This Sunday I am worshipping at St Mary’s Church, Hemyock. You are welcome to join me for Holy Communion at 11am,

The schools have now broken up, the weather continues to be hot and dry, and the lectionary continues to lead us through the parables, and today we have a bumper crop. Reading the passage it is as though Jesus has somehow turned into a holy Duracell bunny: he spins from one parable to another, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like this’ he says and then jumps straight into another descriptor. I imagine the heads of the disciples and other followers are spinning: is the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed, a batch of dough, treasure in a field, a merchant in search of fine pearls, or a net thrown into the sea? After leaping from image to image, Jesus asks

Have you understood all this?

Matthew 13: 51

and they answer, Yes!

Really?

I for one am confused, but then I didn’t know until recently that mustard is an invasive species which grows and grows and cannot be stopped in its track. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, it will start out small but grow and grow and grow. Think Leylandii! And the people listening are not the great and the good, they are the commoners, the poor, the broken, the lowly, the little people, but from their faith great things will come. There will be no stopping the kingdom of heaven, it will be everywhere and for everyone.

The kingdom of heaven is like yeast in dough. Without it, the bread remain flat and becomes hard and brittle, but with yeast, the bread expands and grows (and keeps growing until it is cooked!) and becomes soft and malleable. Once again, Jesus is telling his listeners that they are invited into something which seems small but will grow and grow and grow. And I can’t help but note that whereas ‘someone’ planted mustard seeds it is a woman who mixes the yeast. The kingdom of heaven has people of all genders at its core.

Then Jesus moves away from the domestic and finds treasure, or at least another someone does, in a field, and is so determined to own the treasure that he re-hides it and buys the whole field. I wonder why he didn’t just claim the treasure? I guess because that would be theft, and this someone is acting with honour and integrity, the kingdom of heaven can only be found through good intentions, pure hearts. The kingdom of heaven is worth investing in, worth doing properly.

Another image: the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl merchant, who in finding the ultimate pearl sells everything else in order to buy the one of greatest value. In the lustre of this magnificent pearl, everything else dims before him and becomes worthless.

‘Have you understood all this?’ Jesus asks.

Well yes, I think so, the kingdom of heaven starts small but will grow and spread everywhere, it will make life better for everyone who is willing to invest, and who realises that nothing can compare with it.

But then Jesus goes fishing. Perhaps this is the part when the fishermen really prick up their ears. They may not know much about agriculture, or baking, or buying and selling treasures and pearls, but they do know about fish and how to catch them. Indeed Jesus called them to leave their nets and to become fishers of people.

This parable is a bit trickier. It is another one of those passages used to scare people into heaven and away from hell, that place where there will be a furnace of fire, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Or Gehenna, the actual real place outside of the city walls where the rubbish was thrown and dogs and hyenas came to scavenge.

Last week’s sermon garnered much conversation over coffee. Some didn’t agree with me (that’s OK), some felt inspired to keep thinking, but some were actually really upset. I spent time with everyone over coffee, and what I realised was that I had preached from a place of privilege. It is OK for me to say that in eternity we will meet with those who have wronged us so that we can share each others’ stories and understand and forgive and be forgiven, because I have not been truly injured. Others have. Others have experienced such trauma I can only begin to conceive the depth of. For them justice needs to be served, and they need to know they will never have to face the one who has caused them such harm.

This final passage speaks not just of wrong- doers, the generally sinful as we all are, but the evil. There is no place for evil in the kingdom of heaven, and I need to apologise to anyone for whom I turned the kingdom of heaven into a threat. I am truly sorry. There will be no sin in heaven, all evil will be cast out. The fishermen understood this. If you leave rotten fish in the bucket the rot will spread. The rot will cause harm.

So is Gehenna a place of fear or hope?

My mind wondered when I first read this passage ahead of today’s preach; if Gehenna was a real place and not just an ethereal threat to persuade people to be good, where is it now?

‘On modern maps’, so the internet tells me, ‘the valley starts west of the Jaffa Gate, runs south, bends eastward around Mount Zion, and merges with the Kidron Valley south of the city of David archaeological site.’ It is however, a site which has been transformed,

Today, rather than the place of fiery damnation and dark history described in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the valley has been largely transformed into a peaceful, green, public space. It sits directly beneath the walls of the Old City, and features footpaths, scenic views, and the Hinnom Valley agricultural farm.

Google!

Gehenna lay opposite Golgotha. Different sides of the city, yet both outside, where the ‘rubbish’ was disposed of. There is something beautiful happening here. Jesus in his death transformed life for all of us, gave us hope and healing and eternal life; in his own body he took on the sins of the world, everything was inflicted upon him. Jesus knows what it is to be beaten and abused, to die in scorn and agony, to have the unspeakable done to him. Across the city from his own death, a place set aside to receive all that is rotten, where fires are kept alight to dispose of the rubbish has now been transformed to a place of peace, a place of blessing.

Evil will be dealt with.

Transformation will come.

We can glimpse the kingdom of heaven through parables, but in reality it is beyond our understanding. It is so complex, so valuable, so good, that even Jesus struggled to explain it fully. So he leapt from parable to parable, image to image, in the attempt of giving those first listeners an understanding of what it will be like.

Do we understand? Yes, and also no. The kingdom of heaven is where God is. Where Jesus is. And wherever Jesus is, there is transformation.