Demanding Signs

Gospel: Matthew 12: 38-42

In today's Gospel portion, the Scribes and Pharisees demand to see a sign from Jesus in order for them to find reason to believe in him.  We might well wonder what type of sign they seek, what would satisfy them.  For, up to this point they have seen Jesus heal sicknesses of all kinds, liberate people from demonic possession, raise people from the dead, and multiply bread and fish in order to feed multitudes of hungry people in a desolate area.  

These signs are all well and good if you want to help people, but that is not what interests them.  They are in search of a Messiah who will wield political and military power in order to drive out the Roman occupiers and restore the kingdom of Israel.  They want to see signs that demonstrate that kind of power.  They have read the meta-narrative of Israel's history and came to a certain conclusion about who the Messiah ought to be and what sort of signs should accompany his arrival in the world.

But Jesus invites us to read the narrative differently.  Recall one of his first miracles was the healing of a slave in the employ of a Roman centurion.  Jesus invites us to see that the family of God is not a particular race of people, but one that is open to all.  The signs of the kingdom of God, the signs of the coming Messiah - the healings, exorcisms, and providing of food for all people - invite us all to the same work and the same table.

Here, and To Come

Gospel: Matthew 13: 24-43

Jesus provides us with three parables that give us an important insight into the kingdom of God.  These are: the parable of the wheat and weeds. the parable of the mustard seed, and the parable of the yeast and leaven.  Each of the parables shows us that the kingdom of God is present among us and yet not fully realized.  The kingdom is small and humble among us.  It requires time and patience for the kingdom to grow.  It also requires our cooperation and effort in cultivating seeds and kneading yeast into dough.

At the same time our cooperation is limited to cultivation and nurturing efforts.  Jesus rejects the idea of violence in these parables.  The workers are not to go into the vineyard recklessly seeking to root out weeds.  The wheat and weeds are allowed to grow side by side, and in God's time the weeds will the dealt with.  This admonition is a rebuke to revolutionaries and proponents of violence in every age.  The kingdom is God's work, not our own.  

The kingdom is here among us.  It is within each person and by extension present in the larger world.  The kingdom requires our efforts of cultivation and nurturing, not our violence, in order to grow and flourish.  For while the kingdom is here, it is still yet to be fully realized within our souls and within the larger world.  The kingdom is God's, and the work for its growth and development is also God's.  Lord, may your kingdom come within us, and within the world.   

Keeping it Quiet

Gospel: Matthew 12: 14-21

Today's Gospel portion reminds us that with every healing miracle of Jesus comes with it the admonition to tell no one about it.  The kingdom of God is not about fanfare and bluster.  It has no need of public relations firms, advertising agencies, consulting firms, and media empires.  The work of the kingdom speaks for itself.  The works of mercy reflect the values of the Beatitudes: they are about mercy, meekness, purity of heart, justice and peace for others.  It is not about us.

Yet, we just can't help ourselves.  We have to have our "witnessing" and our "evangelizing", neither of which are about building the kingdom of God on earth.  These things are about building a kingdom for ourselves, a kingdom predicated on our own ego, on the accumulation of wealth, property, political power, and influence.  Jesus was about none of these things.  He rejected all of that in the desert of temptation, and after doing so gave us the Eight Beatitudes.  

As individual followers of Jesus and as communities of faith, we have a choice.  We can build our own kingdoms as we have been doing for centuries.  Or we can be about the kingdom of God where we go about healing others, liberating people from their demons, and nourishing people at table.  Asking for no credit, giving thanks to God alone in solitude, and moving on to the next place to carry out the ministry of Jesus - the ministry of mercy and reconciliation.