The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Durrell Watkins at
the Sunshine Cathedral on
Sunday, July 27, 2008.
When my great-aunt Gladys turned 80, she decided it was time for a new
lease on life. I didn’t realize how serious she was about it until I called
her one day and heard this message on her answering machine. The message said,
“I am not available right now, but thank you very much for your call. I can’t
come to the phone because I’m making some changes in my life, so leave a
message. If I don’t return your call, you’re one of the changes.”
We may need to make some changes today; we may need to change the way we
think about ourselves. We may need, as Solomon did, to pray for understanding
so that we will learn of our enormous potential and sacred value.
Matthew 13 is full of parables. All throughout chapter 13, we’ve been
hearing about this counter-kingdom, this non-empire, this kin-dom or kingdom
of heaven. This kingdom is universal, embracing everyone, bringing wholeness
and dignity to all people without exception. In the kingdom of God, there are
no untouchables, no one is unlovable, and no one is beyond the experience of
grace.
How is the kin-dom of God different from the power structures of the world?
The kin-dom of God or “heaven” is like one who sows good seed into good
ground, reaping a bountiful harvest.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a wheat farm that some miscreant contaminated
with a lot of weeds. But the weeds and the wheat can be harvested together and
then the weeds will be separated from the wheat.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a mustard seed… it’s tiny, but once it takes
root it continues to grow and thrive outrageously.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field. If someone
where to somehow stumble across the treasure she might sell everything she had
so she could buy the field and see what other treasures were buried in it.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a jeweler who comes across an exquisite pearl
who then goes to great lengths to be able to own that pearl.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a net that is thrown into the sea, which
collects fish of every kind. When the net is full, the fishers haul it ashore
and put the good fish into buckets and throw the unwanted fish back.
What is Matthew trying to say? I’m sure you’ve heard these passages
interpreted to mean that some people are embraced by God and others are
discarded. The good seeds that go into good ground give a 100-fold return, but
the seeds that land on rocky or shallow ground just don’t make it. The wheat
and the weeds are harvested together but the only the wheat is saved; the
weeds are tossed into a fire. The fish are all snatched up, but only the good
ones are keepers, the bad ones are rejected.
But in the midst of these stories, there are two other ones… about a
treasure, and a pearl. They are all connected as if they are sharing a
message, and that leads me to believe that exclusionary interpretations where
some of us are chosen by God and others are tossed away are not the point
Matthew is trying to make.
I think of how often Matthew makes the case that those who have been
rejected by society, in fact have a home in the kin-dom of heaven.
You see, in the Roman Empire, people were disposable. Rebels could be
publicly executed, as Jesus was. Children weren’t considered persons. People
could be sold into slavery. Women had no status apart from a father or
husband. In an imperial system, some people are disposable; but the Jesus Way
is a clear alternative to that system.
The Jesus Way offers the Kingdom, or Kin-dom of God over against the way of
empire. And the Kin-dom, the family of God is a utopian ideal wherein everyone
would be valued and everyone would be affirmed and everyone would be treated
with compassion and respect. The kin-dom of heaven is a life of love that
leaves no one out.
I remember Matthew telling us about Jesus’ lineage. He is very careful to
remind us that his ancestors include Tamar who prostituted herself in order to
have a baby. Jesus’ ancestors include Ruth, the Moabite… the Moabites were the
enemies of the Israelites. Rahab, another prostitute, was another of Jesus’
ancestors. Bathsheba was one of Jesus’ ancestors who was seduced by King David
and conceived a child while her husband Uriah was serving in the military. And
Jesus’ own mother became pregnant by some means other than with her fiancé,
Joseph.
The ancients made a point of sharing genealogies because to know one’s
ancestry said something about the person in question. Jesus, the one Matthew
insists is the Messiah, is the descendant of two prostitutes, a Moabite pagan,
an adulterous union between David and Bathsheba, and a mother who conceives
out of wedlock, and HE is the Messiah. Who would ever be excluded from THIS
Good News? The people others would judge or condemn are the ones God chooses
as the lineage of the Messiah! And that’s how Matthew opens his gospel.
