Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Whoa Jesus. That is a lot of metaphors for the kingdom of heaven. Each one of those metaphors could be a sermon on its own. Mustard seeds and shrubs. Yeast, flower and bread. Treasure hidden in a field. The merchant and the pearl of great value. The net full of fish that are separated. Scribes and masters who bring out old and new treasures. That’s a lot of metaphors. I agree with Cheryle when she said Thursday at our bible study, when the disciples told Jesus they understood what he was saying, I think they were lying. We have to simplify this set of metaphors a bit so we can get through it. I’m going to mainly focus on the first two metaphors today, the kingdom of heaven being like mustard seeds and shrubs, and like yeast, flower, and leavened bread.

There is a Jewish scholar on Jesus named Amy-Jill Levine whose commentary particularly on Jesus’ parables I find to be insightful, entertaining, and constructively critical of common unhelpful interpretations. She makes a fairly consistent and important point that many of the common interpretations of many of Jesus’ parables tend to unfairly cast Jews in a negative light, and need a closer look to determine what Jesus is really saying. In her book “Short Stories by Jesus: the Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi,” Levine has an entire chapter on the kingdom of heaven being like yeast, another chapter on the pearl of great price, and a third chapter on the mustard seed, all of which I highly recommend.

In Levine’s chapter on mustard seeds and shrubs, she makes several good points. But the point I want to focus on today is the idea of potential. When you have just the seed or just the flour and yeast, you have a lot of potential. But you don’t have a mustard bush. You don’t have bread. She writes, “that potential has to be actualized. The yeast has to be placed into the dough; the seed has to be planted. Even small actions, or hidden actions, have the potential to produce great things.” Or, as Tim mentioned during our bible study on Thursday, referring to Jesus’ teaching four chapters later in Matthew, even from a small amount of faith the size of a mustard seed, God can move mountains. From that tiny grain of faith, God can work miracles greater than the tallest trees, more healing than the healthiest mustard bushes, more wholesome than the tastiest bread.

And, up to this day, God has indeed continued working miracles from faith smaller than the size of a mustard seed.

In June 2006, Katherine Jefferts Schori made history as the first woman to lead a national church body in the Anglican communion as Presiding Bishop. She supported the consecration of Gene Robinson, the church’s first openly gay bishop, three years prior.

In August 2013, seven years after the Episcopal church, Elizabeth Eaton made history as the first woman to lead the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA, in which I was trained and ordained, as the Presiding Bishop.

In May 2015, Michael Curry was elected as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA, becoming the first African-descent Presiding Bishop of our church. Curry recalls the story of how his father, the Rev. Kenneth Curry, decided to join the Episcopal church. It was the 1940s, before desegregation. His mother, Dorothy, had brought her fiancé, Kenneth Curry, to an all-white Episcopal church service. At the time, Kenneth was studying to become a Baptist minister. He was so stunned to see white congregants share the Communion chalice with his future wife that he changed his mind, becoming an Episcopal priest instead. “Any church where blacks and whites drink out of the same cup knows something about the gospel. I want to be a part of that,” Curry recounted his father saying. What an inspiring example for African-descent sisters and brothers, inside and outside the Episcopal church.

Ten years later, in June 2025, the ELCA elected Yehiel Curry as Presiding Bishop of the ELCA. Now the current presiding bishop, Yehiel Curry tells the story of how, invited by a friend, he and his family stumbled into St. Stephens Lutheran Church, a predominantly Africandescent, new-start Lutheran church on the south side of Chicago, which held worship on Saturday. His wife was intrigued. They came for worship, and were inspired by the worship experience and the warm welcome. In particular, he was intrigued by the mentoring program. He said that, one Sunday, he was in worship, just enjoying the singing, when his wife grabbed their daughter Shamaya and signed them up as members of the church, the church which he would one day come to lead. He thought to himself, “we found our place.” He wasn’t fulfilled as a teacher, nor as a social worker, nor as a businessman. It wasn’t until he was in the church as a pastor that he said, “I could do this for the rest of my life.” He was working as a pastor in poverty ministry in the outskirts of Chicago, in Riverdale, and his name was lifted up to be bishop of the Chicago Synod in 2019. In 2024, he was elected by his bishop peers to be chair of the conference of bishops, and in August 2025, to be elected presiding bishop of the ELCA, succeeding presiding bishop Elizabeth Eaton. The investments of many different churches throughout the synod in new start churches like St. Stephens, which they call a Synodically Authorized Worshipping Community, were like little acts of faith, which, put together, over time, raise up leaders like Curry. Curry points out, “I’m what a return on your investment looks like.” What an inspiring example for African-descent sisters and brothers, inside and outside the Lutheran church.

And even more recently, four months later, in October 2025, former cancer nurse and midwife Sarah Mullally was announced as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in the almost 500 year history of the Episcopal church. That means that Dame Mullally is the most senior bishop in the church of England, and also became the spiritual leader for the global Anglican communion, which includes about 85 million people all around the world, including many in Africa. Prior to that she was also the first female Bishop of London. What an inspiring example for young women inside and outside the Episcopal church today. Seeds of faith, bearing fruit.

Gene Robinson had potential. Katherine Jefferts Schori had potential. Elizabeth Eaton hat potential. Michael Curry had potential. Yehiel Curry had potential. Sean Rowe had potential. Sarah Mullally had potential. We have potential. And, little by little, through acts of faith, like planting, fertilizing, and watering those mustard seeds, and then stepping back, praying, and letting God work God’s magic, God actualizes that potential. Let’s trust God, and step forward, one little, simple act of faith at a time, that God may collectively actualize our potential, that your kin-dom come, your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.