The Kingdom of God is Like . . .

Davidson Loehr

February 3, 2008

PRAYER:

Let us have humility in our lives, but let us also not underestimate our own power and authority. For we have far more power and authority in our lives than we imagine.

The Danish poet Piet Hein put this into a short poem some years ago, when he wrote:

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I am a humble artist, molding my earthly clod,

Adding my labor to Nature?s, simply assisting God.

Not that my effort is needed, yet somehow I understand

My Maker has willed it that I too should have unmolded clay in my hand.

Let us try to keep fear and false humility from making us bow before pretended authorities when we should question them ? in politics, in religion, and in our daily lives.

It is a bold claim, that we too should have unmolded clay in our hands, that we too can co-create our lives and our world. Yet it is one of the most fundamental truths of psychology, politics and religion.

Let us have appropriate humility, and let us have appropriate confidence and power. For there is so much to do, and we must do it together. Amen.

SERMON: The Kingdom of God is Like?.

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I only realized yesterday afternoon while sitting outside at Central Market working on this sermon where it was really going. I had thought it was about two parables, the two that are probably the most likely to be authentic parables of Jesus: the Good Samaritan story, and his odd comment that the kingdom of God is like leaven.

Then as I put together what I knew of the background and context from the bible and the early first century, I saw they were both spoken to a very specific context that doesn?t really fit us well today, that Jesus? original message not only wasn?t too helpful, but wasn?t very true or wise either.

We look at figures like Jesus, or Mother Teresa, Mohammad, all our religious and cultural heroes, through rose-colored, often romantic and nostalgic glasses, and sometimes just clearing away the haze also clears away the romantic nostalgia.

That?s what doing a scholarly study of any religion often does. We say we don?t want to check our brains at the door, but sometimes that turns into the question of whether we would rather be disillusioned, or illusioned. At the divinity school I attended ? and I suspect this is true of all good divinity schools ? it wasn?t unusual to hear graduate students say by their second or third year that learning about religion had shattered whatever beliefs they had come in with. The romanticism ends as you learn just what human creations all religions and all sacred scriptures really are. The bible was written by hundreds of people, each with their own theological and political agenda, not by God or Jesus. The Koran was too, went through many editions, and borrowed thousands of words from the Jewish and Christian scriptures, among others. And so on. That?s very empowering, freeing you from a more na�ve sense of religion, but it?s also disturbing.

I?ve been a Fellow in the Jesus Seminar since 1991, and that?s where I have learned most of what I know about Jesus. This a group of mostly bible scholars started in 1985 to bridge the gap between what scholars have known about the bible and Jesus for over a century, and what people in the streets and in the pews are told about it. They?ve described that gap as larger than the Grand Canyon. They assembled scholars of the bible and Christian history, and spent eight years having them research every single saying attributed to Jesus, and write papers on whether it should be considered authentic. They assigned every single saying attributed to Jesus ? whether in the gospels or any other early literature ? and having the experts write papers on sayings that came within their field of knowledge. Sometimes, this meant over an hour of listening and arguing about two lines of Greek text. Most people would think this added a whole new dimension to the concept of ?boring.?

They did this by knowing a lot of the history, how the gospels were written ? they weren?t written until forty to ninety years or so after Jesus died ? by comparing them with older sayings from Jewish teachers and secular sayings of the time. When they published their book The Five Gospels: the Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus in December 1993, they reported that they thought only about 18% of the sayings attributed to Jesus were authentic, and only 60% of the scholars were sure that the Good Samaritan story, one of the most famous, was authentic in that form. Only 60%. And that made it the second highest parable they considered to be authentic. The highest-rated parable only got 62% of the scholars voting for it, and that was a very short sentence that doesn?t even sound like a parable, where Jesus said, ?The kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.? (Matthew 13:33b).

I remember talking with a very bright Catholic priest attending one of our Seminar meetings, saying the irony was that he was so nourished by what he learned there, but then he?d have to go home and make sure he didn?t tell the people in his church what he had learned, because it would disillusion them. That?s only one of the reasons I?m not a Catholic priest. I think that while no one likes being disillusioned, it?s finally better than being illusioned. It?s liberating, and that word comes from the same root as ?liberal,? which is why I?m one of those, too. I think that being shaken out of our childhood beliefs is the first step toward finding beliefs that can serve us as adults, and it?s a struggle everyone should have a chance at. But that?s one of the reasons I?m a Unitarian rather than some other kind of preacher.

