Romans 8:26-39, Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
“Have you understood all this?” That’s the question Jesus asks at the end of his rapid fire parables about the kingdom of heaven. And the response he gets is a definitive “Yes.” But I question that certainty. Because parables are not by nature truth statements that you hear one time and all of a sudden “get it.” Instead they are stories that invite the listener to explore, to wonder, to see things from different perspectives. Given that, Jesus’ question seems like a bit of a set up. He even seems to goad his listeners into a knee-jerk affirmative answer by making his query on the heels of the rather alarming wrap up, “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth…Have you understood all this?”
No pressure. There’s not that much riding on your understanding of the kingdom of heaven, only eternal torment. But if you are not sure that you belong among the righteous, feel free to admit it. Come on. Of course his listeners are going t0 claim understanding - they’re scared! And almost universally, when we get scared, what we do is we cling to certainty. Curiosity and learning are all well and good when we feel safe and comfortable, but when we feel threatened all of that goes out the window. We want security. We want to feel safe. We want certainty.
Which leads to all sorts of trouble in both our common and private lives. Take any hot-button issue of our time: climate, immigration, abortion, racism. Or think about issues in your own life that cause conflict. Dig deep and likely you’ll find a common theme: Fear. We get scared. Something is being threatened - our sense of order or safety or way of life or identity. Bottom line, when we feel threatened we don’t want thoughtful, nuanced dialogue. We don’t want parables that make us lean in and ponder, and consider things from a new point of view. We don’t want that because it feels like there is too much at stake, like it was for Jesus’ listeners. So we seek certainty. We grab onto whatever position lines up with our pre-existing notions, convince ourselves that we’ve been right all along and demand that it’s others who need to change. We hold onto certainty for all it’s worth because it feels safe, secure, familiar.
Surely Jesus knows this about us. Likely that’s the point of his question. He’s exposing our human tendency to latch on to baseless certainty in the face of fear. But as he does this he’s also challenging that very instinct through the parables he has just told.
Do you get the irony? All of the stories about what the kingdom of heaven is like are the opposite of certainty. They are all about surprise, hiddenness, and the violation of expectations. A mustard seed that is barely the size of a head of a pin grows into a massive bush. Yeast mixed in with flour isn’t noticed until it transforms the dough into something that can feed a multitude. The treasure hidden in a field has an unexpected twist of deception. The finder keeps the discovery quiet until he can buy the field for himself. And then there's the parable of the pearl. A jewel that is created by a shellfish, something God has declared unclean. And not only that, this thing of beauty starts out as an irritation. When we finally get to the parable of the fish perhaps we shouldn't be surprised about the net that gathers everything in its way - good and bad are all jumbled together.
That seems to be Jesus's understanding of the kingdom. It's messy. It's hidden. It's surprising. It may even include people we think don't belong. In other words, it's anything but predictable and certain. Jesus doesn't come to make us feel safe and secure. He doesn't come to proclaim a reign in which God organizes everything in its proper place and we get to understand all the “hows” and “whys" and never feel confused or shaken or out of our depth. When Jesus asks us if we understand we aren't supposed to say “Yes.” Instead we're supposed to practice the work of the scribes that Jesus references at the end of our reading. The “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom…who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”
New and old together is a metaphor of growth, of learning, of change. We value the old, the familiar, the things we already know. And God also calls us to value the new, the unexpected. To be open to what God is doing now which may be something different from before. This is hard for any of us to practice but especially when we feel scared, when what’s comfortable and familiar is threatened. Nonetheless, this is our call as followers of Christ and life in the kingdom of heaven.
Verna Dozier, a leading African American Episcopal theologian of the 2oth century put it this way, the “Kingdom of God…calls us to risk. We always see through a glass darkly and that is what faith is about. I will live by the best I can discern today. Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong. Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong.”
Since we, as followers of Christ, do not live by being right or certain or having everything figured out, we are not destroyed by being wrong or surprised or unsure. In fact, when we do get it wrong, when life feels insecure, we when we are scared we can take that as our cue to turn to the only thing that is ultimately safe and sure and true as promised to us in our reading from the book of Romans.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The love of God is our security. The love
of God is our certainty. When that is certain we do not need to claim perfect
understanding. Instead, we can be open to the surprises, the hiddenness, the
upending of expectations that is a part of God’s kingdom. Because not even
death, nor rulers, nor threats of the uncertain can do us any real harm.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Of that we can be certain.
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