The chief feature of the Kingdom of Heaven revealed in the parables of today's Gospel reading is that it is hidden from human sight and acts unobtrusively. The seed sprouts unnoticed, the leaven works unnoticed, and no one can see the treasure found...
The chief feature of the Kingdom of Heaven revealed in the parables of today's Gospel reading is that it is hidden from human sight and acts unobtrusively. The seed sprouts unnoticed, the leaven works unnoticed, and no one can see the treasure found by a man in a field. Moreover, the seed and the treasure are placed within the earth, and the leaven within the flour. Later Jesus will tell the Pharisees plainly: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). This is important, because we murmur and claim that God has abandoned us, is absent from among us, or does not exist at all, since His actions cannot be seen. The whole problem is that we are looking in the wrong place.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not found in society or the state: it is impossible to imagine a state as a seed cast into the earth. The Jews greatly wanted to see God's Kingdom in the power and prestige of their state, since they were the God-bearing people. The result: “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. 23:38, Luke 13:35). The First, Second, and Third Romes placed their hope in the manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven through Orthodoxy, autocracy, and other forms of national identity—where are they now?
The Kingdom's place is within human life. Like leaven, it gradually transforms your will so that it obeys the laws of the Kingdom. Like a seed, it grows gradually, imperceptibly giving you life so that you bear fruit for others and not for yourself alone. Like hidden treasure, it is a joy that no one will take from you.
Outwardly, the Kingdom of Heaven is manifested and acts through people—not through someone else, but only through you. To see this Kingdom, you must begin to fulfill its laws without expecting those around you to do so. And there is one more essential detail: the Kingdom of Heaven permits no dual citizenship. Either you agree to become a subject of the heavenly King and gradually become godlike—or you do not.
14 A grievous famine prophesied, its miseries, Jer 14:1-6.
The prophet prays, but God will not be entreated for them, Jer 14:7-12.
Lying prophets no excuse for them, Jer 14:13-16.
The prophet's complaint, Jer 14:17-22.
14:21 The throne - The words are either to be understood of the throne of the house of David, called the Lord's throne, Ch1 29:23, or else the temple, and the ark in it, the more special symbol of God's presence.
14:22 Rain - The present judgment under which they groan, was a drought, which he had described in the six first verses; the prophet imploring God for the removal of it, argues, from the impossibility of help in this case from any other way, none of the idols of the Heathens, which he calls vain things, nothing in themselves, and of no use, or profit to those that ran after them. Give showers - Without thy will? Art not - Lord, art not thou he alone who is able to do it?The scripture constantly gives God the honour of giving rain.