Matthew 15.21-28

And Jesus left there, withdrew into the area of Tyre and Sidon. And, would you believe it, a Canaanite woman from that region came and cried out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Son of David! My daughter is evilly possessed.” And he answered her not one word. And the disciples coming to him asked him, saying, “Send her away, because she’s making a scene.” And he answered, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered and said, “It is not right to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord; but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, great is your faith! May it be as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour (Jen's Translation).

Ever embarrassed to admit that you’re a church-going, Bible-believing Christian? Let me just say that there are days when I’d really rather keep quiet about this occasionally embarrassing fact.

Lately I have become addicted to blogging. For those of you who do not suffer from this virtual addiction, here’s a definition: “blog” is short for “web log,” a kind of website where a person can record their thoughts, observations, and comments on whatever strikes their fancy, and then “publish” them on the Internet, where anyone can visit the site and read what they’ve written. Almost like an on-line diary of sorts. I collaborate with three others in writing a blog called "A Few Voices,” the purpose of which is to comment on things cultural and political from a religious point of view; the idea motivating this blog is that the dreadful caricature of American Christianity commonly promoted—without reflection or serious examination or challenge—is one that doesn’t fit us, the few voices behind afewvoices.com. I also write a personal blog, the sole purpose of which is to provide a semi-anonymous forum where I can rant and rave about things that drive me crazy or tick me off. And I am addicted to reading blogs. I read about a dozen regularly, and by regularly I mean daily. All of them are religious, specifically Christian, and most are Church of Christ blogs by other seminarians who are addicted to wondering obsessively about the same things I do. And I keep up with the latest appearances of religious news by checking The Revealer, “a daily review of religion and the press.”

It’s here, at The Revealer, that some of the most truly embarrassing things about being a Christian in America today can be found, exhibited for general amusement and, possibly, to shame the rest of us into letting these good brothers and sisters get away with such shenanigans. The most recent headline at The Revealer tells you where you can go to order your very own copy of the 16-cassette tape series, “Patriarchy Made Simple.” Scroll down the screen for a link to an article with information about how prayer helps you shed pounds [editor's note: you can read the whole article here, if you're desperate, ahem, faithful enough to try it].

Yes, I have my moments of excruciating embarrassment about being a Christian.

Matthew’s story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman sounds like something you might read on The Revealer, about a TV evangelist/healer who walks around the streets of NYC, tight-lipped and clench-jawed, ignoring the bag lady shouting desperately after him, “Help me! Help me!” Not a stellar moment for Christianity. Not a stellar moment for Jesus, either.

It’s one thing to be embarrassed by a TV preacher shouting some nonsense about prayer hankies. It’s quite another to be embarrassed by your very own Lord, the Son of God, Jesus himself. And we’re presented with an embarrassment in this text. Suppose this were you, walking down the street with a woman shouting “help me” following after you. You’d say to yourself, “What would Jesus do? Jesus would help this woman.” But forget it! Not even Jesus is doing What Jesus Would Do—all of a sudden, Jesus is acting like he’s his own Evil Twin. Jesus ignores this woman. And the disciples aren’t any better; their only concern is to plead with Jesus to shut her up, because she’s making a scene. They don’t ask him to stop and help her—they just want her gone, this very embarrassing, ultra-inappropriate Canaanite female person. They’re not doing What Jesus Would Do anymore than Jesus is.

This text burdens us with its demand that we rationalize Jesus’ inexplicable behavior. We feel obligated to find ways of reading it that make it look less un-Jesus-like. Jesus can’t come off bad, after all, so we have to find some way to understand this so that Jesus comes off all right. But it’s not that easy. Jesus calls this woman a dog! Such is our collective desperation to understand this in a “nice” way that some commentaries suggest—in all seriousness, now—that what Jesus actually called her was something more like “nice little puppy.”

So what’s going on here? Well, here are some possibilities: 1) Jesus really was sent to the Jews first and foremost, and he’s not being rude or cruel, just telling the uncomfortable truth; in salvation-history terms, Israel is first, Gentiles are second. 2) Jesus is expressing a deep truth about all ministry: human beings are finite and ministry must always be done locally if it is to be effective; hence, he emphasizes that he must minister to those among whom he finds himself, that is, Israel. Others will just have to wait. 3) Jesus is concerned with teaching his disciples a lesson about who’s in and who’s not out and therefore employs some irony and dramatic roleplay as an attention-grabbing teaching technique.

Let’s consider Door #1. Perhaps it is true to say that Jesus was sent to the Jews first; Jesus is, after all, the “Messiah,” a figure that Israel had been waiting on for years, a word which would have no meaning at all outside of Israel’s history. But is this really what Jesus says, when he finally speaks? He says, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Perhaps your Bible reads simply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The more literal double negative—“I was not sent except to Israel”—comes across a little stronger, a little more emphatic; in effect, Jesus says, if not for Israel, I wouldn’t be here at all. To read this as a claim of mere chronological precedence—Israel happens to be the people God deals with first, and therefore to whom Jesus is sent—doesn’t capture the full sense of this statement. Even to read this as a claim of pecking order within the kingdom of God doesn’t go far enough. What Jesus says sounds like an exclusive statement without exception. Plus, is a pecking order within the kingdom of God really something that sounds consistent with Jesus’ teaching? Perhaps Door #1 only opens onto an empty room after all.

