Bible Text: Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52, Genesis 29: 15-28 | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | There is so much in our Lectionary readings this morning and many preachers will find it hard to find a focus. We have a love story and a barrage of parables.

 

Love story

 

In Genesis 29:15-28, it so pleasant to look at it as a love story – of a young Jacob experiencing love at first sight towards the woman at the well, Rachel. In order to be his wife, he had to work for his uncle Laban for seven years.

 

But this time it is Jacob who finds himself at the end of a scheme mounted by Laban. Instead of sleeping with Rachel on the marriage bed, Laban sends in Leah, the first-born sister of Rachel. Jacob would have been devastated by the deception. He confronts Laban and Laban justifies his act by the standing on the norms of the country – tradition. Laban says, “This is not done in our country —- giving the younger before the firstborn.

 

But because of his love for Rachel, he pursues his goal by heeding Laban’s instructions of completing his marriage to Leah for a week and working for another 7 years until finally, he gets Rachel for a wife.

 

It is indeed a love story. We are able to appreciate this story of love and determination if we do not view it from our current cultural orientation. Otherwise we will see Laban as a scheming father to his daughters and a cheat to his nephew. We might also criticise the polygamist character of marriage and family at that time. We will see sibling’s rivalry and competition, and so on…

 

Yet there is another love story going on here: the story of God’s love and work in the people God dealt with and currently dealing with in order to make real a promise.

 

It is through this marriage with Leah and Rachel where Abraham’s clan will increase and multiply.  From Rachel will come the twelve tribes of Jacob including Dinah. The two sisters and their servant women raise up a large family capable of fulfilling God’s promise to Jacob that his descendants would be as abundant as the dust, covering the ground in every direction for the purpose of blessing all the families of the earth.

 

This is a shortened version of the story. We know there’s a lot more to it. Suffice it to say that God has a purpose in every one of us. And this purpose unravels in ways we do not expect. Also, our individual purposes are linked together so that God’s plan can be realised.

 

Each character in the story of Abraham and Sarah, to Isaac and Rebecca, to Jacob, Leah and Rachel including the unnamed ones all related and interacted towards the birthing of a people that will soon be named after Jacob – the man who wrestles with God and God’s peoples. Leah and Rachel’s central roles in the emergence of the people of Israel highlights women’s agency as an important means through which God continues to work today.

 

 

From little things, big things grow

 

But come to think of it, we are compared to specks of dusts in the Bible. So little, almost invisible to the naked eye. How can God’s plan be realised from the tininess, the minuteness of God’s created being?

 

Immediately, we might be thinking of the COVID-19 virus that is so small and cannot be seen by the naked eye but has created a huge pandemic crisis and its negative effect is so massive that it affects all aspects of the life of all people everywhere.

 

From a virus began a pandemic. This is similar to a mustard seed that grows in something big, but in the positive way.

 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field, it has grown to be the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)

 

Perhaps this where the answer.  It lies in the parable of the mustard seed found in our Gospel reading and the barrage of parables which come one after another.

 

Does it help if we connect the parables together so that we might understand the meaning behind each and the totality of them? Yes I believe so…  beginning with the parable of the sower, the seeds and the soil; the weeds and the wheat, the mustard seed, the yeast, the hidden treasure, the merchant in search of precious pearls, a net thrown into the sea…

 

We can also relate these to other scriptures, for example:

 

The parable of the treasure hidden in the field goes back to Matthew 6:19-20: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth … but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.” It also anticipates Jesus’ words to the rich man: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (19:21). Read together with the parable of the treasure hidden in the field, we are reminded that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (6:21). This reminder begs us to always review our priorities and purposes. Yet we are reminded that the kingdom of God does not ignore our needs; rather, God challenges us to focus our eyes to the hands where material wealth and power accumulates to the deprivation of many.

 

Intensity

 

Whenever I read these parables, I feel this sense of intensity about the realization of God’s reign on earth. Imagine the joy the discoverer of the hidden treasure felt and his determination to be the custodian of the treasure to the point of selling all that he has just to buy that field.

 

Imagine the drive of the merchant searcher for pearls of great value. He sells all that he has in order to buy even a single piece.

 

Imagine Jacob’s drive and determination to have Rachel as his wife and do everything to marry her.

 

How much determination, drive and passion do you have for God’s kingdom to be real in the here and now?

 

But before answering that, have you truly discovered the meaning of God’s kingdom in your life? If not, what drives you?

 

Amen.