Pentecost 4 Sermon - The Kingdom of God and the Mustard Seed
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.
Summer months bring not only warm weather but also vacation time and vacation trips to destinations out of town. We welcome the break from routine. We look forward to enjoying the luxury of a holiday away. This normal pattern of coming and going is in contrast to the way that we enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God. All three Scripture readings address the Kingdom of God. Ezekiel prophesies of the coming kingdom; 2 Corinthians 5 speaks of living within the kingdom; and Jesus prepares us for the kingdom of God by telling us that the kingdom of God begins with the smallest of things and grows to the largest.
We do not live in a kingdom; we live in a republic. We have towns, cities, counties, states, and a country with elected leaders at every level. But, in the old world – we did have kingdoms. Some of our ancestors fled those kingdoms for economic and political reasons. If the stories of our ancestors do not reach us, we have literature beyond the Bible that reminds us of what living in a kingdom is like.
Because we live when and where we do and because we have the kind of freedom of mobility that we do, we can easily think of the kingdom of God as a place, a destination, with its own past, present, and future. When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, we think we would like to travel to that place and spend a few days resting up before returning to the grind of normal life.
While there are plenty of people who will say that the kingdom of God can be built here on earth, Jesus tells us otherwise in plain language. There is no destination. We cannot go to the kingdom of God. The kingdom comes to us.
Another thing we keep in mind as we reflect on the kingdom of God is that despite the fact that in nearly every other aspect of life, we have to put considerable effort into making things happen – for example, the hard work that goes into preparing to get a particular job and the constant effort needed to keep our jobs – we naturally think that our presence in the kingdom of God is dependent upon our merit, our work, our conscientious hard work.
This is not what Jesus says, nor is it what the Bible teaches either.
In 1529 the spiritual reformer Martin Luther wrote both a Small Catechism and a Large Catechism. They both cover the same topics, but the Large Catechism has a lengthier explanation. The genius of both catechism is that Biblical teaching, some of it complex, is distilled into understandable pieces.
In his explanation of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Thy kingdom come, Luther says this in the Large Catechism:
…just as God’s name is holy in itself, and we still pray that it be holy among us, so also His kingdom comes of itself, without our prayer. Yet we still pray that it may come to us, that is, triumph among us and with us, so that we may be a part of those people among whom His name is hallowed, and His kingdom prospers.
But what is God’s kingdom? Answer: Nothing other than what we learned in the Creed: God sent His son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world to redeem and deliver us from the devil’s power (1 John 3:8). He sent Him to bring us to Himself and to govern us as a King of righteousness, life, and salvation against sin, death, and an evil conscience. For this reason He has also given His Holy Spirit, who is to bring these things home to us by His holy Word and to illumine and strengthen us in the faith by His power.
… For the coming of God’s kingdom to us happens in two ways: (a) here in time through the Word and faith (Matthew 13); and (b) in eternity forever through revelation (Luke 19:11; 1 Peter 1:4-5). Now we pray for both these things. We pray that the kingdom may come to those who are not yet in it, and, by daily growth that it may come to us who have received it, both now and hereafter in eternal life.” (Paragraphs 50, 51, and 53)
So, the kingdom of God comes to us, we do not go to it. The kingdom of God is not a location, it is a spiritual reality that is given to us through Christ’s merit on the cross and by which we receive through faith. The kingdom of God is the realm in which we are shaped, molded, and conformed to the Word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
At the heart of the kingdom of God is the cross of Jesus Christ. While still an exiled slave in Babylon, the priest Ezekiel prophesied that Christ is coming. Christ’s kingdom will be inaugurated outside the walls of Jerusalem on a cross. In order to appreciate these three verses from Ezekiel 17, it helps to know that cedar is what the first temple is made of. Also helps to know that the “high and lofty mountain” is referring to the mountain that Jerusalem sits upon. Through the mouth and pen of Ezekiel, God promises that he will bring about a great reversal: the low will be made high and the high will be made low, and the dry tree will become green and the green tree dry. Jesus’ mother sings about the great reversal in the Magnificat.
The young sprig that the Lord breaks off and plants and which becomes a strong cedar on the high and lofty mountain is the cross. In Christ, all the people of the world will know the LORD God and His grace and power.
The Apostle Paul writes about life within the kingdom of God. The baptized bear the mark of the cross upon their brow. We are catechized so that we may see the bigger picture of what is happening here. The love of Christ is now the rudder that steers our life. We walk by faith, not by sight. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. On account of Christ and his cross, sin, death and the devil no longer have the final say in our lives. Christ Jesus and His Word of forgiveness does. His forgiveness, His mercy makes us new.
In the world we continue to strive, to work, to demonstrate our worthiness and competence. In the world, we travel to the destinations of our choice. But, in the kingdom of God, that is an entirely different matter. Our Lord has elected us, he gives us faith to receive the Good News of Christ’s cross and resurrection and his gifts of grace. We rejoice that He loves us, and that He comes to us as Lord and Savior.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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Regarding Ezekiel 17:22-24, in his commentary on Ezekiel 1-20, Prof. Horace D. Hummel explains, “To the casual reader it may not be immediately apparent that this is a messianic prophecy… But the cedar from which Yahweh will pluck off a shoot is growing in a land that 17:3 had poetically called ‘Lebanon,’ that is, Jerusalem or Zion. Cedar had played a prominent role in the construction of the temple and palace there (e.g., 1 Kings 5-7). Jerusalem was the home of the Davidic dynasty, and the oracle (almost depicting Yahweh as a true eagle) virtually reaffirms the key messianic oracle of 2 Samuel 7 …. And the sprig that will be broken off is a very special one, characterized as ‘tender, soft’ (‘rak, 17:22). The word itself is unparalleled in a context such as this, but it belongs together with a number of other horticultural expressions used to describe the eschatological climax of the line of David in Jesus Christ, apparently beginning with the ‘hoter’ (‘shoot’) and ‘netzer’ (‘branch’) of Isaiah 11:1 and expressed so prominently in the ‘tzmach’ (‘branch, shoot’) of Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15, Zechariah 3:8; 6:12 that at times it almost becomes a personal name…By the repeated, emphatic ‘I myself’ and the contrast with the machinations of the two eagles, Yahweh puts great accent on the antithesis between the free divine action and all human activity. What he promises is not the result of some new and clear human plan, but solely a new, free act of God in faithfulness to his ancient promises.” (Ezekiel 1-20 [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005] 515-516).
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