The kingdom of heaven is like.... fill in the blank here, add your own metaphor, your own allegory here. Jesus says this six (6) times today! The kingdom of heaven is like: a mustard seed, yeast in flour, hidden treasure, a fine quality pearl, a fishing net, things new and old. The kingdom of heaven is like.... Matthew really wants us to focus on the kingdom of heaven today.

To put some order around these descriptors of the kingdom of heaven: these six examples of the kingdom of heaven are really in distinct groupings. We have the mustard seed and the yeast as the first of these groupings. This kingdom of heaven Jesus is pronouncing starts from the smallest of beginnings, like a mustard seed, or a small amount of yeast. This kingdom of heaven grows into something exponentially larger and influential and transformative. Mustard trees can provide shelter and shade while yeast aids in transforming bread from hard water biscuits into something soft and porous and spongy. Both the mustard seed and the yeast are little things. They are in fact allegories of the expansion of Christianity from a very small group of people to a world-wide phenomenon.

Then we come to the second grouping when Jesus says: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. However we find the kingdom of heaven, however we discover the truth about God, that finding is worth everything we have. But these two metaphors are not about the finding of these valuable things but rather about the response to the finding: that is what is emphasized.

And the last allegory has to do with the net bringing in every kind of fish. Notice the word every. It is the same word, in Greek, that has been used four times already and translated as "all". The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds we are told. The yeast leavened all of the bread. All material things were sold to purchase the treasure and the pearl. And all people are caught in the net.... We are to bring all into the net, into the church: God can sort it out later. We are called to reach out to all.

And the Gospel ends today with "Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." And he said to them, "Therefore every (all) scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old." This does not seem to go with what has gone before. This instruction actually adds a depth to what has gone before by making clear that Jesus never intended for us to forget what we know when we discover him. Jesus expects that we can see and utilize our knowledge in a new light and in a new way. Jesus' intention here is not to impoverish life but to enrich our life.