This week we hear Jesus giving three accounts of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:24-43), following another that we heard last week. The Jews had a very mixed experience of kingdoms. In their tradition there were a few good kings, notably David and Solomon, and a lot of bad ones. Even the good ones got very mixed reviews, as we hear in the less savory stories about David. At the time of Jesus there were people who wanted to bring back independent rulers so Israel would have its own king, but they were a minority – a minority which led to the complete destruction of the state of Israel only a few years after Jesus death.
After Jesus, kings and even emperors became important in what became known as Christendom. The Roman emperors who took control of the church structures following Constantine, were in turn replaced by the Carolingian emperors, then the Hapsburg emperors who titled themselves “Holy Roman Emperors” (until the beginning of the nineteenth century). The emperors, kings and kingdoms fought wars, built great cities and castles, looked to maintain and grow their prestige – just like the kings of Israel before Jesus’ time.
But when Jesus talks about a kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, his description couldn’t be more different. He uses images of farms and gardens, plants growing, sowing and pruning, not of walls and battles, commanders and armies. Maybe there’s a connection here back to the ideal world as God created it, a garden.
Life in that first garden didn’t last very long. Human greed for power (since knowledge is power) quickly took over and has remained the norm ever since. But God’s original intent for his creation remains unchanged. The kingdom that Jesus speaks of is exactly that garden, maintained by God, watered and fed by love, growing great trees from the tiniest seeds, growing despite the weeds and the confusion.
Jesus tells us that we are called to live in that perfect garden. That the kingdoms of this world with their wars and brutality are not the defining reality of human existence. We are defined by love, a love greater than death.