“The Kingdom of God is Like…What!?”
Sermon # 2 in a Lenten Series: “The Parables Jesus Told and Lived:”
Lanny Peters, Pastor
Oakhurst Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia
The Second Sunday in Lent, March 12, 2006
Luke 18: 10-14
After Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, during which John the Baptist had been arrested, Jesus returned to Galilee and boldly proclaimed the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.” (Mark 1: 14-15). These were the first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the oldest gospel, Mark. Last week as I began this series on the parables of Jesus, we looked at how the kingdom of God remained first and foremost in Jesus’ heart and mind, and we examined several parables he told to emphasize this.
With proclamations and parables, Jesus announced that the rule of God has come near and that we need to repent and let go of all those things that falsely claim to be the rule of God. If the kingdom of God is so important then, obviously, we need to know what to look for. So Jesus told a number of parables to describe it, such as the one we just heard read. (Mark 4: 30-32)
When Jesus’ original audience heard this parable, it was most likely very confusing and probably quite amusing. We miss this because we do not have the same cultural and religious background. We do not even know what a mustard shrub is. There was a well-know symbol for the kingdom of God from Hebrew Scriptures and tradition, but it was the mighty cedars of Lebanon. Here it is described in the book of Daniel:
Upon my bed this is what I saw;
there was a tree at the centre of the earth,
and its height was great.
The tree grew great and strong,
its top reached to heaven,
and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.
Its foliage was beautiful,
its fruit abundant,
and it provided food for all.
The animals of the field found shade under it,
the birds of the air nested in its branches,
and from it all living beings were fed. (Daniel 4:10-12)
Did you notice some of the same language from Jesus’ parable? Listen to these words from Ezekiel and pay attention to some of the same images Jesus used in his parable but with one important difference.
Thus says the Lord God:
I myself will take a sprig
from the lofty top of a cedar;
I will set it out.
I will break off a tender one
from the topmost of its young twigs;
I myself will plant it
on a high and lofty mountain.
On the mountain height of Israel
I will plant it,
in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit,
and become a noble cedar.
Under it every kind of bird will live;
in the shade of its branches will nest
winged creatures of every kind. (Ezekiel 17: 22-24)
When I was in northern California in January, I spent some time alone in Muir Woods, the coastal redwood forest north of San Francisco. These trees are among the tallest living things on earth and some of them were alive when Jesus walked the earth. Every time I have ever been there, I am filled with wonder and awe, a sense of deep worship, and feel God’s presence. The Cedars of Lebanon were the equivalent of the redwoods in the part of the world where Jesus lived. No wonder these grand trees were a popular image of the reign of God.
With this image planted firmly in everyone’s mind, Jesus began his parable: “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like…” Now I imagine Jesus pausing here so that everyone can guess at the image coming next, expecting something grand like the Cedars of Lebanon. But Jesus says, “It is like a mustard seed which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”(Mark 4:30-32)
This would have been so unexpected that most everyone in his audience probably burst out laughing. Instead of a mighty cedar, Jesus offers the image of a common shrub, which could grow in about anyone’s yard. Jesus is poking fun at the popular image and offering a comical alternative. How can I help you see this? Imagine if I were telling you in great detail about the Redwood Forest and trying to convey with inadequate words how awesome that place is and how it reminded me of how grand God is. And then we asked Jesus to give us an image. He would say, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like…kudzu, which, when sown upon the ground, starts out a tiny little plant, and before you know it, it takes over the whole yard, and in a pinch, birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Jesus is being funny. But he is not doing it just for laughs. He is overturning the tables. As they had for centuries, the Jews in Jesus’ time were waiting for a Messiah to restore Israel to the exaltation and greatness of its former time, as represented by the mighty cedar. With this expectation firmly in mind, Jesus’ parable “poses a comic challenge to such images of grandeur. Cedars did not even grow in Israel. They had to be brought from Lebanon. But mustard seed bushes could grow up in anyone’s field.” Jesus has combined proverbial wisdom and well-known images from Hebrew scripture and turned them upside down. “He intends to recast people’s images of themselves and of what it means for God to rule in this world.” Here’s your national destiny, then—a mustard bush.”