So today, I want to talk about two of Jesus? parables that may or may not be wise ? you?ll decide for yourself. Next week I?ll talk about the third most likely-to-be-authentic parable, which is kind of rude, even ugly, that you?ll almost never hear anyone preach on or agree with, and I?ll suggest that it really is profound and wise, just as I think Jesus meant it.

First, let?s talk about what parables are. They are not nice stories, and they?re not polite. They are the most radical and disturbing kind of story there is, and Jesus did them as well or better than anyone. One good biblical scholar, the Catholic John Dominic Crossan ? the co-founder of the Jesus Seminar ? has said that a parable is a slap in the face to the audience hearing it, and if it isn?t a slap in the face, it isn?t a parable. Its purpose is not to tell them what to do, how to behave. Its purpose is to subvert the worldview of the audience, to deny some of its most basic assumptions. The stories are disturbing, so they?re usually watered down to make them nice.

It?s easy to see all of this by looking at one of the most famous of Jesus? parables: the Good Samaritan story.

It sounds pretty straightforward, but it isn?t. A Jew is mugged walking along a dangerous road, a couple Jews see him there and cross over to the other side rather than stopping to help, then a Samaritan comes by, stops, helps, takes him to an inn, and pays the innkeeper to care for him until he?s recovered. The editor of the gospel added the line after the story, ?Go and do likewise,? which would not have been part of the original story. But we need to know some history in order to understand how it?s a parable. The Jews and Samaritans absolutely hated each other at the time. In about the year 6, Samaritans threw human remains into the courtyard of the big temple in Jerusalem, to defile it. The very idea of a good Samaritan was as offensive as the idea of a story about ?the good serial murderer.? Part of the message of the Good Samaritan story was not only that your own kind often won?t help you, but the most radical, the most parabolic, message is that Jesus was telling his Jewish audience that the help they need can only come from the last person on earth they want help from. This would have been a fairly disgusting story to Jesus? fellow Jews ? and remember, Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian. Christianity hadn?t been invented yet.

We need to hear this parable ? and the one about the leaven ? in the same light as when Jesus said that a prophet isn?t honored by his own people, as Jesus wasn?t. What he?s telling his fellow Jews in the Good Samaritan story is that the help they need won?t come from the people they like, but can only come from the one they hate ? in other words, Jesus. It?s his most autobiographical parable. Scholars believe he was from Galilee, though in one gospel he is also referred to as a Samaritan.

It?s an insulting story in which Jesus is also exalting himself ? like the claim from the gospel of John that has him saying ?I am the Way, no one can come to God except through me.? It?s terribly arrogant, a world away from his humbler saying that no one is good but God alone.

I want you to imagine what this would have sounded and looked like. Jesus was a homeless man. He had no home, no steady job, had no wife or children, he begged for his food, and taught his disciples to beg for their food ? and even told them to eat whatever was offered to them, which would include non-kosher foods like pork and shellfish. The people who knew him didn?t respect him, and one story in the New Testament shows that his own mother thought he was crazy. And this is the man telling them that only he can help them! Today, we would give such a person a diagnosis. I?ll come back to the Good Samaritan, but want to go to the other one for a few minutes.

The highest-ranked parable is that little one-sentence one I mentioned earlier, that ?The kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.? 62% of the Fellows in the Jesus Seminar said they were sure it was authentic, and about 90% said it probably was.

Believe it or not, it?s message is a lot like the Good Samaritan parable. At one of our meetings, I asked Dominic Crossan how on earth this was a slap in the face, or even a parable. He reminded me that the audience was Jewish, and that the high holy days of the religion are celebrated with unleavened bread. Jesus was saying, ?The kingdom of God is like what you?ve left out.? That?s what a parable does.

Today we make our bread with yeast that we buy in those little packages. It?s dry, clean, and has that wonderful smell when the bread is baking. But the leaven of the ancient world was pretty vulgar stuff. They made it by leaving a hunk of bread in a dark damp place until it was covered with mold, and stank. And the word for leaven was used as a metaphor. I?ve read that everywhere the word is used in the Hebrew scriptures, it means something corrupt, unclean, unholy.

