THE
SERMONS AT
By Father Richard Humke
MORE PARABLES, MORE ENCOURAGEMENT
On Monday mornings I go to the business page of the
COURIER-JOURNAL where, each week, there is an article about some small business
that has taken off and seems to be doing well.
The articles are about local people, men and women, of all races, who
are what we call entrepreneurs.
I see what dreams some people have had -- and what
willingness to take a risk for the sake of the dream. Many weeks I don't even know such a business even
exists until I read the article -- and then I often can't figure out exactly
what they do -- but every week one constant in the articles is the excitement
the owners have about what they have created.
Some have taken their life savings to begin the business. Many have convinced family members to put
their resources into the venture. All
have taken out sizeable loans.
And it occurred to me as I looked at today's Gospel that
they were doing what Jesus talks about, though certainly in a different context,
that of business rather than the kingdom of heaven. Jesus says,
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.
Take a risk! Do
something without knowing the outcome!
Great things may come from it.
That's what the entrepreneur is doing:
taking a risk, not knowing the outcome, hoping for great things.
I had an interesting experience this past week. I was asked by someone at the Filson Club Historical Society to bless at Cave Hill the
grave of Mary Margaret Clark, a daughter of William Clark, the great explorer
of the West. She died at the age of
seven in 1821and until recently her grave was not identified. Some researchers from the Filson
Club with the cooperation of
So I have been thinking of Meriweather
Lewis and William Clark this past week.
Perhaps you have read Stephen Ambrose's popular account of the great
exploratory journey of Lewis and Clark almost 200 years ago when they journeyed
through the Louisiana Purchase to seek a land route to the Pacific. We will surely be hearing a lot about them
soon because next year is the bicentennial of that great exploratory journey.
They were entrepreneurs of a different sort. They left family and possessions behind to
launch out into the unknown, uncertain about what they would find and not
knowing how it would all end. They, too,
were after a pearl of great price. They,
too, were seeking a treasure hidden in a field.
Today's Gospel brings us, not one parable of Jesus, as has
been the case the past two Sundays, but no less than five parables. Five little mind teasers. Five small spiritual
lessons. Five challenges to members of the Christian community. Unlike the past two weeks, however, today's
Gospel makes no attempt to explain these parables. They are merely told, and you and I are left
to figure them out. That's a good
parable, one that doesn't have the answer built into it, one that sets us to
thinking about its meaning.
The first parable is about a tiny mustard seed that grows
into a large shrub. The second parable
is about a tiny amount of yeast which, when mixed with flour, affects the whole
batch all out of proportion to its own size.
The third and fourth parables are about the treasure hidden in a field
and the pearl of great price, for both of which the finder is willing to risk a
great deal. And the last parable is
about the mixture of good and bad fish which are found when a net is hauled in.
These are not hard to understand as some of Jesus' parables
are. They are rather obvious parables of
encouragement to the fledgling church for which Matthew wrote his Gospel. (You do know, don't you, that the Gospels
were written for specific small Christian communities in the 1st Century
without any thought that they would be read 2000 years later?)
So these early Christians heard the message of these
parables clearly, I am certain.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a tiny mustard seed that grows into
a large plant," Jesus said. You
small group of Christians, don't worry about your smallness. Like the mustard seed you, too, will grow
into something larger.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a tiny amount of yeast
that affects the large batch of dough," Jesus said. You, too, may be small, but you can have an
influence all out of proportion to your size.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure found in a
field -- it is like a pearl of great value -- for which you sell all in order
to buy the field or the pearl," Jesus said. What you are going through now in ridicule
and persecution is worth it all because the reward will be so much greater.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the
sea which brings up good and bad fish," Jesus said. Yes, your small Christian community will not
be composed of all good folk -- there will be a few bad fish among you -- so
don't be surprised. Wait until the end
when they will be sorted out.
Those are the messages that the 1st C. Christians heard in
these parables. Messages
of encouragement. Teachings to challenge them to stay with their new-found faith, to
be loyal to this Messiah who had come among them. Messages of hope for the unknown and
uncertain future they faced, for as last week's Epistle said, "...in hope
we were saved.
Can these parables be messages for the 21st C. Church as
well? Can they be messages for
Obviously I think they can be all of these things: messages of hope for the Church in any
century; messages of hope for Christians today as we face an
uncertain, but undoubtedly an unknown, future; messages of hope for
If I spell out the messages of these parables any more than
I have, I defeat one of their purposes:
to make you think about them.
Suffice it to say that Jesus says to us today in his teachings,
Look,
the kingdom of heaven, that is, the influence of God, begins small, but grows;
it has power beyond what you might think; it is worth sacrificing in order to
gain it; and the community of people who will join you in searching for it will
be a mixed bag of imperfect people -- just like you.
So to go back to our opening stories -- The kingdom of
heaven, having God in your life, is not so much a certainty as it is a
risk. If God's presence and influence in
your life is something you want and need, then it's worth taking that risk,
like the entrepreneurs I spoke of, being willing to gamble and being open to
surprises, being willing to make sacrifices for the pearl of great price.
If the kingdom of heaven, having God in your life, is
something you want and need, then know that it will be a journey on which you
are setting out, with some similarities to that of the great explorers, who
searched for one thing and were surprised by what they found. And even more, who came to realize that it
was in the journey itself, in finding all the amazing and exotic flora and
fauna of the West, that they grew and changed in ways they could not have
imagined when they began their journey in St. Louis. The journey toward God will be like
that: not what you expected, but one in
which you will undoubtedly be changed.
Richard H. Humke