The Pace of Heaven
(Free Version)- Ninth Sunday After Pentecost- Genesis 29:15-28; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
The Mulberry Tree, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889
This week’s readings can be found here. For more on these readings, check out our paid subscriptions.
In many of his parables, Jesus says that the only people who really grasp the kingdom of God are those who have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.” My prayer this week, both for myself and for my congregation, is that God would give us eyes to see his work even in the midst of our circumstances.
Whenever another birthday goes by and I feel like I have not accomplished enough at this stage of my life, that I need to “ramp things up” and be better, perform at a higher level, I remember that fruitfulness is defined differently in the kingdom of God. Usually, the pressure to “ramp things up” and the anxiety that comes along with it, is based on worldly standards of productivity. Here’s the thing: all of that will fade away eventually. It usually requires an unhelpful trade off; a life patience and reflection for quick-fixes and shortcuts.
Nothing truly valuable comes about quickly, and this is illustrated by the several parables in our gospel reading today (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52). God’s kingdom unfolds over time.
This is true in our relationships. You can’t ever fully be known without time. There is no shortcut to empathy or vulnerability. When someone opens their lives to you, you don’t say… “Just give me the gist.” That’s not how relationships work! For all his faults, Jacob’s commitment to Rachel, and to the promise, took significant time (Genesis 29:15-28). God is not deterred by the length of time in which the promise takes to reach fruition. God is working in the midst of the mess of mixed motives.
It is precisely in our weakness that the Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-39). God’s purpose will not be deterred. He will make things right, will bring them to fulfillment. If God is for us, who (or what!) could possibly be against us? What do we have to fear? Nothing whatsoever—that of our own choosing, or that outside of our control—can separate us from God’s great love.
We live in a world where we have access to such quick information. My wife and I have been watching old movies lately and, when spotting a familiar actor, we ask, “What else was she in?” We can find the answer within a matter of seconds. But not everything worth knowing can be obtained so quickly.
The average human walks about 3 miles an hour. This means this is how fast Jesus walked. We often want God to work at 60 miles an hour. In order to walk at God’s speed, to really hear Him, we have to slow down. It takes awhile for a mustard seed to become a shade tree, but its worth the wait. And it takes first being planted, the giving up, in order to see all the kingdom is supposed to be.
Whenever I feel helpless, empty, not enough, when I wish God would hurry up and fix this crisis, hurry up and make the world right, I am reminded that the yeast of the kingdom is working through the dough even when I can’t see it.
Whenever I am tempted to latch on to a political ideology to save the world, or to turn to a counterfeit for joy, peace, or hope. Whenever I think that I don’t have time for prayer, I remember that God’s kingdom is the treasure, worth more than anything else I have. It’s worth jettisoning it all!
And whenever I see injustice and oppression in the world. When something is just not fair and it’s obvious, I remember that the world is going somewhere. This is not all that there is. There is hope of a world made right. God will sort the good fish from the bad ones. The kingdom is a buried seed now, a speck of baker’s yeast, a hidden treasure, a costly pearl. None of them are obvious at the moment to anyone who hasn’t received them, but there will come a day when we will see the kingdom in fullness.