The Kingdom of Heaven

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, September 25, 2022.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 13:31-33, 44-50.

            The kingdom of heaven.  Jesus uses that phrase over and over again in our reading for today.  The kingdom of heaven.  What does that phrase mean?  What is the “kingdom of heaven”?

            Well, let’s look at  it.  First of all, if there’s a kingdom, there has to be a king, right?  And of course, that king is God.  God is the king of the kingdom of heaven.  God in all of His forms–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

            But what, really, is the kingdom of heaven?  Well, Jesus tells us a few things about it.  For one thing, the kingdom of heaven is incredibly valuable.  In fact, it’s worth everything.  He says it’s like a treasure hidden in a field.  If you find it, you’d sell everything you own to buy that field.  It would not matter how much it cost.  You’d do whatever you had to do to get that field, so you could have the treasure.

            And then, just to make sure we get it, Jesus makes the same point by using a merchant looking for fine pearls.  He says that when you find one, you’d sell everything you have to get it.  Again, it would not matter how much it cost.  You’d do whatever you had to do to get that pearl.

            In other words, the kingdom of heaven is more valuable than anything you could ever have.  It’s more valuable than anything else in the world.  It’s more valuable than everything else put together.  Gaining a place in the kingdom of heaven is so important that it should be the entire focus of our lives.

            Well, okay.  That makes sense.  I mean, if God is the kingdom of heaven, and if God is everything we believe He is–the all-powerful, almighty, all-loving, all-caring, all-compassionate, all-everything God–then getting a place in the kingdom of heaven would be incredibly important.  It would be important enough that, once we found it, we would give up everything we have to get it.

            But that kind of begs the question.  How do we find it?  I mean, these examples say what to do after we find the treasure.  But how do we find it in the first place?  How do we find this kingdom of heaven?

            Well, let’s look at something else Jesus said about the kingdom of heaven.  He said the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.

            So what does that tell us about the kingdom of heaven?  Well, what is yeast?  Yeast is something that, just by itself, is pretty much worthless right?  An ounce of dried yeast costs very little.  And, as long as the yeast just sits in a jar or something, it really is not doing anything.  In other words, yeast is not valuable for what it is.  Yeast is valuable for what it does.

            So what does that tell us?  Is the kingdom of heaven worthless?  That does not make any sense.  Is the kingdom of heaven valuable for what it does?  Well, maybe.  But what does that mean?  What does the kingdom of heaven actually do?

            Well, let’s look at the very first thing Jesus said in our reading.  Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.  It starts out really small, but when it grows, it becomes huge.  It grows into a tree so big that birds can come and perch in its branches.

            Okay.  So the kingdom of heaven grows?  Does that make sense?  I mean, when you really look at these things, you can see why the disciples sometimes got frustrated with Jesus for speaking in parables so often.  Jesus, why do you have to be so mysterious all the time?  Why can you not just come out and say what you mean?  Why do you make us work so hard to figure out what you’re getting at?  I mean, it helps keep pastors employed, but other than that, why do you have to beat around the bush so much?

            Well, I cannot answer that for Jesus.  But I can tell you this–we cannot understand Jesus by just taking little snippets of what he said.  After all, Jesus said a lot of things, and sometimes he assumed his audience would remember the things he’d said earlier and use those things to explain what he was saying now.  And sometimes he would later on explain some of the things he was saying now.

            I think that, to fully understand what Jesus is saying about the kingdom of heaven in this passage, we need to look at what Jesus says in John Chapter Seventeen, verse twenty-one.  The Pharisees are asking Jesus about the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is not something that can be observed.  You cannot say “here it is” or “there it is”.  Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is within you.

            Now, that does not mean that we are all our own gods.  It does not mean we get to make our own rules and do whatever we want.  What it means is that God’s Holy Spirit exists within each of us.  And if we open ourselves up to the leading of God’s Holy Spirit, we will see Him at work in our lives.  And once we see God’s Holy Spirit at work in our lives, we will realize how important it is and will do anything we can to get it.

            God’s Holy Spirit takes root in our hearts.  He starts small.  We may not even realize what God’s Holy Spirit is doing at first.  We may not even realize God’s Holy Spirit is doing anything.  But eventually, we start to feel God’s Holy Spirit grow within us.  We start feeling more love in our hearts.  We start treating other people better.  We start to have more patience.  We start to feel more peace in our lives.  And as that starts, we realize that it feels pretty good.  We want more of that.  We want to feel more love, have more patience, feel more peace, do more for other people.  The Holy Spirit grows and grows inside of us, until it becomes so big that everyone can see it, without us having to say a word about it.

            And like yeast in dough, we cannot keep the Holy Spirit separate from the rest of our lives.  When God’s Holy Spirit is working in us, it works in everything we do.  God’s Holy Spirit changes every aspect of our lives.  There is no part of our lives we can keep God’s Holy Spirit away from.  

            And when you think about it, there’s not part of our lives that we will want to keep God’s Holy Spirit away from.  Have you ever had a time when you felt like you were totally in tune with God’s Holy Spirit, like you were exactly where God wanted you to be and were doing exactly what God wanted you to do?  If you have, you know what an awesome feeling it is.  It truly is the treasure that’s worth everything we have.  It is the pearl that’s finer than any other pearl in the world.  There’s no greater feeling than having God’s Holy Spirit working in us.  God’s Holy Spirit working in us means that we don’t have to worry about how things are going to go.  In fact, it means that we don’t have to worry about anything.  All we need to do is do our best to follow where God’s Holy Spirit leads us.  That puts God in control, and not us.  And when God is in control, we can be at peace.  We’re leaving things in God’s hands, and there are no better hands to leave things in than God’s hands.

            But we do need to note this.  Jesus does not end his statement on this high note.  Jesus ends his statement with a warning.  He says God’s Holy Spirit is like a fisherman who has a whole net full of fish.  He keeps the good fish, and throws the bad fish away.  Jesus then says, “This is how it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

            We don’t like to think about that part.  But we ignore it at our peril.  And we ignore it at other people’s peril, too.  Jesus tells us how wonderful God’s Holy Spirit is, and how awesome it is to have God’s Holy Spirit in us, but he also lets us know that not everyone does, and not everyone will.  And there are obviously severe consequences when we don’t.

            The kingdom of heaven is within us.  But we need to open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit.  God never forces Himself on us.  God wants to work with us.  God wants each of us to feel the awesome feeling of being totally in tune with God’s Holy Spirit.  But God will not force that feeling on us.  If we choose to shut God’s Holy Spirit off, God will allow us to do that.  But there are consequences.  And you heard what Jesus said those consequences are.

            So let’s open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit.  Let’s get that awesome feeling of being totally in tune with God’s Holy Spirit.  And let’s do all we can to help others get that awesome feeling, too.  Let’s all be part of the great kingdom of heaven.