You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
I often like gospel stories best the way Luke tells them – but his version of the Beatitudes troubles me. Using the words “Kingdom of heaven” to refer to the reign of God has had a negative effect on Christianity. This usage can distort our understanding of Jesus’ message, because we also use the word “heaven” to describe that place in which we will dwell with God for eternity. “Heaven” is a “there and later” place. The Realm of God, as Jesus proclaimed it, is here and now.
If we think the Good News is about what happens to us after we die, we become less invested as agents of transformation in this world, less engaged in naming and mediating God’s presence and peace and power in our earthly life. Too often, Christian proclamation has focused on salvation and not enough on incarnation, the Good News of God present with us in human flesh – physically in Jesus Christ, and now spiritually in us through his Holy Spirit.
This split has perhaps been reinforced by Jesus’ teaching as we read it in Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.” Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh… But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”
Is it really a zero-sum game; if we’re full now, we’re sure to be hungry later; sad in this life, we’ll yuck it up in the next, and vice versa? This kind of “either/or” thinking leads to legalism and rigidity. Doesn’t Jesus proclaim a “both/and” realm, in which all things are possible?
Or have I misunderstood, thinking Jesus is speaking causally, when he is simply making an apt observation of human life? Take the “blessings” part of his discourse: it is full of wonderful promises, reminding us that poverty, hunger, and sadness do not represent God’s will for our lives, and are not permanent states. It doesn’t say the only place we’ll be blessed is after we’re dead. It just says, “Hold on, you have inherited the kingdom of God. Better things are coming.”
And the “Woes” which follow have always snagged me, because they suggest we’re punished for happiness in this life. But maybe Jesus is not speaking eschatologically about rewards or punishment, simply observing that wealth is its own consolation, which can keep us from putting our full trust in God. A full belly can dull our hunger for justice and righteousness. Joy can blind us to loss, but it’ll catch up with us eventually.
It is both/and… All at the same time we are blessed and full of woe, often in different areas of our lives. The Covid pandemic was a terrible woe, yet responding to it helped our churches thrive. The terrible challenges to peace and justice we are facing now may yield new ways to make God’s love visible in our world. We are at once full and hungry, rejoicing and grieving. If I understand the fullness of what Jesus said about this God we serve, consolations will abound, now and later.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label Realm of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Realm of God. Show all posts
6-10-24 - Scattering Seeds
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
A person tosses a bunch of seeds on the ground, goes to sleep and wakes up for many days in a row, and then is surprised to see plants sprouting all around. This is a description of:
What does the story suggest to you?
It is Seed Week in Bible Camp. I’ve never counted, but it seems that Jesus told more parables about seeds than any other one thing. In the passage just before this, he tells a long story about a sower of seeds and the different results he gets according to where they fall. In this week’s gospel reading we get two more seed parables, short, simple, and – if we harvest them well – yielding manifold meanings and gifts. Here is the first:
A person tosses a bunch of seeds on the ground, goes to sleep and wakes up for many days in a row, and then is surprised to see plants sprouting all around. This is a description of:
- Organic farming methods
- A lifelong city dweller’s first experience in the countryside
- Me with my vegetable garden (see b…)
- The way things work in the Realm of God
What does the story suggest to you?
It is Seed Week in Bible Camp. I’ve never counted, but it seems that Jesus told more parables about seeds than any other one thing. In the passage just before this, he tells a long story about a sower of seeds and the different results he gets according to where they fall. In this week’s gospel reading we get two more seed parables, short, simple, and – if we harvest them well – yielding manifold meanings and gifts. Here is the first:
“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
We meet no sower, just “someone” who haphazardly scatters seed on the ground and then seems astonished that it sprouts and grows. How is this like the Kingdom of God? Is Jesus saying that God is the careless scatterer, hoping that the kingdom values of love and faithfulness and power will take root in some? There appears to be no cultivating, weeding, tending, or watering – just “the earth producing of itself.” Does this suggest that some people are just naturally ready to grow and thrive?
Or are we the ones unwittingly scattering the seeds of the gospel, and surprised when some sprout?
Or am I wrong to equate the seeds with people? Maybe the seeds are simply the movement of “getting it,” grasping the truth that Jesus was trying to communicate about the way the Realm of God is already around, among, even in us. The truth grows in us – we don’t have to study and prepare, simply recognize and accept and live it.
Or perhaps we should focus on the sprouting plants rather than the carelessness or cluelessness of the sower. The realm of God is constantly sprouting new life, grown from seeds we scarcely knew had been sown – and day after day, night after night, this growth continues apart from any effort we make.
What do you see when you play with this one? This is what we do with parables – turn them this way and that, try on different angles and interpretations, see what strikes a spark in us. Come to think of it, parables are kind of like scattered seeds that sprout and grow, we know not how...
