“He told them another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like…”

Already, and not yet.

This is theology-speak for how Christians describe the Kingdom of God/Dream of God (I use these terms interchangeably). It’s a phrase that addresses Jesus’ Gospel declarations that the Kingdom is near, or within us, while simultaneously pointing us toward a future time of final judgment and reconciliation of all things–“Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven.” The Dream of God is both already and not yet, and that is the between-time in which we live. In this between-time we seek the Kingdom; sometimes we glimpse it, sometimes we don’t. When we do, we rejoice. When we don’t, we continue to work toward the it and we wait for it–for that day when justice and mercy will reign on the earth. We seek, we work, we wait, we hope. Already and Not Yet. 

The parables of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel that we have heard for the past three weeks, articulate the Already and the Not Yet. They are part of a broader discourse by Jesus that addresses three issues: The mixed response to Jesus’ message, addressed by the Parable of the Sower who scattered seed on different kind of soil with different results; the actions of the Evil One in hindering the Gospel message, addressed in the parables of the good and the bad seed that were allowed to grow together, and of the net of good and bad fish; and finally the appropriate responses to encounters with the Kingdom, which are addressed in the parables of the yeast, the mustard seed, the merchant and the pearl, and the treasure hidden in a field. 

The Lectionary for this week and last has deconstructed the last two thirds of this discourse and reassembled it out of order. This may be so that we will have extra time to ponder the weeping and teeth-gnashing elephant of judgment in the room, so we will attend to it first. And for this, as always, context is important.

Matthew wrote to the followers of the Way of Jesus when they were still recovering from the relatively recent destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 C.E. We’ve talked about this before, but it’s important to remember because this was the type of political situation addressed by the genre of apocalyptic literature, which exhibits certain major characteristics: It responds to a community’s longing for justice against an unrighteous oppressor; the longing is directed toward the Divine in expectation of Divine action; the community knows that it must wait for an indeterminate amount of time for said Divine action; and finally, the community trusts that when said Divine Action comes, it will be weeping-and-teeth-gnashingly retributive.

Matthew’s parables about the good and bad seed and the net of good and bad fish are characteristically apocalyptic. His audience yearns for a kingdom of justice in which the unrighteous receive their just desserts, but he reminds them that God’s final judgment and its timing are something they cannot know, but are something in which they can trust.

Apocalyptic texts make for uncomfortable listening in present-day churches. But that’s part of the nature of the Not Yet. It’s our vocation to wait and work for final unfolding of the Dream of God, but it is not ours to know what it will look like, whether it will involve teeth-gnashing or heavenly banqueting or something else entirely. We do not know, but how we respond to the prospect of the Not Yet–whether in anxiety or hope–is something that can frame, and be framed by, how we respond to the Already.

Matthew’s other parables in this discourse are about the Already.

I have a colleague who despises preaching about parables. I sympathize with him in that their cryptic nature yields a sometimes hair-tearing degree of interpretation, reinterpretation, misinterpretation, allegory and symbolism. And it can be especially frustrating if all of that deep diving ultimately doesn’t speak to listeners yearning to hear a word to feed their souls. 

I confess that this is exactly the question that has been weighing on my heart this week. How do these parables of yeast and mustard, treasure and pearl, speak to the very real fragile moments in our lives? How do these parables of the Dream of God speak within the confines of the hospital room? The graveside? The broken relationship? The unfulfilled yearning? We often focus on political/historical context of Gospel audiences, broad brushes of larger events. But how is God present in the Already of yeast and mustard, treasure and pearl, for those who hurt on a deeply personal level and whose only prayers are sighs too deep for words? Do these parables speak to them beyond symbolism and allegory?

Hebrew Bible scholar Amy-Jill Levine’s take on the parables is helpful here, methodically cutting through what she sees as overwrought interpretation to reveal a deceptive simplicity that is balm for the soul. For example, concerning the birds in the mustard seed parable, she writes, 

“…there is no immediate reason to think that the birds of the parable are anything more than birds…Not all egrets are Egyptians or sparrows Spartans. Sometimes a seed is just a seed, a bird is just a bird, and a tree is just a tree.”

Mustard seed and yeast; each tiny but not, as some say, insignificant. Each contains within it the God-present potential for abundance that needs only the agency of the sower or the baker in order to do what it does naturally. The mustard plant was known for its curative qualities and the birds (that are just birds) could shelter in its branches. The yeast, hidden in a ridiculous amount of flour, would feed the entire community. These tiny things, once grasped and activated (and that moment of initiative is a crucial point), are left alone to do what they would do naturally. The Dream of God, then, is hidden even in small things, waiting to be seen and grasped in the hope and expectation that they will yield abundantly. So, for the suffering one, the smallest kindness, the extended hand, the first bit of good news, the fact of making it through the day–or the hour–this is where we find the Dream of God hidden– in these tiny things–and no one had better dare call them insignificant. 

…so, is a pearl just…a pearl? The parables of the treasure hidden in the field and of the pearl merchant take us into different territory. The pearl and the treasure–the first sought and found, and the other found by chance–both of these lead to a dramatic change in priorities for the finders–the realization of what is really important. The focus here is not on the item itself–it is on the effect it has on the one who encounters it–the willingness to change their life’s direction for the sake of the One Thing of Value. 

There is potential here for misunderstanding. The suffering is not the pearl that we seek. The pearl, the treasure, is that for which we are willing to rearrange our priorities in order to meet the challenge, whether that be for a loved one, or a relationship, or the inner peace and healing that passes understanding. Seeing those things imperiled, we realize their value in a way we hadn’t before. So the Kingdom lies in the bittersweet discovery of that precious thing that God has called us to seek and find, hidden among the distractions that separate us from what really matters–the true treasure of our hearts.

Amy-Jill Levine emphasizes that we have not understood a parable unless we feel disturbed and challenged by it. It may seem that cultivating trust and hope in the face of personal trials is not on as high a level as responding to the broader existential issues of social justice that parables often rightly illuminate. But we should never underestimate the challenge of grasping a tiny seed of hope and trust for someone whose hope is weak and whose trust has been shattered. These parables start tiny and speak of hiddenness for a reason–because Jesus knows that the act of summoning the smallest amounts of hope, trust, and expectation–enough to get through the day…or the next hour– these are challenge enough for a person in pain. Jesus knows this. Jesus sees that each of us is a pearl of great price, so much more than the sum of our hurt. Jesus seeks to draw our gaze to what is hidden in our very midst–to draw us to see the Dream of God that is, even at this moment, within our reach.