Sermon on Matthew Chapter 13
By The Reverend Charles Royden 24 July 2005
The parable of the yeast, pearl, mustard seed and net
People will give up almost anything to get what they want,
They give up major things in the pursuit of career. How many times have you
heard somebody regretfully say, ‘I wished I had spent more time with the
kids.’
There are some dreadful examples of men and women giving up their families,
leaving their children, because they have found a lover.
People will give up everything if they find something which they want,
really want.
So today in our parables Jesus asks a question,
1. What will you give up?
2. What do you consider to be most important ?
3. Have you got your priorities right?
Most people have not recognised the treasure which is the Christian gospel.
The vast majority of people have not got their priorities right. Most people
have great excuses not to come to church. They tell me that you do not have
to go to church to be a Christian, but they are not at home on a Sunday
morning doing bible study by themselves. They are not involved in serving
God, they have chosen that other things are more important. Usually they
have made a choice that other things, not spiritual things, are more
important to them.
They make a choice for themselves, sadly they also make a choice for their
families too. The choice has an effect which rebounds down the generations.
When you stop church and you stop taking your children to church, you have
effectively stopped your grandchildren and great grandchildren going to
church as well. So that today we have several decades of people who have no
had any contact with Christians teaching whatsoever, and that means no
spiritual grounding in their lives at all. And that is where we are as a
country, with people largely adrift in terms of a spiritual anchor to inform
their ethical, moral and life decisions. A university chaplain was speaking
to a group of us the other day and saying that the students he deals with
have absolutely no Christian background whatsoever. They know nothing of the
Bible or the Christian stories.
Some of you will know a lot about that Joan has been doing trying to get us
going on making contacts with children and families. As a church we are
thankful to Joan and the team of volunteers who have supported this work
with Storybox. Liz Spavins and her team have also been doing great things at
Putnoe with Storyboxplus the older group. I was delighted that the Church
Council at St Mark’s last week supported the Leadership Team in wanting to
get work going with the appointment of Liz as a children’s worker in our
churches. I was away preaching at Priory when St Mark’s Church Council met
informally so I was not able to support that decision but I had the
confidence to know that right decision would be taken and that will be
ratified by the Church Council in due course.
As a church we have to do our bit to encourage and welcome to church those
who feel that it is not for them. Some of them might have a good reason to
think we don’t want them. They might have had a contact with a bad vicar or
a bad churchgoer, who put them off and they thought well if that is what
being a Christians is like I don’t want to know.
They might have wanted a baptism for their child and the vicar said no, or
they might have had a breakdown in the marriage and instead of compassion
the church pointed the finger and they thought well me and my family are not
welcome. Whatever reasons we have to do our bit and lets pray that God will
bless that work with children and that Christians will feel able to
volunteer to support that work.
What we can do as a church might seem small. It may seem insignificant but
of course the message of the parables which we have heard this morning is
that it might seem small, you might not even notice the effect, but this is
how the kingdom is grown.
Mustard seed and leaven
Hiddenness and smallness, these are words which summarise the parable of the
mustard seed and the parable of the yeast. There is an important lesson to
be learned here. Jesus took an example of smallness, the mustard seed, and
made the point that it would grow hugely. But it does not grow into anything
ostentatious. It did not produce the mighty cedars of Lebanon which the Jews
so liked to speak of. The mustard seed grew into a large shrub, about 10
feet tall.
Jesus did not choose something which spoke of grandeur in human terms. This
surely challenges our expectations of greatness. I wonder if you have
visited the Vatican, and walked around St Peter’s in Rome. It is huge, the
columns and domes are vast and magnificent. Strangely it did nothing to
communicate the kingdom to me. It spoke of a gospel which I found difficult
to relate to the carpenter from Nazareth. I see Jesus speaking of something
which judged by the worlds standards is much more humble.
We might want to think of the Kingdom as being great in human terms but
Jesus is cautioning against that. If we think of the Kingdom as a car we
would want it to be a Rolls Royce, Jesus tells us it would be more like a
Mondeo. Because the kingdom is not imposing. It’s like buried treasure -
Buried treasure
People used to bury treasure in fields all the time. Remember this was
before metal detectors were invented. If you wanted to keep something safe
you would be unwise to keep it in your house, locked doors and safes were
not invented. So you buried it in a field and it was safe. It was a bit like
your pin number, as long as you didn’t tell somebody and only you knew it
was unlikely to be discovered.
Of course sometimes this meant that buried treasure was left. A person could
be killed or die And their buried treasure was undiscovered.
And the point is that somebody could walk over the field, they could be
right next to the treasure and not know it was there. Something of enormous
life changing value can be under your feet and you have not a got a clue.
The kingdom can be present and be unperceived.
The Kingdom is not overwhelming to everybody. Some people are given the gift
to recognise the kingdom for what it is and for them, for those who see the
treasure, any price is not a sacrifice, it is a price worth paying for
something of infinitely more value.
Like the most magnificent pearl it is out of this world and the merchant
will gladly give up everything to possess it.
Jesus is reassuring us that the kingdom is absolutely worth everything.
Jesus is not calling upon us to make sacrifices, he is saying that those who
have truly recognised the kingdom will not feel a sense of duty or of
sacrifice, they will feel only joy and a recognition that they are the lucky
ones. They will not need to have a heart hearted approach.
That is why Christians realise the futility of not getting our priorities
right. No matter what we achieve in our earthly lives we cannot take our
wealth with us when we die. Who was it who when asked of the deceased at a
funeral ‘What did he leave’ said, ‘he left it all.’ All of our materials
wealth dies with us, but our spiritual wealth increases.
The man who buys the field does not need to keep a little money back in case
the treasure turns out to be of less value than he thought. The treasure and
the pearl are of such overwhelming value to them that they do not need to
take precautions. Some people are lucky enough to see the kingdom for what
it is and for them the joy of the kingdom is already something which they
have begun to experience.
So it is true that by seeking first the kingdom of God, by putting all else
aside, we discover that the kingdom is all that we really need.
God’s kingdom is the greatest of treasures, worth more than any one of us
can ever fully understand and far more than earthly considerations. Jesus is
making the point that full and unreserved commitment, an unrestrained
response is that which comes from an appreciation of God’s kingdom.
The net
Jesus concludes his telling of the parables with a warning message. He tells
the parable of the fish in the net. Jesus speaks of a seine-net which had
floats on the top and weight on the bottom. It was thrown on the water and
indiscriminately encircled the fish in that area. Then it was dragged up on
the shore with all the different kinds of fish in that area.
The conclusion is that righteous and unrighteous are mixed up and it is not
until the end of time that God will judge. There is an important lesson for
our prayers here. What do we pray when we are faced with situations where we
want God to judge people and punish them? The disciples believed that Jesus
would overturn his opponents and establish his rule on earth. Jesus was a
massive disappointment, so much so that they left him. They wanted Jesus to
give them power to go out an uproot the weeds and sort them out now. Jesus
said wait.
The net will be sorted but not yet. The timetable for God’s judgement is not
ours, and be careful, the measure of God’s judgement is not ours.
Conclusion
So today we are asked to consider ourselves and where our treasure lies.
Have we devoted our time to the right things, have we invested in a field
which holds lasting treasure. Jesus encourages us to put everything else
aside, no half measures.
The Christian life is often thought of as a sacrifice, a cross to be
carried, and that is right. Yet this message has to be balanced as well by
the parables today which remind us that Jesus considers the kingdom of
heaven to be a treasure so wonderful that we can joyfully sacrifice
everything to possess it and not end up being disappointed.