Roderick Strange writing in The Times Credo column last week mentioned a priest, Jim Sullivan by name, who lived to be a great age. He died well into his nineties and had been a minister for about 70 years. At his diamond jubilee, he remarked, “I spent the first 30 years of my ministry trying to bring people into the kingdom. I’ve spent the last 30 trying to bring the kingdom into people.”
It’s a phrase worth considering. What does it mean for the kingdom to come into people? What kind of kingdom people would they become? There are various answers available: they would be poor in spirit, for example, or ready to suffer for a just cause.
The kingdom is what Jesus came to proclaim. “The kingdom,” he declared, “is at hand.” And he sent his followers out to proclaim the kingdom, while he also noted that its mysteries are hidden from the wise, but revealed to children.
What kind of kingdom will this be? It will be a kingdom, writes the Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung, where, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer, God’s name will be truly hallowed, his will is done on earth, men and women will have everything in abundance, all sins will be forgiven and all evil overcome. It will be a kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ promise, the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are downtrodden will finally come into their own; where pain, suffering and death will have an end. It will be a kingdom that cannot be described but only made known in metaphors: as the new covenant, the seed springing up, the ripe harvest, the great banquet, the royal feast.
St. Matthew’s gospel has recently been telling us something of these kingdom metaphors, parables of the kingdom. Those of you who come regularly to church will have heard some of them over the last couple of weeks. Well here is my favourite metaphor – the parable of the mustard seed.
Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, the kingdom grows from small beginnings. It’s such a small thing in itself - but like the small swine flu virus, it is likely to have global consequences when taken seriously. Some commentators on this passage have got slightly overheated about the fact that the mustard seed isn’t, in fact, the smallest of seeds, as Jesus says it is. For others, in staunch defence of Jesus, it is clear that at the time this was the smallest seed they knew of.
Well, the truth is - Jesus was just using a common expression from his culture: the mustard seed was simply a normal way of referring to a very small amount of something, something that was very little. The metaphor of the kingdom was not meant as a bit of pre-scientific botany. It was also well-known that the mustard seed grows into a very substantial bush, virtually a small tree. And yet, when we can know all there is to know about the genetic structure of that mustard seed and the processes by which it is transformed into a bush of such substance, there is still something miraculous about that transformation. Anyone who has grown anything from seed will know what I mean. So this parable, this metaphor of the kingdom of heaven is not meant to be botany lesson, nor even a demonstration of the divinity of Jesus; it’s just a good form of communication. Jesus listeners knew immediately what he was talking about.
There is one more technical matter to look at before we come to the meat of the parable, and that is the reference to the birds of the air. Jesus, and the people to whom he was talking, were not astonished that birds might make their nests in the shade of a fully grown mustard bush. Birds, as we know, will make their nests wherever they want, wherever they can find food, and wherever they feel safe, whether that is in a bush or a tree or the many nooks and crannies of a church building, or on Spring Watch locations. But if we read this figure of speech in another way it is a standard Jewish Rabbinical way of referring to somebody else – and here’s the surprise in this Jewish of all gospels – Matthew is referring to the Gentiles – the Gentile people, people who stand outside the Jewish covenant of God with his chosen people (you may remember the Epiphany wise men were Gentile outsiders, Gentiles from the East, astronomers who lived and worked outside the Jewish nation - so too were the Samaritans, they had no dealings with the Jews at all). So what Matthew is referring to is that as the mustard tree grows, so too will the kingdom of God’s covenant people grow, so the tree will provide shelter for all the peoples and nations of the earth, just as birds will find shelter in the branches of the mustard tree.
