What is the kingdom of heaven?
There is an old legend about the mustard plants growing wild and strong throughout California. If you missed attending fourth grade in California, I'd like to tell you that legend.
The story is that Padre Junipero Serra and a band of explorers spread mustard seeds as they explored California, moving from Baja California to San Diego, and on from San Diego to points north in Alta California. The mustard bloomed. When the explorers returned south toward Mexico, they followed the mustard plants. Then, they followed the plants north as they set out to establish twenty-one missions throughout our state, including our own Santa Clara de Assisi, built along the Guadalupe River.
Two weeks ago, our Gospel told the parable of the sower and the seeds, and you'll remember that the sower had more luck with some seeds than with others. Some fell on fertile ground and some on stone, with predictable results for each. Well, there is no distinction in the legend of Serra: it seems that all the mustard seeds grew abundantly.
The legend concludes by telling us that, to this very day, we can see mustard plants along the Padre's path and far to the East and the West beyond the path, carried by the wind and resulting in a lavish carpet of mustard plants.
In today's Gospel, we hear another story about a mustard seed, one that is even more fabulous than the legend about Junipero Serra. The mustard seed is one of the smallest of the seeds, but the parable tells us that this mustard seed grows and grows, well-beyond the 36" or so we see in our plants, growing large enough to support birds and their nests. This would have stunned the community listening to the parable. A mustard plant as large as a tree? They'd seen mustard plants. You've seen mustard plants; I've seen mustard plants – but a tree? That's incredible! Jesus must be up to something here. What?
To find out, let's look at the other parables in today's reading. They may help us to understand just as the original listeners did.
The kingdom of heaven is not only like a mustard seed, but it's
Each of these similes begins with a common, everyday, unexceptional action: a woman mixing flour, someone plowing a field, a pearl merchant searching for value, a group of fisherman at work. From these simple, everyday tasks comes something unbelievable, something indescribable.
The kingdom of heaven is like all these things. It is beyond our wildest dreams.
This is a message of hope for the kingdom of heaven we await. And it's a message of joy today because the kingdom of heaven is in our midst. Jesus himself said, "the kingdom of God is within you;" he said, "The kingdom of God is amid you." The kingdom of heaven, with its extravagance, is Christ amid us, among us, with us. The kingdom of God is within you, and you, and you. The kingdom of heaven is the body of Christ as we see it within us and sitting to our left and right, before us and behind us right now. Later this morning, we will share our hope through the Lord's Prayer by saying, "Thy kingdom come…." – This tiny, simple phrase, so often spoken by rote, signals a significant gift we take for granted. Let's listen for it when we say The Lord's Prayer together later on.
Christians are people of hope. We hold onto hope in a tough world because Christ is within us. We know it. We forget to plug into his spirit, but we can do it afresh with a simple thought or a prayer.
Oh, and by the way, about that mustard plant? It's a weed. It grows where it will. It's a fire hazard. It drives Caltrans crazy. So when we heard last week's Gospel about the weeds going into the fire, and the story this week of the "bad fish" going into a fire, we'd better remember that it's not up to us to decide who is weed and who useful plant. Where the kingdom of heaven is concerned be open to being surprised, because when we stay open and expectant, we will see the kingdom every day.