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Salt + Light Community is a SOMA church plant in the heart of Fort Worth, TX. Here you’ll find teaching and discussions from our gatherings on Sundays.
Speaker 2: Morning, friends.
Morning.
Matt, where are you?
Thanks for sharing what you did.
This is really tall.
Thanks for sharing what you
did about coming in scattered.
I was blessed by worship, um,
in preparation kind of leading,
transitioning into this time of the word.
But, um, me sharing from the word,
and really anybody sharing from
the pulpit, is meant to prepare
our hearts in a similar way for
what Jesus has for us at the table.
And, um, today that's gonna be the
Eucharist and that's a, a blessing
and a gift, but that represents Jesus.
And so I would just want to position
that in my mind for myself too that
none of this, um, that I'm sharing
today has anything to do with me.
Um, but it's, uh, meant to
be pointing us toward Jesus.
Um, so to begin, I want to indulge
in a thought exercise with you guys,
and I want you to just kind of go
to this other mental place with me.
It's the year 2029.
You're gonna have to use your imagination.
It's the year 2029 and you live
in an occupied country, okay?
So you're a citizen in
this occupied country.
You didn't vote in this government
and you can't vote them out.
You pay taxes to them and there's
nothing you can do about it.
The currency that you use at the
grocery store has the leader's
name and face and likeness on
that, on that token of currency.
And whenever you go and walk
your dog, there's soldiers on the
street Some of you, that's just
probably not too hard to imagine.
Either you know people that are in
countries like this, or for whatever other
reason, it's, it's not hard to, to imagine
with the current state of our country.
But for the Jewish audience listening
to Jesus in our passage today, that
has been their reality for 600 years.
For 600 years, that's like 20
generations, the Jewish nation has
been occupied, ruled by pagans.
And so whenever somebody is listening
to Jesus talk about the kingdom in this
way, they are logically, rightfully
asking, "Does this kingdom have
anything to do with what I expect will
liberate us from pagan occupation,
pagan leadership, from Rome?"
Everybody listening probably
has something different in mind.
You're familiar with the Pharisees,
and the Zealots, and the Sadducees.
They all probably have a different
perception of the kingdom, and
I think the same is true for us.
Whenever we hear the Kingdom of Heaven
or the Kingdom of God, something
different probably comes to mind.
But our passage today has an
unequivocal, hands-down answer to all
of those questions, to the Pharisee,
to the Sadducee, and for us today.
What is the Kingdom of God?
Is it actually here?
And then what does that mean for me?
So if I myself, just Graham, 26 years
old, was listening to Jesus talk, I would
be asking myself, just cutting through
all the hype of this public figure who
has garnered a lot of attention, I'd
be asking myself if what he just said
has anything to do with what I think
of when I hear the Kingdom of God.
And as a first century Jew, I would be
thinking about at least three things.
The first is that Yahweh returns as king.
And the scripture that probably comes to
mind is Isaiah 52, verses 8 through 10.
Listen here.
It says, "Listen, your watchmen
lift up your, their voices.
Together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion, they
will see it with their own eyes.
Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem, for the
Lord has comforted his people.
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will
see the salvation of our God."
So Yahweh is going to
return as the rightful king.
The second thing that, that I
would be expecting whenever I
think of the kingdom is that exile
ends because sins are forgiven.
Exile was only in place
because Israel was unrepentant.
And even though that they are
technically in the land of Israel,
they're still ruled by Rome, and so they
theologically view themselves in exile.
So whenever the kingdom comes, exile is
over, and I have Isaiah 40 on my mind.
"Comfort, comfort my
people," says your God.
"Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim
to her that her hard service has been
completed and her sin has been paid
for, and she has received from the
Lord's hand double for all of her sins."
Yahweh returns as king, exile ends, and
then lastly, what I would have in mind
is that the temple would be restored.
Zechariah 6, verses 12 through 13 says
that "this is what the Lord Almighty says.
'Here is the man whose name is the
branch, and he will branch out from his
place and build the temple of the Lord.
It is he who will build the temple
of the Lord, and he will be clothed
with majesty and will sit on,
and sit and rule on his throne.
