...is like...

The Kingdom of Heaven is like...

A field of grain and weeds
A mustard seed
Yeast in bread
A treasure hidden in a field
A pearl of great value

Is "like..." Like...

Not "is" but "is like."

Again we are given an opportunity to interpret, and through the interpretation, we grow as Christians. Rather than being told that there are good people mixed in with bad, and the bad will be separated at judgment day, we are told we are like grain, and God is the benevolent farmer "growing" us, as a way of adding to the story that we are always being tenderly cared for, even when we feel crowded by difficulties and evil around us.

Rather than being told that a little of God's love will eventually change and fill us, we are told that it is like a yeast that will change us and make us rise.

Rather than being told that it is a small thing that will become great, we hear how it can be the most dichotomous of things, the smallest seed that becomes the biggest plant that then "shelters" birds.

But even then, even with the richness of added meaning from the utilization of the parable, we are told that the Kingdom of Heaven is only "like" that, suggesting that there is so much more, but we lack the fundamental human knowledge and language to describe it, so we have to use a simile, just as a pale approximation of it.

In essence, Jesus is giving a brand of non-legalism by refusing to lay a specific characterization on it, but rather tipping his hat to the inadequacy of human understanding, and providing a simile as a way we might have a way to begin to understand. If words fail in their descriptive power, then how can words themselves be used as tools by which faith doctrines can be separated? If the entire intent of the ministry of Jesus undermines the validity of language, why then do we humans use language to differentiate ourselves from each other? Why do Baptists feel one way, about doctrine written in language, when COC members feel another way about another doctrine in the same language that Jesus Himself showed was incapable of adequate definition? How could we, by hearing Jesus, so miss the mark of what He is saying.

Heaven is what it is, but our understanding of it is only approached by an "is like" methodology, because language is weak. If language is so weak, why do we use it to denigrate people who are "not one of us?"

A belief in the deity of Christ, God on earth, in flesh in our time (2000 years is, geologically speaking, a moment ago), is the fundamental aspect of Christianity. It is the idea that God physically, today, loves us in a limitless fashion, and just the barest whiff of that belief, once it takes hold, will definitely spread and permeate an entire lifetime, as yeast makes bread rise.

Faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, is what matters.