Weeds and other hidden stuff

In our gospel reading this week from Matthew (13:31-33, 44-52) Jesus is continuing helping people grasp what he means by the “kingdom of heaven”.

Just to be clear, he is not talking about heaven. This is not about what happens when we die. This is about this life before we die. It is when what we pray for everytime we pray the Lord’s prayers comes to be; when “God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.” It is when all the dishonesty, rivalry, deceit, dysfunction, misogyny and injustice at work in the story of Laban, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah (Genesis 29) is replaced with God’s way of justice and generosity. It is, as Paul writes to the Romans, when all that the Spirit of God longs for, groaning with creation in anticipation of, comes to be, and love comes to town (as B.B. King put it).

That is what Jesus is trying to describe using images and similes which confused and perplexed, and invited all who heard to see the world and the reign of God in the world in some very new ways. Stories of seed scattered, weeds sowed amongst a good crop, weedy mustard seeds deliberately sown, yeast hidden in unleavened four, treasure hidden by one and found by another who sells all he has to have it, a merchant seeking and finding fine pearls, and dragnetting. All these contradictory images help us his hearers know where to look for the kingdom, to know when we are experiencing the kingdom happening around us and in us.

I am left wondering where we see ourselves in these stories. Are we the good soil, good seed, weedy seed, weedy mustard seed, yeast hidden, treasure, a fine pearl, or fish of some kind? Or are we the ones sowing, hiding, farming, searching, fishing? And I wonder what images and similes we would use to describe our experience of the reign of God?

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