And he will be a priest on his throne, and
there will be harmony between the two.'"
Between the two, I think of heaven and
Earth, the temple being the place where
God dwells amongst his people So the
king comes back, exile is over, and
the temple is restored, and Jesus in
this passage is saying, "Absolutely,
yes, that's the same kingdom."
That is the same kingdom, and it is here.
It has begun.
How do I know that Jesus is saying that?
A few, a few reasons.
One, technically speaking,
Jesus is using the aorist tense.
Now, we don't have the equivalent
in English, but basically that
means that whenever Jesus says, "The
kingdom is like a man who sowed,"
he's saying he already sowed it.
It's already in act.
And so Jesus to his audience
is saying, "Yes, the kingdom is
already present in my ministry.
It may not be what you expect, and it
may be unimpressive according to those
expectations, but it is indeed here."
But the other thing that comes to
mind is the words that Jesus use, uses
to inaugurate his entire ministry.
Whenever he says, "Repent, the
kingdom of heaven is at hand."
And so if you're reading through
Matthew, it's very clear that Jesus
is saying, "The kingdom is here.
This is the kingdom
But as we've seen, it might
not be what we thought
Jesus is saying that the kingdom
is like the smallest of seeds, and
that's what he means whenever he is
saying that it's like a mustard seed.
In, in today's day and age,
it would be like saying
something as light as a feather.
It is the smallest of all seeds.
It's, it's a, it's as
small as a mustard seed.
And so this is a hot take.
This is unimpressive.
This is unexpected.
And even John, John the Baptist, the man
that was prophesied to come before Jesus
and prepare the way, Jesus' own cousin
asks, "Are you the one who is to come?
Or should we expect somebody else?"
So these expectations and
this reality are in conflict.
But after Jesus says that this indeed
is the kingdom that you've been
expecting, what follows after that
is to restructure your expectations
on what Jesus is saying is true
Remember I just used the word, or
I just referenced, "Repent, the
kingdom of heaven is at hand."
And that's what comes to mind for me as
I was looking at this restructuring idea.
The word for repent in the Greek
is called metanoia, and metanoia
literally means to change your mind.
It means to change directions.
And so when Jesus is saying,
"Repent, the kingdom of heaven is
at hand," He's not telling you,
it's not regret, it's not remorse.
It's to literally shift your
direction and to change your thinking.
So instead of looking at the sky
for the kingdom of heaven to come,
Jesus is saying, "Look at the
ground where you plant a seed."
So it's actually kind of on brand for
Jesus to be saying these like hot take
things, these unimpressive things.
And if I'm, again, putting myself
in the shoes as an audience member,
I've made it through the Sermon on
the Mount, which is highly upside
down from what people thought.
I mean, we read it today and it's
still radical in its teaching.
We've made it through
the Sermon on the Mount.
We've made it through
controversial miracles.
We've made it through Jesus standing
up to the religious leaders.
And still, we are listening
for what Jesus has to say
And then I think about us, who
pull up to church this morning,
and pull up to church regularly,
coming back to Jesus for something.
For something.
For those of the, uh, for those in the
audience, perhaps they were looking
for actual physical restoration, to be
one of those that were healed by Jesus.
Maybe they were just looking for
m- moral purity because they didn't
live up to the Pharisees' standards.
For us, I don't think we're any different.
I think we come to church or we
come to Jesus looking for something
restoration, belonging.
We all have our reasons.
I believe that deep down, these
reasons were given to us by God.
The reason that I think that is because in
Ecclesiastes, the author tells us that God
has placed eternity in the hearts of men.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that
God has fashioned us in this way.
He's pa- He's fashioned
us for this way on purpose
So these longings that we have are
God-given, and if they are God-given,
then they are satisfied in God, right?
Mm-hmm.
They're satisfied in the kingdom
I had a professor in college
call these deep longings.
He put a name to them, and actually
I think it was a theologian before
him that did that, but he called
these deep longings obsessios,
taken from the word obsession.
It functions deeply and pervasively
in one's life as a defining quandary,
a wound that bewilders healing
Each obsessio has a corresponding
epiphania, or epiphany, and that
is the resolution of the obsessio.
