Pentecost VIII
We continue our reading in Matthew. Jesus continues his teaching to the crowds, and he continues to use images they would have understood, as people who tended fields and knew the agrarian cycle. More seeds, more fields, but also now merchants, pearls, nets, and fish!
"The kingdom of heaven is like..." "It is as if..." Many images like this, in quick succession. One may imagine that the storehouse of community story-telling and tradition had even more images than those described in Jesus' teaching in the Gospels. Lots of, "You know: it's like that time when we went on a drive, and kept looking for that little shop that was down that one road by the little river, and found something completely different, but completely beautiful and exactly what we needed." Stories like that, that I know you have in your own lives.
The kingdom of heaven is like, is 'as if...'
What is this 'kingdom of heaven'? Analogies and shifting kaleidoscopic images aside.
It is not 'heaven' as post-death destination; it is not an answer to the human question: 'what happens when we die?'
The 'kingdom of heaven' is Reality as seen and known by God, by the divine presence that enlivens and gives life to all things, and is a Reality given to us to enter into while we yet live. Ultimate reality that transcends time and place, and yet is located in and through time and place -- our experience and perception are gateways, and our common life is filled with signposts pointing toward this 'place', this 'kingdom.'
Of what 'value' is this ultimate reality to us? One might say that it is the only 'thing' that has value, that does not perish or decay. Jesus also seems to say that entering into this Reality while we yet live as finite, mortal beings (with our own limited realities, you might say) is what frees us from the fear of death. Frees us to live without fear, and with the capacity to love, give, and forgive -- to be part of the divine movement toward wholeness for all things in the cosmos, starting with our hearts and relationships and continuing far beyond our own perceiving. Step into this Reality now; practice doing so; you will find that you come to know the Way over time.
This is indeed a pearl of great price. This is a treasure I'd bury in a field and then sell everything to possess. This is indeed an invasive species like a mustard plant, that grows from a tiny seed and takes over a field, transforming reality there. This is indeed like an all-encompassing net that gathers up everything there is (with more patient sorting-out by the angels later on, in the sweet by-and-by).
Add your own image to Jesus' list, as communities of people seeking this 'place' have done for centuries: "the kingdom of heaven is like..."
And, if the word 'kingdom' doesn't do it for you (for, we live centuries after these images made sense to the people for whom they were made and told), then, "That place where the reality that is Love... it looks like this, and this is how I have met it, and these are the signposts I've seen along the way, and I am being transformed daily by it."