Reflection for Trinity VII, Sunday 26 July 2020

Jesus put before the crowd another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 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.’

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.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ And he said to them, ‘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.’

[Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52]

Water is perhaps one of the most destructive elements on earth, that is after time which has the power to sweep all things away, though both on the outside can appear innocuous. Mountains and valleys have been formed by the action of water. Just under 70 years ago water wrought massive destruction on the Essex coastline. The drip, drip, drip of water over time can wear away just about any surface. Faith to, like and time water, can appear outwardly benign, but can over time transform nations, and cause the rise and fall of empires.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus talks about faith (using here the term Kingdom of Heaven). Jesus tells us that that faith has the power to transform whatever it encounters: like a mustard seed it can take up an immense amount of space, and provide shelter for flocks of birds; like yeast it can transform a inert lump of dough into bread.

But faith and the Kingdom are dangerous, they’re troublemakers. The image of the mustard seed was not a benign one to his listeners. In a parched land where good soil, water and grain are precious, a mustard bush with its resident birds is dangerous. Like a Leylandii tree it takes up water and space, and its resident birds will gorge themselves on freshly sown seeds, ensuring that the farmer and his family have less to eat.

If that weren’t bad enough, the Kingdom and faith can have a transformative and disruptive effect on people’s lives. Think of those two merchants in the parables. Both of them sold all they had in order to buy that field or pearl. That in itself speaks of immense risk: to sell everything and to disrupt the life of one’s family in order to gain something whose value may not be clear.

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The images Jesus uses for the Kingdom and faith are, as I say, troubling and disruptive ones. When we allow our faith to change and transform us, we are taking a risk. The disciples discovered this when they heard the call of Jesus: leave your nets, your families, your tax booth, and come and follow me, and follow him they did! As the faith grew, so it changed and transformed the world around it, like the drip, drip, drip of water upon stone. Over the past 2,000 years empires of faith have risen (and fallen).

Looking over the news a few weeks ago, I read about the re-designation of the Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Istanbul as a mosque. Built by the Emperor Constantine it has, since the 1400s been first a mosque, then from just after the First World War a museum. Whatever we might feel to be the rights or wrongs of this situation, and its impact I’m sure will be greater than we might expect, it is a reminder that the vestiges of the Christian Roman empire lasted until the 1400s, and that empires rise and then fall again.

But whilst empires wax and wane, the disruptive power of faith and the Kingdom of God remain constant. We see this in our own lives, where we give up our weekends to serve and worship God. For some this disruptive call takes a particular route, and they withdraw themselves from public and economic life to become monks and nuns, others as Priests. For most however, it is about living out that disruptive faith day by day, allowing it to shape and change us and the world around us, just as it did the first disciples.