Parables of Jesus: Deconstructing the Kingdoms of the World

2 Pentecost Cycle B proper 6     June 17, 2012

Ezekiel 17:22-24  Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14

2 Corinthians 5:6-10,  14-17  Mark 4:26-34

Lectionary Link

   Kings and Kingdoms are pretty obvious human and social phenomena.  They are hard to miss. Although we Americans believe kings and kingdoms should be regarded as obsolete political forms of governments, we still indulge in a nostalgia about monarchies.  Certainly in this year of the Jubilee celebration of the sixty years of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, we are aware of a kingdom that has made peace with a Parliamentary form of governance.  Walt Disney’s fantasy was built upon the nostalgia of a perfect kingdom for children and we allow the minds of our children to be entertained by kings, queens, kingdoms, princes and princesses of all sorts.  So while we categorically reject the monarchy as the wrong form of governance, we romanticize and idealize monarchies for our fictional entertainment.  And since we inherited the Bible as the textbook and as the most important book for the church, we are forced to engage the notions of king and kingdom even when we don’t believe in them anymore.

  I doubt if Jesus believed in kings or kingdoms either even though despotic rulers were so common in his era.  The notion of king and kingdom was an obvious metaphor in the language of his time.  The most basic message of Jesus was about the kingdom God or kingdom of heaven.  And Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God using the indirect method of communication, the parable.   The parable was constructed as a riddle or perhaps similar to what is called a “koan” in Zen Buddhism. (The most famous being, “What is the sound of one hand clapping).   A parable was often constructed with counter-logic or with such an ordinary metaphor, it made the listener think, and think again, and project his or her own life experience into the parable.  The parables were so inscrutable, the Gospel writers had to write that Jesus explained them privately to his disciples.  Parables are constructed to be never-ending engines of meaning.  They just keep giving new meanings as we return to them with contemplation.  New meanings unfold as our lives unfold.

  I believe that the parables of Jesus about the kingdom of God were made so as to deconstruct and counter the prevailing notions of king and kingdom that he found in Palestine of his time.  For the people of Palestine, there was the kingdom of the Caesar whose presence was know by his armies and puppet governors who occupied the land of the Jews.  The occupation of their land was painful for many Jews because they were condemned to the notions of freedom and having their own homeland because of their holy book.  The history which formed their identity for them instructed them about their “God-given” land.  Their history included a record of controlling their own land under their own kings, the most famous one being King David.  The Jews were haunted by the notion of a messiah, an anointed one like David who would restore the divine order so written in their holy book, and make Palestine an unoccupied land again.

  So the Kingdom of Caesar and the nostalgic once and future King of David and his heir messiah, were confronted with the parables of Jesus who offered the metaphor of the kingdom of God.  The notion of the kingdom of God involved a deconstruction of the public prevailing notions of kingdom.

  How does the notion of the kingdom of God deconstruct the prevailing notions of kingdom?

The prevailing notions of kingdom were based upon the notion of public power as expressed in military might, bureaucracy and  public propaganda.  In a kingdom, the public propaganda announced in many ways who was in control.  And so it seemed so obvious that Caesar was in control.  It was obvious that many Jews were wishing for another King like David who could drive the occupiers out of their land, even though they knew from their history that most of their own kings behaved badly.

  What was this kingdom of God as revealed in the parables of Jesus?  Jesus said that the kingdom of God is so obvious and so familiar that its presence was missed by those who did not have the eyes to see. 

  How was the kingdom of the Caesar deconstructed by the counter-idea of the kingdom of God?  Well, the reign of the Caesar was only as secure as one of his slave valets who laid out his clothes instead of trying to assassinate him.  The Caesar’s kingdom rested upon the sustaining support of countless numbers of unseen and unsung people.  The Caesar’s kingdom rested upon a Nature that did not strike him dead with lightning or have an earthquake happen under his palace where walls can tumble down upon him.

  The kingdom of God is like the planting, growing and harvesting cycles of nature.  This cycle came before any particular king or kingdom and will outlast any particular king or kingdom.  And if people of faith believe in a creating God, then they should also believe that the realm of Nature is God’s kingdom that was before everyone and will be after everyone.  But that does not seem all that obvious when one’s life is dominated by the particular monarch or political leader du jour.

  The parables of Jesus remind us that God as the head of the kingdom of God and Nature is older and more enduring than any King or political configuration.  But what consolation is there for us if we suffer in the times of tyrannical or unenlightened political leadership?   The ancient past or the far off future does not seem to have much relevance to our current suffering or inconvenience.

  I believe that the wisdom of the parable of the kingdom of God helps us to know how to suffer and bear the things over which we have no control.  How much of our life energy is wasted in frustration and anxiety over things that happened over which we had no control?  We literally lose hours of our lives in stress and hypertension and the unhealthy habit of looking for others to blame.

  The wisdom of the parable of the kingdom of God is the wisdom represented by the tiny mustard seed; it is the wisdom of learning how to see with insight by magnifying the small.  It is one thing to dream about having good character; it is another thing to attend to the small immediate good deed that when added with other deeds forms the character of our lives.  It is one thing to idolize the great person on the stage of history without realizing that such a hero struts on the stage that is made possible by countless number of deeds of kindness and support by unknown, unrecognized and unsung people.  But those who see with the wisdom of the kingdom of God see the kingdom of God beyond the obvious scream of the public propaganda.

  The parables of the kingdom of God as told by Jesus invite us to wisdom; they invite us to be wise; wise in the art of living.  We can only change our world towards godly values as we ourselves learn the art of living as revealed in some of the insights given to us in the parables of the kingdom of God as taught and lived by Jesus Christ.  Let us be disciples in the wisdom school of Jesus today.  Amen.