Envisioning God’s Realm—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 9A/Proper 12A (Matthew 13)

Parable of the Yeast, Peter Koenig

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

³¹ 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 a man found and reburied; 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. ⁴⁹ So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹ “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” ⁵² And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

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                Jesus went about proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven (God) was coming, so get ready. People of his day knew what earthly kingdoms looked like. Whether it was the vassal kingdoms of Herod the Great and his sons or the Roman Empire, the monarchs of the day tended to rule with an iron hand, looking out for themselves above all. The most important thing was staying in power (that is, staying alive). Kingdoms stayed in power through the power of the sword. Then along came Jesus. He spoke of God’s realm and even hinted that he might be the representative of this divine realm. Instead of going about with an armed guard, he traveled with a motley crew of former fishermen, tax collectors, and even a token revolutionary or two. While some might have hoped he would instigate a revolt against the ruling authorities, he never gathered an armed mob. Instead, he preached messages of love and peace.

                This is the third reading during this Pentecost Season to draw from Matthew 13. We’ve already considered the parable of the Sower (Mt. 13:1-9, 18-23) and the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43). Interspersed with these two parables are several others. They’re briefer, but just as revealing as the other two. Each of these brief parables serves to define the nature of God’s realm.

                As Jesus shares these parables he describes a realm that is quite different from the typical kingdoms/empires of his day. Those realms are hierarchical, top-down, power-sucking entities. The prophet Samuel made this truth clear to the people of Israel when they demanded he give them a king so they could be like everyone else. Samuel gave them a king, but that king, the one named Saul, acted just as Samuel had predicted. He sucked the air out of the room and drafted soldiers for his military escapades. Though we might think David was better, he really wasn’t any different from Saul. In the end, David the Shepherd was very different from David the King. In both cases, power corrupted these kings. If David was a man after God’s heart, it seems as if even one whose heart was set on God can become corrupted.  

                So, when Jesus proclaimed the good news of God’s realm, he had a lot of history to reckon with. To get his point across, he turned to parables, including the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Weeds, as well as the other parables found here in Matthew 13. Each of the five parables that we’ll explore here has a subversive element to them. A central theme here suggests that what seems insignificant will reveal the true nature of God’s realm.  

                The first parable in this series focuses on a mustard seed, which we’re told is quite small (Mt. 13:31-32). Yet it produces a shrub that many would consider to be a weed. It’s not something you would want to have in your garden because as it grows it might crowd out the roses and tomatoes. Nevertheless, this shrub, which starts small, perhaps as an indiscriminately sown seed, reveals something important about God’s realm. So, it appears that when God’s realm begins to take root, it upsets things. That’s why we try to institutionalize the realm. We can do things decently and in order, but in places like the United States where the church can serve as the harbinger of the middle class, the subversiveness of the mustard seed, as it takes root, can cause the church to wake up from its comfortableness with the larger culture (and I don’t want to suggest engaging in culture wars here). That it is a bush that provides a nesting spot for the birds, suggests that the realm of God is a place of welcome and hospitality.

                The second parable speaks of yeast (Mt. 13:33). In this parable Jesus tells of a woman who mixed the yeast into three measures of flour until it was fully leavened. We should note that Jesus includes a woman as the primary actor in this parable. In other words, God is like a woman who serves as a domestic worker making bread. Now, the reference to the three measures of flour suggests that this little bit of yeast will produce a large amount of bread since three measures of flour are equivalent to about fifty pounds. That is enough dough to make maybe 100 loaves of bread. Just a little will leaven much more than a loaf!  As such, it is enough bread to feed a multitude. As Michael Pasquarello III notes: “Leaven works within the dough quietly, slowly, and steadily, finally bringing about a complete transformation of the dough into something delicious and nourishing” [Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship (p. 443) Kindle Edition]. As with the parable of the mustard seed, we hear a word about hospitality and welcome.

                If the first two parables in this series speak of agricultural elements, along with words of welcome and hospitality, the next two parables speak of treasure. The first parable compares the kingdom of heaven to “treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mt. 13:44). The second speaks of a pearl of great price that a person sells everything to purchase it (Mt. 13:45). These two parables are found only in Matthew, and as Anna Case-Winters points out: “Both serve to point to the unsurpassable value of the reign of God and the whole-hearted commitment that it ought to have” [Matthew: Belief, p. 182].  In the first parable in this pair, a person finds treasure on the land the person doesn’t own. So, he reburies it and goes and buys the land so that he can claim the treasure. It seems a bit unethical, but the point is that the person sells everything to possess something of greater value, and that is the realm of God. Something similar happens with the pearl. A merchant discovers a pearl so wonderful that it must be purchased, and so the merchant sells everything to buy this one pearl. It doesn’t seem as if the merchant is going to resell at a profit. So the question the parable poses is this: how much is living in God’s realm worth to you? Are you willing to go all in or not? It would seem that these parables suggest that the realm of God demands everything of us.

                The fifth parable in this series takes us to the sea (lake), where Jesus makes use of the image of catching fish (Mt. 13:47-50). While the prior two parables speak of what we’re willing to trade to experience God’s realm, this one invites us to think about drawing in more folk into God's realm. So, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that is thrown into the sea and when it is drawn in it contains all kinds of fish. There is, in this parable a word of judgment, much like the parable of the weeds. When the fish are brought in, much like the harvest, the workers keep the good fish and throw out the bad. Here we have an eschatological element in that Jesus tells us that at the end of the age, the angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw the evil ones into the “furnace of fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 14:50). As with the parable of the Weeds, it is God who does the sorting not us. One of the ways to interpret a passage like this is to remember that the “true church” and the visible church are not always one and the same. There will be a mixture, and only God knows the identity of this true church. So, let us be careful in how we perceive the makeup of the church, for ultimately it is God who decides who is in and who is out. This parable is not, necessarily, a reference to hell, only judgment. That fire could destroy, but it might also purify.

                Jesus brings this series of parables to a close with one more parable/statement that is designed to ask us if we understand what it is Jesus has been talking about in these parables of the realm. So, when Jesus asks those who are listening whether they understand, they say they do understand. Though as we know, that is not always true. With their affirmative answer, Jesus offers one more rather cryptic word: “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” (Mt. 13:52). Whether or not this is a parable is debatable, but it is likely that Jesus is trying to let his followers know that as an interpreter of Torah (a scribe) he has brought something new out of what is old. This new thing might include the inclusion of Gentiles in the inbreaking realm of God.

                With this concluding message of the treasure old and new, we’re being asked, as Scott Spencer suggests, to clear our minds of preconceived notions of God’s realm so we “grasp fully the power and profundity of his radical instruction about God’s inbreaking kingdom.” [Connections (pp. 441-442)]. It’s not easy to do this, but if we’re to proceed into God’s realm we’ll have to let go of some of the things that get in the way of what God is doing in our midst. What is God doing? Well, apparently, God is creating an environment that is welcoming and inclusive, that is worth going all in, and when all is said and done, if there are some bad fish in the lot, God will take care of that.

 

Koenig, Peter. Parable of the Yeast, detail, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58557 [retrieved July 20, 2023]. Original source: Peter Winfried (Canisius) Koenig, https://www.pwkoenig.co.uk/.