Proper 12:
1 Kings 3.5-12;
Romans 8.26-end;
Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

MOST OF MATTHEW 13 is a picture gallery. There are two big pictures, and several small ones. The first big picture is of a peasant farmer, whose land is so intractable that you would have thought he would have done better to find somewhere more fertile. But he stays with the patch he has got, and in the end there is a good harvest  (for "patch", read "parish"?).

The second large canvas depicts a field that is as much weeds as wheat. That is what the Church is like - no better than most other places, and often much worse.

The other pictures in Matthew's gallery are cameo studies: a bush with birds in it; a housewife making bread; a stash of coins hidden in the ground; a jewel in the junk; fishermen sorting their catch. Make of them what you will.

The Jerusalem Bible calls this collection of pictures Jesus's "Sermon of Parables". If it is a sermon, it is a very puzzling one, and nowhere more so than in its conclusion. Jesus abruptly asks whether the disciples have understood what he has been saying. They say that they do understand - and so reveal how little they have learned.

They are unlike King Solomon, whom we heard in our first reading. Solomon admits to not knowing "how to come out or go in", and so shows that his prayer for wisdom is already well on the way to being answered.

Jesus's concluding comment is as cryptic as any of his teasing "parables of the Kingdom". We sense that he is saying something very important, if we could only catch his drift. Of our various translations, all trying to capture the elusive, that of the Revised English Bible is the best.

"When a teacher of the law has become a learner in the kingdom of heaven, he is like . . ." - then there follows about the briefest of all the parables Jesus ever told - "a householder who can produce from his store things both new and old."

Teachers must become learners. Two roles are being contrasted here, as they often are in Matthew's Gospel. The first role is that of the religious professional, the person who presumes to tell other people what they must believe, and how they must behave to please God.

The second role is that of the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. All the Gospels, but especially Matthew's, make it clear that these two roles are inimical. It is almost impossible to be both at once. The terrifying 23rd chapter of Matthew leaves us in no doubt about that.

Needless to say, a Christian reading of the New Testament does not allow us to redirect such texts, whatever their original context, away from ourselves on to this or that group in first-century Palestine.

Teachers must become learners. The premise of Jesus's remark is that the transition is possible. Here is good news for those in what are curiously called "holy orders". Popes, precentors, and prebendaries; archdeacons and archbishops; abbots and archimandrites; canons and curates; bishops, priests, and deacons - all can become disciples. It is never too late. I, too, after a lifetime clambering in and out of pulpits, can become a disciple.

But conversion of one's life is not like the conversion of one's loft. It is not a once-for-all event. Becoming a disciple is like becoming a child (Matthew 18.1-5). The process required is a constant conversion, a continuous emptying of one's mind - and, in some cases, one's vestry - of all the paraphernalia with which religion clutters up the way of Jesus.

What does this "cleric-turned-disciple" have to offer? The tiny sketch that is the last on display in our picture gallery allows space to the imagination. The disciple is like the householder in whose home both old and new are valued. The disciple hears what the prophet says about the old. "Thus says the Lord, 'Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein'" (Jeremiah 6.16).

But the disciple hears, too, what the same prophet says about the new. "For the Lord has created a new thing on the earth" (Jeremiah 31.22). Jeremiah is looking ahead to "the new covenant", the time when long-hallowed traditions will be turned upside down. The example he gives is of the subordination of women.

The temptation of the professionally religious is to go overboard for either the old or the new; to refuse ever to touch the ark, or to be for ever tinkering with it. The Christian disciple, by contrast, is committed neither to the old nor to the new, but to the one who transcends both. So we pray:

You are older than the world can be,
You are younger than the life in me;
Ever old and ever new,
Keep me travelling along with you.

Text of readings

1. Kings 3.5-12

5At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ 6And Solomon said, ‘You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant my father David, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart towards you; and you have kept for him this great and steadfast love, and have given him a son to sit on his throne today. 7And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. 8And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. 9Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people?’

10It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. 11God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, 12I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you.’

Romans 8.26-end

26The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

28We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, 39nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

31Jesus put before the crowd another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’ 33He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

44The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

47Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’