Sunday
July 26
The Parabolic Path
By Marsh Chapel
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A mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and a net. What do these have in common? Some are valuable and others are cheap. Some are organic and others are inorganic. Some serve an essential purpose and others are ornamental. We could continue to make such comparisons but fear not, this is not a Sesame Street game of “one of these things is not like the other.” Besides being used in parables by Jesus and recorded in the 13th chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, these earthly objects do not have much in common. Yet, Jesus says that each of them is like the kingdom of heaven. Each provides one part of a comparison. These comparisons describe to us what the kingdom of heaven is like. It is not that each is like the kingdom of heaven in their atomic or chemical make-up such that if we gathered all of the objects together we could put the kingdom of heaven on a table, but the parabolic comparison shows that each has the capacity to reveal the kingdom of heaven. In their capacity to reveal the kingdom of heaven, the materiality in the relationship between the earthly and heavenly is indispensable. What is seemingly mundane can disclose the sacred. The parabolic path is marked by a participatory presence.
The parables of Jesus show that everyday objects can participate in the divine economy. On the one hand, we learn about the kingdom of heaven through the particular comparisons Jesus makes, and on the other hand, we learn that such comparisons can be made. This is significant because it reveals the potential for a sacramental quality of Creation and life. Not everything is a sacrament but Creation has the potential to be sacramental. For a society that goes through its everyday existence with a loss of amazement at life and the world, this is a word of Gospel. It is good news because it re-orients our experience of existence. It invites imagination, wonder, and excitement into life. It reminds us that every person, made in the image of God can offer insight into the kingdom of heaven. Every lush garden or arid desert has the touch of its Creator. Even time can be sacramental. There is a time for weeping and a time for joy. There is a time for work and a time for rest. While it may seem obvious, it is worth stating that how we approach life impacts how we interpret our being. The kingdom of heaven is a potential present reality through the parabolic path. The parables help re-orient toward a participatory nature of existence. God participates with humanity and humanity has the potential to participate with God.
In her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor shares a story where a seemingly ordinary childhood encounter transformed her outlook on life. One Sunday her pastor asked her to sit in the front pew and listen attentively to his sermon. He offered an illustration of Taylor nurturing tadpoles in a birdbath and watching them grow into frogs as an example of participatory Creation care with God. Listen to what she writes about the aftermath of the sermon:, “I could not wait to find further clues to heaven on earth. Every leaf, every ant, every shiny rock called out to me—begging to be watched, to be listened to, to be handled and examined. I became a detective of divinity, collecting evidence of God’s genius and admiring the tracks left for me to follow.”[1] After that sermon, she viewed Creation in a whole new manner. She looked for ways in which God was revealed through God’s work of and in Creation, partly through her own participation. She became a detective of divinity.
Detectives are people who have gained the skills to be able to interpret what untrained eyes and ears might miss. Detectives are people who can make sense out of seemingly incomprehensible data. They can connect the dots. For Taylor, God’s work was present in her life but for her to see God’s work, someone had to point it out to her. Someone had to name it as such. Creation drew her childhood wonder which only grew when nurtured to recognize the wonder of the Creator. There is a difference between seeing and understanding. It can be easy to see what is going on but it is a lot harder to recognize what is truly happening. What would it look like to be a detective of divinity and where would you look for traces of the divine.
The parables can help us here because they remind us that we do not have to look exclusively in the grandiose. The kingdom of heaven can be found in modest places. It is not only the mountain tops and majestic waters that invite us to see the hand of the Creator. As magnificent as the sublime is, it should not overshadow the possibility of revelation in other places. With open eyes, the kingdom can be found in bound books, coffee conversations, and even socially distant zoom meetings. Perhaps, it is hard to see the kingdom in the everyday because we think it ought to be something so magnificent that it cannot be mediated in the ordinary. Surely, the kingdom is greater than simple seeds, cooking ingredients, and fishing tools. Yes… and no. These do not exhaust the kingdom but they do reveal. Excluding the common from the kingdom attempts to preserve the mystery of the infinite and offers due regard. Yet, by itself, it misses that God chooses to reveal Godself through everyday materiality.
It is a wonder that God trusts the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to comparisons with earthly objects. Then again, God is wonder. Enlightenment rationality for all of its benefits has shaped us into a society that sees value in what people and objects produce; rather than, in how they participate with God and others in communal thriving. Parables whisper invitations to pause and listen to another hum of the universe, where God holds all of creation together. This hum contributes as the core of a song that includes many voices. This song resounds with all that is true in philosophy, science, medicine, music, and is guided by the constant resonance of the Creator. The parabolic path hears this hum in conjunction with life. The song is always present faith and life do not need to be bifurcated.