Maybe Door #2 offers us a better explanation. Maybe Jesus was simply trying to say, “Look, I was sent to do a thing and I was sent to a particular place at a particular time, and I have to be about this, and I’m sorry, but this is simply outside my purview.” After all, Jesus was human, too; he needed to rest and eat and he had only two hands and two feet and 24 hours in a day like the rest of us. There’s simply a limit to what can be done, and you have to do what you can where you are. Maybe Jesus is just trying to say, I have to do my ministry where God put me in the first place.

Tom Long, homiletics prof at Emory, makes sense of this encounter by comparing Jesus to the founder of a battered woman’s shelter. If a homeless man shows up on the doorstep of a battered woman’s shelter begging for help, Long points out, the founder of the shelter may feel a great deal of compassion and yet still have to say no to his plea. Can she, should she, hand over the resources, finite and limited as they are, that she had worked so hard to gather for the women whose need is great, to someone who isn’t a part of the group she ministers to? (Long, Matthew, 176).

As tempting as this explanation is, I find two things unsatisfactory about it. First, Jesus has withdrawn into the area of Tyre and Sidon, and is hanging out in the iffy border-lands between Israel and Gentile territory. It seems that he is looking for some R & R, but this bothersome and loud Canaanite woman has somehow heard about him, and seeks him out. If the issue is localized, specific ministry to those whom you happen to come across—well, this woman fits the bill as well as anyone else who has ever sought Jesus out. Second, we’re not talking about disbursing funds, or even some kind of ministry which seems to involve belabored effort; while it is true that Jesus is human and therefore is subject to the same kinds of physical demands as everyone else who has ever lived, Jesus’ healing ministry has always been a sign of the divine side of Jesus. It’s certainly something outside of normal human capacity; something which, as a budding theologian interested in religion & science questions, I’ll just shrug and mumble “I dunno” if you ask me how he did it. The analogy to the women’s shelter, then, falls apart right at the point where it is supposed to illuminate. Jesus isn’t going to run out of healing juice in the same way that the women’s shelter is likely to run out of money.

So perhaps we’ll opt for Door #3. Maybe Jesus just doesn’t really mean it. At least, not in a straightforward, literal way. Perhaps he’s being ironic! Jesus can be tricky sometimes, as well we know. Maybe he makes this statement so strongly so that everyone will understand that he can’t possibly mean what it sounds like. Certainly, the woman doesn’t seem put off; she, at least, seems to think that, no matter how final that first statement sounded, that there is room for her in Jesus’ ministry.

So maybe it goes something like this: Jesus has been hanging out with these disciples of his for awhile, and he knows that there are some things they’re just having trouble getting their minds around. So Jesus decides to play it out. Here’s the perfect opportunity for a little bit of dramatic lesson-teaching. So first, Jesus ignores the woman—just like any righteous Teacher of Israel would do. The reaction of his disciples, though, is a little disappointing: instead of saying, “Rabbi, don’t you hear this woman crying to you for help? Why won’t you stop and heal her daughter?” No, they say, “Jesus, can’t you deal with this? Shut this woman up, she’s embarrassing us, GOSH!” So Jesus says, to everyone, still playing his ironic role, “I was not sent but to Israel.” The disciples apparently have no objection to this statement, but the woman knows better. Instead of leaving, she comes and kneels at Jesus’ feet and says, simply, “Lord, help me.” Maybe the disciples were grimacing and muttering amongst themselves, and Jesus saw that they still weren’t getting it—this woman’s demonstration of faith and trust was still not yet enough to soften their arrogance and self-assurance regarding their own guaranteed places in the kingdom, and the woman’s obvious out-of-placeness. So he plays it out even further, telling her, “It’s not right to take the children’s food and give it to dogs.” Maybe the disciples “Amen-ed” and nodded. But the woman knows better. Certain that the Jesus she has heard of, and trusted enough to follow after, would be willing and even eager to help her—no matter who she is, or isn't—she replies, “even the dogs have a place, under the table, eating what the children don’t want.” Maybe the humility of this reply startles some of the disciples out of their self-satisfied stupor. Maybe Jesus is so happy that this woman is so certain of him and so trusting that he can no longer bear to continue in his ironic stance toward her, and now turns to her, eager to heal, eager to show her and the disciples that she and her daughter, too, no matter how “inappropriate” they are, are equally a part of God’s kingdom.

I like this one—you can probably tell. This ironic interpretation makes sense of everything: Jesus’ weird behavior, the disciple’s teenage-like angst over their image, the woman’s persistence, Jesus’ eventual change of heart.

What’s missing, though, is any indication that the disciples got Jesus’ message. If this was the whole point, if Jesus went to such lengths to teach this lesson, well, there’s no indication that anyone ever got it. There’s no verse to follow the healing of the woman’s daughter that tells us anything about the disciples, whether they continued to be embarrassed by this woman’s presence, whether they were happy or annoyed by the fact that Jesus paid attention to her request, whether they repented of their juvenile obsession over image.

And even in this interpretation there is a lingering sense that Jesus was somehow a little unkind to this poor and desperate woman. She has no idea that she is the occasion for an inventive and ironic episode designed for the disciples’ benefit. Certainly whatever callousness Jesus displays in using her this way is a great deal less disturbing than his unkindness in a straightforward interpretation in which Jesus calls her a dog and tells her she has no part in the good news he is preaching to Israel. But still, a little uneasiness remains: does Jesus really use people in this way? Are we comfortable with this idea, and should we be?