So my professor goes on to categorize
dif- nine different obsessios, and I'm
gonna read through these, and I would
like for you to read them with me and
perhaps jot down one or two that resonates
with you, and then I'll share one or
two that resonates with me at the end.
Okay, so the first oneâ¦
Oh, we don't have it.
Okay, so I'll just read it.
The first one is guilt, the weight of
shame, a record that you can't clear.
The second one is union with God,
spiritual restlessness, wanting God
himself, not just ideas about God.
The third one is injustice, wrongs of the
world, unpunished, oppressed, unheard.
The fourth one is suffering, horrific
pain, especially of the innocent
The fifth one is belonging, to be loved
and significant, relationally, cosmically.
The sixth one is meaning, purpose,
a life that adds up to something.
It's not all vanity, striving after wind.
The next one is self-alienation,
dismay, dissatisfaction
The last one is ecological grief.
Grief over creation damaged,
animal suffering, and then theâ¦
Sorry, this is the last one.
Last one is death
Fear of death, moral-
mortality, finitude, and loss.
And so my professor goes on to, um, map
these to different church traditions.
It's actually really interesting.
Different Christian church traditions,
and talking about how different
denominations, whether it be Orthodox
or Catholic or Protestant, Evangelical,
even Progressive Christianity,
emphasizing these different obsessios
and the epiphanies that correspond.
You see it in their liturgy, you see
it in their sermons, and the worship.
But for me, as I read through these,
um, mine is meaning and vocation and
union with God, and I think these change
with seasons, change with life stages.
Aubrey's is injustice, and I've come to
share that burden with her, although it-
that wasn't really mine before her and I
got married, and I've come to see it from
her perspective, and I think that all of
these are honestly part of Christ's heart.
Um, and again, I think they're
all part of the kingdom.
So what I wanna take away here is that
these deep longings that bring us back
to Jesus's words, or perhaps bring
us to other things, are God-given.
I think that you have them, and
I think that your neighbor has
them, and I think that they are
answered in the Kingdom of God
But in the wise words of Stefan
Peck, who shared this with us
at a DNA group a few months ago,
"Expectations without communication
leads to disapp- to disappointment."
Frustration.
"Expectations without communication
lead to disappointment."
And that was wise wisdom for Aubrey
and I as a married couple, and
that has, like, become part of our,
uh, vernacular around the house.
We'll say that to each other.
But I also think that it
applies within ourselves.
Expectations that we have of ourselves
that are not communicated to ourselves,
unmet, can lead to disappointment.
I think it's also true of expectations
that we project on God, things that
ought to be one way but actually are not.
We don't always communicate those, and
so I know we didn't have them on the
screen, but those deep longings, those
deep desires, those expectations, I
think that would be my first call to
action for us today, is to name those.
Because once you name those and you have
them in your hand, you can compare them
to what Jesus is saying, and you can
restructure your expectations around what
Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like.
For the Jewish audience listening
to Jesus, there's no question
about what those expectations are.
We know that we're longing for
the kingdom, and we actually
believe that it's going to come.
It's, there's no question about that.
But what Jesus is saying is, "Yes, it's
here, and I'm asking you to restructure
your expectations around what I'm saying."
So what is it actually like, then?
Let's read our passage again.
"The kingdom of heaven is like a
grain of mustard seed that a man
took and sowed into his field.
It is the smallest of all seeds, but
when it has grown, it is larger than
all the garden plants, and it becomes
a tree, so that the birds of the air
come and make nests in its branches."
So in using, in, in describing this
parable, Jesus is not saying that the
Kingdom of Heaven, that he himself is
like the seed, and that he has to die,
and then what grows up is the church,
and then all the nations are like the
birds coming to nest in the branches.
Or it's not saying the Jewish
nation is like the, is like
the plant, and the Gentiles are
coming to nest in the branches.
That's not the purpose
of what Jesus is saying.
We would call that an allegory.
This is not an allegory.
This is what is called a similitude,
and a similitude is purely
designed to talk about the process
of what's already happening.
It's meant to illustrate the dynamic.
So the dynamic is that of something
small and insignificant growing
and transforming to be something
disproportionately significant.