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
We meet no sower, just “someone” who haphazardly scatters seed on the ground and then seems astonished that it sprouts and grows. How is this like the Kingdom of God? Is Jesus saying that God is the careless scatterer, hoping that the kingdom values of love and faithfulness and power will take root in some? There appears to be no cultivating, weeding, tending, or watering – just “the earth producing of itself.” Does this suggest that some people are just naturally ready to grow and thrive?
Or are we the ones unwittingly scattering the seeds of the gospel, and surprised when some sprout?
Or am I wrong to equate the seeds with people? Maybe the seeds are simply the movement of “getting it,” grasping the truth that Jesus was trying to communicate about the way the Realm of God is already around, among, even in us. The truth grows in us – we don’t have to study and prepare, simply recognize and accept and live it.
Or perhaps we should focus on the sprouting plants rather than the carelessness or cluelessness of the sower. The realm of God is constantly sprouting new life, grown from seeds we scarcely knew had been sown – and day after day, night after night, this growth continues apart from any effort we make.
What do you see when you play with this one? This is what we do with parables – turn them this way and that, try on different angles and interpretations, see what strikes a spark in us. Come to think of it, parables are kind of like scattered seeds that sprout and grow, we know not how...
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
7-17-23 - A Careless Planter?
You can listen to this reflection here.
Jesus is on a run with agricultural metaphors. After last week’s parable about the sower, we go on to another tale meant to describe the Kingdom of heaven. But this time there are two sowers: He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”
As we explore this story, we will see how the sower and his staff deal with this mess. Today, lets rest with the image of a nice, neat field of wheat sabotaged by choking weeds. Jesus cleverly uses this metaphor to account for the presence of evil in the goodness of a good God’s creation – and he is clear that the weeds are introduced not by the Creator, but by an enemy "while everyone was asleep."
In this tale, the evil is inseparable from the good, and until it's time for the plants to bear fruit, no one can tell the weeds from the wheat. It’s all just one big mess growing up in the field we call this world. Thus we are reminded not to judge others prematurely – it generally becomes apparent after awhile who is making life-giving choices and who is out for their own gain. And even then, it may not be so cut and dried. In this story the wheat does not take matters into its own hands and eliminate the weeds from its midst – a certain co-existence seems to be called for, at least in the short-term we call life in this world.
Jesus’ parables, like all good analogies, can fail us if we push them too hard toward the literal. Jesus likens the weeds to the “children of evil” and the wheat to the “children of the kingdom,” but no one is born one or the other. Theoretically, we all have the chance to be fruit-bearing wheat. It’s a question of where we put our allegiance, and from where we draw our power.
Imagine in prayer seeing yourself rooted in a field, planted by a loving Sower, nurtured by One who tends his beloved creation. We can invite the rain and sun and give thanks as we experience them.
Who else do you consider “wheat” in the part of God’s field in which you dwell? Who helps you be fruitful? And are there some whom you deem to be weeds? What happens when you pray for those people? Try it for a few weeks... ask for God to bless them beyond measure.
We are creatures of a loving Sower who nevertheless allowed an enemy to exercise free will, even at the cost of compromising his crop. Was this Planter careless? Or is her love so expansive, it makes room for people to find their way to good harvest?
Jesus is on a run with agricultural metaphors. After last week’s parable about the sower, we go on to another tale meant to describe the Kingdom of heaven. But this time there are two sowers: He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.”
As we explore this story, we will see how the sower and his staff deal with this mess. Today, lets rest with the image of a nice, neat field of wheat sabotaged by choking weeds. Jesus cleverly uses this metaphor to account for the presence of evil in the goodness of a good God’s creation – and he is clear that the weeds are introduced not by the Creator, but by an enemy "while everyone was asleep."
In this tale, the evil is inseparable from the good, and until it's time for the plants to bear fruit, no one can tell the weeds from the wheat. It’s all just one big mess growing up in the field we call this world. Thus we are reminded not to judge others prematurely – it generally becomes apparent after awhile who is making life-giving choices and who is out for their own gain. And even then, it may not be so cut and dried. In this story the wheat does not take matters into its own hands and eliminate the weeds from its midst – a certain co-existence seems to be called for, at least in the short-term we call life in this world.
Jesus’ parables, like all good analogies, can fail us if we push them too hard toward the literal. Jesus likens the weeds to the “children of evil” and the wheat to the “children of the kingdom,” but no one is born one or the other. Theoretically, we all have the chance to be fruit-bearing wheat. It’s a question of where we put our allegiance, and from where we draw our power.
Imagine in prayer seeing yourself rooted in a field, planted by a loving Sower, nurtured by One who tends his beloved creation. We can invite the rain and sun and give thanks as we experience them.
Who else do you consider “wheat” in the part of God’s field in which you dwell? Who helps you be fruitful? And are there some whom you deem to be weeds? What happens when you pray for those people? Try it for a few weeks... ask for God to bless them beyond measure.
We are creatures of a loving Sower who nevertheless allowed an enemy to exercise free will, even at the cost of compromising his crop. Was this Planter careless? Or is her love so expansive, it makes room for people to find their way to good harvest?
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