Back again to Jim Sullivan’s quote about bringing the kingdom into people. What he is saying is that we are the mustard seed; we are the kingdom, we are kingdom people. As we nurture the kingdom within us by prayer and bible study we begin to grow from small beginnings to a flourishing bush. The kingdom, like the mustard seed, begins to transform us as we work in the world, in the classroom, the shop floor, the committee room, the executive suite, as we seek justice and peace, as we bring help to the poor, the marginalised and the sick, as we begin to transform ourselves and the world into his kingdom. It is we that have to grow from small beginnings, it is we that have to be changed, it is we that have to be transformed, the kingdom in us. We, individually, as small mustard seeds can be more effective in the world than any church committee will ever be, and boy do you we love our committees, as all churches do - gosh how did we become so top heavy? You know one of the saddest reasons for people losing contact with God is that they’ve been involved with the church but have become disillusioned, they have been hurt and damaged – and don’t lets kid ourselves churches can be painful places - what was bright and shiny in now tarnished and dull. What gave life and purpose has been reduced to disappointment and play acting, faith has become a habit without reality.
God so loved the world not the church that he gave his only begotten son. God’s work, his mission is primarily focused on the world, his kingdom and then on the response of those who encounter that work, that kingdom work. By implication, of course “the church” in its broadest sense is completely involved. But the institutions, the organizations, the rules and regulations of “church” – while they are inevitable because human beings always organize themselves – are put in their place as secondary, in the end, to the real work of God which is his work in his world. We constantly have to remind ourselves – as Isaiah repeatedly reminds us - where is God’s glory to be found? not in church buildings or its organisations - but in the world. We are here to change the world, not the church.
It took Jesus a little while and some interesting experiences to come to a realisation that his ministry was for all people and not just for Israel, for those of the household of faith. I think Matthew’s parables and particularly the one about the mustard seed begin to tell us that as Jesus develops his ministry he points more and more to God’s kingdom being for everyone. God’s kingdom was not to be a place from which a small band of chosen people could rule the world, but a broad place of many mansions, where all people can find a home and a welcome, where the birds of the air can nest and make a home.
Taking the seed and tree analogy further St Paul in his letter to the Romans, and that difficult of all chapters – chapter 11 - moves this tree image in a different direction when he writes about the wild Gentiles being ‘grafted’ on to the tree of God’s family, as it were – could it be grafted on in place of an original branch which no longer bears fruit?
Are we too idealistic to suppose that for Jesus, a redeemed and faithful Israel working for the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom is the place where the whole world can be and feel at home? The birds of the air don’t become the bush when they build their nest in it, but they do become a part of its life, and here in the shade of the tree there is not only room for, but a celebration of a diversity of bird types - robins, blackbirds, eagles, doves, - the diversity of male, female, back, white, young, old, straight and gay, the diversity of Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jew faiths perhaps? All finding a home in the tree like the birds of the air.
For those who have worked like me outside the church, working for the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom, often with people of different faiths or similar planning and community ideals I am increasingly aware of God being at work in people outside the church, building his kingdom. Jesus would appear to expect and particularly to value such people as these. More than once Jesus comments on how the faith he finds in Gentiles and Samaritans puts the faith he finds in Israel to shame.
Are we too idealistic to suppose that for Jesus, a redeemed and faithful Israel working for the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom is the place where the whole world can be and feel at home? The birds of the air don’t become the bush when they build their nest in it, but they do become a part of its life, and here in the shade of the tree there is not only room for, but a celebration of a diversity of bird types - robins, blackbirds, eagles, doves, - the diversity of male, female, back, white, young, old, straight and gay, the diversity of Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Jew faiths perhaps? All finding a home in the tree like the birds of the air.
For those who have worked like me outside the church, working for the transformation of the world into God’s kingdom, often with people of different faiths or similar planning and community ideals I am increasingly aware of God being at work in people outside the church, building his kingdom. Jesus would appear to expect and particularly to value such people as these. More than once Jesus comments on how the faith he finds in Gentiles and Samaritans puts the faith he finds in Israel to shame.
In my rereading of this parable Jesus appears to be saying there is a broad welcome to those who will live by the values of the kingdom. There are sheep of his who are not of his fold; there are many mansions in the heavenly home to which he goes; there is room in his view for all people who are building God’s kingdom to find space and a home in the mustard tree, like the birds of the air to nest in its branches.
Jim Sullivan was wise to help people become kingdom. We would be wise to become kingdom ourselves.
Amen
Matthew 13 v31-35: Romans 11 v13-21
Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit
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