Jesus has a hard job. He’s all about the kingdom of God, or as Matthew calls it, the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is Jesus’ vision of God’s will prevailing in the world. That’s a big thing: Jesus’ vision of God’s will prevailing in the world. And he has to try to explain that.

That is a hard job, because his vision of this kingdom of heaven is mysterious, revolutionary, transforming, dangerous, challenging, consuming, explosive, demanding. And it’s so hard for us to imagine. Our perspective is so skewed against it; we come with such preconceived notions, many of which we are not even aware, that make it so hard for us to get even a glimpse.

Thomas Wheeler, one time CEO of a large life insurance company, tells a story about skewed perspectives. He and his wife stopped for gas at a rundown station. Wheeler walked around to stretch his legs as the grease-covered attendant filled the tank (this was in the days before self-serve). As Wheeler went back to the car, he noticed his wife engaged in an animated conversation with the attendant. As they left, the attendant waved to Mrs. Wheeler and said, "It was great talking to you."

Wheeler asked his wife if she knew the man, and she explained that they had dated for a year in high school.

"Well," Wheeler said, "you were lucky I came along. If you’d married him, you’d be the wife of a gas station attendant instead of a CEO."

"My dear," replied his wife, "if I had married him, he’d be the CEO and you’d be the gas station attendant."

Mrs. Wheeler knew that Mr. Wheeler had a perspective problem, and she set him straight. To set our perspective problems straight, Jesus uses parables, enigmatic stories which use comparison (the Greek word means "to set side by side") to tease out meaning, to reveal a layer at a time to eyes that are ready to see, to offer many meanings simultaneously. Parables allow the hearer to enter the realm of mystery, of immensity, which keeps us from settling on a single meaning and instead refracts the light so that we are surrounded by a glow of meaning, meaning that can change color and shade as we are able to see it.

So I won’t give you "the" answer to Jesus’ parables of the kingdom; that would destroy them. I’ll give you a little background information and an observation or two, maybe a story or two, and let them work on you, reach you with the color and shade of meaning they have for your life at this time.

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone planted in his field. The smallest of all seeds, it grows into a tree, so that the birds make nests in its branches."

Mustard seeds were considered the tiniest things a person could see, yet they grow into a great bush (or, as Matthew says, a tree). In your life, how can the kingdom, God’s will being done, start with that tiniest of things and grow into something glorious? What tiny act might have been done in your life, or might you have done in someone else’s life (of which you might not even aware), that God has grown into something glorious?

In the 1920’s, Johns Hopkins University conducted a sociological study. Researchers went into the poorest neighborhood and identified two hundred children who, according to their best research, were doomed by the conditions in which they grew up to spend years in prison. After twenty-five years, a follow up study revealed that the original study was all wrong; only two of the children had gone to jail. Something had intervened. Interviews with the subjects revealed only one factor they had in common. Each of the subjects spoke of that common factor as a powerful influence in their life. That common factor: an elementary school teacher they called "Aunt Hannah," who had loved them. A mustard seed. What do you plant?

I wonder how it felt, all those years, for Aunt Hannah, working in that dreadful elementary school in a seemingly hopeless situation? Are there times when you can’t see the kingdom at work, and have to trust that the seed is somewhere out there, and that even a tiny seed you can’t see can grow into something glorious?

There is a less obvious layer to this parable. These tiny mustard seeds are easily spread by the wind, and in Jesus’ time mustard plants were often considered weeds that would grow rapidly in a field and crowd out the crops. They had to be pulled up. But this farmer wants the "wrong" kind of plant, the weed. Jesus’ listeners would have been puzzled.

Does God want the "wrong" kind of people for the kingdom? And what about the parts of yourself you consider "weeds," the parts you’re not proud of. Could it be that God could use your weeds? Could it be that what most often frustrates the kingdom is not the weeds, but our attempts to hide them? The twelfth step for Alcoholics Anonymous is to help other alcoholics. Alcoholics who have worked the program can do it like no one else can because they know what it’s like to think of themselves as a "weed" — who is still welcomed into the kingdom.

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 it was leavened." Yeast is wild, frothy, bubbling, erratic stuff. Very unpredictable. I put exactly the same ingredients in my bread maker every time, and I never know what’s going to happen. Yeast is alive and full of surprise.

And yeast, or leaven, is a stock metaphor in the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible to signify ceremonial and moral impurity. It’s just too unpredictable, and predictability was important for symbols of purity. The kingdom of heaven is like leaven? Yeast? Could it be that our ceremonial purity, our moral purity, might just be in for a surprise? Could it be that the kingdom might just be alive and have a shape we can’t predict or (God forbid!) control?

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour." The women listening to Jesus were certainly shocked to hear this! Each measure of flour is twelve quarts. Jesus is talking about thirty-six quarts of flour, enough to make around a hundred loaves of leavened surprise. The kingdom of heaven is surprisingly abundant, and nourishing. And it is real. Bread is not for fairy tales or nourishment in the next life. Bread is for strength for today, this life. Our daily bread.

The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven are about the kingdom. The next two are about our response to the kingdom. "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." More surprise. Just plowing along, and, "Eureka!" the kingdom of heaven, buried there in the dirt.

When we stumble upon the kingdom, how do we act? With joy, like this guy? Do we act like the kingdom has filled us with joy?

This guy sells everything — total commitment. With what are we unwilling to part? There is an ancient legend about a monk who found a precious jewel. Shortly after that, the monk met a hungry traveler who asked for food. When the monk opened his bag, the traveler saw the precious stone and, captivated, asked if he could have it. Amazingly, the monk gave the traveler the stone.

The traveler left, overjoyed. A few days later, he came back and returned the stone to the monk with this request, "Please give me that which enabled you to give me this precious stone."

Jesus tells another parable: "The kingdom is like a merchant of pearls who finds one pearl of great value, so he sells all he has and buys it." Like the parable of the buried treasure, this one obviously asks us to reflect on what we value more than the kingdom. What will we not sell?

But it also raises an issue not raised in the parable of the buried treasure. Here the man sells everything to buy a pearl. Now think about that. He has nothing, no home, no food, no money, only a beautiful pearl. Well, guess what? You can’t eat a pearl. You can’t live in a pearl. He’s going to have to sell it, or he will die from owning it. I think the point is, you can’t try to own, possess, or control this frothy, yeasty, unpredictable, beautiful, living, surprising kingdom! But we try, don’t we? In what ways do we try to shape the kingdom to our wills, make it in our image, treat it as our possession?

It’s a wild thing we say every week: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." I think it’s one of the most important things we say. If you say it, and if you can join me in struggling to get past our skewed perspectives and preconceived notions, then, hang on! It’s going to be a strange, beautiful, surprising ride as we explore together this living, unpredictable kingdom of heaven.