Why would Jesus say the kingdom of God ? which meant the ideal world, the best kind of world ? was like something unclean and vulgar? Well, remember that Jesus was regarded as unclean and vulgar. He was a homeless man who traveled with the outcasts of society, who begged for their food. In one gospel, he is even described as a glutton and a drunkard. And he was saying the kingdom of God is like him and his followers. The Jews of his day didn?t agree, and not many of us would either.

Few of us travel around with homeless people who beg for their food, and prostitutes, and I suspect few of us would accept the idea that they are the kingdom of God. Just like the people in Jesus? audience, we still like to be around people like us. If homeless people or prostitutes came here on Sunday begging for food, I?d hope we would be courteous, but I don?t think we would cozy up to them during coffee hour. Even someone who wore a pro-life button or a pro-Bush button here would create at least uneasy silences, wouldn?t they? So sticking with our kind of people is as true of us as it was of Jesus? unappreciative audience two thousand years ago.

Are you beginning to feel the kind of slap in the face these parables were? They were powerful, rude stories that could get you killed. Socrates only questioned the things his society taught; Jesus attacked them.

And that little parable about the kingdom of God being like moldy, smelly leaven. What an odd idea, that the ideal world is like unholy corruption! Today, that could make you think the kingdom of God must be a lobbyists? convention in Washington DC. It might look like heaven to lobbyists and the corporations who own them, but it wouldn?t to most of us.

That?s why we sanitize these stories in churches and polite conversation, change them and make them all nice. The rules of sermon-writing seem to including keeping even the most disturbing messages within polite and comfortable boundaries. So some preachers will say that, well, the Samaritan story is really saying we shouldn?t leave people out, or we should help people who need help. But you really didn?t need a religious story to make that point, did you? If you didn?t already know that, something is very wrong, isn?t it?

I?ve heard a good preacher say that the point of the story is a lot like saying that we?re more complete if we can incorporate our shadow sides. He mentioned that the psychologist Carl Jung had made that critique of all of Christianity, which is true. Jung said Christianity had tried to leave out the shadow, leave out the selfish and bad parts of us, tried to define goodness as the absence of all evil. But Jung said no, it isn?t about being good; it?s about being whole, being integrated, and unless we claim and own the rotten parts, we?ll almost certainly project them out onto other people and attack them there. So the secret to the integrated personality ? as Jung and this preacher said ? is hidden in the dirty, uncomfortable things we?ve tried to leave out of it, and if we can add them back where they belong, we have the chance of growing into a fuller person, rising to our full height. This is a nice modern psychological message, and I think it?s true. But is this anything like the message Jesus meant? No. Jesus wasn?t a Jungian, but it?s the way we try to clean up rude stories that are attributed to our religious heroes, because we may go to see R- or X-rated movies, but on Sunday we want the sermons rated G.

When preachers use parables like this in sermons, they almost always clean them up and get away from the truly disturbing message they originally had. They?re not interested in what Jesus meant that was disturbing. They?re more interested in what they can say that?s clever and helpful. So we might say that well, the kingdom of God means a complete world, and that when we leave parts out, it keeps us from a truly integrated, authentic life. That?s nice, and also true. And also about as superficial as it gets, isn?t it?

Or we could preach on it by saying that the ideal world isn?t available from within gated communities surrounded by desperate ghettos, or self-righteous circles of those who think themselves superior to others and whose sense of superiority has cut them off from their common humanity with others. Those are also good sermons, and also true.

These are the kinds of games we play with a lot of religious stories, as you know if you?ve attended many churches. It?s the game of how most sermons are written. You already know the answer is going to be that Jesus was right, so they just have to figure out how to get you there this week. But look how much this distorts the original story, especially when the original story is such a crude and insulting parable. Sometimes, it feels almost like the Nickelodeon version of a Freddy Krueger movie.

This is part of what makes the old religious words and stories such odd candidates for trying to shed light on the world we?re actually living in. There is so much translation involved. We read Shakespeare and struggle with the odd-sounding Shakespearean English, because there is so much wisdom packed in those funny noises. But talking about a kingdom of God, and leaven, or even ancient hatreds between Samaritans and Jews ? which were tribes as closely related as first cousins? Why talk that way? Do we have to learn all this outdated stuff to make our way through life?

No, we don?t. In fact, we need to translate it into plain talk so we can know what we think we?re talking about. And we need to think about whether we agree with what this man is saying. It doesn?t matter who said it, just whether it seems to be wise and useful. So what?s this mean that we need to care about?

