Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2026

‘The parables are among the most abused and mistreated stories ever told’[1] – so says Klyne Snodgrass in his magisterial book about the parables of Jesus. It’s a big claim! But he does have a point. Parables have been interpreted, reinterpreted, rewritten, relegated and restored since the earliest biblical commentaries that have survived. One of the problems is that parables are endlessly slippery and resist definition. Some parables have an obvious meaning, and some are explained in the Gospel text itself – such as the parable of the Sower that we heard two Sundays ago. Some endlessly resist explanation, and indeed it seemed to be expected that parables wouldn’t necessarily be immediately graspable. Earlier in this chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells the disciples that some in the crowd won’t understand because ‘seeing they don’t perceive, and hearing they do not listen’ (Matt 13:13). And yet, parables are endlessly fascinating – prompting poetry, paintings and plays, alongside the thousands of books that have been written on the subject. So, what is a parable? And how can we understand the dizzying series of them that we have heard this morning, with their kaleidoscope of images telling us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like?

To begin with, I want to make it clear that I am not proposing some new, groundbreaking, exegetical definition of a “parable” – as I’ve mentioned, scholars who have spent their lives doing so have come up with some wildly contradictory answers. There are some consistent themes that arise when discussing parables, however, which can be helpful when we once again hear or read them, no matter how well-known they might be.

Firstly, parables are above all a means of communication. Parables can be profoundly subversive, but ultimately Jesus is trying to communicate something to his listeners. That communication, however, is always indirect. Jesus doesn’t tell us directly what the Kingdom of God is like, or who our neighbour is, instead he tells a story.

Secondly, parables are grounded in reality. Jesus used everyday, normal places, people and activities in order to communicate his message. Well, normal in the First Century! This continues to be one of our biggest difficulties reading parables now: what was obvious to Jesus’ listeners may not be obvious to us, and what would have been strange and shocking to them has been rendered commonplace to us by repeated readings of the same texts. As Paula Gooder puts it, we are challenged to both re-familiarise ourselves with the everyday references they make, whilst simultaneously de-familiarising ourselves with the images Jesus used.[2] We need the parables to be able to surprise us, and the surprise in part comes from the extraordinary uses to which Jesus puts ordinary things.

Thirdly, parables demand something of us. Jesus sometimes ends a parable with an instruction (go and do likewise after the Good Samaritan) or tells one to people in need of particular guidance, but the demand is more baked into the form than that. By using indirect communication, Jesus asks us to do some of the work. He allows us to figure out some of the answers for ourselves, and in doing so trains our minds to think about God, and to spot his workings in the often hidden and indirect ways of the Kingdom.

Parables are a means of communication, grounded in reality, that demand something from us. So, what are we to think about God’s Kingdom when it is Mustard Seed, Leaven, Treasure in a field, a Merchant in search of a Fine Pearl, and a net? This series of parables are part of a whole chapter of parables that we have been hearing over the last few weeks, and particularly address the question “What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?”

The first two, the Mustard Seed and the Leaven, are particularly to do with growth. In both, the imagery is of something that starts small, insignificant, and hidden, and acts in mysterious ways in order to grow something out of all proportion. For Snodgrass the most important thing in these parables is the process – the growth from something small and hidden into something large and abundant. Perhaps Jesus was telling this parable for those who were disappointed that the Kingdom of Heaven hadn’t arrived with an enormous fanfare and the sudden collapse of the Roman Empire. The apparently insignificant beginnings of Jesus’ ministry don’t mean that the Kingdom hasn’t arrived, and that it won’t grow into its fullness. It’s also important to note the tense of this parable: Jesus doesn’t say “The Kingdom of Heaven will be like a woman who will mix” – it’s not in the future. The Kingdom is like a thing that has happened because the Kingdom is here; it is present in Jesus’s ministry no matter how disappointed people might be – the question is how you respond to it.

The response lies in the parable of the Treasure in the Field and the Merchant in search of the Fine Pearl. There is a difference in intent with the two “finders”: one stumbles across the great treasure by accident, one has been deliberately searching. The outcome, however, is the same: both finders sell all that they have in order to obtain their respective treasures. To begin with, it is a revelation that the Kingdom can be hidden, and a reassurance that the Kingdom is both there to be tripped over, and to be found when we search. The response in finding the Kingdom should be one of joy, but also a response that requires us to give our all in order to “possess” it. With Jesus’ ministry, the Kingdom is there to be found, and our value system should be recalibrated such that the Kingdom is the most important thing in our lives.

And what if we find the Kingdom and ignore it? Each of Jesus’ discourses in Matthew ends with a saying about Judgment, and in this Chapter of Parables we end with a parable of Judgment. Like the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds that Mother Tessa preached on last week (her sermon is available on the website), the parable of the Net is both a reassurance and a warning. Jesus has established that the Kingdom is here (perhaps despite appearances), but if the Kingdom is here, why do bad things keep happening to good people? Like the clean fish live with the unclean fish, good and evil live side by side, but they will not do so forever. Unlike the parables we have looked at so far, this one is a future promise: one day evil will be cast aside and only good will remain. This is good news, because it means that what we do matters. How we respond to the Kingdom matters. And we must always remember that this is not us judging each other – our judgment comes from a God who is not only the most just, but the most merciful.

Jesus tells us these stories in order to communicate something, but in a way that demands something of us. This series of parables, with their themes of growth and discovery, hiddenness and ultimate revelation, perhaps best illustrate the ways in which parables work. Even as the Kingdom of Heaven may be hidden, but grows, and when discovered should be responded to with all our being, so too may the communication of a parable be initially obscure, but with repeated reading and pondering, our understanding grows as we approach the truth that is revealed in the person of Christ. Parables may be slippery, may ‘annoy you into thinking new things about God’s Kingdom’ as Gooder phrased it, but Jesus desires to communicate to us through them. Just as Jesus challenged his disciples, “Have you understood all this?” so are we challenged. We may not be able to answer “yes” as the disciples did – we can’t ask Jesus what he meant as they did! But we can do the work: the work of thinking, of opening our eyes and our ears to discover the Kingdom, and in finding it, know it to be the pearl of great price.