So I want to propose yet another possibility—one which doesn’t get a door, because there’s never any “Door #4” on game shows. Certainly there is a lesson being taught here. But perhaps Jesus isn’t the all-knowing Teacher in this story. Maybe Jesus, just like all the rest of us, has something to learn from life; maybe what happens in this exchange is that Jesus, too, is a learner, and the Teacher in the story—unwittingly—is this fragile and yet courageous Canaanite woman, whose persistence teaches even Jesus something new about the nature of the kingdom. Perhaps Jesus was stunned at the prospect that the Good News he was preaching to Israel communicated itself even to those outside its borders, to people who had no preparation, no ongoing relationship with Yahweh, no idea of what it meant—but who somehow grasped the essence of the limitless grace of the kingdom of God anyhow, somehow grasped that this kingdom, unlike any other kingdom they’d ever known, has no borders to defend, knows no outsiders. Perhaps it took a moment for Jesus to absorb this stunning truth. Perhaps even Jesus was dazzled by the unbounded grace of God, kneeling before him the figure of this inappropriate woman, humbly yet persistently asserting that she and her daughter, too, had a place in God’s kingdom, as even the dogs have a place under the kitchen table. Gently and obstinately, the woman keeps insisting, we belong here, too.

Isaiah tells us, in the Old Testament reading for today, that God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, will “gather others to them, besides those already gathered.” Jesus knew the outcasts of Israel. He ate with them, talked with them, touched them and healed them, and ignored the protests and slander of the “righteous.” But this outcast is not an outcast of Israel; she is another…but one who will gathered as well, to those who are already gathered.

Perhaps it makes us a little uncomfortable to contemplate a picture of Jesus who’s not in complete control, who isn’t omniscient—who doesn’t know the future, who doesn’t necessarily know the intimate details and thoughts of everyone he encounters, who might have to learn along the way just what it means to be the Son of God. Maybe Jesus seems a little less righteous this way, a little less perfect. But righteousness doesn’t have to mean getting things right automatically, without having to think about it; perhaps righteousness, even in Jesus, includes being able to listen to the outcast and learn what righteousness is all over again.

We have to ask ourselves, now, where are we in this story. And it's pretty obvious, isn't it, that we stand with the disciples--the ones who, no matter which door you choose, which interpretation you choose, come off badly every time. Because it’s human nature, isn’t it, to think of ourselves and others in terms of what we are and what we aren’t, in terms of who is in and who is out of a particular group. It’s nearly impossible to describe yourself without employing these kinds of descriptors. And we experience a kind of natural affinity for those whom we can see are like us in some way. I gravitate to fellow students when I socialize at church; we have something to talk about (or more accurately complain about) that others don’t. In China, I experienced a sort of affinity-on-steroids for my fellow Americans; if I was walking down the street and saw a foreign face that I didn’t know, I would shout “Lao wai!” [“Foreigner!”] and accost the person, pathetic in my eagerness to connect.

But the flip side of this natural tendency of all of us human beings is that seeking out people who aren’t like us is then “unnatural.” It’s not that we can’t do it. It’s just that we don’t tend to, and it’s harder for us. No matter how much you want to break these barriers down, or deny that they exist, they are there, challenging your “unnatural” desire to live in a kingdom that doesn’t defend its borders.

And the church is by no means immune to this way of thinking, this who’s in, who’s out mentality. We know this, to our shame. It’s not just a Church of Christ problem, or an American Christianity problem. It’s been the church’s problem since the very beginning, when the Jews and the Gentiles were trying to figure out what to do with each other. It’s the problem Paul addresses in Romans, taking turns bashing the Gentiles and then the Jews, telling each group, “you’re not ‘in’ and they’re not ‘out’. God has called all of you, and God doesn’t make mistakes.”

In this world, where we have to learn from each other how to be righteous all over again, all the time, in every encounter, the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman gives us a picture of profound righteousness. Jesus, the Son of God, allows himself to be corrected by a loudmouthed, embarrassing female who insists on making a scene. This is righteousness at its truest and most humble. May we all find the strength to follow Christ’s example.

Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

He put before them 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 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 [hid in] 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 kindgom 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" (NRSV).

Today’s text, found in Matthew 13, isn’t really “a” text at all, it seems to me. It is a little collection of multiple texts, very short little sayings of Jesus, all of which seem to be fairly freestanding, independent, and, let’s face it, completely obvious. As a kid I always thought it was funny that we would study these in a class, or that a preacher would preach on one. I mean, “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grew into a tree.” So … the kingdom of heaven starts small, and then it gets really really big. There doesn’t seem to be much else to say about it. It’s pretty clear … so clear, in fact, even the disciples seem to understand these parables, although earlier in the chapter Matthew recounts that they had to ask for an explanation of the Parable of the Sower—not an especially difficult one there, either. But the disciples, not always altogether that swift, do seem to get the short, sweet ones with the really obvious point. These are about their speed. And, I’ll be honest, if the other option is the Parable of the Unjust Steward, I’ll take these any day of the week. Especially Sunday.