Now, is that true of Jesus' life?
Absolutely, it's true of Jesus' life.
Is that true of the Church?
Yes, that's true of the Church.
I think these things can be applied to
the Christian faith, and to the Church,
and to Jesus himself, but the purpose
here is the focus on the dynamic of small
things transforming into larger things.
I would call that the mustard seed effect.
But there's another man who's
much smarter than me who calls
that the butterfly effect.
The butterfly effect, you may know
it, uh, it's just the idea that
a flap of a butterfly's wings can
actually trigger a tornado weeks
later, and it's just ridiculous.
Aubrey informed me that the butterfly
effect is also in time traveling movies.
Whenever you, like, can't do anything
in that other dimension because
it affects things way downstream
I had an experience like this one time
whenever, whenever I was in college.
I was a freshman, uh, walking
back to my dorm, and there
was a blood drive going on.
Uh, there were booths all over campus,
and, um, they were inviting all the
students to swab to save a life.
It took two seconds.
You swab the inside of your
cheek, put it in-- put it in
an envelope, and send it off.
The way that they framed it was, you know,
there's a point zero three percent chance
that you're gonna match with anybody,
but if you do, you'll save a life.
So it's kind of like this moral
dilemma that you can't say no to.
So I'm like, "Sure, I'll swab."
And so I swabbed, put it in
the envelope, and send it off.
And a whole year went by,
a whole other year went by.
COVID happened in that time.
We had reintegrated back into campus,
and so, like, I'm working from home in
this hybrid situation, and I get a call
from a number that I don't recognize.
It had a New York area code, and
so I just declined it as spam.
And then that number calls back.
I'm like, "Decline again."
And that number calls back a third
time, and so I'm like, "Okay, fine."
And so I answer it.
And it's DKMS, that same nonprofit that
was doing the blood drive two years prior.
And they said, "Hey, Graham, um,
do you remember when you swabbed?"
I said, "Yeah, I guess so."
I- It took me a minute.
"Yeah, I remember now."
"Okay, well, you matched.
You matched with a potential
recipient, and we want to know if
you consent to taking steps forward."
I couldn't know any other information
other than the person that I matched with,
matched with was a female, she lived in
the United States, and she had leukemia.
I didn't know anything else.
I didn't even know what kind of
donation that it was going to be.
It could have been a stem cell donation.
It could have been the bone marrow
transplant, which is much more invasive.
And so, again, I find myself in
one of those moral quandaries.
I'm like, "Okay, I'll move
forward, and what's it gonna hurt?"
We just have more calls.
A week goes by, two weeks go by,
I'm getting calls from this random
New York number that I never
saved, and I'm just being madeâ¦
Like, I made sure that I'm notâ¦
That I'm still a good, like, r- donor.
And so then I graduate, and I
move back to my home in Lubbock.
I'm living at my parents' house at this
point, and I'm still getting these calls.
I'm working through the process.
And finally, a traveling nurse is
assigned to come give me shots to
increase my white blood cell count,
make me feel like I'm sick so that my
white blood cell count in- increases.
And then I drive to Dallas
with my mom to donate.
We pull up to a strip
center, kinda likeâ¦
I mean, it was just a Dallas strip center.
It looked like an urgent care center.
It was not impressive at all.
My mom was really worried about what
I had gotten myself into, but trusting
that, you know, I should be fine,
but also this is really sketchy.
I walk in.
They knew I was coming.
They gave me some water.
I sat in the chair, and then we did a
blood transfusion, and then it was that.
A year goes by.
I get my first job.
I get another call from a New York
number, and they're like, "Hey, Grant,
would you like to breach contact?"
It has been a year, and that was,
like, the statute of limitations to
not breach contact for privacy reasons.
"But do you wanna breach
contact with your recipient?"
And I said, "Okay.
Sure."
And so what they did is
they forward me anâ¦
They forwarded me an email,
and in that email was a PDF.
And the PDF was a scan of a handwritten
letter from my recipient and her family
It was addressed to a man named Kalean.
That is the name that they assigned me
because they didn't know my real name.
Okay?
