Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Way back when I was a college student I was far from being a typical theology student. I had a BIG HUGE RED afro and a BIG HUGE BUSHY beard! Everyone had dubbed me with the nickname - "Hair Bear." When it came to by classes in biblical studies I REALLY gave the professors a fit! I would challenge them on almost every issue. Not because I didn’t believe what they said to be true but rather because I enjoyed watching them squirm. Well years later after graduation from Mars Hill College, and after attending Southern Seminary in Louisville, in the B.F. (Before Fundamentalism) Days, I was elected to the General Board of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

I had been attending one of our business sessions at Camp Caraway when I walked onto the elevator Dr. Paige Lee, my Old Testament professor at Mars Hill was on the elevator. As the elevator went up he looked at me with the most puzzling look. "B. .B. .Bear?? Is that YOU?" "Yes Dr. Lee how are you doing today?" "I’m doing good but wha. . .what are YOU doing HERE?" "I was elected to the General Board Dr. Lee." For a moment it appeared he had just seen a ghost. He turned very white, leaned against the wall of the elevator, began to shake his head from side to side as he muttered under his breath yet loud enough for me to hear: "God Help Us All!"

The problem my professors had with me in college had nothing to do with who I was and everything to do with what I represented. I truly believe that they had never seen a pre-ministry student who looked like I did or asked the questions I asked. I represented to them a "New Generation." My generation was that of the baby boomers. Those who lived through the late sixties and seventies. I represented change to them. Let’s face it, we are generally creatures of tradition and when that tradition begins to change we quickly run to the defense of traditionalism driven by the fear of futurism. But there was another reason for Dr. Lee’s puzzling look - it’s amazing what the presence of Jesus in one’s life can do!

Jesus is all about change. All about taking something old and making it new. Jesus represented change to the religious community of His day. In fact the one of the arguments the Jewish leaders used against Jesus was that of abandoning the "traditions of the Fathers." To them Jesus was not anything close to conservative, nor a moderate, to the Jewish population Jesus was a left-winged liberal who had to be stopped!

Think about it for a minute. He would heal people on the Sabbath! Why that was unheard of in that day. The Sabbath was a day set aside by Yahweh in order that we may rest and worship our God. The Pharisees took the Sabbath and created man-made laws to accompany it. So many laws that man could not possibly keep them all. And this Jesus of Nazareth was breaking their laws into perpetuity.

He also spoke in a strange way! I mean read what our Matthean text again. Jesus constantly speaking parabolically. Earthly stories with heavenly meanings that constantly either baffled the religious powers or enraged them.

Wherever Jesus went their accusations followed Him. "Who IS this man to say these things?? Why he is a blasphemer!! He is a liar!! He is from the devil!!! He UST be stopped! We must find a way to get rid of this man!"

Jesus’ words, His actions were a totally new experience for those who were blessed to have encountered Him. The Kingdom of Heaven was a foreign concept to them. So Jesus begins to share with them what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Like a mustard seed that grows into an enormous bush or tree giving refuge to birds of every kind.

From the smallest seed comes a large tree—such is the kingdom of heaven. While the growth of the mustard seed is astonishing in this parable, the emphasis is not so much on the gradual development of the tree as on the contrast between the beginning and ending.

Even today, who can look at a tiny seed and a giant bush or tree and see the similarities? However, despite the apparent difference between the little seed and the giant shrub, there is a continuity between the two. The mustard seed, tiny as it is, is destined to become the tree large enough for the birds to roost. That is its nature. So it is with the kingdom of heaven. God’s beginnings may appear small, may in fact be small. But it is the nature of the kingdom that from small things come great ends. The great results from the small beginnings may seem unexpected, but God is at work all along. What promise the kingdom of heaven holds.

The same can be said about the small measure of yeast mixed in with the three measures of flour. The leaven permeates the greater amount of flour, until the whole batch has been leavened. Again, from the small beginning comes a great result. The huge amount of bread at the end may appear to have nothing to do with the modest amount of yeast at the beginning, but the yeast was there all along, doing its job until the entire batch dough was ready.

So it is with God working in ways that may be hidden from our eyes. What promise the kingdom of heaven holds.

Can you picture it in your minds? There use to be a huge tree in my Father’s back yard. It was not uncommon for that tree to become a home to many different kinds of birds. It also served as a home to squirrels. That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like - A place of refuge for every kind of human that God has created.

This Scripture is about the incomprehensible and boundless love of Almighty God. There is rarely a topic I enjoy preaching more. The other night Larry and I were on our way to Jack and Monk's when I commented to Larry that I truly believe that what our World needs more than any other thing is to know and understand that there is a God who loves them - no matter what!

What God wants us to know and understand this morning is that that He sends out a Universal invitation to all the World to come and be a part of His Kingdom!

In II Peter 3:9 we read:

"The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance."

Frederick Buechner, writes in "To Be a Saint," The Magnificent Defeat :

"Jesus himself tells stories like these. There is the merchant who spends his life searching for fine pearls until finally he comes across one of such splendor that he sells all the rest to buy it. There is the man who is walking through a field somewhere when to his amazement he discovers a great treasure buried there and then ‘in his joy,’ Jesus says, sells all that he has to buy that field. Almost always when Jesus speaks of the kingdom of Heaven, there is this note of joy running through his words and with it this note of surprise: it is so much more wonderful than anyone could have dared hope, so much more within reach than anyone could have dreamed. And there is the sense too that once we have glimpsed this kingdom, tasted this life, we understand that nothing else matters—that all other pearls, next to this one, were only pearls, that every field we ever walked before was only weariness."

This past week my wonderful Mother-In-Law sent me a birthday present that came as a great and very much appreciated gift. She had opened for me a brokerage account at the bank where she is a branch manager. The "post it note" on the cover said these words. "Ray it isn’t much but it’s a start. Turn it into a million!" Man wouldn’t that be nice? Just think we could finally build that home in the middle of a hundred acre woods we have dreamed of! But listen to me carefully. As precious as her gift is to me, and I am truly grateful, there is nothing more precious to me than knowing that I am assured a place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

When I was a little boy I learned John 3:16 and committed it to memory. I have carried it within me all these years: "For God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should NOT PERISH but have Everlasting life!" It is the love of God which caused the Kingdom of Heaven into being. We can rest in that love that there is nothing which is able to separate us from that love! Paul tells us that in Romans:

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered."

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Can you hear the promise in those words? Can you find the hope in those words? There is nothing that can EVER separate us from the Love of God - NOTHING!!!

How about you? Do you have that assurance? Are you weary and tired of fighting all the battles of life alone? Are you willing to allow this same Jesus to make a change in your life?

The other night at VBS I was called upon to teach the children about the salvific plan of God. I took out a $1 bill like this one. I held it up and asked "Who wants this?" Man! Everyone wanted it! I crumbled it up and said "NOW who wants it?" Everyone wanted the crinkled $1 bill. I threw it on the ground and stomped it and rubbed it into the carpet. "NOW who wants this crinkled up, stomped on, dirty $1 bill??" Yelling came from everywhere! "I do! I do!! I DO!!!!" It was amazing. Then I took the $1 bill and ripped it in half. "WHO wants it NOW?" Again the response was utterly amazing! Everyone still wanted the crinkled up, stomped on, dirty, torn, $1 bill.

The truth of the matter is that no matter how crinkled that dollar bill became, no matter how dirty, no matter how beaten, or torn, when it was all said and done, it still had value. And the larger picture of that is that you and I are far more valuable to God than a silly $1 bill! We are so valuable that God gave His Son in order for you and I to experience His love and Kingdom. Amen.

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