Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in their garden. It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

0ur parable or story begins “The kingdom of God is like this tiny seed” Do you ever think about seeds?  How is it that the oak tree grows from an acorn or maple from a helicopter seed pod that drifts to ground?  Do you ever think about how something wonderful can come from a tiny kind act?  Is a hug or a smile a big deal- but sometimes a hug can change everything about how we feel. Jesus tells us that even the tiniest good thing we can do, like giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty person does not escape God’s notice. Jesus tells us the good things we do ripple across eternity. (Matt 10:42) 

Why do you think the farmer planted this mustard seed?  Do you think the farmer did it to sell for money or to make mustard for a sandwich? No Jesus tells the farmer planted the seed so that the birds of the air might find a nice place to rest and build a nest. I once watched a noisy flock of hundreds of blackbirds and grackles strip a tree of every berry in about an hour. Most ancient farmers put up scarecrows, pie pans and threw rocks at birds to protect their crops. They chased away the birds.  Jesus said the kin-dom of heaven is a refuge or sanctuary (safe place) for the least of these, a place of welcome, a place for noisy birds and people, a place for us all. Amen.  (Children return to their seats.) 

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Kingdom of Heaven” or “Kingdom of God?” Today is called Christ the King Sunday and is the last Sunday of the church year. We move into a new church year, next Sunday, as Advent begins.  In 1925, a Roman Catholic pope, Pious XI introduced Christ the King of the reign of Christ Sunday to the church, so in terms of church history, it is kind of a contemporary worship thing. But God is always doing new things and the Reign of Christ Sunday asks us to consider what is the kin-dom of God, who Jesus is, and how we fit into such a kin-dom?  

At Belmont, we have moved away from the word “Kingdom” because it carries a lot of patriarchal, militaristic, and oppressive baggage.  Marcus Borg tells us that words like Kingdom, Lord and Savior stand in contrast  and opposition to the Kingdoms of Herod and Caesar Augustus the Gospel’s first readers encountered everyday.  Borg asserts that the “proclamation of Jesus as Son of God, Lord, and Saviour directly countered Roman imperial theology…. Jesus was Lord and the emperor was not! … (the) message challenged the normalcy of civilization, then and now, with an alternative vision of how life on earth can and should be.”   The First Paul   

At Belmont we often employ the word picture “kin-dom of God” or even “kindred of God” because Jesus sought no thrones, built no castles and never organized a group of knights.  Given that disclaimer, let’s do a little holy day-dreaming around that word picture Jesus used 31 times in Luke and 32 times in Matthew:  “kin-dom of God” or maybe “kindred of heaven”  Maybe doodle a picture of Christ’s kin-dom in the margins of your bulletin. So we are going to take 60 seconds to just ponder the image “kin-dom of God”, but feel free to turn to your neighbor and share if that helps you conceptualize the “kin-dom of God. ” 

When Jesus says “the Kingdom of God is like” Jesus does not offer one image, but maybe 20 different images, experiences  or word pictures. For example, when the disciples asked Jess to rank and tell them “who is the Goat”  in God’s top twenty,  Jesus placed a child, maybe even an infant, in the middle of competitors. Who belongs on the mount Everest of Christianity: Jesus picks up a random baby. “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kin-dom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matt 18)  Did your picture of the Kin-dom of heaven include children?  Did it incorporate welcome? Friends, we can welcome Jesus to Belmont every sunday morning up in the children’s wing.

What about a splash of humility in your community of heaven doddle? Humility is a word our world is negating and forgetting.  Being humble is not about having a poor self-image, it is about not needing to exalt oneself over others. It is about not needing rewards but just being content. Jesus names himself as humble saying “Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened, take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt 11) 

Sometimes we preachers second guess our sermons.  The Sunday after the election I was feeling overwhelmed when a friend asked “how are you doing?”  I confessed I would rather not preach that Sunday, but instead be able to pour out my heart to God in worship and not need to try to speak a word to our people. A few minutes later, I was sitting in the pastor’s study reading my sermon when someone knocked on my door. I opened the door and there stood a mom and one of our five year old members holding a little basket.  This child offered me a card, a cookie and a hug.  The card read “I made this cookie for you.”  When I walked into the sanctuary to preach, I did not feel the burden of preaching as I had 15 minutes before. You see the child, the card, and the cookie reminded me that I not only help lead this community, but that I belong to it as well.  How can you welcome someone as God welcomes you? What is it about children that helps us better see God’s kin-dom? 

On a long family car trip, somehow our car talk turned to conversations about faith. One of the boys asked me who I understood Jesus to be. That is not a cut and dried answer for me. Jesus contains everything from my parent’s nurture, to the sunrise we shared at Acadia, to my seminary struggles, to the birth of our kids, to that moment we were sharing right then.  All of that is part of what the kin-dom of heaven is like.  But at that moment words failed me and I found myself weeping mostly tears of inarticulate joy.  Charles Wesley shares an image of Jesus “Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heav’n to earth come down. Fix in us Thy humble dwelling; all Thy faithful mercies crown!  Jesus, Thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love Thou art.”  That is a beautiful word picture, filled with art and awe, but not easy to contain in a creed or enumerate in a Christian onboarding manual. 

Loving God with all our heart, all of our soul, all our mind and all our strength (Luke 10 Mark 3) is so much more than just believing a creed. Love is better explained in a symbol, image, art, poem, or story. Our life with God lives in the realm of story, our story, our parable, God with us, Christ in us.  The story of our part in God’s kin-dom unfolds within us and all around us. Maybe this is why Jesus taught with parables as messy as they may be.  Stories and parables woo us because there is room for us inside the story. We can be the child with a card and cookie, we can get lost in the Temple, we can find room for Jesus when the Inn is full, we can welcome home the prodigal child, we can weep with Jesus over the mess that is Jerusalem, and we can forgive from the depths of our hearts.   Jesus taught “The kingdom of heaven is right here with us.” (Matthew 4)  We belong to God’s story. Perhaps that should not surprise us- because from the beginning God created us in God’s very image.  I think when Jesus begins teaching by saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like” Jesus is making room for “God with us” and Christ in us”  On this reign of Christ Sunday, let us celebrate the deep belonging we find in God and in God’s kind-om right here among us.  Amen