And so they had a lot of grandiose things
in that, in that letter, things like
saving a life, and generational impact.
And I read it, and, um, I
didn't do anything with it.
I was so overwhelmed, and confused, and
detached from anything that I had done,
that I was just like, "That's really nice.
I don't know what to do with
this," and I left it alone.
Another year goes by, and I get
a call from a New York number
that I still haven't saved.
And they're like, "Hey,
Grant, we're just checking in.
How's your health?"
"Health is good."
"Okay.
Would you like to meet your recipient?
We do a feature of a donor and
a recipient every year, um,
and we've selected you guys."
And so I said, "Okay,
okay, okay, okay, okay.
I'm taking it seriously now, I swear.
Yeah, I'll meet my recipient."
And so they said, "Okay, you guys go get
on a Zoom call and hash everything out.
We'll pay for you and a guest to go visit,
um, or go meet up wherever you guys want."
So I got on this call with this
lady named Tana, and Tana was, um,
in her 70s and was very nervous.
I've never seen a 70-year-old so
nervous to meet somebody else, meet me.
At the time I was, like, 24.
And, um, we have a conversation and
agree that we wanna meet in person.
So my mom, the same partner
that went with me to donate, was
who went with me to meet Tana.
And so we fly out to
Arizona, get a rental car.
We pull up to Tana's home to a bunch
of cameras, a bunch of news crews
just staring at our rental car.
And so we get out of our Kia
Soul and- ⦠we walk over to
the place that we are told to go.
There's somebody from DKMS
there, and everybodyâ¦
All the cameras are still
just, like, looking at me.
And, um, before I know it, a two-year-old
girl with blonde hair runs out of
the house and comes and hugs me.
And I am-- Now all the news
crews are just, like, all up on,
on us, just getting the angles.
And I'm like, "Hello."
And shortly after, her grandmother comes.
Her name was Tana.
Her granddaughter's name was Luna.
And I come to know and spend
time with Tana and Luna, and my
little swabbed Save a Life moment
freshman year became really real.
This year, Tana turns five.
She turns five because she had to
completely regenerate her entire
immune system from the time of the
transplant, and five years is the
threshold when the cancer is near-
nearly impossible to come back.
So this is a huge milestone.
So this year, Aubrey and I will be
flying out to Arizona to spendâ¦
to celebrate Aub- or
Tana's fifth birthday.
And every time somebody asks me, whether
it be that news crew or somebody else, I
s- I just have to say, "I, I'm not partâ¦
Like, I didn't do anything.
I didn't do anything to, to
create such a big impact.
I just said yes once in the beginning,
and then kinda God did the rest
Those are the, that was just an example
of a small thing that had a really
disproportionate significant impact
And so my second point would be to not
discount those really small things,
those really small mustard seeds
Being nice to somebody at a grocery
store, being consistently patient towards
a sibling, these are those sorts of
things that are like mustard seeds.
These mustard seeds are
not planted in isolation.
They're planted in community
I think of people in our DNA group
who have planted seeds not knowing
whether or not they will grow,
have been waiting for years for
children to come back into the home
And I, I just wanna honor those people
because I really do think that that's
a picture of what the kingdom of God
looks like, is planting seeds, not
knowing the impact that they'll have
Sometimes we're the ones
planting seeds, but sometimes
seeds are planted inside of us.
Or perhaps the kingdom of he- of heaven
is more like leaven that a woman took
and hid inside of three measures of
flour until, until it was all leavened.
So sometimes you're the one
planting, but sometimes there is
leaven being hidden within you.
Perhaps it's a God-given
obsessio that drives you to
pursue for the rest of your life
Perhaps it's a prophetic word
that you were given that is
not yet con- not yet fulfilled
Perhaps it's a long obedience
in the same direction.
The Spirit sanctifying
you through everyday life.
These are all examples of the same
dynamic, this mustard seed effect, whether
it be external or whether it be internal.
I think that these two twin parables
are explaining the same thing.
One is externalized and
one is internalized.
Five years ago, God hid something
within Aubrey's heart that only
now is starting to come to fruition
Five years ago, Aubrey
was called to ministry.
