A “We” Kingdom, Not An “I” Kingdom.

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
July 26, 2026
Proper 12, A
1 Kings 3:5-12
Psalm 119:129-136
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Have you ever tried to trick God into giving you what you wanted by asking instead for something you know God would want you to ask for, whether you really wanted it or not? I don’t know that the Bible intended to teach us such manipulation of the Almighty, but it is definitely a lesson that might could be taken when reading the story of Solomon asking for wisdom and God being so pleased with the ask that he granted him riches as well. “Um God, I’d really like to be hugely wealthy, like hundreds of millions of dollars wealthy, heck, even tens of millions of dollars. I mean, just think of all the good I could do with that kind of money, but I know I’m not supposed to ask to be filthy rich, so how about you just make me a really good priest instead?”

I may have prayed something very close to that at some point or several points in my life. I still haven’t found just the right combination of magic prayer words to make God the prayer-wish granting genie thing give me all the money, or maybe the kingdom of heaven isn’t some get rich quick scheme. Sorry Joel, but that’s just not what Jesus taught.

He did say the kingdom of heaven is like finding a wonderful treasure in the middle of field or like finding a great pearl, so great that you sell all your other pearls just to get it. So, that sounds like money-type treasure stuff, but that doesn’t make sense. That’s like finding a hundred-dollar bill and selling a hundred one-dollar bills in order to get it. That’s kinda stupid. So no, again, sorry Joel, but the treasure is not money.

That whole approach to the parable starts on the wrong path from the very beginning because I’m making it all about me, rather than about us. The kingdom of heaven is about us. Individuals, of course, can find the kingdom of heaven, can receive the kingdom of heaven from God, but it is never intended to be just for that one person. God’s kingdom is always a “we” kingdom, not an “I” kingdom.

When Jesus compared the kingdom to a woman who made bread out of three measures of flour, she wasn’t making enough just for her. I’ve read that the three measures of flour would make anywhere from 15 to 50 loaves of bread. She couldn’t keep that all for herself; it’d go bad before she could finish it. She could have kept the flour and made just one loaf at a time so she could eat for as long as possible, but instead, she made it all at once in order to share with others. So, the kingdom of heaven is like having enough flour to make a huge amount of bread, and rather than saving it all for yourself, you make it to share with others. 

The kingdom of heaven is never just about me. The kingdom of heaven is always about us. 

The kingdom of heaven is about finding a life so wonderful that when you see it, you want to change your life in order to have it. I think of people who have been suffering addiction for years, people who may be around others, but they’re still lonely and isolated. Then they go to recovery meetings and they find joy. They find people who are healthy, and loving, and healed. After years of addiction and misery, they find a treasure in the recovery community greater than any treasure they could imagine, and they will go to any length to get that treasure: sobriety and true relationships of love and support.

I think of folks who have only really known relationships of fighting and shouting. Love, sure, but constantly annoyed, tired, and upset with one another, putting one another down rather than building one another up. Then, you see people loving and sharing with one another, glad to be with each other, and you decide you’ll do anything to have friendships and relationships like that. People trusting one another and living up to that trust, people honoring one another and actually caring if they hurt one another.  

What do I have to do to live that way? What do I have to give up or change to live that way with others? Well, not much, according to Jesus’ parables, just, kinda everything.

Like I said a few weeks ago, quoting Guy Forsyth, “If you want to be who you want to be, you have to give up who you are.” If you want to be a person of bravery, compassion, and love (and make no mistake, compassion and love are brave), then you have to give up everything that gets in the way. That’s selling all you have to buy the field with the treasure. 

It turns out, the kingdom of God isn’t about tricking God into giving us more stuff. The kingdom of God is about getting rid of the stuff that harms us in order to see and live the kingdom life all around us. The kingdom of God is hidden from us when we are stuck in our ways of anger or assuming it’s always someone else’s fault. The kingdom of God can be hidden by our past trauma, all the hurt done to us and all the hurt we’ve done because of it. The kingdom of God can be hidden by our lack of forgiveness, even of ourselves, stuck in the past of what we did and who we were.

With the treasure of the kingdom of God, though, we don’t have to be stuck as who we were. With God’s help in God’s kingdom, we can be who we want to be. Accepting God’s forgiveness, letting go of our shame and our self-hatred, that is part of the cost of the treasure of God’s kingdom, too. 

Accepting God’s forgiveness and living a new life in God’s kingdom takes all we have and all we are, just like the treasure in the field. If we’re truly living God’s kingdom as the church, we find the cost is nothing compared to the life we find. We learn to live without anger, hatred, and fear as our constant companions. We learn to draw on God’s strength because our own is not sufficient. We learn to pray together and support one another. We learn that all the stuff life tried to sell us isn’t actually what we need after all. We learn that asking for wisdom to lead his people well, Solomon really did make a better ask that just wanting a bunch of money. 

Give me a million dollars, or give me family and friends full of love and support? I’ll take the family and friends every time. I mean, to be clear, I’d love the million dollars, but if it’s between that and loving, supportive family and friends, I’ll take the family and friends. That’s life in the kingdom of God. Life where we see the love and community, the faith and the faithfulness, the hope and the peace that we’ve always wanted, and we’ll do anything to get it.

