Seventh Sunday After Trinity
Sermon preached by the Revd Canon Richard Ames-Lewis
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. Matt 13.52
For me, the iconic event of the last four months of extraordinary life took place on 7th June. It was the toppling in Bristol of the statue of Edward Colston, slave trader and city benefactor. This event, which some called overdue and others outrageous, brought together the pent-up frustrations of national Coronavirus lockdown with the anger of the Black Lives Matter movement unleashed by the murder of George Floyd. The plinth on which Colston had stood since 1895 was then empty until last week. Then during the night of 15th July a controversial statue was erected on the plinth. This was of a black protestor, Jen Reid, her hand raised in a black power salute, making for a powerful symbol of changing times. Bristol City council removed the new statue within 24 hours. It had been erected without permission, and the plinth stands empty again. Many have commented that the whole episode speaks of our being reminded of our history, of the great evils of slavery and colonialism. But the historian David Olusoga has said that it speaks rather of being history itself, unfolding before our eyes, as the old is replaced by the new.
The toppling of the statue was of course an outrageous and unlawful assault on a piece of heritage. But I cannot get out of my mind a similarly outrageous assault committed by Jesus. Do you remember how he swept into the Temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons? From the point of view of the Temple authorities, this was outrageous. From our point of view, as followers of Jesus, we can see this action as demonstrating a theological truth: that the coming of Jesus was to bring to an end the old covenant, of which the corruption of temple money and sacrifice were part, and to inaugurate in his person a new covenant, a covenant of grace.
It is not easy, while history is being made around us, to see what is the theological truth in these present times, or as we might say, what God is telling us about the pandemic, or the Black Lives Matter movement, or the world economic crisis.
But, for Christians, to live through such unfolding history is to become newly aware of the dynamic nature of God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom does not stand still. Following Jesus drives us to explore further how the kingdom of God evolves and changes, and what the nature of the kingdom tells us about our world today.
Jesus is at pains to describe what the kingdom of God is like, and he does this in parables. A parable is not a statement of fact, nor is it a symbol, nor is it a fanciful story. It is a narrated image through which truth can be heard at various levels, practical, metaphorical and spiritual. St Matthew tells us that “Jesus told all things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing”, quoting from the prophet Isaiah “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”
Today’s gospel reading comes from Matthew chapter 13. This is the central chapter of his gospel and it is entirely devoted to parables, which suggests that for Matthew the parables were central to Jesus’s teaching. Chapter 13 is in five sections. It begins with the parable of the sower, then comes the parable of the wheat and weeds, then two little parables of the kingdom: the mustard seed and the yeast; then comes the explanation of the parable of the wheat and weeds; then three more little parables of the kingdom: the hidden treasure, the pearl, and the fishing net. The whole sequence finishes with the description of the scribe. 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.
Our lectionary has cut-and-pasted Matthew’s five sections into three convenient Sunday readings, giving us today opportunity to explore the five little parables of the kingdom and the conclusion about the scribe. Leaving the scribe to one side for the moment, let us look at the five parables.
Firstly each begins with the description “The kingdom of heaven is like…” These parables are not idle tales. They are seeking to answer the question Jesus is continually asked, and the question which we also ask: “What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?” They are written in the present tense: the kingdom is happening now, not at some time in the future.
Each parable takes for its subject matter something ordinary that would be familiar to those hearing Jesus teaching. Mustard seed, yeast, treasure hidden in a field, a merchant seeking pearls and a fisherman’s net.
Then each of the parables has a story and a direction, moving towards a conclusion: someone plants the tiny mustard seed, and it grows into a great tree; a woman mixes the yeast into a bowl of flour and it begins the process of leavening; someone finds the treasure in the field and hides it again; the merchant finds a pearl of great price and longs to buy it; the net is thrown into the sea and it catches fish of every kind.
And finally each parable has a conclusion:
the mustard tree has grown great branches where the birds of the air come and make their nests: the kingdom of heaven is about unexpected growth and shelter;
all the flour is leavened: the kingdom of heaven is about transformation, abundance and sustenance;
the treasure seeker sells all that he has to buy the field with the hidden treasure: the kingdom of heaven demands total sacrifice in order to reveal what is hidden;
the merchant sells all that he has to buy the pearl: no money or possession is more important than possessing the kingdom of heaven;
the fishing net is drawn ashore, the good fish are put in baskets and the bad thrown out – so it will be at the end of the age, says Jesus, as angels come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire: the kingdom of heaven is about judgement – a pre-figuring of the great parables of doom at the end of Matthew’s gospel.
Reflecting on this rich sequence of little parables of the kingdom is perhaps a bit like gazing on a many-faceted jewel, each facet giving a glimpse of how God’s kingdom is working now and moving us towards a final conclusion.
And then there is the parable about the scribe.
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.
This little parable comes at the end of chapter 13, which is actually at the mid-point of the gospel text. Because of its position and what it says, it has long been thought to be a self-description by Matthew. He’s writing about himself. He is if you like applying his signature, saying. “I, Matthew, am a faithful scribe, trained for the kingdom of heaven and bringing out of my treasure what is new and what is old: the new, the good news of Christ; and the old, the Law of Moses.”
The thrust of Matthew’s whole gospel is to demonstrate that in Christ something new has arrived, but that it is grafted onto the old. To quote the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount in Chapter 7, Matthew is like the man who builds his house on rock. The precious message of the gospel is like a new-built house, founded on the old rock which is Zion. The rain may fall, the floods may come and the winds may blow, but it will not fall because it is founded upon the rock of ages.
Here we have the key to our times. The kingdom of heaven is not a new thing out of nowhere. Its roots are deep in history. Part of this history is the coming of Jesus Christ to transform the old way of the Law into a new way of love, a transformation made possible by his death and resurrection. So the empty tomb speaks powerfully of how the old is passing away and the new has come, just as the empty plinth in Bristol speaks of a similar transformation today.