God's Last Words

WISDOM FOR THE AGES
Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52

Do you remember these great commercial tag lines of the past?

"The king of beers." (Budweiser)

"M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand." (M&M candies)

"Don't leave home without it." (American Express)

"Reach out and touch someone" (AT&T)

"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking." (Timex)

“Hey Mikey…He Likes It!” (Life Cereal)

 

Here are the top ten all time according to Ad Magazine:

1. Diamonds are forever (DeBeers)

2. Just do it (Nike)

3. The pause that refreshes (Coca-Cola)

4. Tastes great, less filling (Miller Lite)

5. We try harder (Avis)

6. Good to the last drop (Maxwell House)

7. Breakfast of champions (Wheaties)

8. Does she ... or doesn't she? (Clairol)

9. When it rains it pours (Morton Salt)

10. Where's the beef? (Wendy's)

 

 “Oh, you’ll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with _____.”  Sometimes you can’t stop – it’s like singing TV theme songs (try “Green Acres” or “The Beverly Hillbillies.” There are even Patriotic/political ones: “Uncle Sam wants ____!” or “I like Ike,” or “All the Way with LBJ.”

 

But if you don’t have the cultural reference points to understand these sayings you won’t get it and the words sound pretty stupid, perhaps even insulting.

 

Words and messages like these are designed to both catch your attention and teach you a message. Jesus’ parables are designed the same way. They take something from Jesus’ culture and Jewish heritage and relate it to God’s coming Kingdom so that hearers of Jesus could understand Him and God’s nature better.

 

They also were designed to blister and baffle the ears of those who weren’t in on the message. We have a common heritage in our Judeo-Christian culture that allows us to understand and hear Jesus’ words in a way that we can still understand even 2000 years later.

 

In the passage I will read shortly Jesus talks about the smallest seed imaginable to humans having the greatest growth potential of all plants.

Jesus goes on talk about yeast as a catalyst for growth, comparing yeast to what faith can do in a life, and talks about earthly versus heavenly wealth. Listen to 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; ³²it is the smallest of all the 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.”

 

³³He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with 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.

 

⁴⁵“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

 

⁴⁷“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; ⁴⁸when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. ⁴⁹So it will be at the end of the age.

 

The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous ⁵⁰and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁵¹“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.”

 

 ⁵²And 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.”

 

Jesus’ disciples had to take a minute when they were alone with Jesus to ask, “What’s up with all the parables?” He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never under-standing; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!"

In plain words, parables are used to help some people understand and make it impossible for others to understand. Some people will always mishear, over interpret, or make an error of reference in trying to understand. People around us do this to us everyday – why would Jesus think people were any different from today?

Let me give you an example of messing with the minds Jesus did with a parable. Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

 

To us it seems fairly obvious what this parable is trying to convey. A small amount of yeast added to the dough makes an enormous difference to what type of bread you get. It must be well mixed in or the bread will be uneven and lumpy.

 

But to Jesus’ listeners there is a very surprising element to this parable. Yeast was normally associated with evil in Jewish culture. Later Jesus would say to his disciples, "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

 

In the Book of Exodus, the Jews are taught to bake unleavened bread – bread without yeast, as they celebrate the Feasts of God. You can imagine the reaction – “What! The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast?”

 

Jesus would not have got the same reaction if he had said “The Kingdom of Heaven is like the drop of olive oil that a woman put on her bread.” Although the spiritual lesson would be similar, the impact would be completely lost. You wouldn’t react, so the saying would not be memorable.

 

Jesus is using the contrast to encourage His followers to get “outside the box” of their “Jewishness,” to understand new concepts. Yeast becomes a metaphor for the working of the Holy Spirit as it nurtures and increases the faith of the believer, a faith that nurtures even the tiniest of seeds into huge trees.

 

The Kingdom of Heaven and Faith in Jesus is not something to be mastered – it is a mystery of Love, sacrifice, and Grace. It must be lived, not practiced and then put on a shelf to be admired as Jewish orthodoxy became.

 

Just like the Bible, which has a beginning and an end, so too is the life of the seed of faith. It is planted, watered, germinates, grows, and will be harvested in season.

But Jesus also reminds us of the price of not hearing and listening: “But the cowards, unbelievers, vile, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolators, and all liars – their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”  (Revelation 21: 8).

 

Jesus tells us allegorically that Hell will be full of two types of people:  those who will do anything, and those who will not do anything.

 

It’s why we have the vision of the street corner prophet with the sign, “Repent, the end is near!” It never hurts for us to remember that someday soon Jesus will be returning to claim His harvest and destroy the weeds and tares among the good seed. Amen.