This has significance for Jesus’ own ministry. Whereas the great cedars are accessible only to those with means to travel to see them, anybody can have a mustard bush. You might have the money to go visit a redwood forest, but you can find some kudzu pretty easily. “God’s rule does not have to appear in the grandiose; a mustard bush will do just fine.” God’s kingdom would be accessible to those often left out. Pheme Perkins. Hearing the Parables of Jesus. Ramsey, NJ (Paulist Press, 1981. Pp. 87-8)
This was “good news to the poor, “ which Jesus promised in his first sermon in Luke. But it was not necessarily good news for those who wanted to be top cedar, like many of the Pharisees. The Pharisees is a group that are usually misunderstood out of context. Because we know of their conflicts with Jesus, we forget that they were highly regarded and most respected people in first century Palestine. They were the most religious people of their day. “Their name comes from a root that means ‘pure.’ They sought for purity in all things—in the way they observed the Law, in their unswerving patriotism, in the care they observed to avoid all contact with the impure. They constituted a select and elite group who were the very pillars of society and on the side of righteousness.” John Claypool, Stories Jesus Still Tells: The Parables New York (McCracken press), 1993. P. 146.) They were the moral and religious human equivalents of the mighty cedars. That is why the following parable would have been so shocking to everyone who heard Jesus tell it, including his closest friends.
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’” (Luke 18: 10-14)
Where the Mustard seed parable might have got everyone laughing, this parable no doubt had Jesus’ listeners stunned. He is overturning the tables again. Just as they all knew who the Pharisees were, Jesus’ hearers also knew who the tax collectors were. John Claypool has pointed out, “Here was a class of individuals at the opposite pole of the social strata. No other occupation was more despised or looked down upon. They were the unique creation of the Roman way of doing business. Whenever a country was occupied, the Romans recruited opportunistic citizens to collect revenues. (They contracted to collect a certain sum and then made their own fortunes by collecting more than they had agreed to turn over to the authorities.) Obviously, it was a dirty business, but to have a member of one’s own nation and race go to work for the occupation forces and also make a profit out of such an enterprise was reprehensible. The individuals who stooped to this occupation were regarded as traitors of the worst sort, as well as thieves and scoundrels. What the term quisling (Nazi collaborators) came to mean in World War II. t conveys the kind of scorn tax collectors received in first-century Palestine. They were individuals for whom no decent human being had any respect or hope for decent improvement.” (Claypool, Pp. 146-7)
So you can see how shocking it would have been to contrast a Pharisee and a tax collector in the way Jesus did in this parable, especially if we put aside the prejudices we have built up over the centuries against Pharisees. What is wrong with a person who orders his business affairs with honesty and fairness and is faithful in his marriage? Not only that, he fasts twice a week and gives away a tenth of all he earns. Someone has said that “you can tell a person is serious about his or her religion when it affects two things: his stomach and his pocket book!” (Claypool, p. 15-1)
The Pharisee in the parable had conquered both of these and had every right to be proud of himself. For Jesus to compare a man of this sort unfavorably to a tax collector was threatening to the whole social structure. It would be like comparing someone today with the public and religious stature of a Billy Graham or a Desmond Tutu or a Jimmy Carter unfavorably to a drug dealer. The Pharisee in the parable was a man of high moral and religious maturity. Surely, Jesus admired that.
But this particular Pharisee has what Jesus sees as a fatal flaw. He begins to compare himself to others in a way that leads to self-righteousness and moral superiority. “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.” With a backward glance, the Pharisee dismisses the tax collector. But why not; the tax collector had achieved nothing really in terms of moral or religious development. But what the Pharisee does not see is that the tax collector is humbly and honestly acknowledging his shortcomings. The Pharisee also fails to see that the tax collector is his a child of God just like him and, therefore, his brother.
