The Sort

Preaching this Sunday.  It*s like adding yeast to flour.  Years ago I used to make bread.  I remember punching down the dough after the first rising, putting it in a warm place to rise again.  This morning I woke with my head spinning around all the parables.  I figure this is part of that first punching down.  We*ll see what it looks like after the second rising, and the baking.  I think I remembered to put salt in the dough.  Nothing worse than a tasteless loaf of bread.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like

Wheat and weeds growing

To be harvested together,

Only sorted

At the end.

The Kingdom:

It*s all the fish of the world

Swimming together,

Only gathered into nets

And sorted

In the end.

I remember the fairy tale:

The girl who was given the task

Of sorting all the grains of wheat

Out of a huge pile.

She enlisted the ants

To help her.

She could not do it alone.

I sort and sift and net

The parables of the Kingdom

Jesus told

plus a few more.

Instead of neat orderly piles,

They grow

(Mother used to say)

Like Topsy

(I never knew who Topsy was

But I knew she was always growing

Bigger than anything I ever knew)

Like mustard seeds

They become mustard trees,

Birds nest there.

Like yeast

They make more than enough bread

For the veritable Feast

At the end

More than enough bread

For the Heavenly Banquet.