This is the first time, in Matthew’s account, that Jesus has spoken to the people following him in parables. And here, for the first time, all of a sudden, everything is a parable; if it’s not a parable, then it’s an explanation of a parable, or an comment on why, suddenly, Jesus has decided to only speak in parables. The Sermon on the Mount, while not exactly easy, is pretty direct; but Jesus has decided to switch strategies here in the middle of Matthew, to change in midstream and start teaching indirectly through the use of parables. Why do this? Jesus’ comments here in chapter 13, just before he relates the various kingdom of heaven parables, seem to say that he does this because people aren’t really getting what he’s been saying all along. But they don't really get the parables either. Perhaps some of them were shrugging and muttering to their neighbor, “so you sow seed on good soil, and it grows, who doesn’t know that?” Perhaps some of them were furrowing their brows and thinking, “this sounds so obvious…but I know there’s gotta be something profound here…” And probably in the back row there were a few troublemakers throwing spit-balls at each other and telling jokes…or maybe now I’m just projecting…

Like anyone else, when I read the gospels, I like to mentally place myself cozily in Jesus’ immediate ring of followers, his closest disciples, the people who were always there, who heard every word, who understood everything. But the gospels themselves often challenge this easy assumption. We realize with unease, embarrassment, maybe horror, that we are the Pharisee, or the hypocrite, or the scribe attempting to trip up Jesus in a legalistic conundrum; this time, I realized I was the anonymous clueless listener who thought to herself, uh, so what?

But I often also feel, reading parables like these, that perhaps I think they’re so obvious because I’m just not reading carefully enough, or thinking hard enough, or being faithful enough, to see the real profundity of them. There has to be something there, right? After all, this is the Bible. This is Jesus talking. It has to be profound … and if I can’t see it, the problem’s gotta be me. This feeling gets even worse when I’m surrounded by very faithful and intelligent people who all seem to be getting something I don’t, or at the very least, taking it for granted that something is there that I’m having trouble seeing.

But I’m not alone in this feeling, either. Other Christians through the years have struggled with the suspicion that these short, sweet little obvious sayings have to mean more than the obvious, have to be more than they appear to be, and they’ve struggled really hard to find the deeper meaning in them. This often led to allegorical interpretation, in which each element of the parable becomes a symbol for something else. Take, for example, Hilary of Poitier, a 4th century bishop, on the parable of the leaven, who claimed that the yeast represents Christ, the woman represents the synagogue, and the three measures of flour, the law, the prophets and the gospel, and also the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and also, possibly, the calling of the three nations out of Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Hilary is a little doubtful about this last one, actually, you’ll be relieved to know.) But lest you think Hilary’s the only one looking a little too hard, Jerome—the very learned man who first translated the Bible into Latin, giving us the Vulgate—interpreted the yeast as knowledge of the Scriptures, and found the significance of the three measures of flour to be that “the spirit, the soul and the body” which are then blended into one.

Perhaps this seems very clearly ridiculous. All of this from a parable a single sentence long, which, in my Bible, doesn’t even get its own heading but tags along after the mustard tree like a little kid after his big brother. Certainly the point seems pretty obvious: again, something really small gets really big—the kingdom of heaven is like that.

Not too long ago, the Youngish-Professionalish-Adultish class at my church started studying the parables. Our first discussion centered on this very problem: do the parables have one meaning, or many possible meanings? Do they make one point, or lots of different points all at the same time? I’m sorry to report to you that we didn’t really settle this question. But I left with an interesting image to keep in mind as we read the parables: one way of thinking about the meaning is as a centripetal force, drawing everything into the center, into a single point. Another way of thinking about a parable’s meaning is as a centrifugal force, where meanings spin off, flying away in multiple directions. Some parables seem to draw everything to a distinct, single point; others seem to offer all kinds of possibilities, perhaps so many that we can’t sift through all of them.

Today I want to do a little of both. I think these short, sweet, obvious parables do make a single, overwhelming point, one that is easy to grasp, though, perhaps, not always easy to implement. But I also found, as I read through them again and again, that when read “against each other,” so to speak, that the meanings start coalescing in new ways, offering something new in addition to the single points the parables make on their own.

I’d like to spend the rest our time looking at the three parables in verses 44-50. Like the mustard seed and the leaven, their meaning seems plain, although the message is a different one. In both the parable of the treasure and the parable of the pearl, a single object is found that is of such great value that the person goes and sells everything in order to buy it. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us, is like that treasure, or that pearl: it is of such great value that everything else you have is worth nothing compared to it.

--What is, exactly, the kingdom of heaven? Well, as my husband pointed out to me, whole books have been written on that … and what we have here is not so much a definition as it is a handful of hints, which as disciples, we must put together into a coherent picture, learning inductively what the kingdom of heaven means as we go along. Perhaps this is part of why Jesus turns to parables at this point; each parable gives us another hint, another piece of the picture, in a way that demands further synthesis, further thought. Jesus’ comments to the disciples on why parables may be getting at just this truth: people have been hearing him without understanding, Jesus tells them, and so now he will speak in parables—not because they’re easier to understand, but because they require something different of the listener, a participation in putting together the meaning. The kingdom of heaven isn’t something that we can take notes on as Jesus outlines its main features for us. It’s something to be grasped, bit by bit, along the way.

