Matthew 13:1-10, 18-23

The kingdom of heaven is here and now, as well as then and there. We miss it because we have such strong and fixed assumptions about the way things work in the real world that we miss the realest world of all, which is the kingdom of heaven.

We are sort of brainwashed. It is very hard to help people return to reality after they have been brainwashed. We have been brainwashed to think the world operates a certain way. Jesus’ goal was to unbrainwash us, to deprogram us, so as to get us to see things the way they really are.

The tool he used to do this was the parable; the parables he told and the parable of his own life. Jesus told parables and was a parable. The parable we will look at this Sunday morning is from the parables of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, collected in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. Jesus teases us with this parable. A sower scatters her seeds everywhere, knowing that many will be lost and never grow into plants, but confident that some will grow to produce a plentiful harvest. Matthew explains that the seed in the parable is the word of God, which is God’s love.

In the kingdom of heaven, the problem is not the insufficiency of love on God’s part. The love that takes root brings forth a harvest sometimes a hundredfold or sixty or thirty. God just keeps scattering the seed of divine love in every nook and cranny of our lives to find fertile ground where love can take root and multiply. God has decided to trust love. God has decided that love will work as the means to accomplish what God hopes to accomplish in the world. God has decided that loving is ultimately the most effective strategy.

This Sunday morning, you will be offered a packet of seeds. There will also be some seed money in the packet. You will be invited to invest the money you receive as God has generously and extravagantly sown God’s love into our hearts.