In two of the parables, the treasure and the pearl, Jesus reveals that the kingdom of heaven may be found by those who are looking. There is no guarantee that the kingdom will be found or that finding it is easy. But this reassures us that looking and finding can take place. While we cannot create a scientific method or formula for discovering and quantifying God’s presence and work in the world, whether or not we are open to it makes a difference.
Openness to the kingdom requires openness to the world. It may seem counterintuitive but it is in and partially through the world that the kingdom comes to be. A mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and a net. These are all things of the world. These are items with the potential to lead us toward the kingdom. When you think about it, none of these particular items are necessarily religious or holy. They are just stuff; albeit, with various degrees of value. But, we do not regularly find mustard seeds and nets in the church buildings; however, it is not only in church buildings where we should seek God’s presence and work. The institutional church does not have a monopoly on the work and presence of God. In fact, there are times when the church must observe what God is doing elsewhere to listen to God’s call. The Gospel is deep and wide.
This is a time of listening where discernment of the Spirit’s presence and work in the world is needed. In an age where we stand on the brinks of nuclear, ecological, economic, political, and interpersonal disasters the church must engage with the world and it must do so from a position of humility. The church can no longer presume to have all the answers or the exclusive understanding of truth. The church cannot always presume to set the agenda for the conversation and must learn how to cooperate with others. Cooperation is no small feat, especially when considering how hard it is to get different denominations to cooperate. The church cannot abdicate its theological voice and responsibility but we are called to listen to collective wisdom. Doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, social workers, lawyers, parents all have the potential to lead us toward truth and communal thriving. Detectives of divinity can come from anywhere.
In the 1960s the Catholic Church convened the Second Vatican Council and drafted a new document on the relationship between the church and the modern world. This document, Gaudium et Spes begins, “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.”[2] This underscores that the church has a responsibility to the world and all of humankind. Gaudium et Spes sought to approach this responsibility from a place of mutual respect.
For too long and in too many places still, the relationship between the Church and the world is marked by opposition. Fraught with tension, this rivalry has had detrimental effects. History and science were rejected and social progress characterized as unbiblical. I am not suggesting that the church must uncritically accept all positions but abnegation with the modern world is untenable. For too long the concerns of the world have not been the prominent concerns of the church. For too long the desire for superiority has prevented cooperation. The anguish of COVID and racism must be the anguish of the church. The anguish of a system that oppresses all, but especially those who are not white, male, and heterosexual must be the anguish of the followers of Christ. The grief of a world hurtling toward destruction must be the grief of the church. These are the issues of the world that makes them the issues of the church. If the church is honest with itself, these ought to already be the issues of the church too. The parables of Christ invite us to see these as spiritual concerns.
Later in Gaudium et Spes, the document says, “Never has the human race enjoyed such an abundance of wealth, resources and economic power, and yet a huge proportion of the worlds citizens are still tormented by hunger and poverty, while countless numbers suffer from total illiteracy. Never before has people had so keen an understanding of freedom, yet at the same time new forms of social and psychological slavery make their appearance. Although the world of today has a very vivid awareness of its unity and of how one person depends on another in needful solidarity, it is most grievously torn into opposing camps by conflicting forces. For political, social, economic, racial and ideological disputes still continue bitterly, and with them the peril of a war which would reduce everything to ashes.”[3]
I have read Gaudium et Spes numerous times in my life, but when I read that this past week, I forgot that it was written in the 1960s as it continues to be poignantly true today. The aptness with which that paragraph describes the modern world is an indictment and an invitation. It invites us to repentance and change. It invites us to continue searching for God and Gospel. The perils of war continues to loom, even as it looms in different places. The perils of racism, poverty, disease, and exceptionalism are rampant. It might be tempting to try and withdraw from the world and its many problems. It might be tempting to seek for the kingdom outside of such pain and suffering. But maybe, these are the places where God can be found working. Maybe these are the places where ordinary mustard seeds and yeast are needed the most. Small seeds and yeast have transformative potential.
A mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and a net. These invite us to see God and the world with faith. These are not the places we might expect to find God but these invite us to search for God in unusual places. The kingdom is not a vacation destination that once discovered means we get to escape from the world and its struggles. The kingdom is here and it calls us to live in light of the call God has placed on our lives. The Kingdom pulls us toward loving justice, seeking mercy, and walking humbly. A call of cooperation. In doing so, let us remember that “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.”
[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Preaching Life. (Plymouth, UK: Cowley Publications 1993), 16.
[2] http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html
[3] http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html
-The Rev. Scott Donahue-Martens
Ph.D. Student in Practical Theology: Homiletics
Boston University School of Theology
