A Whisper of Hope
July 27, 2008
Rev. Judy Currier
(Mat 13:31-53 NRSV selections) He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; {32} it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." {33} He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened." {44} "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. {45} "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; {46} on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. {47} "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; {48} when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad.
{51} "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." {52} And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." {53} When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.
One time I was conducting worship and I noticed that the ushers were moving in and out of the sanctuary more than usual. As they passed one another they would whisper something in the other’s ear. As they came up to hand me the offering plates one of the ushers whispered in my ear. "The 49ers are ahead, they just made a touchdown." It seems they had a portable radio out in the lobby of the church. Hope is our heritage as Christians. It often comes to us first as a whisper because we are afraid to hope. To hope is to dare against an uncertain future. It can be audacious. But in hope lies our strength. The early Christians were remarkable in what they accomplished because they were outrageous in hope. They were people of the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.
We read these mini parables of Jesus about the Kingdom of Heaven. Picture after picture like a string of pearls flow in the collection Matthew gives us. A mustard seed, yeast, a hidden treasure found, a fisherman’s net, Pictures of what could be, and hope, will lead us to tomorrow.
I want to keep one image as we explore the hope of the Kingdom: yeast. I feel close to the woman making bread, because I bake our bread each week. I only make two loaves. The Bible tell us this woman used three measures of flour, that is about ten gallons of flour. She could have make bread for 150 people! (That’s a lot of hope!) And she used a small amount of yeast.
Yeast is a wonderful image of the growing kingdom because it grows silently and is hardly noticeable. I have started the bread maker making a loaf of bread as we worship. I hope we will catch the smell of bread baking and at coffee hour you will taste a piece and look toward your week with hope.
Jesus wanted us to sense the Kingdom of God; to grab it, to reach out to it. Perhaps even to taste and smell it. Over and over Jesus said, "The kingdom is among you. The kingdom is like…."and he would give one more illustration, trying to help the people understand. Quietly, as we worship, the yeast is growing so the kingdom of God is at work in our midst. We will remember the yeast growing as we go along.
The minute we bring up hope there lurks in the background fear. Hope is to risk a version of the future that can be better. Jesus instilled a great potion of hope in his followers that can still be felt in the church today.
Fred was one of those persons who read the obituary pages every day. His friends knew this and decided to play a trick on him. They wrote up a phony death notice and put his picture with it and sent it into the paper. Fred duly read the notices that morning and was puzzled. He called his friend George and said, "Would you get your paper out and look at the obituaries?" George gets out the paper and looks. Sure enough, there was Fred, picture and all, "Holy smokes it’s you, Fred! It’s you, all right. Wait, where are you calling from?"
Remember we used to say, "Smile, things could get worse. I smiled and, sure enough, things got worse." There is enough darkness in the world to fill all our imaginings. Remember childhood fears: fear of the dark, teen fears about whether we could make friends or would be asked out, programmatic fears, going to college, exams, job interviews. At some place we had to develop enough trust in our own abilities and strength to keep going. We needed assurance of parents and friends, we needed to experience success, and we needed a basic trust or faith in life as it has been given us, to grow in hope.
To be hope-filled people, we need to meet the hopeful people of our faith like Peter at Pentecost preaching out of his tested faith: "My heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope." The yeast, as it grows, infects the dough and makes it come alive. A whole flock of people hear Peter and they caught the spirit, they were infected with the faith and the hope of Jesus as a living presence among them. Paul’s writings are steeped in hope. Listen: "...We have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside." And then a ringing passage whose echoes come to me whenever I am depressed or struggling: (Rom 5:1-5 NRSV) "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, {2} through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. {3} And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, {4} and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, {5} and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."
This is outrageous! We can share the glory of God? Someone called the early Christians "those outrageous Christians". The yeast is growing. But it takes a while. The Kingdom is growing. We need some patience. So the bread will be done in good time.
Our granddaughters were here last week. Each time we would be in the car to and from Crescent City the four-year-old would ask, "Are we almost there?" I gave the 8 year old a map to follow our progress and that helped. We can read the timer on the bread maker so we have a timeline. Endurance produces character. The map of patience is knowing that the kingdom is alive and growing.
You can catch the strength of the old man, John, as he writes to the churches. Bluntly he says: "Perfect love casts out fear." We have that love in God, a God who loves us, not because we are necessarily loveable, but because we need love. John could move into the future, not because of golden promises, but because of a found relationship with God. He says of Christ, "Beloved, we are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him."
A thread through all of Jesus’ preaching and storytelling is not faith spelled out in words or theologies, but faith expressed in relationship. As you heard the string of parables read in the scripture today, parables of the Kingdom, you get an image of God’s Kingdom as building relationships. It is not some abstract vision or political plan, but a way of living we enter into. It took some time to notice it because we are such "by-the-rules" people, but it dawned on me that Jesus moves from rules to relationships.
The rule is "love your neighbor", but one rule always needs another. Who is my neighbor? Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. A relationship established. He bandaged the wounds, took him to an inn and paid the tab. The kingdom is a hands-on kind of place, where relationships flourish.
Bread machines are great and time saving, but you miss the engagement with the dough. Kneading the warm dough has a sensuous feel that engages you with the bread. As you knead you can feel the dough becoming bread in your hands.
The whisper of hope is the sense of the emerging kingdom. It is a dream of humanity living in harmony, a vision of heaven perhaps, but it is also here and now, emerging like yeast in the dough. It is in a doctor who spends two months of each year in the Himalayan Hills treating eye problems. It is an officer in the U. N. Who spends his lifetime developing peaceful solutions in areas that could erupt in violence. It is with our own Verna Harelson, spending part of her summer in Liberia, building and repairing a school. It is in our churches with limited resources, that we try to feed the hungry. Using Wordsworth’s words, "the unremembered acts of kindness and love" that hold humanity together. It is whenever we smile at an act or deed that is done out of love. The kingdom is not confined to the church. It does not depend on us, and yet it happens in and through us. We are, as Paul put it, ‘clay pots’, the receptacles of the Spirit.
Hear Paul’s words: (2 Cor 4:7-9 NRSV) "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. {8} We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; {9} persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;"
The Kingdom of God is among us, at work in us. When you taste the bread remember, the Kingdom is present, and coming, growing like yeast in us and in the world. Dare to hope.