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| The Kingdom of Heaven is like kudzu... |
©2026 The Rev. Seth Olson
This sermon was preached on the 12th Sunday after Pentecost at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of this sermon may be found here.
Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
“The kingdom of heaven is like…”
Jesus says it again and again.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.
Like yeast.
Like treasure hidden in a field.
Like a merchant searching for a pearl.
Like a net thrown into the sea.
Jesus never says, “The kingdom of heaven is exactly this.”
He gives us glimpses.
Images.
Riddles.
Parables do not simply explain. They unsettle. They take something familiar and turn it sideways until we begin to see that the world may not be arranged quite the way we thought.
And so here is the promise—and perhaps the warning—in today’s Gospel:
The kingdom of heaven is trying to break into your life, but probably not in the way you think.
Many of us have been taught to hear the mustard seed as a sweet story about growth.
Something tiny becomes something large.
A few disciples become a worldwide church.
A small congregation becomes a large one.
A modest ministry becomes a movement.
And surely that must be the glory of the mustard shrub: growth, expansion, success…
Except mustard was not a prized crop.
It was aggressive, difficult to contain, the sort of plant that did not remain politely where it was planted.
Think less majestic oak and more kudzu.
The kingdom of heaven is like kudzu.
Now there is an image for the glory of God.
It grows along roadsides. It climbs fences. It crosses property lines without permission. It covers structures people thought were permanent.
It does not ask whether the homeowners’ association approves.
It just keeps coming.
That is a rather different image of the kingdom.
Not controlled growth.
Not orderly expansion.
Not an institution becoming ever more impressive.
Instead the kingdom breaks into the cracks of the world.
It grows beyond the boundaries we create.
It refuses to remain where we put it.
And then Jesus says the birds come and make nests in its branches.
That sounds lovely until you remember that birds can be noisy.
They squawk.
They fight.
They make messes.
They show up uninvited and bring others with them.
“Song” may be too generous a word for the raucous cacophony of a tree filled with birds.
And yet Jesus says this is what the kingdom is like.
It makes room for unexpected guests.
It offers shelter to creatures we may not have invited.
It fills with life we may find disruptive.
So perhaps this is not a parable telling us to grow the church for the sake of growth.
Nobody looks at a mustard shrub and says, “Behold, organizational excellence!”
So, maybe the parable is a riddle.
Can we recognize the kingdom when it sprouts in wild and unusual places?
Can we notice it growing beyond the walls of the Church?
Can we hear it in the cries of those who have been pushed to the margins?
Can we see it in people whose presence disrupts our plans?
Because the kingdom of heaven is not contained here.
We worship here. We are formed here. We are fed here.
But God is not trapped here.
The kingdom is breaking out in acts of mercy, in neighbors showing up for one another, in children asking questions adults have learned to avoid, in strangers becoming friends, and in people daring to call out for help.
The kingdom grows wild.
But Jesus is not finished telling us about it.
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
This sounds like a quiet domestic scene.
A woman baking bread.
Until we notice the details.
Three measures of flour is not just enough for a few loaves. It was likely more than fifty pounds of flour.
This woman is making bread in absurd abundance.
Enough to feed a village. Then there is the yeast.
Leaven was not always viewed positively. It could symbolize contamination or corruption—something that worked its way through the whole batch and changed everything it touched.
And Jesus says the kingdom is like that.
It does not sit safely on the surface.
It works from within.
Hidden.
Quiet.
Unseen.
Until the whole thing begins to rise.
Again, the kingdom does not behave politely.
It infiltrates. It alters the texture. It expands what seemed fixed.
And all of this happens through the hands of a woman.
If the woman gives us even the faintest glimpse of God, then Jesus imagines the divine life through a woman kneading dough.
God as baker.
God with flour on her hands.
God folding, pressing, turning, and waiting.
God hiding holiness inside what others might call contaminating.
God making far too much bread.
God preparing enough for everyone.
The catalyst for transformation? Yeast, which wasn’t seen positively at the time. It was:
Something considered improper.
Something ordinary
Something hidden.
And yet we discover it has grown into holy abundance!
So, inevitably some of you may be thinking:
Seth, this sounds like poppycock, hogwash, baloney, or as my kids say sus (as in suspicious).
God’s kingdom is not supposed to look like kudzu, noisy birds, and contaminated dough.
Surely God’s kingdom should be triumphant.
Powerful.
Orderly.
Like a conquering army marching through the streets.
But that is not the way of Christ.
At least not here.
Here the kingdom arrives as a nuisance plant, a bit of yeast, buried treasure, one pearl, and a net that gathers fish of every kind.
The kingdom is not the perfection of the status quo.
It is the disruption of it.
And this is not new, even in Jesus’ day it wasn’t novel.
In the ancient world, the firstborn carried status, privilege, inheritance, and expectation.
Yet Scripture repeatedly unsettles that order.
Isaac, not Ishmael.
Jacob, not Esau.
Joseph, not his older brothers.
David, the youngest, nearly forgotten in the field.
Even Rachel, found in today’s lesson from Genesis, was Jacob’s second wife.
God refuses to let human systems of rank determine where blessing will appear.
The stronger is not automatically chosen.
The culturally preferred is not automatically the bearer of promise.
God will not be contained by the structures we use to assign value.
From the beginning, Scripture whispers what Jesus later proclaims:
The last shall be first. The lowly shall be lifted.
The hungry shall be filled. The merciful shall be called blessed.
That is the vision Jesus gives us on the mountain.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Not blessed are the dominant.
Not blessed are those who accumulate the most.
Not blessed are those whose status depends upon keeping others beneath them.
The way of God disrupts the world’s pursuit of dominance, control, more, and status.
It refuses the lie that one person must become smaller for another to become great.
It refuses the lie that holiness is preserved by keeping the wrong people out.
It refuses the lie that God is most clearly present in strength, respectability, order, and success.
And I believe we have lost that message in translation.
We have taken the mustard weed and made it a church-growth slogan.
We have taken the leaven and made it harmless.
We have taken the Beatitudes and made them sentimental.
We have taken parables meant to unsettle us and used them to confirm what we already believe.
But parables are not meant to reinforce our assumptions about God, the stranger, our neighbor, or ourselves.
They are meant to break those assumptions open.
A parable is a crack in the wall.
A seed beneath the soil.
Yeast in the dough.
It works on us.
It waits.
It grows.
It reveals what we have not wanted to see.
So where is the kingdom irritating you?
Who has taken shelter in its branches whom you did not expect?
What voice sounds like noise but may still be crying out with the life of God?
What supposedly improper ingredient might God be kneading into the Church?
What if the disruption you are resisting is not the absence of God, but the kingdom of heaven breaking in?
Church, the kingdom is trying to break into your life.
Not as conquest. Not as domination. Not as triumphalism.
But as a seed.
As yeast. As unexpected shelter.
As absurd abundance.
As a wild and stubborn mercy that refuses to stop growing.
So let us go looking for it.
Beyond these walls.
In the cracks.
Among those the world overlooks.
Beneath the squawking.
Where something small is quietly changing everything.
And when we find it, may we have the courage not to pull it up.
May we have the wisdom not to contain it.
May we have the humility not to assume it belongs to us.
May we simply rejoice that the kingdom of heaven has come near.
Amen.
