Parables of Grace: The Parable of the Mustard Seed; Grace is Wonderfully Narrow

So this Luke chapter 13, Jesus is teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, and this woman shows up, and this woman has been bent over for 18 years.

Luke 13 · chapter mention

She's physically, she's physically curved in on herself.

And it's not one year, right?

We can get our minds around one year.

You had that one bad year in your life, whether it was an eighth grade or you went through some sort of trauma, and you can get your mind around one year.

It's not even, you know, four years of college.

That seemed like a long time for some of us.

Some of you took five years for some of you, good for you.

You took a longer time, you can get your mind around that.

This is 18 years.

It's not a disability you can hide.

It's not like maybe something's wrong with your hand and you can kind of tuck it behind your back, you know, in certain situations, or a bum leg where you have a little bit of a limp, and so you know you want to impress certain people, and you just sort of stop walking, you lean up against a wall so you can hide it.

I mean, this is a disability that everybody's gonna see all the time.

She's never going to be able to hide this.

Everybody sees it, everybody knows she's different, and because of that, she's most likely very dismissed and forgotten and rejected.

And maybe you know that feeling on some level.

And the religious people never accepted her.

And the text says she was like this because of a disabling spirit, and then Jesus later says that it was Satan bound her, which meant either they didn't understand modern medicine at the time, and Satan got a lot of credit.

But what's also possible is that this woman was so stuck in the work of Satan, meaning, this is what that means, meaning lies being told to her.

The liar, Satan, speaking lies to her about her shame and guilt and unworthiness, and that being spoken to her so much, and her accepting that and believing that so much that she begins to curve in upon herself.

And no longer walked with her head up and proud and worthiness and her back straight.

She walked defeated, and she walked beaten down, and she walked belittled.

But Jesus sees her very differently.

And that's what we see in verse 13.

And he, Jesus, laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.

Now, of course, the religious people can't stand this because he broke the Sabbath.

And the rule was don't work on the Sabbath, don't heal on the Sabbath, rest on the Sabbath.

And they so badly wanted to hold to their rule, they couldn't see the good.

They couldn't see the good going on right in front of them.

And this is point number one.

There is a narrowness to the grace of God.

There is a narrowness to the grace of God.

This week I heard of an article at McSweeney's online, which is satirical reports.

And this report came out a few weeks ago.

Remember satirical, mind you.

Medical report, woman hospitalized after attempting effortless lifestyle.

And here's what it read.

Maybe you'll recognize this.

A 36-year-old woman was admitted to the emergency room this afternoon after several attempts at an effortless lifestyle.

Symptoms include exhaustion, depletion of savings, paranoia, and adequate space to store her cosmetics.

Effortless lifestyle was first reported in the early 2000s and reached epidemic proportions a few years later with spikes in New York, Los Angeles, London, and affluent suburbs where there is more than one Michael's craft store within a 15-mile radius.

The disease is highly contagious.

Earliest reported cases usually involve face-tuned selfies.

It turns out the treatment is a full-time job, needy friends, and a dirty bathroom.

So this is a little funny, right?

But it also stings a little bit.

You kind of see yourself in there a little bit.

And the article hits because we're all curved in upon ourselves in some way.

In lifestyle, trying to find things to be more effortless or comfortable, or in our self-righteousness, curved in upon ourselves to think we are actually that good and of ourselves, or in our shame, where we just keep looking at ourselves as being worse and worse and worse.

And we need the grace of God upon our bent selves, and yet this grace is narrow.

And it's narrow because it's offensive.

It is offensive if you're clever, it's offensive if you think you are prideful, if you think you can cut it.

It is for the riffraff, it is for the exhausted.

If you still have something to prove or perform, it will give you no power.

That's why it's narrow.

So the scene is set, this healing's occurred, and he begins to teach.

Jesus begins to teach with three different parables.

And mind you, a parable, we've been going through them all summer.

A parable feels like a movie preview.

Right?

Like you see the preview and you get just a glimpse, but you couldn't really fill out a whole movie off of the preview, and you're kind of left going, like, okay, like I understand a little bit of this, but I then you have some other questions as well.

Probably Jesus' point.

Here's what he says Luke 13, 18 and 19.

He said, Therefore, what is the kingdom of God like?

And to what shall I compare it?

It's like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.

So God's presence and work in your life is like something really, really small that grows over time.

Right?

Do you remember last week Davis came up and he had an avocado seed and a mustard seed, and he put the avocado seed here, and I thought it was going to roll off and made me really nervous the whole time.

And the mustard seed, it was right here, and it's still that no, it's not there.

You wouldn't know is the point.

You wouldn't know if it's there or not.

Because it's so small you wouldn't even know it.

And Jesus says, that's how the kingdom of God is in you.

It starts small and it grows over time.

And then he continues, verse 20, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God?

So he goes at it again.

It is like leaven or yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.

So yeast doesn't die.

Yeast goes into flour and it disappears into the flour.

It goes in to create space.

I always explain it this way.

It's like if you've ever been on the subway in New York or Chicago, or maybe even Marta going down to a Falcons game, and it's a busy day, and everybody's crammed on there, and you're crammed, and you're kind of in the middle, and you're kind of reaching up over, and you know, you're touching the germy bar, and you know you don't feel good about that, and faces in somebody's armpit, and people don't smell good, and you probably don't smell good, and you just you just want off.

It's so tight.

Finally, your stop comes, the herd makes it off, and you're going up the escalator, and as you're going up the escalator, you can begin to see the sky.

You're like, oh, just get me out.

All I want to do is be out of here.

I just want some space.

