Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Proper 12 (17) - Year A
The growing edge is a hidden edge.
When you find your bliss, you find your call.
"Every student well-trained in God's kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it." The Message
Being well-trained is an image of openness. Being well-trained does not limit one to right answers. Being well-trained allows one to bring out the best of the many traditions to respond to a current situation. Being well-trained does not limit one only to tradition, but opens up the possibility of new responses to old situations.
May we continue to train well for being able to be present where we are, bringing forth old and new to make better.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/july2002.html
Three interrelated comments from my weekly comments at wesleyspace.net
1. Try talking simply about "the kingdom of God." Religious talk can get us talking past ourselves. Another way to use parables is to move us from yesterday to tomorrow. Simply talking about a desired future brings image after image to mind. So, wherever you see "kingdom" you might want to substitute "desired future."
2. When we are in touch with a desired future we are able access the old (the best of our heritage renewed) and the new (visions beyond any reason for them to come to pass). It is this sense of being able to be real that allows us to stand smack dab between yesterday and tomorrow to claim the best of both and to re-implement lost good and to put into place distant dreams.
3. While there are a multitude of creative images for experiencing the presence of GOD, the best parable has always been the life of a human being who is able to listen to GOD and live with Neighbors. This sort of living always becomes visible in the world around. It takes the phenomenal growth of a mustard plant to grow one's self and provide space for others. It takes phenomenal power of yeast to raise the experiences of life to new heights. It takes the treasure of forgiveness, received and given, to move one to invest in making life better. It takes an expansive person to cast a wide enough net to catch all of life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/july2005.html
How does the church grow?
It starts small.
It is mixed into the world.
It is constantly reborn, reformed, found again.
It is costly.
It is inclusive to the point of breaking apart.
Now apply these parables to your life as will as to some "kingdom of heaven."
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/july2005.html
With what intentionality does G*D create or foreknow? One camp says absolute intentionality - there is plan, purpose, malice aforethought with every thought/action of G*D. Another camp says no intentionality, only potential.
Of the two, we side with the potential that accords with spending time following the twists and turns of love and understanding. Mindful of a covenant of mutuality that thinks and acts for the sake of others/creation, we experience a love and understanding that continually pulls us toward one another.
There are many ways to express this unity of mutuality. Mustard seeds, yeast, treasure, pearls, and fish but scrape the surface of the presence of G*D.
- - -
before prayer
a sigh
before knowing
a call
before covenant
a thanks
before serving
a love
before presence
parable
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Apparently it takes training to be able to have a variety of appropriate and helpful responses to the infinity of situations in which we find ourselves.
Without such training we find ourselves compulsively repeating the same response and behavior in diverse and contradictory scenarios.
G*D's Presence is not quantifiable. It is not consistent. It is not uniform. It is not predictable. It is not controllable. It isn't this or that. . . .
So what is this mysterious presence? It is what is needed in the moment. Worry not about what you will say when accused, words sufficient for the day will be available. Worry not about adding (or subtracting) an inch from your waist or a hair on your head, the body is sufficient for its image. It is old and new - in no particular order.
"Are you starting to get a handle on all this?" (The Message, asks.)
To go much deeper into each picture of G*D's Presence will be to dissect the life from it.
Sit back, unfocus your eyes from the cascade of images and from your own life.
Now let G*D's Presence and Your Presence begin to spin gear-like until there is a meshing at some point. Note a need revealed and resources available to address such a need. Rejoice. Come back tomorrow to repeat this process without expectation of it being a similar need/resource combination (though, of course, it may well be). Again, rejoice. And so goes one's training. Halleluiah!
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html
A bit of this, a byte of that, and pretty soon there is a world-wide system of tubes that allow HOLLERING into and relating within. Lives are destroyed and new life begins. Mustard as weed and parable shines a light on both.
A presence of G*D shows up as a seed in Eden and also east of Eden. This presence also shows up in yeast, treasure-bearing field, and a pearl.
It might be said that everything is a revelation of the presence of G*D and everything can be used to cover said presence. So it is that folks who have a desire, if not yet the experience, of an expansive and expanding presence of G*D, train around the very issue of discernment.
This day will have bits and pieces of everything floating past. How to apply which today, when we might have applied it differently yesterday or will tomorrow, is a key question in a day too easily assigned to a petty pace. By the end of the day you could have a whole moleskine filled with old and new insights freshly applied to the circumstances today offers.
So, pens ready; paper ready; record your parables of life after you have actually applied them to a present opportunity.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/07/matthew-1331-33-44-52.html
It was just a moment ago we heard that a sower sowed “good” seed and someone else sowed “weed” seed or invasive species. The wisdom of that moment was to let them both grow until harvest and to then separate them.
Here it seems a sower sowed mustard in their own wheat field. What sense does it make to sow mustard among the wheat?
Well, remember this is a parable and we only compare them to one another within the closing rubric of this pericope: we are to bring out of our treasured experiences that which is new and what is old according to the situation at hand. Attend to the situation to reduce the misapplication of a favorite saying.
For now rejoice that even a weed can be a symbol of the presence of G*D. In some sense this story is a direct challenge and counter to the privilege of mighty cedar trees. Here a mustard holds birds just like a cedar. All flighty persons are welcome to settle. That is you and me and all.
The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible says the mustard in question is “almost certainly” Brasica nigra (the black mustard) with a seed about 0.1 inches in diameter that in ideal conditions can grow to 15 feet tall with a stem as thick as a human arm. Of course parables don’t need to deal with “almost” certainties to make a point. If they were it would have to be recognized that in usual circumstances, the plant’s tendency to go limp in the heat of the day wouldn’t be an ideal nesting place. The certainties would also get us into the sexuality of the plant wherein the flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs). The plant is self-fertile. This wouldn’t play well with the “one man, one woman” crowd but does opens up a whole new understanding of “heavenly realms”.
For the moment, imagine the presence of G*D portrayed as a humble garden herb instead of an imperial tree already mighty, high and lifted up. Here is an opportunity to add flavor to life, not to overpower it. May we go and do likewise.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/07/matthew-1331-33-44-52.html