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What's the Kingdom of Heaven like? Trinity 9: Sunday 24th July 2005 Genesis 29.15-28 | Romans 8.26-39 | Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52 Short and sweet today! Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been hearing what the kingdom of heaven is like... Rather than engaging in detailed descriptions Jesus seems to prefer to give us glimpses, hints of what the kingdom is like...
...so we hear that the kingdom is like...
In today’s batch of parables... With the yeast and mustard seed we’re shown that the kingdom grows - often from small, unpromising looking beginnings. It’s not “constructed” by human beings (any more than plants or yeast are), but we can work along side God in helping it come to fruition. With the pearl we’re shown that the kingdom is valuable above all else - there is sacrifice involved in finding it and participating in it, but it’s value is above all things and without question worth while.
With the branches of the
mustard tree and the fishnets (...!) we’re shown that the kingdom
is inclusive - but will involve judgement: there will be some kind of
sorting process, and evil will not prevail - whatever current situations
So there is much to learn from
these illustrations, and the wide scope of how the kingdom operates, how the
kingdom is made real in lots of different ways, in a huge variety of
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Yeast
in dough
...
and our heads are left spinning....
may
suggest.
settings...
about how we can find God in the every day... and we will spend the rest of
our lives teasing out and exploring the ways the differing parables relate
to us and our changing situations. Because an authentic, useful and grounded
faith is one which - like the yeast and mustard seed in the parable - will
continue to grow and develop as we do. Our faith may seem to have
inconsequential beginnings, but mighty and important things can develop from
the most unpromising looking seeds... 