So far, Jesus has told his disciples that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard tree, leaven, treasure in a field, and a pearl. A handful of clues, if you will. The stories of the growing mustard seed and the leaven hidden in the flour give us a picture of something small, humble, insignificant, which—by doing what it does naturally—turns into something large, strong, and mature. It accomplishes this silently, simply growing, perhaps unnoticed until the final result is accomplished. The parables of the treasure and the pearl give us a glimpse into how important the kingdom of heaven truly is; more important than anything else in the world. Taken as single clues, they tell us that the kingdom of God is both humble, hidden, and yet at the same time great and important.

But these parables also, I think, tell us something else, when read all together. What I want to say here is that in all of these parables, the kingdom of heaven has been likened to something singular: one object, a tree, a treasure, a single shining pearl. The kingdom of heaven has been described in its unity, its wholeness and integrity assumed. The kingdom is one. The kingdom of heaven acts as a single unit: it grows, like a tree; it leavens, like yeast; it is possessed in whole or not at all, like the treasure or the pearl. The kingdom does not come in halves or quarters. It is, essentially, one.

And doesn’t this, too, tell us something significant about the kingdom of heaven? When we discover the kingdom of heaven, we do find it to be essentially one; despite the signs on our buildings, despite doctrinal quibbling, deep down, I think, we all recognize that the kingdom of heaven itself is undivided. Are we not all one in Christ Jesus? Doesn’t Jesus himself pray for unity for his followers, in John 17?

And yet Jesus has one more parable for us, in this 13th chapter of Matthew. He tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a net full of every kind of fish. Every kind of fish. We’ve gone straight from the kingdom of heaven is like a single shining pearl to, the kingdom of heaven is like a net full of every kind of floppy, stinky fish. All of a sudden, unity is suddenly pushed into the background as Jesus presents with a startlingly different description of the kingdom, a kingdom which encompasses the very outer limits of diversity, represented by not just different kinds but every different kind of fish that there is. Apparently, whoever’s throwing the net into the sea doesn’t really care what kind of fish the net drags in—all this fisherman cares about is if it’s full. When it is full, the net is drawn ashore…and then the sorting begins. But we’re not sorting one kind from another, here. We’re not sorting trout from striped bass or catfish from dogfish or red fish from blue fish—just sorting good from bad. And here, Jesus helps us out a bit more, by telling us that this sorting of the fish is like the angels separating the righteous from the evil at “the close of the age.” The only relevant sorting is good from bad; not light fish from dark fish, or rich fish from poor fish, or smart fish from dumb fish, or even religious fish from secular fish; just good from bad, righteous from unrighteous. The point is, I think, pretty clear: within the kingdom of heaven there is amazing diversity. All kinds of fish get dragged in. All kinds of fish get sorted. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of every different kind of fish.

And now we have a great contrast, don’t we, between the essential unity of the kingdom of heaven, and the essential diversity of it; and what are we to make of this?

There are, I think, two thoughts to follow here. One is, Matthew is clearly building the train of thought which will climax in his recounting of the Great Commission, in which the risen Jesus instructs the disciples to go out and make disciples of all nations. Matthew’s gospel was most probably written for an original audience of predominantly Jewish Christians, people who would be struggling with reconciling their Jewish identity and heritage with the implications of Jesus’ teaching for Gentiles. Here in this parable, we see Matthew stressing the universality of Jesus’ teaching: it’s not just for Jewish fish, Matthew tells his original readers, it’s for every kind of fish in the sea. In fact, being one kind or the other makes no difference at all in the end; when you’re sorted, it’s just about being good or bad that counts.

This brings us to the second thought: the only distinction to be made with regard to the kingdom of heaven is essentially ethical—one is righteous or unrighteous. A few weeks ago, reading the end of the Sermon on the Mount together, we noted Matthew’s emphasis on action as a necessary component of righteousness; simple knowledge of what is good is not enough—this knowledge must be acted on. Here, again, this theme in Matthew makes itself felt. In the end, Matthew tells us, the kingdom of heaven is about righteousness.

Bearing these things in mind, I want to look again at the two parables that precede the parable of the fish. The main point, the obvious point, still stands: the worth of the kingdom of heaven exceeds all else. But with an eye toward the idea of the simultaneous diversity and unity of the kingdom, what else might this pair of deceptively simple stories tell us? In the first, a man “finds” a hidden treasure. He’s not, apparently, looking for it. He just finds it, stumbles over it, seemingly. He just happens to be in the right place at the right time, tripping over the right rock, falling face flat on X-marks-the-spot while no one else is looking. In his joy, the text says, he sells all he has to buy the field. In the second, a merchant is in search of fine pearls; and he finds one. Unlike the man in the field, the merchant spends his time looking for what he finds. It’s his livelihood—his whole life, in a sense, is organized around this search for fine pearls. When he finds one, the one, he’s not surprised, but he knows what he must do to get it, and he does it.

One stumbles into the kingdom seemingly by accident; one searches it out deliberately. And yet they both respond to the evident worth of the kingdom; they both understand that though it means giving up everything else, the kingdom is worth it.

Maybe Matthew wants to tell us that the first man is like the Gentile; unprepared, without Israel’s long history and relationship with God, the Gentile stumbles onto the gospel without really knowing what it is that he’s looking for. But he knows, after he finds it, the worth of what he’s found. Maybe Matthew wants to tell us that the merchant is like the Jewish Christian: he knows what it is he seeks, he organizes his whole life around the pursuit, and when he finds it, he knows what to do.

