Today's lectionary gospel was a series of parables about small things s images of the Kingdom of Heaven... so I explored them, very briefly under the heading 'the God of small things'...

• A wildflower seed, aka a weed
• A bit of fungus
• (A detectorist’s dream)
• A bit of grit in a mollusc

A Kingdom that is not geographical or visible, not led by  powerful human being, but instead something that is...

• impossible to eradicate, essential to the thriving of small creatures (like weeds are to caterpillars and bugs), tenacious, unlovely and often unwanted...
• works sacrificially (yet unlike yeast is never destroyed) to transform the ordinary into something that nourishes and brings joy (loose link to bread and "wine" which we shared later in tiny proportions)
• something that's really hard to find, that needs endless searching and the willingness to fail - and risks discovering a lot of empty drinks cans and other junk along the way!
• something formed in response to an irritant, a bit of grit... and which is only revealed in all its beauty o the death of the host mollusc (loose link to the cross/sacrifice of Christ

Everyone was given a paper heart impregnated with wild flower seeds to take away and plant, and a wooden bead to remind them of the stories.

I admitted to struggling with the weeping and wailing linked to the story of the good and bad fish, and how a God who is love would/could/should eternally punish any of their own creatures, and wondered whether actually we do better to think about the the 'hell on earth' some people experience, and how that might be a call for our response to be good news.   Lastly I noted that, like the net of fish, sometimes it is only after the event that we can discern what was good or bad, helpful or harmful.

An invisible Kingdom, invasive, resilient, sacrificial, transformative, maybe only recognisable retrospectively... something worth pondering.    

Overall it was well received, and some good conversations followed.