The Kingdom of Heaven and the Island in Norway

Imagine the Kingdom of Heaven. God’s reign. Christ ruling on the heavenly throne. Light and glory. Suffering and evil banished by the mighty power of God. God in control. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Imagine that island off the coast of Norway. The death of innocent children, shot in cold blood. Terror. Darkness. Hatred. Chaos.

If we human beings live in places like that island in Norway, where, O God, is your Kingdom? And how can we enter into it? How far do we have to swim to get away from the evil, how deep do we have to dig to dig ourselves out of powerlessness, how strong do we have to be, to get there?

Jesus answers[1]:

 “When you say ‘kingdom of heaven,’ don’t see greatness and power. See the tiny grain of mustard seed, the minute speck that turns into those big bushes that sprout up everywhere like weeds. Don’t see a farmer methodically planting wheat in nice, neat, Kosher rows. See a farmer sticking mustard where it doesn’t belong, breaking the law of Moses, risking chaos by mixing ‘kinds,’ risking failure by planting the mustard in a field where it can get into his wheat and contaminate it. Don’t see the great, tall cedar of Lebanon, symbol of strong, powerful nations, with its sturdy boughs that provide a home for birds and nations from far and wide. See the birds finding safety and shelter among the weak, drooping branches of a four-foot tall mustard bush. See God’s Kingdom among the weak and insignificant. So you don’t know about planting mustard ….? Have you heard the one about the computer virus, a little bitty equation, that was dropped into the computer system? It brought banks and governments to their knees.

And when you picture the Kingdom, don’t imagine that God is going to announce it by holding up the righteous ones with trumpets and fanfare. See instead a housewife taking a tiny piece of decaying bread, called leaven, bread that has been sitting in a damp, dark place until it is full of mold, and quietly hiding it (yes, hiding it, for after all, who would want to eat that, if they knew?!) hiding it in enough flour to feed 150 people.[2] As the mold spreads in that massive amount of flour, watch all of that dough rise into at least 110 pounds of warm, delicious bread. See the woman preparing enormous amounts of bread, enough to encompass even the presence of the Holy One, the same amount that Sarah baked for God when God appeared to her as three hungry travelers at her tent in the wilderness.[3] Don’t see the pure, holy unleavened bread of Passover, though, but impure, corrupt leavened bread, bread born of mold. See God’s Kingdom slowly breaking down the boundaries of pure and impure, of holy and corrupt. See God stealthily joining what cannot logically be joined. Have you heard the one about the crucified criminal who becomes the messiah, the one where death becomes the way to eternal life, the one where suffering leads to glory?[4]

And when you think about the Kingdom of Heaven, think of treasure, think of joy, think of the undeserved delight that rushes through you all the way to your finger tips when you are surprised by sudden reward: a winning lottery ticket, an unexpected kiss, a lump that is found to be benign.  But wait, don’t think that you did anything to earn the treasure, the love, or the good news, or that you will know the right thing to do with it, once you have it in your all-too-human hands. Imagine that you are a worker, digging in the heat in a field, and your shovel unexpectedly hits the top of a chest full of gold coins. What can be better than that! But wait, the field does not belong to you. You are a mere servant. So can you keep the coins? Don’t you have to return them to the owner of the field? See yourself quickly covering the coins back up with dirt, hiding them with sod, and pawning everything that you own to buy the field before you announce your miraculous find to anyone. Then the treasure that brings such joy will belong to you undisputedly and forever …. Won’t it? Don’t your actions make you a bad person, deserving of punishment rather than reward? But you’ve already been rewarded! Or imagine that you are a rich art dealer who finds the most beautiful painting in the world, the perfect one that you have been searching for in auction after auction, all of your life. You want its beauty so badly that you sell your shop, your house, and your car in order to buy it. Now you have your painting—but what were you thinking? If you want to eat or have a livelihood, then won’t you have to sell it again, because, except for the painting, you are now broke?  The kingdom of heaven is a treasure, a treasure that you did not earn, a treasure worth giving everything for …. but it is not a treasure that can be bought and sold, or possessed without corruption.[5] Have you heard the one about the medieval Church who sold the free gift of forgiveness of sins in order to fill its coffers with gold? Or the old song from the ‘60’s about the people with the One Tin Soldier who kill everyone in the mountain kingdom for their treasure—their treasure that turns out to be a stone inscribed with “Peace on Earth?”

We often interpret the final parable in our readings today to mean that the Church is like a big net, full of all kinds of people, people that we have to accept with a sigh until the final judgment, when God will give the rotten ones what’s coming to them. As the Kingdom, however, God’s net is bigger than the Church and bigger than we could ever imagine. We the Church are just one of those sea creatures in there, one that has yet to prove by its actions whether it is fresh or rotten.[6] One young adult advises the church:

“People sometimes assume that because I’m a progressive 30-year-old … I must want a super-hip church—you know, the kind that’s called “Thrive” or “Be” and which boasts “an awesome worship experience,” a  fair-trade coffee bar, its own iPhone app, and a pastor who looks like a Jonas Brother. While none of these features are inherently wrong … these days I find myself longing for a church with a cool factor of about 0. That’s right. I want a church that includes fussy kids, old liturgy, bad sound, weird congregants,  and…brace yourself…painfully amateur “special music” now and then… I want to be part of an un-cool church because I want to be part of a community that shares the reputation of Jesus, and like it or not, Jesus’ favorite people in the world were not cool.” [7]

The great spiritual writer and priest Henri Nouwen often describes the uncool Kingdom in his illustrations of life at the L’Arche Community, a community of mentally and physically challenged adults. The gifted Nouwen, deep in spiritual burnout after years of teaching at Harvard, went to live among God’s children at L’Arche. There, he found that everything that he had learned, all of his scholarly knowledge, meant nothing. No one understood any of it or cared about any of it. At L’Arche, he learned that love and acceptance are much more powerful and healing than accomplishment and competence. He also learned to live with surprises. The mentally challenged people with whom he worshipped didn’t wait until after the sermon to tell him that they disagreed—they just shouted it right out. They didn’t hold their emotions in check with fancy words or convincing arguments—they just let their hearts speak right out. By necessity, Nouwen learned that he had to let go of being in control, let go of the illusion that he had power over other people and that could make them listen to him.[8]

Today’s Gospel parables show us that there is nothing clear-cut about the Kingdom of Heaven or our place in it. How far do we have to swim from evil and suffering to find God’s Kingdom? The Good News is that we don’t. It is a Kingdom in which a cold-blooded killer can find rest and forgiveness. Yet it is also a Kingdom in which justice will be done. It is a Kingdom with a King who bleeds just like the wounded ones do. It is a Kingdom that waits silently within tragedy, waiting to transform it in ways that we don’t always understand. It is a Kingdom that we can’t control or possess or regulate. It is a Kingdom whose best teachers are children, the handicapped, and the outcast. It is a Kingdom that spreads in spite of evil, uses corruption for its own purposes, and breaks down every boundary that we put up in its way. Thanks be to God.

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[1] My interpretation of these parables is highly dependent on that of Bernard Scott in his book, Hear Then the Parable.

[2] See Ulrich Luz, Matthew, 262.

[3] Barbara Reid, Parables for Preachers, 112.

[4] Scott, 328-29.

[5] Scott, 319.

[6] Luz, 284.

[7] Rachel Held Evans, “Blessed are the Uncool,” found at http://rachelheldevans.com/blessed-are-the-uncool.

[8] See Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1989.)