Now let me play devil?s advocate and wonder out loud whether the original versions of these two parables are even very wise. Remember, I?m not trying to tell you what to believe, only trying to make you interested in finding out what you believe.

Does the help we need often come from people we hate? No. Mostly, it comes from people we know, or at least people with whom we can identify. Do ?our kind of people? generally ignore and abandon us when we?ve been beaten down? Not in my experience. The most sensitive of them usually ask where it hurts, and whether they can do anything to help. There are certainly painful cases of psychopathic parents or partners that can be quite tragic, but overwhelmingly we can trust those who know us better than those who don?t, can?t we?

And do we need to add corrupt, moldy things to get decent food or a decent life? The image of smelly moldy leaven could have worked two thousand years ago. But it doesn?t work now, when the smell of yeast in baking bread is one of the nicest smells in the world. So is there anything about the parable that is relevant to our world?

Why would we want to invite people we don?t like into our community? It can sound quite idealistic, but would many of us really want to do it ? at least more than just once, for show? Why should we want that kind of stress? The Jews of Jesus? time didn?t. They weren?t persuaded by his story, and probably thought it was a vulgar idea. But then look around today, when some of the loudest conservative Christians don?t like the idea either. They have become notorious for trashing Muslims, trashing gays and lesbians, trashing assertive women, trashing anyone who isn?t like them, consigning them all to the roles of the unclean and impure. The most fanatical Muslims do the same. And our own behavior shows that we strongly prefer being around our kind of people, doesn?t it? Just look around. So whatever Jesus was addressing seems to be part of human nature, then now and probably always.

Let me add one more wrinkle, one more ambiguity, to take away some of the false authority and charisma of our favorite ?wise? sayings. Parables are really just used like proverbs and bromides, like ?A stitch in time saves nine.? And we apply them in a thousand ways that have nothing at all to do with the original meaning, like sewing torn clothing before the rip spreads and you have nine times as much work to mend it. We have used that old saw in a thousand ways that would have mystified the original seamstress who must have coined it about mending clothes. We have a whole mental library of these sayings, many of them contradicting many others, and we pull them out to fit the situation at hand. So we?ll say ?He who hesitates is lost,? then ?Fools rush in?, or ?Look before you leap,? then ?No guts, no glory.? ?Absence makes the heart grow fonder,? and ?Out of sight, out of mind.?

These aren?t really sources of wisdom, as much as they are catchy little sound bytes we can slap on life to feel like we understand it. Slapping a brand-name bromide on life is a way of taming life. We use the sayings we?ve heard ? not because they?re wiser than Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim or other sayings, but just because they?re familiar. That?s how most of Jesus? sayings are used, too. We use Jesus? stories in the same way, kind of slapping them on for a needed sound byte ? like ?being a good Samaritan? ? without ever understanding or caring what Jesus actually meant by them in his very different time, context, and agenda.

It?s a measure of how much our traditional religions have become marginalized in our search for understanding today. Saying we want to be a good Samaritan doesn?t have anything to do with Jesus? teachings; it?s just a handy way to say we want to be decent toward those who are in need.

Now, for the question most of you are wondering about: how on earth can this sermon end? I?ll try it this way. The main purpose of education, including learning more about religion, is not to make us more fearful and obedient; it?s to empower us to question even the structure and foundation of the world as we?ve been taught it.

When you make a creative use of an old story to find a way to understand your life, who gets credit? Does it mean the original storyteller was really wise, even if you?ve completely changed his message? Or that you?re really clever? Or that we?re all in this together, may each have a part of the whole, that to leave out any part, however small, may be to diminish us?

Does this give new meaning to Jesus? old stories, or does it show some of them to have been unwise, even self-important and arrogant? Do you want to give credit to Jesus, to the creative opportunities offered by ambiguous old stories, or to yourself for using them to see patterns in the world around you? Does it help you appreciate the role a church can play in keeping us exposed to stories that can help us find our way through life?

Is it, as that Catholic priest said, disillusioning: the sort of thing you should be protected from, by me and all other preachers? Or is it empowering, even if a bit sobering? If sermons are supposed to bring Good News that helps to awaken and empower you, to remind you that you too are a child of God and part of the hope of the world, then was this a sermon?

Welcome to the church where you can find religion almost every Sunday, but where it nearly always comes to you in kit form, with some assembly required.