Do you understand?
July 29th/30th 2023
Year A; 9th Pentecost; Proper 12
Romans 8: 26-39
Psalm 128
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52
Homily by Rev. Megan Limburgh
In the name of the Holy Three. Amen.
Many years ago, when I was serving in school ministry, I taught a summer school enrichment class in Study Skills to rising 6th graders.
The students were in the class as they needed help getting ready for the challenges of 6th grade, where more independence would be required, and better time management and organizational skills.
We met every day, and after about a week of class, I was explaining some organizational plan that had 3 parts to it.
All the students were sitting and listening to me intently, seemingly following my lesson on organizing their materials.
I usually wrote key words and drew pictures on the board as I talked, but that day, for some reason, I was just speaking.
After a few minutes, I stopped and said to the first student closest to me:
“Do you understand what I just said?”
She answered yes immediately, and began to talk about how this might help her to organize her notebooks.
I asked the next student and the next: “Do you understand what I just said?”
And received another yes, and another. I then got to one boy, and I hope the fact that I knew him and had taught him before, led to a refreshingly frank answer.
When I asked him: “Do you understand what I just said?”
This boy looked me in the eye and said with a small smile: “No, ma’am. I actually didn’t understand a word you said.”
And that reminded me of the basic I had neglected. Always speak AND show; I had offered nothing visual and without it, this sweet kid was lost. A few others nodded vigorous agreement with his “No, Ma’am” and I got to work reteaching the lesson, with plenty of visual reinforcements!
But I still remember the refreshing experience of hearing that honest no, not a vague or hedged answer.
In today’s gospel, after telling his closest friends five parables about what the kingdom of heaven or of God is, Jesus asks them:
“Have you understood all this?”
Yikes! All of this?? And yet they still say: “Yes”.
I doubt that Jesus believed them. Jesus had their number, just as he has yours, and mine.
This passage today is the last in a series of three Sundays we have focused on parables.
Jesus offers so many parables in his teaching we might find ourselves like the disciples, so eager to understand that we try to nail down their meaning, to box in the parables, so we too can answer “yes” if Jesus happens to stop in and ask us: “Have you understood all this?”
But simplifying, boxing the parable in to a handy interpretation, is not the point, not the reason Jesus told parables. He was trying to help his disciples, and us, to think, to ponder, to wonder to see more than our first impressions give us.
The New Testament scholar, C.H. Dodd explained better than I ever can, when he wrote of parables:
“At its simplest, a parable is a metaphor or simile, drawn from nature or the common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” (The Parables of the Kingdom)
So, with these parables today what was Jesus trying to tease our minds to think and wonder about?
Well, the focus of all these parables is no less than the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God as the other three gospels call it.
Jesus is inviting us into active thought, pondering, imagining, these parables offering, as one writer put it, “…glimpses into the kingdom life that Jesus offers.” (Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year A, page 382)
You may notice on the cover of your bulletin, that the reading is Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52.
The lectionary editors put the readings together to help the passages to flow, but some details thus get left out. Verses 34-43 were included last week when we discussed the wheat and the weeds, but by leaving it out this week we lose an important detail.
Though Jesus starts out today speaking to the crowds, in the missing verses he and his friends move away to a quieter space and Jesus is speaking only to his close friends, a more informal conversation.
And with this scripture appearing today, in the heart of summer, I like to imagine, as one writer suggested, (Christian Century, July 2023, page 29) picturing Jesus and his friends now up on a hill, lying on their backs in the shade of a tree, relaxed and in a rare unpressured moment.
And Jesus starts throwing out ways to understand what God’s world, God’s way, “the kingdom of heaven”, looks like here in our world. Jesus is giving them ideas, images, to spark recognition in the midst of daily living.
Life then, and amazingly, still now, focuses on the push and pull of who has power; the push and pull of who is up and who is down, in and out. The harsh and daily games we humans keep being seduced by, allowing only winners and losers.
Jesus knows how we have structured our human world, and so on a sunny, lazy afternoon he starts throwing out pictures, images, to help his friends, and us, to see God’s still startling, radically different and fresh path in our world.
So, Jesus says God’s world is like a mustard seed. A lot of what we will do as God’s people will start small, tiny really. God’s kingdom, God’s way starts small but can grow, with compassion, to be a tree, that provides shelter for all, shelter from the storms.
God’s world is like yeast that is mixed with a large amount of flour. So, God’s path can be like yeast, that quiet miracle that slowly and silently works behind the scenes, until all that useless flour has been transformed into a feeding and nurturing gift of good bread.
And God’s world, God’s path in our crowded lives is like a treasure hidden in a field, like a pearl of great value, something that wakes us up, that lights a fire in us. And we are surprised to find ourselves willing to give up things in our lives, to pay much in our time and our energy and our money, we are surprised by the commitment we are willing to make, to follow God’s call, to help, to feed, to shelter, to heal.
Jesus and his friends talking and dreaming and laughing on a hot summer day, lying in the shade of a tree, Jesus throwing out visions, like spaghetti at a wall, lighthearted and vivid, but intentional invitations to us all.
What sticks to us?
On our own summer day may these images stick like spaghetti in our minds, and tease out active thought in us, as we look for God’s kingdom in our easily distracting world.
Amen.