Perhaps in our own context we can read these different ways of coming to the kingdom with a different emphasis. Perhaps the man who stumbles over the treasure is like those of us who were lucky enough to be born in a place where we can, without design, without intent, without even meaning to, stumble into the gospel. Some of us are born into families who have hidden the gospel all around us just so that we can stumble onto it before we even know we should be looking for it. There it is, hidden in the illustrated Children’s Book of Bible Stories on the bedside table, or in the prayer Grandpa says before meals. But some of us, like the merchant, search long and hard, knowing what we’re missing in our lives but not quite knowing where to find it, before we finally catch sight of it. I think about the difference between my own story, my own faith journey, and those of the Christians I met in China. I stumbled into the kingdom before I even knew what it was. My friend Anya waited out every other student after my first English class to ask, when everyone was gone and it was safe, “can you teach me the Bible?”

And yet, as the parable of the fish tells us, it doesn’t matter which way we come to find the kingdom; whether we know what we’re looking for or don’t, whether we’re searching high and low or never even had to search at all, we land in the same place. We are all brought onto shore together in the same net. Anya and I discovered the same kingdom, were brought into the same kingdom.

And, regardless of how we come to find the kingdom, we’re all called to the same response; we’re all asked to give up the same thing: all that we have, whatever it is. It’s not simply that the kingdom of heaven is worth so much more than anything else we might happen to possess; in these parables, the only way to get hold of the kingdom is to sell all you have. Certainly there are echoes here of the story Matthew will tell in chapter 19 of “the rich young ruler,” the young man who walks away from Jesus sorrowfully because he cannot do this very thing. But I think here the intent may include rather more than simply the idea of material wealth—although the context of the parable makes this the most obvious and perhaps the first meaning. There is also a hint of the revolutionary quality of the kingdom of heaven—this amazing thing that turns your whole life inside out, makes you re-evaluate everything, re-order, re-prioritize, perhaps even throw it all out and start from scratch.

At the conclusion of these parables, Jesus asks his disciples, “Have you understood all this?” And they tell him, “yes.” Now, if this were Mark telling the story, Mark would tell us, uh, no, the disciples never really got anything Jesus tried to tell them until much, much later. But Matthew is more optimistic in his portrayal of the disciples’ ability to understand. Matthew tells us that they do get it. And Jesus responds to them with what is, at least to us, a somewhat enigmatic statement, almost another parable in itself: “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” Maybe this is Jesus’ way of telling them they get an A in their first parables class. It seems clear, at any rate, that Jesus is counting the disciples as “scribes being trained for the kingdom of heaven,” and, anyway, what better training for the kingdom of heaven could there be than following Jesus around? But what does Jesus mean by the comparison of the disciples to a householder who brings out new and old treasure?

I want to suggest that here, again, we have an echo of the unity and diversity of the kingdom of heaven. The old treasure is the old wisdom, the law, the prophets, the history of Israel’s long relationship with God; the new is Jesus’ own teaching, the inbreaking of the kingdom of heaven, or perhaps even Jesus himself! As “scholars trained for the kingdom of heaven,” the disciples are to bring out both the new and the old; both witness to the reality of the kingdom of heaven. Some will find the kingdom of heaven as they traverse from the old to the new; some will find the kingdom of heaven in the new, and rejoice then to discover the old.

So, finally, I think, the question of the unity and diversity of the kingdom of heaven becomes clear. Anyone may find the kingdom. The ways in which we here today have found the kingdom are, I’m sure, as diverse as the number of people here today. And yet when we find it, we are all called to the same response. We are all faced with the same necessity. We are all asked, what will you do with your find?

Matthew 7.21-29

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

We take our text this morning from the end of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” a long collection of various sayings of Jesus found in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. The Sermon on the Mount isn’t, of course, a “sermon” like we think of them today. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t have a structure, or coherence, or an overall point. We will keep this in mind as we think about the text for today, the conclusion of the sermon. Our text comes in 2 parts: first we have Jesus’ warning that not all those who say to him, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven; and second, we have the very familiar story of the wise man who built his house on the rock, and his foolish counterpart who built his house on the sand. We will be looking at both parts, but in reverse order.

“The wise man built his house upon the rock.” How many of you inadvertently already have the old VBS song running through your head right now? This was one of my favorite songs as a kid. You just can’t beat the songs with the hand movements. This song also holds a special place for me because it happens to be, surprisingly, one of the favorite songs of the Chinese Christians in Wuhan, China. My first job out of college was teaching English there, 1998-99. I remember singing it first one night because we happened to be talking about this text, and it seemed like a good way to introduce the lesson. It surprised all of us American types when it caught on. The next week I found myself typing up the words and printing them out for Ladies’ Bible Study because it wasn’t in any of our songbooks, Chinese or English. I remember a couple of people volunteering to translate the song. I remember all of us being astonished that so many grown people would like a children’s song that much, but they did. (Their other favorite song was “Paradise Valley”—don’t ask me why.) I think part of the reason they liked the song so much is that it so clearly follows the Bible. These Christians were all new to Christianity, new to the Bible, and I’m sure that a lot of the songs we regularly sang in church didn’t make any sense to them, didn’t seem to have any connection to the Bible. They were always learning, always trying to learn, always trying to suck every little bit of knowledge out of everything... This song must have been a treasure trove to them, finally, a song that they could understand and learn from.

