A Pearl Like a Fishnet: July 27.Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 What do a seed, yeast, buried treasure buried treasure - A surprising piece of code found in some program. While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from crufty to bletcherous, and has lain undiscovered only because it was functionally correct, however horrible it is. , a pearl, and a fishnet have in common? They're all like the kingdom, right? Actually, no. When we read these diverse and troubling kingdom parables carefully, the objects described are inseparable from actions and actors: Seed is sown by a sower, yeast is hidden by a woman, the treasure hunter and the merchant buy and sell, the fishers fish. The kingdom is not about static symbols but about people engaged in action. "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed mustard seed kingdom of Heaven thus likened; for phenomenal development. [N.T.: Matthew 13:31–32] See : Growth " is a familiar and comforting image--God will do something wonderful if we have a tiny bit of faith; something big and good comes from something small and insignificant. We think this because we don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. much about mustard and focus on the tiny seed, not the "great tree." A mustard bush is neither big nor wonderful; it is invasive, fast-growing, and impossible to get rid of (like darnel darnel see loliumtemulentum. , another invasive weed). The kingdom of God is like kudzu kudzu (k  d`z ), plant of the family Leguminosae (pulse family), native to Japan. , like Scotch broom Scotch broom: see broom. , like morning
glories, like dandelions. And birds of the air? The last place we want
them is in our grain fields. You've heard of scarecrows?
The pesky mustard seed parable is paired with the one-verse parable of the yeast. A nice domestic image, a little gender parity, maybe even an instance of Jesus speaking directly to women. Well, it would be if the central images didn't all convey contamination, corruption, and subversion. A modern paraphrase might be: "The kingdom of God is like a virus in a dirty needle that a junkie junkie Popular health A popular term for a person, usually an IV narcotic abusing addict, whose life is disorganized vis-á-vis family and societal structure, whose existence revolves around obtaining–often through theft, prostitution or other illicit took and injected into a vein so the whole body was infected." Yet in the parable, from this woman's "hiding" the yeast comes incredible abundance--bread to feed more than 100 people. In the parables of Matthew, the kingdom Jesus announces is subversive, unstoppable, invasive, a nuisance, urgent, shocking, abundant. It requires action and commitment and inspires extreme behavior. Listen--serfs are buying land, a peasant woman has baked bread for 100, the kingdom of God is rising, and there we find our daily bread. Fish are breaking through nets, the rich are selling all they have. The kingdom is springing up faster than we can uproot it. Laurel A. Dykstra is a scripture and justice educator living in Vancouver, British Columbia British Columbia, province (2001 pop. 3,907,738), 366,255 sq mi (948,600 sq km), including 6,976 sq mi (18,068 sq km) of water surface, W Canada. Geography . She is author of Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus. www.laureldykstra.com |
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