Jesus said that people who have been trained for the kingdom of heaven are like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. That is what Jesus does, and what he invites his disciples to do. What new treasures will emerge as the church follows God through the COVID-19 pandemic?
A Sermon on Matthew 13:51-58
At the end of a series of parables about the kingdom of God, Jesus asked his disciples, “Are you getting all this?” They replied, “Yes”—though like all of us they still had lots to learn. Then he added another twist with another parable about treasure. “Every expert in the law who becomes a disciple, a learner in the kingdom of heaven, is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasure as well as old.” Notice that Jesus mentioned the new treasure first. Cherished treasures can be old, like a family heirloom, a family tradition, memories, and stories. But treasures can also be new, like a precious new baby that God has brought into the family, a new tradition, a new song. Wise disciples cherish the new along with the old.
Bringing out new treasures along with the old is what Jesus himself was doing. “I haven’t come to abolish the old tradition, the law and the prophets,” he declared early in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. “I have come to fulfill them.” Jesus cherished the old tradition, but he also brought new treasure to add to and fulfill it. Through Jesus, people could now see deep into the merciful heart of God in a new way.
Not everybody was open to the new treasure, though. Right after Jesus concluded that particular teaching session, he went home to Nazareth to teach in his home congregation. You’d think family and friends would be bursting with pride and welcome what he had to say. But what was their response? They were offended. “Where is this youngster getting this quote unquote wisdom?” they complained. “What gives Jesus the authority to speak a new word from God? We know Moses, and he’s no Moses. He’s just the carpenter’s boy, Mary’s boy. We’ve known him since he was a kid. Who does he think he is telling us that we need to look at things in a new light?” Tragically, Jesus’ hometown folks hardened their hearts against Jesus and his teaching. Thus they closed themselves off from the powerful good new things he might have done in their midst.
Hard-heartedness can prevent God’s people from recognizing and embracing new treasure. I can’t help, for example, thinking of all the treasure that people miss when they refuse to consider that God might speak a word or shepherd a flock through a woman. And how often has the church forgotten that the old treasures, like favorite old songs and old programs like Sunday school were once brand new? Sunday school as we know it didn’t originate until 1780, and believe it or not, people in the church resisted it.
Hard-heartedness certainly prevents people from recognizing new treasure, but so can broken-heartedness. That was the case for God’s people in exile. Painful memories and guilt and shame hindered them from seeing and latching on to the new treasure that God was offering them. “The prophets were right,” they confessed. “We were arrogant and greedy. We didn’t pay attention to God’s cries for justice for the poor and the widowed and the orphan and the alien. No wonder God didn’t stop the Babylonians from crushing our homeland. We might as well get used to it,” they concluded. “We will never see a golden age like the Exodus or the time of King David again. And even if the Babylonians did decide to let us go home, there’s a huge desert between us and Jerusalem.” God’s people lost their ability to dream. If you don’t dream of new possibilities, then you won’t get hurt when they aren’t realized.
That didn’t stop God from dreaming, though. The people were resigned to life in Babylon, but God was already fashioning new possibilities and doing new things. “Remember what you saw me do in the past?” God said through Isaiah. “Well, that’s nothing in comparison to what I am about to do. Watch for the new thing I’m going to do. It’s already underway. Where there seems not to be a way, I am going to make a way home for you, and you are going to sing a new song of praise.”
In the years that followed, some people dared to dream and go with God, and some didn’t. Some sang new songs of the wonders of God, and some didn’t. Some welcomed God’s new thing, and some didn’t.
According to Jesus, wise disciples cherish the old treasure and open their hearts to the new. They give thanks for and draw from the old, old story, but they also get ready to sing a new, new song in response to the living God who is even now up to something new.
We aren’t in exile in the same way as God’s people in Babylon, and yet we are experiencing an exile. COVID-19 has exiled us from the church building, and from gathering closely together. It is challenging us to find new ways to do many things in our families and as a congregation. Right now it is especially challenging for our families with school children, and their teachers, persevering through a lot of trial and error and ironing out technical issues as they try to keep learning going. Necessity is definitely the mother of invention.
This pandemic is challenging emotionally and financially, and in so many other ways. It has also pulled back the curtain that for so long has allowed our nation to continue to look past big inequity, inequality, injustice. What other nation with the kinds of resources we have, for example, continues to allow a situation where millions and millions of people are only one illness away from bankruptcy?
What could God be up to in the middle of this mess and uncertainty that is causing pain to so many? What God said to the exiles in Babylon God says now: “Behold, I am doing a new thing. Even now it is springing forth. Do you see it?” God never stops dreaming and fashioning new possibilities, and God is still in the business of making a way where there doesn’t seem to be any way.
What’s emerging among us at Morton? What new treasures are on the way to us in this “necessity is the mother of invention time”? I am looking forward to seeing how God is going to take the new skills we are learning and use them to help us share the old story of Jesus and his love near and far. Now people can participate from afar.
Building or no, the essentials are getting done. Prayer? Check. Worship and the word? Check. Sacraments? Check. Caring for the wellbeing of others inside our fellowship and beyond? Check and check. What other possibilities await as we live as active citizens of the kingdom of God? God says, “Behold, I am up to something new. Do you see it?” Maybe not yet, but we’re on the lookout.
Thanks be to God for precious old treasure. Thanks be to God for new treasure, challenging and hope-filled. Wise disciples cherish them both. AMEN.
The Mustard Seed Journal 