Let’s be real. You can’t say Jesus ever made it easy. This teacher never handed out easy A’s, didn’t spoon-feed students answers like some chill substitute teacher. He made them think, and not the soft kind of thinking either. He required challenge, debate and wrestling with his teachings beyond what makes you feel comfortable. His storytelling stretched minds all the way into our modern mess of a world that barely looks like his.

Teaching Technique

On the surface, the stories have rustic settings, places where the tensions and drama of today are not staged. Bread is homemade, people stroll through fields sown with small seeds, good fortune comes both to hustlers and people who just tripped into blessings, and fish nets so full they’re ready to snap.  He hits with, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”

Jesus often utilized stories when he talked with the crowds, parables loaded with hidden meanings, moral weight, mystery. He spoke of what the world is and what the world could be. It makes you think harder than you want.

Baked into “the kingdom of heaven” is this truth. Life is not perfect in the here and now. But it’s not an apocalypse yet either. If you look for it, admit to it, the proverbial hell in a handbasket isn’t around the corner either. There’s good to be celebrated, worth fighting for. The parables affirm it. Just a pinch of yeast to make dough rise and ready for baking, small mustard seeds grow into tree-size bushes, treasures are found by accident in fields, prized pearls are discovered among good collections, and there are days when the catch is amazing. You may have to intentionally look for it, but the good in the kingdom of heaven happens just as frequently as it hides.  

Basic Injustice

As it is though, people close their eyes to what’s broken, not just in the world, but right around our own corners. Yet ignorance and indifference isn’t the only contributor to the problem. More so are our practices and lifestyles, the systems we uphold, the habits we defend. Oppression and inequality start small. Often, this unfairness begins right at the American kitchen table.

Sorry to say, but our society is addicted to sugar, fat, and salt. Modern busy lives require convenience afforded in fast, processed foods with quick meals rather than the thought and time needed for made-from-scratch home cooking. While providing this service, the food industry knows exactly how to keep us craving, capitalizing on the brain’s response to added ingredients that sustain cravings. People keep coming back for more, and sales are sustained. We’ve all had that sense of “I just need to have _____.” They engineered that.

Diets based in these “needs” lead to poor health including diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and more. When it’s an individual’s choice to do so, that’s one thing. But it doesn’t end there.

Food insecurity is real in America. In this land of plenty, people live in places where getting actual groceries is a mission. Supermarkets avoid building in impoverished areas, and food deserts result. Folks without cars get stuck choosing between overpriced corner-store junk and nothing at all. Tell yourself that’s not your fault if you like. Or look deeper into what happens.

Yes, this country aids those living at poverty levels so people can eat. Yet again, note how the shelves are stocked in low-income areas that do sell food. Produce areas are small with little organic choices, meat selections are fatty, and the sugary selections are plenty and easy to reach. Healthy options are few, and those who can least afford poor health experience it most often due to their dietary consumption. Again, not your problem?

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

So where is this kingdom of heaven in all that? In food deserts? Industries that profit off the addicted and in poor health? Where and how can the average person make even incremental changes in these issues that destroy life?

Consider this: food banks, church food closets, community kitchens often run and rely on donations. Without this support, our country would crash with the weight of those who would be sicker and dying from poverty. Every time bags and boxes of food are given to support those who don’t have enough to feed families, the elderly, or the disabled, the kingdom of heaven flickers into view. It’s as small as a mustard seed, pearl or seemingly undetectable as yeast in a bowl of flour. But for those in need, it’s treasure as great as a net full of fish.

Just make that treasure mean even more. Give food that is wholesome and healthy, actually nourishes. Contribute fresh vegetables, bring in organic cereals, donate canned goods with low sodium. Let the kingdom of heaven support life in the best form possible, not just survival.  

Granted, it’s not easy, maybe costing more. It’s often not convenient when heaven contrasts what should be against what is not. When a man found a great treasure, he had to sell all he owned to get enough money to buy the field where the treasure was. And when the merchant found the prized pearl, he also needed to sell all his stuff in order to buy it. Their sacrifice was worth it, but personal sacrifice was what it took.

Sacrificial Love

All true value is going to cost you. Yet sustaining life and health also sustains other values and freedoms: voting rights, equal opportunity, pushback on cultural oppression that would revise and silence history. The kingdom of heaven aches over injustice and celebrates centuries of both small efforts and peaceful protest creating “good trouble, necessary trouble,” as John Lewis called it. It pushes the world to bring about justice and change both in hearts and systems so all children of God know the love and provision of God.

So it is, when the nets are full of fish of every kind, the good fish are saved and the bad ones thrown away. It’s a sorting that is not based on fairness or popularity or who gets to say what. Jesus was talking about love, love for neighbor and love for enemy (Matthew 5:43-45). Love is the measure.

Jesus lived that “good trouble, necessary trouble” himself, calling out oppressive, corrupt leadership and taking up a cross without resistance as he met a cruel death. In doing so, he reversed by resurrection what should not be to what is worth changing. He cracked open a new world where yeast rises, seeds grow huge, treasure gets found, pearls get valued, and all kinds of people get caught up in a new story that starts with:

“The kingdom of heaven is like…”

Matthew 13:31-34, 44-52

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The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

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