A Tale of Two Cities

Gospel: Matthew 13: 31-35

Do the kingdoms of the world compare themselves to tiny seeds and bits of yeast?  Not at all! To provide marketing and communications for a worldly kingdom is to traffic in hyperbole, comparing the earthly realm to whatever is biggest, most powerful, influential, and affluent.  This is done in order to evoke fear, respect, obedience, and conformity.  It is a world where lies, exaggeration, and violence are the commerce around without which the realm could not exist.

Jesus, however, compares the kingdom of God to a tiny mustard seed and bits of yeast - small, fragile, vulnerable things that, if cultivated, will produce great things.  Jesus seeks to evoke something entirely different from the message of the world about its kingdoms.  The kingdom of God is one that nurtures, nourishes, shelters, and invites all to seek refuge and food.  In using these images of nature, Jesus also reminds us that God's kingdom is in fact God's. It is not of human origin or control.  

If religious institutions traffic in images of power and engage in lies, it is a sure bet their kingdom is one Jesus rejected in a desert long ago.  The kingdom of heaven and the church are not synonymous terms.  The church is called to be the kingdom of heaven and model its values, and when it fails to do so the kingdom of heaven is still here, for it dwells within each one of us called to live its values. 

A Wide Net, An Open Table

 

Gospel: Matthew 13: 44-52

"The kingdom of God is like a net dragged across the sea taking in whatever is in its path." What is of value in this net can be somewhat subjective and relative.  We might think all the fish are of value for we can eat them, until you come across one that you cannot eat.  We might think an old tire is of no value, but someone else sees it useful as a tree swing or garden planter.  And what is of value to God is far different from our understandings of value, we who have our jealousies, hatreds, feuds, and wars.  

Many would like to do the work of sorting out the valuable and non-valuable, and how many mistakes would they make! How many others might find us of no value to them? Many would like to make the net more narrow and only take in a few things they could control. This is the movement of the small church, a place where rejoicing takes place every time another person leaves.  

But the kingdom is not small and narrow.  It is a large net, it is a vast table open to all.  It is a net and a table that do not belong to me or anyone else.  We are stewards of these things, and we have been told to cast the net wide and to go into the highways and byways to admit as many to the table as possible.  

Martha's Faith

Gospel: John 11: 19-27

Today's feast of St. Martha bring us to the tomb of Lazarus and the interaction between Martha and Jesus.  What is remarkable about this encounter is the great faith Martha possesses: she wants her brother to be alive, but accepts whatever Jesus will say and do in this moment.  Then, an even more remarkable thing happens: Martha makes the same expression of faith Peter did earlier in the Gospel.

What distinguishes her profession of faith are two things.  First, she makes it for the sake of another, for the sake of her brother Lazarus, not expecting anything but God's will.  Second, this profession of faith leads to the raising of her brother to new life, a sign of Jesus' future resurrection and our own! It foreshadows the faith of other women at the tomb of Jesus believing in the resurrection, the first to witness it and the first to proclaim it.

Jesus brings together women and men to profess the same faith and to belong to the same community of faith without distinction, an entirely new thing in the ancient world.  That we have failed to do so from the beginning is not a mere accident or negligence; it has been intentional and deliberate, for Jesus' vision is a threat to power in religion and wider society.  May the faith of Martha lead us to resurrection now and at the hour of our death.