Gaining So Much More Than a Pearl

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
July 30, 2023
Proper 12, Year A
1 Kings 3:5-12
Psalm 119:129-136
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52 

Gaining So Much More Than a Pearl

So, there’s an addendum to the story about Solomon we heard today in which God granted him long life and riches. Solomon didn’t ask for long life and riches, he asked for the wisdom to lead the people of Israel well. So, God was pleased with Solomon, and after agreeing and grant Solomon wisdom, God also granted him the long life and riches that he didn’t ask for.

When I was a kid, reading that story, the sneaky little part of my brain thought, “Well that’s cool. All I need to ask for something unselfish and then maybe God will make me hugely rich as well.”

Now, I knew God wasn’t stupid. Having just read that story about Solomon, I couldn’t just say, “God make me wise,” and expect to become rich. No, I had to try to fool God into thinking I really meant it. So my prayer was something more like, “God just make me wise. I’m not going for riches, just the wisdom part, so please help me out with that. Oh, and if you do make me rich, I’ll use like the hugely vast majority to give away to others.”

I’m not sure God said “yes” to either part of that prayer, but I’ve since realized what I pretty well expected back then, which is that God doesn’t work like that, at least not for me.

Far from the almighty golden gumball machine of a young boy’s fantasy, God seems more concerned with teaching us God’s ways of love and living out God’s kingdom here on earth than with granting the get rich quick prayer scheme of a teenage boy.

In one of Jesus’ parables that we heard today, the kingdom of God was kind of compared to a get rich scheme involving a merchant and a really big pearl. In the story, the merchant finds a huge pearl and sells everything in order to acquire it. Going back again to my teenage boy self, I didn’t find this story of God’s kingdom all that compelling. I mean, I got that the story was a metaphor, but the thought of a big pearl just didn’t interest me. What would I do with it, put it on a shelf and not really look at it all that much? If it was a life-size, working Millennium Falcon, then I could see the appeal, but the pearl just wasn’t doing it for me.

I wonder if sometimes my teenage take on the story rings true for many of us, meaning that I wonder if we hear about living God’s kingdom here on earth and find that it’s just not that appealing, like hearing about Solomon and thinking, “Yeah, yeah, wisdom’s great, but what about the money?” I wonder if we hear about God’s kingdom and think, “Yeah, that sounds lovely, but like a big pearl, I think I’m just going to put it on a shelf and not look at it all that often.”

God’s kingdom often sounds like a pretty good idea in church, and then it’s back to the rest of life. Fears and stresses of life hit us, and we take that pearl and put it back up on the shelf. The challenges of life make Jesus’ kingdom seem less appealing than the protection and numbing that often comes with just getting through the day. Even in those times when we really do want to live God’s kingdom, we really do want the pearl, but what the heck are we supposed to do with it? It’s pretty, and a lovely idea. Now what?

Well, what’d the merchant do? He sold all that he had to get it. For us, that means seeking God’s help to live out God’s kingdom here on earth. That means changing our lives to follow the ways of Jesus and giving up anything that gets in the way of us living Jesus’ way. The merchant sold all that he had to get the pearl, because living God’s kingdom was absolutely worth the price.

Following the ways of Jesus, we’re supposed to love our enemies. There’s a cost there, and a giving up of some of who and how we are. Letting go our fear, our anger, our desires to force our way in the world. We’re going to risk ourselves for the sake of others. We’re going to spend large amounts of time in prayer and seek peace with others. We’re going to give up selfish ways, and we’re going to join with others in helping to make the lives of those around us a little bit brighter.

That’s a lot. The merchant sold everything he had. Jesus said that we should lose our lives for his sake and the sake of the kingdom of God. Of course, Jesus also said that if we lose our lives for his sake, we would find our lives. Think about this not just as physical death, but also as losing the lives we have, giving up all of the ways which keep us from God’s kingdom. The merchant selling everything.

Then realize, the guy was a merchant. He didn’t sell everything and buy the pearl to put it on a shelf. He was buying the pearl to sell it again. He was going to make back all that he had given up for the pearl and then some. Jesus said, “those who lose their lives…will find them.”

When we give up all of the ways which keep us from living God’s kingdom, we aren’t left empty, with nothing. We gain back so much more. Now, I don’t mean wealth. Unlike my teenage boy self, we’re not trying to trick God into a get rich quick scheme. Also, giving up all that we have is not a simple, one-time prayer or declaration. Giving up all that we have is an ongoing process as we, over time, bit by bit, realize the parts of ourselves that aren’t living God’s kingdom, and we, over time, bit by bit, give those ways over to God. We let those parts of us die, and we begin to see what’s being reborn.

As we are reborn over time, bit by bit, here are some things that we gain as we give up all that we have. We gain peace, no longer struggling with everything and everyone around us. We gain acceptance that life is not all as we wish it was, and we find beauty in the life we have. We gain community, joining with others in living God’s kingdom and offering it to others.

The merchant didn’t force the pearl on anyone, telling them angrily or at knife point, “You have to take this pearl or else.” He offered the pearl to those who were willing to buy it. As we live into God’s kingdom, we can offer it to others, not with threats, not because they have to. We offer what we’ve found in God’s kingdom because we have been healed by it. As we are healed in God’s kingdom, we offer that healing to others, and joining with others, we see the healing of God’s kingdom grow. We see the lives of the people around us change for the better.

This isn’t a sudden get rich quick scheme. It happens over time, bit by bit. God’s kingdom grows, and the world is healed.