so he can purchase the field and its contents. The field worker, not the land-owner, finds the treasure: usually only those getting their hands dirty in work are the ones who know its details enough to recognize its surprises. This is not about legal title, but finders, keepers. No matter how hard it is to scrape together the necessary capital to buy the field, the peasant does it since his glimpse of the treasure was so wonderful. And his peasant smarts show—he doesn’t tell anyone else about the treasure until he has clear title to the land.
God here and now, in charge—is like a drag-net that catches all sorts of fish. It is not selective or discriminating. It works below the surface, hidden, and catches everything it touches. St. Matthew, ever on the lookout for ways to regularize some of Jesus’ more “anti-religious” statements, has added the comment about sorting good and bad fish on the shore. But Jesus’ original point was that God in charge is overwhelmingly inclusive, uncontrollable, and, despite its seeming messiness, wholly reliable and worthy of trust and hope.
God here and now, in charge—is like a jewel merchant who finds the most perfect pearl he has ever seen. Like the peasant, he sells everything he has in order to purchase the prize. Not only dispossessed field hands can find a treasure. Those accustomed to trading in fine things can as well. Maybe even the religious, maybe even the pious and observant—those who are often the butt of the jokes found in Jesus’ parables—may yet encounter God, and be permanently changed. But the cost for them is just as high as for the dispossessed.
The point is developed by Matthew who adds a similitude almost certainly with an autobiographical edge as yet another parable on the lips of Jesus: Like a religious scholar or scribe who should be looking only to old things, the kingdom brings in new ones as well. It’s like some owner of a dream home who likes to show off not only his new and faddish acquisitions, but the old tried and true ones as well.
Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom emphasize the presence of God in everyday life—glorious messy everyday life. They stress the utter strangeness of God in what we are used to. In these stories, we encounter abundance, joy, the fulfillment of human desire and the turning of tables on the oppressor. We have heard these parables so often, we don’t actually listen to them.
So here are some parables I have written to make the same shocking points Jesus intends in his.
God here and now, in charge is like a woman who buys a dollar lottery ticket. Not expecting to win, she doesn’t even check the results for a few days. But when she does, she learns she has not only won, but won big: 10 million dollars. She is so shocked she falls down and can’t talk for a few minutes.
God here and now, in charge is like a man who gets a bad tattoo. After several years of being unhappy every time he sees it, he goes into an ink shop and asks if they can fix old, bad tattoos. One of the artists is an expert in repair and redesign, but it costs a lot. The man gets excited, and goes and refinances his house to get the money together. After many hours of pain in the chair, the man looks at the magic the artist has wrought, using the old defective ink-work as ground for and part of a larger piece. The result is beautiful, much better than even what the man had originally imagined when he got the first tattoo. He is so happy with it that he constantly tries to find occasions where wear short sleeves so he can show it off.
God here and now, in charge is like a woman in the process of a nasty divorce. Her abusive husband has hired the better lawyer, and she is about to lose almost everything. But in sorting through things that the husband couldn’t be bothered to look at, she finds the old coin collection he inherited from his father a few years after their marriage and which he has never bothered to even look at. She notices a couple of coins that look rare and checks up on them. They are worth more than all their other assets combined. So she says nothing, puts the coin collection on her ledger in the agreement, which the ex-husband signs happily. She never has to worry about finances, or he abusive ex, again.
God here and now, in charge: abundance, surprise, and a call to joyfully give up what alienates us from God and from each other.
I invite us all this week in our prayer and meditation to ask how we think things would be if God were truly in charge and things were as they ought to be. Picture it, savor it. Listen to Jesus’ parables of the kingdom, and let us use our imaginations to try to come with some of our own. And may we pray for joyful open eyes to see clearly God at work in the world about us. May we pray and live, “your kingdom, your will be done, on earth as in heaven” and get out of the way of the Kingdom coming. May we know the abundant joy of God coming here and now, fully in charge. May we live the happy news that Jesus proclaimed.
In the name of God, Amen.
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