She didn't get much more than that, but
she knew that it was God who said it
After five years of wrestling, trying
to leave the corporate job that
she had, going back and forth with
God, asking, "Is this the time?"
Finally, at the beginning of this
year, God called us to move to
Atlanta, where we'll be pursuing
whatever He has in store for us there
So
I think five years feels like a long time.
To those in our DNA group who have been
waiting for kids for years and continue
to pray for years, that is a long time.
And when it comes to time, whether it be
five years or generations waiting like the
Israelites, we are typically dealing with
time in what the Greeks call chronos time.
Chronos time is years.
Chronos time is decades.
Chronos time is months.
Sorry.
Chronos time is months, it's
minutes, and it's seconds.
And it's really great for
planning and measuring things.
But there are other types of
time other than chronos time.
There's also kairos time.
Kairos time is that of an in-breaking.
A kairos moment has a
capital M assigned to it.
When a kairos moment happens, everything
that happens afterwards is different.
So maybe it's a call
that changes everything.
Maybe it's the year 2020 when everything
in society feels different afterwards.
A lot of us, whenever we think about the
Christ event, think about a kairos moment.
Jesus hanging on the cross, dark
clouds overhead, an earthquake,
the curtain tearing in two
That would be a kairos moment.
If you're a Christian, you've probably
been asked the day that you gave your life
to Christ as if it were a kairos moment.
Now, some of us have those kairos moments
where everything is noticeably different.
But sometimes we expect a kairos
moment, but we actually don't get it.
My conversion to, to the
faith was not a kairos moment
Oftentimes, we hear that the kingdom
of heaven is here, but then we look
around at the world around us and we
see, we see that it's still broken.
We say that we are saved, but we
still fall into the same sin patterns.
And so logically, we're
asking, is it actually here?
Is the kingdom actually here,
or did I get something wrong?
Like John the Baptist, we're
asking, "Are you really the one?"
But whenever we restructure those
expectations of a kairos moment
around what Jesus says that the
kingdom of heaven is like, like a
mustard seed or like leaven, we can
look at time in a different way.
Not looking for big pop-off moments,
but looking for just the long
obedience in the same direction.
Sociologists who study kairos-type
events, like big societal changes where
things are always different afterwards,
like the Reformation, or like the
Civil Rights Movement, or like, um,
revivals, like spiritual revivals.
Those so- sociologists often say
that there is a period of years or
decades, and sometimes generations,
that lead up to these kairos moments.
And the word that they use to describe
the time leading up to the kairos
moment, that time of critical mass,
they call that time critical yeast
They call that time critical yeast.
And those yeasty individuals who are
there before and even generations
after that kairos event are those
who remind me of us, those who
are in the kingdom of heaven.
And it's exactly what Jesus says
the kingdom of heaven is like.
It is like yeast.
And long before the kairos moment
of Jesus dying on the cross,
God was at work in history.
He was at work in the lives of His people.
And long after the kairos moment of
the cross, Jesus has been at work,
years, decades, and generations.
And so that is the hope that I
want you to lead with, leave with.
First, that your aches, your unmet
expectations, and your hopes are God-given
and satisfied in the kingdom of heaven.
Second, that the fullness of the
kingdom has already begun in Christ.
Guilt and shame, self-alienation,
striving are all satisfied in the
atonement that Christ offers through the
cross, the union that He offers with God
through that, the meaning and purpose
that we have as part of the kingdom.
Even our fear of death is addressed
by what Jesus has done on the cross.
But also, some things are not yet.
Justice, the end of suffering,
all of creation being restored
But the kingdom of heaven is like
a seed that has been planted.
It is like yeast
Paul says that he who began a good
work in you will carry it to completion
The one who calls you is faithful.
He will sanctify you through and through.
He has not left you on your own.
The Spirit, a deposit, is
guaranteeing what is to come
And so that is what I want us
to have in mind as we go forth
and think about the kingdom.
And as we transition into a time of
communion, I want to apply the same
thinking, the same mustard seed thinking,
that the elements that we hold in
our hand, yes, they are crackers, and
they are juice, and they are wine,
but also they are more than that
They represent that kairos event
of Jesus changing everything.