And we know that’s what songs do. Songs teach us. Why else would we sing our ABC’s, instead of reciting them? Why else do we all have this song in our heads still, at 30 years old, 50 years old? And why is it that every child here can tell us the story of the wise man who built his house upon the rock?

So what does this song teach us? Well, it follows the story pretty exactly, for the most part. It does, of course, make an interpretive move from Jesus’ “and great was its fall” to SMASH!, but I think we can agree that’s pretty minor, quite possibly an improvement, and definitely called for in the structure of the song. The really notable thing about the song is its last verse, the third verse. The conclusion of the song tells us: “So build your life on the Lord Jesus Christ…and the blessings come tumbling down; oh, the blessings come down as the prayers go up…”

So today, we have the problem of overcoming this familiarity. Like so many other wonderful passages in the Bible, familiarity can obscure the message sometimes, rather than reveal it. The song not only recounts Jesus’ story of the wise and the foolish man, but it gives us an interpretation as well. It’s not that interpretation is bad. On the contrary, we all know that interpretation is a necessary part of understanding the words that have been handed down to us in the Bible. But sometimes, certain interpretations become so normal, so authoritative, so embedded in our consciousness and our thoughts, that we can’t see where the text ends and the interpretation begins. An interpretation can become so familiar that we just don’t notice it any more, and we start to think that it’s just obvious that this is the right way to understand the text. In a small way, I think the song has interpreted these verses for me nearly my whole life. So now we have a chance to take a step back, look at this interpretation we’ve been given, and see what we think about it.

First, I want to note that some friends of mine have amended the third verse in the following way: “the blessings come down and the praise goes up”—they didn’t like the sort of “health and wealth” gospel in the original. I’m on board with this amendment, although I find it difficult to remember to sing the new version. When we sang this at church a couple of weeks ago I kept missing the changes. But my friends have noticed something profound here. Does the Bible tell us that the wise man had “blessings come tumbling down” because he built his house on the rock, because he built his life on Jesus Christ? It certainly does not. Rains came, floods came, winds came. These aren’t blessings. In fact, water and flood and storm often serve as symbols of chaos in the Bible, representing elements of the universe ranged against human beings and human life. And, you’ll notice if you read on, they’re the exact same thing the foolish man got, too. Rain and flood and wind come to both men in our story; there’s no special “get out of jail free card” that comes floating down from heaven for the wise man. He has to weather the storm and the chaos, too.

But still we tend to think that the point of the story is that the wise man gets something better out of life than the foolish man. And this doesn’t seem to be completely wrong; after all, the wise man still has his house! But we have figure out what this really means. Because it’s pretty clear now that the song oversimplifies things a bit. That’s fine for children. But most of us aren’t children anymore. We need something more, as Paul tells us.

Let me put before you a question to consider: What is a good life? Do we know what would make a life good? Do we know what would make our own lives good?

Earlier we heard Deuteronomy 11:18 and following read. Here, God is telling God’s people to put these words in their heart and soul, to remember them and teach them to their children. And God tells them, if you obey my commandments, you will be blessed; and if you do not obey, you will be cursed. Why? Because God is a hypersensitive and vengeful God, whose feelings get hurt when we don’t obey? I don’t think so. The text says, “See, I am setting before you a blessing and a curse; the blessing, if you obey…and the curse, if you do not…” God sets this before us as a truth about life. I think God is trying to explain to the people that his commandments are intended for their good; they are not arbitrary and set up for God’s sake or satisfaction, but for the people’s sake, to show them how to live a good life. The result of disobeying or ignoring God’s commandments is a curse, not because God gets angry and smites you, but because you are ignoring what makes life good. And that itself is a curse, and brings about disastrous consequences.

I think Jesus is giving us the same message in this story of the wise and the foolish man. In fact, I think this basic message can be seen as the point of the whole Sermon on the Mount. What makes us wise? What counts as foolish? Now we can reconsider this story and ask ourselves, what is it about this man that makes him wise? And what is wisdom?

We don’t talk about wisdom much. Knowledge, yes, intelligence, yes, but not wisdom. But it shows up quite a bit in the Bible. In the proverbs we often encounter descriptions of the wise and the foolish, and wisdom is even personified here and there (interestingly, as a woman). It crops up in the New Testament quite often as well. Clearly the idea of wisdom was central to the ancient worldview in a way that it isn’t for us today. Quite simply, wisdom is about knowing what’s good: what’s good for you, what’s good for others, what’s good for life. It’s about knowing what a good life is and what a good life looks like and requires. It’s knowing the difference between right and wrong, but it’s more than simple ethics or rulekeeping. It’s different from book knowledge or the ability to think abstractly or contemplate abstract concepts. It’s different from cleverness with your hands and knowing how to build or fix things. This kind of wisdom is a whole different kind of knowledge. And it is the glue that holds these other kinds of knowledge together, in the right way. Or perhaps we can call wisdom the bridge between these kinds of knowledge, between contemplative knowledge and technical know-how. The gap between knowing what is good…and doing what is good.

I think it’s this kind of wisdom that we so often miss in our own lives, and it is this kind of wisdom that Jesus is describing in the character of the wise man in the story. What is it that makes this man wise, and the other man foolish? The wise man knows where to build his house: on the rock. The story doesn’t tell us whether he built the house well or not, except for this one detail, that he chose the site of its foundation wisely. What makes this man wise is that he knows to put into action the knowledge he has gained in contemplating life. The wise man knows that rain and flood and storms are bound to come. He knows what is required in order to withstand the chaos. And he goes into action. His knowledge guides and motivates action.