And then you get up there, and just when you're about to hyperventilate because of all this, you get out, and everything just spreads, right?

And you're like, oh, you breathe, and there's blue sky, and there's some space finally.

And the kingdom of God comes into you, into your messy, broken, shameful, self-righteous heart, to create space.

Room for you to learn the lies you believe about yourself that are not your identity in Christ.

He continues, verse 22.

Jesus goes on his way.

For some reason, Luke, the editor here, he packages these parables together.

So, but it the narrative here is Jesus continues on his way, but Luke wants us to package these together.

He continues on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.

And someone said to him, Lord, will those who are saved be few?

And he said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow door.

For many, I will tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

So point number two, by the narrowness of death and grace, we are given life.

By the narrowness of death and grace, we are given life or given redemption.

The narrow door is not an image of exclusion and judgment necessarily.

The image is a metaphor of the difficulty we have to accept such a path.

Could it really be that free?

See how narrow that is?

Could it be that sufficient?

That's very narrow.

For it to be that sufficient is narrow.

I really don't have to add anything to this redemption.

I can actually already be loved, already be accepted by Jesus' work for me.

That could be my position with God securely, forever, always?

That could begin to be my identity on a day-to-day basis.

Could it actually be that good?

That's incredibly narrow.

That is narrow to a world of merit and to places filled with moralism.

This week I read it put this way the hardest part of all the spiritual life is how easy it is.

But the easiness is so narrow.

Because it's just die more.

That's the narrowness.

Die more that you might know grace.

Die to the false self, which we know is the flesh, that wants to self-justify and defend and promote and perform.

Die that you might live.

Take up your cross.

And here's what that means.

This is how I recently heard it broken down.

When you feel yourself getting offended, somebody says something, they belittle you, they belittle your family, you're offended.

Or you get anxious.

Something's going on, you're unsure about something, your work, your kids, something, you're anxious, you're offended.

What part of you is anxious?

What part of you is offended?

It's always the flesh.

It's always the false self.

So in that moment, you feel anxious, you feel offended, you ask yourself, well, what part of me, what part of me is being offended right here?

What part of me is anxious?

What part of me is afraid?

It's the flesh, and so you stop, you become still, you become still for a minute, you become still for 20 minutes, and you surrender it to the Lord.

You die.

You die to that.

You crucify the flesh, you confess the toil, you confess that sin that's behind that.

You rest in the stillness and forgiveness, and you remember who God has named you in Jesus.

As your sin is put upon him, as righteousness is put upon you, and you listen for this naming of yourself that's given to you by the grace of God.

And if you can't hear it, you preach it to yourself.

I'm already loved and accepted.

There is a greater power of redemption and identity in my life than my own efforts, and by that power I am made straight and walk in freedom.

Now the text becomes more difficult in verse 25.

When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us, and then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from.

Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.

But he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves cast out.

A people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God, and behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.

So does God shut the door?

Is God that merciless?

Did these people want in and God wouldn't let them in?

Is this weeping and gnashing of teeth hell?

Is this speaking of an eternal hell?

Or is all this language about a kingdom of heaven that's here on earth?

There's lots of questions.

It's not easy.

Conservative thought would say that this is speaking of an eternal hell.

A more liberal thought would say, well, this is talking about some sort of horror of life here.

I look at it and I can't, the conservative part of me has to say there's something here about eternity.

And I also agree that this is also a horror of life.

To live in performance, to live in religious merit, that's a horror of a life.

Then there's this other issue that pops up in verse 24.

Are only a few let in?

Then the door's being shut?

I mean, you look at it, it's kind of confusing.

Verse 24 leads to the door being slammed shut, which does not sound good, but then by the end of the passage, the tone changes.

Verse 29 and 30.

The tone changes completely.

People will come from the north and the south, all over, and the last will be first, right?

The tone changes.

What's clear is the thing that is evil is to waste your life thinking you could perform your way into wholeness and salvation.

Here and eternally.

You are free from that kind of life.

There is a greater power at work in you.

Point number three is this death into the narrowness of grace changes everything, because in that place, there is the power of God.

Sort of a repeat of something I said earlier, but I'll say it again.

Death into the narrowness of grace changes everything because in that place there is the power of God.

The rulers thought Jesus broke the Sabbath here, but Jesus fulfilled Sabbath for this lady.

She'd been waiting for wholeness and rest.

And he gave this woman rest from whatever lies she was accepting and bound to.

And he gave her love and acceptance.

He justified her.

Some of us have been bent in upon ourselves in our own selfishness for so long, and you don't have to live that way.

And some of us have been bent in upon ourselves and self-righteousness and judgment toward others, and you don't have to live that way.

And some of us have been bent in upon ourselves in shame for years, and you don't have to live that way.

God lays his hands upon the weak and the tired and he makes them straight.

My brothers and sisters, may you be blessed to be the riffraff who know the narrowness and the all-welcoming grace of God.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that while it is narrow, it is all-welcoming.

That in this life you welcome all.

You call.

We pray that you would give faith to those here that do not have it.

That we might trust in this message that is free.

That we might be relieved of attempting to self-justify our own lives in this world.

The hell of that, the separation from you here and beyond, as we would choose our own self-merit and selfishness over you.

Give us faith for those of us that know you.

And we are bent in upon ourselves in selfishness, self-righteousness and shame.

Would you show it to us that we might hear your words more?

That we are made righteous in the blood of Jesus.

That you have laid your hands upon us, as messy as we are, as broken as we are, and you heal us.

You make us straight.

Would we begin to see that which we are already made in Jesus?

I pray this all in the name and the power of Jesus Christ.

Amen.