The Pharisee confidently went into the Temple to pray with an attitude of “God and me, we are close!” The tax collector would not have been welcome in the Temple and did not feel worthy anyway as he felt himself to be distant from God. “The tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”
Something must have happened to bring a tax collector even to the shadow of the Temple. Something must have occurred to make him aware that he needed God’s mercy and grace. We are not told what it was that brought this man to his senses and his knees. Claypool says, “One of the ways that God’s ingenious grace often works is to let us, in freedom, misuse our power and make an absolute mess of our lives. This usually entails a great deal of suffering under the impact of which, like the prodigal son, we sometimes come to our senses and realize how far we are from the goal God intended for us.” (P. 157)
That is why the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous and most other recovery programs is admitting honestly that your life is out of control and that on your own you do not have the power to fix things. The prayer of the tax collector is a first step prayer.
Anne Lamott is as good a representative of the humble attitude of the tax collector as any contemporary writer I know. In her newest book she talks about what she does when her life feels out of control: “Then I prayed, because when all else fails, you follow instructions, and I began to pray the way my mentors had taught me: I prayed, ‘Help me, help me.’ I prayed, ‘Please, please.’ I let go of an angtrom of blame. That was the hardest part. This batch of blame had more claw marks than most of the things I try to let go of. Blame is always my first response: figure out whose fault things are, and then try to manipulate that person into correcting his or her behavior so that you can be more comfortable. I put a note to God in a box, asking for direction.
I told God I was taking my sticky fingers off the steering wheel, that God could be the driver and I would be just another bozo on the bus. ‘Help’ is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn’t matter how much you pray—with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for praying, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. As Rumi wrote, ‘There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.’” (Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further thoughts on Faith. New York: Riverhead Books), 2005. Pp. 36-7) Such was the attitude of the tax collector. Jesus concludes this parable by saying, “I tell you, this man (the tax collector) went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’”
Many of us grew up in churches which ironically, taught us the very opposite; that Jesus wanted us to behave like the Pharisee in the parable. My dear friend, UCC pastor Ed Middleton, in a recent column in his church newsletter, recalls his Hebrew professor Dr. Elmo Scroggins going to preach in an eastern North Carolina Baptist church in the seventies where conservatism was synonymous with, ‘we don’t welcome blacks and you had better not say anything against tobacco either. A woman came up to him after the service. She seemed to be determined to impress him with her piety and commitment. She said, “Professor, I’m a committed Baptist. I’m always taking my stand against sin. I don’t drink, play cards, or go to the movies.” Dr. Scroggins looked at her and said, “I’m sorry you miss all the fun. Look, woman, that’s not sin. Real sin is gossiping about your neighbors; cheating your workers; refusing to take care of the poor in your community. That’s the sin you ought to be worried about.”
Ed goes on to say, Lent “needs to be about more than showing outward signs of religiosity or we become like the moralistic woman (or the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable) who seeks validation for her righteousness while missing the point that God’s redemptive work is and always has been about restoration of relationships. We have an opportunity this year to take a close look at real sin within us and within our society.
It is the sin that poisons relationships; punishes people who happened to be born the wrongly designated color, wrongly designated gender, wrongly designated orientation, and whose physical and mental abilities are different form the ‘norm’ (whatever that is); and sin that props up systems of privilege that guarantee ongoing inequities.” (The News, First Community Church of Dallas, Texas, UCC. March 7,2006.)
I don’t know about you, but I am capable of becoming morally superior at the drop of a hat. My attitude more often reflects the Pharisee than the tax collector. We may recognize others in Jesus’ parables, but more often than not, they are about us and not others. “They’re not portraits of other people but mirrors to help us see ourselves more honestly.” (Claypool, P. 160)
“With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. May we be able to hear the truth that can set us free and help us believe that “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15)
Remember, one of our main questions in this series is, “How is it possible to bring together the teacher who spoke in parables and the subversive who threatened the ruling powers of his day?” Well, here you have another piece of the answer. Here is Jesus proclaiming that a common shrub is as good a sign of the kingdom of God as a mighty cedar and a no-good tax collector is more likely to get into that kingdom than a respected Pharisee. And if this were not controversial enough, Jesus was not content just to tell parables; he also lived them out. As Luke tells us, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners are coming near to listen to (Jesus). And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying,’ This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15: 1-2)
To this, Jesus was guilty as charged.
What in the world is Jesus up to? Well...Stay tuned.