Parables of Jesus and Romans 8

Parables of the Kingdom

The Mustard Seed Tree

The Yeast in the Dough

Image of God's Kingdom growing, until that final fruition when it provides a habitat for all of life.

Another image that indicates God's work of establishing the Kingdom of God is a process; in this image we see the word of Christ or perhaps the Spirit of God as the rising agent in us, as individuals and as a community.

The imagery that Jesus chose to use is perhaps less abstract than those the apostle Paul chose to describe God going to work within the human community, but they direct us in the same direction.

Through these parables Jesus is inviting us to have another look at the world we live in, to the world and our lives from a different perspective.

Because the parables are intended to give us a new perspective we don't have to limit them to revealing a single truth. They provide us a particular vantage point from which to look at life with a Kingdom perspective.

THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE

Life in the Kingdom (is the Pearl) that is worth sacrificing other treasures to possess.

Approached from a different perspective: We are the Pearl of Great price who God (the merchant) sacrifices much to possess.

John Chrysostom warned Christians a long time ago that we’re not supposed to interpret the parables of Jesus literally. It doesn’t matter that a mustard plant doesn’t actually grow into a tree – the point of these parables isn’t to find out more about the nature of a mustard seed; it’s to find out how to live in the midst of God’s Kingdom presence with us.

Asked the other day why I've spent so much time over the past few years preaching from the Apostle Paul's letter.

Interpreting Paul in light of Jesus' parables

So it makes a lot of sense to interpret Paul in light of Jesus’ own teaching and ministry:

Paul’s confidence in verses 28-30 echoes the confidence of Jesus. “All things work together for good for those who love God”. In Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed he is describing the outreaching, spreading growth of the Kingdom of God. Just as the mustard seed is small and has humble beginnings as it is sown into the soil, the Kingdom of God visibly represented by the church community is something that has very small and humble beginnings. As it grows it doesn’t force itself onto people, but grows into a community that is a habitat, an environment in which people flourish spiritually in relationship with God.

We can (and should) interpret Paul’s teaching in light of Jesus’ parable about yeast leavening the dough. The work of the Spirit constitutes the dynamic life of the Kingdom of God, both at work in the social order and in an individual. In fact we need to recognize the Spirit’s life changing work in both to deeply appreciate God’s relationship with us as God guides us into the fullness of the Kingdom.

Corporately we recognize the Spirit’s work, though it is often quite complex because we all have different agendas and ideas about what God might be doing. Therefore Christian community needs spiritually mature people, but we also recognize that growing spiritually is not something that we do alone; we are in fact formed in our relationship with God within the day-to-day life of human relationships.

Flour is very ordinary stuff. You and I might very well look at ourselves and admit, “We’re very ordinary, unremarkable people...how can we possibly be part of God’s ‘Grand Design’ for creation?” The answer is, that we may be very ordinary, but we’re made for a very rich and dynamic relationship with the Spirit of God, who not only gives us life itself, but also permeates our existence in order to illuminate, convict, guide and shapes our lives.

When Jesus calls us to follow him into the life of discipleship he is calling us into a life shaped and directed by the Spirit.

The Spirit’s inner activity (like the inner activity of yeast) is invisible but it is detectible by what we can observe.

We can discern and cooperate with the Spirit’s labour in our individual lives – heart of prayer, meditation is to identify and yield to the work of the Spirit.

There are dangers of focusing on Paul's letters all the time. The most obvious danger is that we can lose sight of Jesus. Instead of "what does Jesus say?", we get filled up instead with "what does Paul say?" And that leads to the false impression that Jesus and Paul were really talking about two completely different things.

Or just as bad, the idea that Jesus came with something good and spiritual which Paul proceeded to distort and turn into some kind of new religion. Which actually misses the point:

Paul is attempting to unpack the transformation that Jesus brings into the day to day of life of human communities – whether in Jerusalem or Rome or London or Christchurch or Fairlie. #

Paul is encouraging us all to have hope because we can live with the certainty of God’s loving purpose for the world and us. There may be times when we struggle, when we experience the pain of loss, or even feel tempted to despair.

An Assurance

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

Easily misunderstood as meaning that if we love God everything will work out the way we expect, and that all our hopes and desires will be fulfilled.

But actually Paul is actually portraying a much bigger picture than that, much the same way that Jesus illustrates the Kingdom with the image of the Mustard Seed Tree.

click to edit