In chapter 2, Matthew shows us some Persian astrologers, priests of a cult
who worshiped a fire-god and who used occult practices to predict the future.
These Persian astrologers or Magi, just as they are find the Messiah, offer
him gifts, and then, just as they are, return to their homeland and to their
own religion.
Matthew says that a leper approached Jesus and asked him for healing; and
Jesus immediately stretched out his hand and touched him. According to Jesus’
religion, he couldn’t touch someone with leprosy, that would make HIM unclean,
but he touched the untouchable and affirmed his dignity and recognized his
wholeness regardless of what his religion said.
In Matthew chapter 8, a Roman centurion who would have been a member of the
imperial cult, a Roman pagan involved in emperor worship comes to Jesus to
have him heal his male companion, his “servant”.
The Greek word that Matthew uses is “pais” and would have been understood
to have a romantic implication. And Jesus not only heals the pagan centurion’s
male lover he also praises his faith!
Later, Jesus went to a local ruler’s house. The ruler’s daughter was
thought to be dead, but Jesus touched her and restored life within her; but
again, in Jesus’ tradition, if he had touched a dead body that would have
contaminated him. But he broke the rules to affirm life and dignity. The love
of Jesus is a radically inclusive love that up-ends the status quo and lifts
up every human being.
These are the stories that lead up to Matthew 13 and these parables. This
is the Jesus Matthew has been presenting to us. This Jesus isn’t saving a few
and rejecting others! This Jesus isn’t saying, “Everyone in OUR club is OK and
everyone else is screwed.” This Jesus is proclaiming a kin-dom whose law is
love and whose defense is hope. It is a kin-dom of good news for ALL people,
especially for those who have so far been left out.
So what do these parables mean? They aren’t about casting people out; they
are about bringing in and lifting up the people who have been left out!
The kin-dom of heaven is like when we sow positive thoughts into a
receptive consciousness that then produces 30, 60, even 100 times more hope,
goodwill, and peace than what we started with. The more we practice optimism,
the more reasons to be optimistic seem to show up. There is hope for everyone.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a mind full of thoughts and feelings, wheat
and weeds, positive and negative. But when we bundle them all up, when we
examine our thoughts and feelings, we can discard the ones that are dragging
us down and holding us back; we can choose to keep only the thoughts of love
and hope and joy. There is abundant life for everyone.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a mustard seed… it’s small, but properly
planted in the right place will produce a plant that will flourish. The
tiniest dream nurtured with hope and determination can grow into huge dream,
and then into a blessed reality. There are dreams to be dreamed by everyone.
The kin-dom of heaven is like a treasure… once you find that within
yourself there is the very presence of God then you will give anything to live
in the power of that realization. You no longer possess the treasure, it
possesses …it is YOU.
You’ve given away everything unlike the treasure so that you can live in
the bounty of It, the positive outlook, the joyful attitude. It is the pearl
you have been looking for, and now that you have found it, you won’t let the
condemnations and fears and judgments of others take it away from you, ever.
There is affirmation for everyone.
In The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Don’t throw your pearls before
swine… they’ll just trample them and then turn and tear you to pieces.” And
here in chapter 13, the pearl metaphor is used again. These stories aren’t
saying that some of us will be thrown away; they are telling us to throw away
any attitude that prevents us from celebrating the truth of God’s love for us,
in us, expressing as us.
The kin-dom of God is a place where every person is a neighbor, and every
neighbor is treated with dignity, and every person knows himself or herself to
be a child of God, an heir of the universal kin-dom of infinite Good.
Keep the affirming thoughts, the thoughts and attitudes that build up, that
inspire, that give hope, that offer joy, keep that wheat, keep that harvest,
keep those delicious fish, keep that treasure, that pearl of great price, and
discard whatever is preventing you from knowing that YOU cannot be discarded!
You are a person of sacred and eternal value. Don’t throw the pearl of your
innate goodness to the swine — the fears and prejudices and resentments.
Discover the pearl of your being and treasure it and celebrate it and never
settle for anything less. This is what Jesus is telling us. This is the good
news! Amen.