Abundance

Today, we continue working our way through Jesus’ parables in the book of Matthew.

Parables were a common teaching tool in first-century Judaism.

Storytellers took commonplace things or situations and used them to inspire deep thought.

As you have heard me say before, the danger we face when interpreting a parable is to oversimplify.

Parables are meant to be twisted and turned and looked at from different perspectives.

One of those perspectives is how first-century listeners would have heard them.

Those of you that regularly attend Bible Study with me know that one of the biblical scholars that I respect and will frequently use to shed light on Scripture is Amy-Jill Levine.

Dr. Levine is a Jewish New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Her gift is that she provides Jewish context to Jesus’ stories.

Christians have a long history of reducing Jesus’ parables to simple metaphors conveying a single lesson.

In contrast, Dr. Levine maintains that parables are not tidy, moral lessons but rather provocative stories that are meant to unsettle our assumptions.

Jesus’ parables do not answer our questions.

Instead, they inspire new ones.

They invite us into the surprising, often uncomfortable, imagination of God’s Kin-dom.

Today’s Gospel is a collection of five short parables.

A mustard seed.

Yeast.

Treasure in a field.

A pearl of great value.

A fishing net.

On the surface, they all seem disconnected, but each asks the same question:

What does the Kin-dom look like when it arrives?

The answer Jesus gives is astonishingly simple:

It looks like abundance.

Not scarcity.

Not fear.

Not “there’s not enough to go around.”

Abundance.

Yet abundance is perhaps the hardest thing for us to believe.

We are culturally conditioned to think in terms of scarcity.

We live in a world that teaches scarcity from the day we are born.

There aren’t enough jobs.

We don’t have enough money.

People aren’t showing enough love.

Our borders aren’t secure enough.

We don’t have enough time to do everything that needs doing.

The problem is that a scarcity mindset fosters greed and competition.

Competition, in turn, breeds fear.

And fear breeds conflict and exclusion.

But Jesus’ parables illustrate a different possibility.

Jesus tells parables about the Kin-dom to challenge us and to expand the way that we think.

Take the mustard seed.

Pastors have sanitized the parable and made it about faith and how a tiny seed of faith can become something great.

While there is truth in that, it is a superficial reading.

Dr. Levine reminds us that mustard wasn’t exactly a prized ornamental plant.

It was closer to an invasive shrub—a plant that spread where gardeners didn’t want it.

Once mustard takes root, it’s almost impossible to control.

For the gardeners amongst you, think bamboo or mint.

In the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus isn’t comparing the Kin-dom to a carefully landscaped garden.

The Kin-dom is wild.

It doesn’t respect boundaries.

It doesn’t stay within sanctuaries.

It grows where no one planned for it to grow.

And then the birds come.

Not one bird—a flock.

And there is enough room for all of them to nest—abundance.

There are a few pastors who now refer to the parable as the Parable of the Nest.

I like that—it resonates with me.

Then comes the yeast.

A baker mixes yeast into three measures of flour.

Three measures—that doesn’t sound like much until we find out that three measures are nearly sixty pounds of flour.

That would make enough bread to feed more than a hundred people!

The point was never about baking.

The point is extravagance.

Scarcity does not exist in the Kin-dom.

There is never “just enough”.

The Kin-dom overflows.

Peace, love, and justice are in abundance.

Grace isn’t rationed.

God dispenses it freely.

Mercy isn’t measured in cups.

God’s mercy is never ending.

When we are expecting a snack, God prepares a banquet.

Then, Jesus speaks of buried treasure found in a field.

And a merchant who finds one pearl so special that he sells everything to buy it.

The parables are often interpreted to be about sacrifice—what we’re willing to sacrifice for God.

But what if the point is not about the cost but about the joy of discovery?

The ones who discovered the treasure rejoiced at what they found.

The merchant doesn’t regret selling everything; he found something he didn’t even know he was looking for.

Scarcity focuses on what we surrender.

Abundance focuses on what we’ve found.

Our lives become so much richer when we shift our focus from our perceptions of loss to the reality of God’s gifts.

The last parable is about the net that collects all kinds of fish.

First, the net gathers fish.

Then comes the sorting.

The order is important.

The separation comes later.

Too often, we sort before we gather.

We decide who belongs before we even throw our nets into the metaphorical sea.

Jesus’ parable points us in another direction.

Our work is gathering.

It is God’s work to sort.

Dr. Levine repeatedly reminds us that the parables warn us against assuming the role of God.

We need to leave God’s work to God.

We are called to welcome.

To serve.

To love.

God dispenses justice.

There would be a lot more peace in the world if we just stayed in our lane.

It is important for us to remember: Jesus was an observant Jew.

He never rejected his faith.

He lived within it.

He argued inside it.

He loved it enough to challenge it.

In the Kin-dom, we don’t discard the old.

Nor do we cling to tradition simply because it is old and familiar.

The Kin-dom values both old and new.

Ancient wisdom and fresh insight.

Inherited faith and surprising revelation.

That is abundance.

Not choosing between old and new but receiving both as gifts.

That is the thread that runs through today’s parables—abundance.

The seed grows into a shrub so big that birds perch in its branches.

The yeast provides lift to a huge amount of flour¬—enough to feed many.

The treasure and the pearl are found.

The net is full.

Everything is overflowing.

And maybe that’s exactly how these parables are supposed to unsettle us today.

We have been blinded by scarcity.

It has made us argue about who belongs.

Who deserves rights.

Who deserves safety.

Who deserves housing and food and healthcare.

Who deserves love.

Scarcity is always zero-sum: if someone else wins, I must lose.

The Gospel tells us there is a different reality.

God’s grace is unlimited.

God’s mercy is inexhaustible.

Forgiveness multiplies; it doesn’t reduce.

Welcoming is never at the expense of our own belonging.

That is the lesson of the Table.

Bread—broken and shared.

And, miraculously, everyone is fed.

Because God’s generosity is transformative.

The miracle is abundance.

Not abundance measured in money or power.

But abundance measured in hope.

In grace.

In mercy.

In welcome.

In justice.

In love.

And in joy.

Despite what Christian Nationalists would have you believe, the Kin-dom is not a gated community.

It is not a kingdom of scarcity where we must greedily protect what we have.

The Kin-dom is a kingdom of abundance.

It is a wildly growing bush where birds find places to nest.

It is bread enough for the community.

It is treasure that fills us with joy.

It is a net cast wide enough to include everyone.

That is the message I hope you will carry away with you.

God’s grace is abundant.

God’s love is unconditional.

God’s mercy is never ending.

So, we need to stop thinking that someone else’s blessing somehow takes away from our own.

Because God always provides enough—in fact, more than enough.

So, plant wildly.

Bake extravagantly.

Seek joyfully.

Welcome generously.

And share freely.

Because, in the Kin-dom, there is always room for one more.

May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and mind on Christ Jesus. Amen.