This is the final entry in our new series, TIKKUN OLAM. In it, we intend to explore what justice looks like in the eyes of God, and how we are called to partner with God in the healing of the world.
As we conclude, I thought it may be pertinent to zoom back from some of the particulars of justice-making and remember how our stories weave into the story of God as God repairs the world from the inside out. We turn once again to Jesus’ deceptively simple parables for a vision of how the Kingdom grows:
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
(Matt. 13:33)
And we can lay this parable alongside the words of the prophet Ezekiel which contain a striking parallel:
“‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.
“‘I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.’”
(Ezekiel 17:22-24)
My first revelation as I meditate upon these passages is this:
The kingdom of heaven grows slowly, but it only moves in one direction. As he so often and so cleverly does, Jesus uses familiar imagery for his first hearers, but stretches out to the rhetorical extremes to make his larger point. We find here that the lowly mustard seed (not actually the smallest in reality, but small nonetheless) is the humble beginning for a mighty mustard tree that gradually overtakes the whole garden with its expansive branches. All throughout history the church fathers and mothers and various theologians have spun off fantastic interpretations of the seed, the tree, and the birds. One common theme picks up on the fact that the word for birds here is non-discriminatory - it implies all species of birds; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Imagine a tree filled with hummingbirds, ravens, storks, cardinals, vultures, chickadees, parrots, and so on. This creative view of the parable beautifully dovetails (pun intended) with so many of the other visions of heaven we have seen throughout scripture in this series - the great multitude of voices, tribes, ethnicities, and so on, all finding shelter in Jesus’ kingdom. The messianic proclamation of Ezekiel further reinforces, if not directly influences, Jesus’ parable. Birds of every kind will find shelter here, and God alone will bring it to reality.
But perhaps most poignant to our exploration of justice, we recognize that both the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven are about patience. The truth of the matter is, God works extraordinarily slow, and we have to trust God even as we do our part to heal the world in the precious window of time we have been given. What happens when we rush the gardening process? Or try to hurry along in baking? Anyone who has watched Great British Bake-Off knows the tragedy that befalls the baker who tries to cut corners. I know in my own garden my impatience has led me to interrupt natural processes in a way that ends up producing little lasting growth and produce. Whenever we encounter genuine evil in the world about us that age old question, “why doesn’t God do something about this?!” will of course naturally arise. It is the right response to pain and suffering if we believe in God. The truth is, however, that we may never get a satisfying answer beyond parables such as these that are meant to stretch our understanding. What we can take confidence in is that God heals the world through long-suffering love, which is neither coercive nor controlling.
My second personal revelation is this:
We the Church become the slow, steady spreading of the branches of heaven that welcome in anyone seeking shelter. Jesus himself is the One Seed, the small beginning of the new creation: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:23,24). We then recognize as those who have already been brought into the kingdom that we are not only the birds who find shelter but we ourselves become the branches: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). One consistent theme in this series for me has been realizing how much of our Christian tradition in this country has been trained to read “heaven” as “after-life”, so evangelism is more about selling fire insurance for the ambiguous future rather than any material affect on life in this present moment. But time and again the scriptures show us that God’s justice is all about bringing heaven to earth here-and-now in anticipation of its full coming at the end of time. The question becomes for us: why would we not want to see the kingdom of heaven reach down and grow in our day, rather than waiting for the end? When we feed the hungry or tend to the poor, we are witnessing the slow creep of the kingdom of heaven that will gradually overtake the whole garden. Praise be to God.
Take time to reflect on the past several weeks in this series. Prayerfully consider the following:
What are my big takeaways from this series?
What do I want to implement in my life going forward?
What further questions do I have about God’s justice that I might want to study?