Why is the foolish man foolish? It could be that he has no idea what’s coming; that’s one form of foolishness. But it seems more likely to me that he does know, and perhaps he even knows that a foundation of rock is required for a house to stand through the storm. But he acts otherwise. His knowledge does not inform or motivate his action. There is a disconnect somewhere. His action is guided by something else—perhaps laziness, perhaps cheapness, perhaps indifference or unmerited optimism. And his house does not stand. It fell, Jesus tells us, and great was its fall. It fell with a smash.

What was this story supposed to mean for its hearers, the crowds and the disciples gathered around Jesus? Jesus begins the story by saying, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.” What words? Remember, this is the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has talked for two whole chapters at this point, explaining to people why their religion must be more than simple rulekeeping; why they must transcend “common sense” and love their enemy, walk the second mile, lend their cloak, give to everyone who asks; why it is better to pray a simple prayer in secret, rather than show off on the street corner; why, in everything that they do, they should do to others as they would have them do for them. These words of Jesus are the rock in the story: they are what is required to withstand the chaos that is bound to come. But it is only wisdom for those who hear Jesus’ words, if the hearers act on them—not simply understand them, remember them, or contemplate them. For the essence of wisdom is to bridge the gap between knowing and doing what is good.

It’s not too hard to think of examples of this kind of foolishness today. It’s an easy kind of foolishness, this separation of knowledge of what is good and necessary and beneficial for life, and acting upon that knowledge. Don’t we all know that eating a spinach salad is better than eating a McDonald’s BigMac? So why is MacDonald’s still in business? Don’t we know that recycling our paper and plastics and glass jars and soup cans is better than throwing them away? Why don’t more people do it? Maybe these seem like trivial examples. What does spinach and recycling have to do with God? Well, nothing on the face of it, for sure. But God knows what is good for us, on all levels—socially, physically, emotionally—and God desires that we have a good life, I believe, on all these levels.

Let’s look now at the verses right before Jesus tells the story of the wise man and the foolish man. In Matthew 7, verse 21 Jesus warns his disciples and the crowds, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Again, there is an emphasis placed on action, on doing the will of God, on building the house on the rock. But what is the response in verse 22? Jesus tells us, on that day many will say, “but Lord! We did do stuff! Look at all we did! We prophesied in your name, and we cast out demons in your name, and we did all kinds of cool powerful stuff in your name!” And Jesus tells us that he will declare to them, “I never knew you.” Here we have very active people, very busy people. People busy doing the wrong things, or perhaps people doing right things for the wrong reasons. I find it interesting that their protest takes the form of doing deeds “in Jesus’ name.” They did things in Jesus’ name, but not for Jesus himself. His name is a badge, a code for power, a means to accomplish their deeds. But it is unconnected with Jesus himself; for he says, “I never knew you.” These people are also foolish, but their mistake is not the mistake of the foolish man who builds his house on sand, who neglects to put his knowledge of what is good into action. These people lack wisdom because they have neglected to contemplate first what is good; they have sprung into action feverishly, doing whatever they can, assuming that feverish action will be pleasing to God…without first finding out who God is, and what God wants. How can we go about the business of God, without knowing who God is?

This semester I was given the privilege of acting as teaching assistant for the first-year introductory theology course at the seminary. The students read five theologians throughout the semester, each of whom had their own distinctive ways of doing theology. It was, I admit, a pretty rough way to be introduced to the discipline. Most of them seemed to survive relatively unscathed. One of the theologians we read is a Roman Catholic South American theologian by the name of Gustavo Gutierrez. He is famous for his “liberation theology,” a Christian theology that emphasizes the necessity of the love of neighbor and taking action to show this love by helping the poor in concrete ways. For Gutierrez, theology is reflection on practice; it is thinking about, later, what it is that Christians do; why Christians do what they do. Practice, action, is first; reflection, theology, is second. But, astonishingly, he describes the doing, as “contemplation and practice together.” For Gutierrez has learned the wisdom that these supposed followers of Jesus lack; Gutierrez realizes that in order for our actions to be right, in order to do good, first we must truly know what the good is. And this comes from contemplating God, from knowing God, from listening to God. Let me read this short passage from this wise theologian to you:

“Contemplation and practice feed each other; the two together make up the stage of silence before God. In prayer we remain speechless, we simply place ourselves before the Lord. To a degree, we remain silent in our practice as well, for in our involvements, in our daily work, we do not talk about God all the time; we do indeed live in God, but not by discoursing on God…Silence, the time of quiet, is first and the necessary meditation for the time of speaking about the Lord” (On Job, xiv).

How do we know what is good? How do we know what to do? How do we know what to say? First, we must contemplate the Lord. Then, we let this knowledge inform our actions. This is wisdom. Action without knowledge is futile, and leads us nowhere. Perhaps we are greatly impressed with our deeds of power done in Jesus’ name, but that doesn’t mean Jesus will be. And knowledge of the good, if it does not lead us to act, is equally futile. Perhaps we feel that simply knowing the right belief is sufficient to save us from coming chaos, but we will soon find out differently. Learning to know the good by contemplating and listening to God, contemplating and listening to the words of Jesus, and putting this contemplation into action: this is wisdom. This is our house, built on rock.