Those of you old enough to remember Jimmy Durante's comedy routines may recall the one in which the comedian and a straight man are in a boat anxiously scanning the horizon for sight of land. Durante would call out, "Do you see any land?"-to which the straight man would answer, "Nope, all I see is horizon." Then Durante would say in his marvelous, gravelly voice, "Well, we'll pull for the horizon; it's better than nothin'."

The Christian faith is always about pulling for horizons, because we understand we are sons and daughters of a God who is constantly calling us to be partners in realizing God's purposes in the world. God is always pointing us forward. So, the church, as the family of God's people, is always being called to discern God's horizons and pull for them. And in today's reading from Matthew, Jesus speaks of those horizons in the language of "the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus lived at a time when the Roman emperor was the ruling political force, but the Jewish people of his time looked back to the glory days when they were a strong nation ruled by a king. So, it was natural for Jesus to use the image of a kingdom as he talked about the cause for which he had come. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven were interchangeable terms at the very heart of Jesus' ministry. Again and again, Jesus tells us he has come to proclaim the presence of God's reign in human affairs. And if we want to keep faith with God, we need to get on board with God's kingdom and work for its growth and development among us. That's the horizon we need to pull for.

Clearly, Jesus did not have in mind a political kingdom-to the great disappointment of many of his followers. "My kingdom is not of this world," he told Pilate. But Jesus saw the kingdom of God as very much in this world-shaping the ethics and morals and purposes and goals by which human beings live and relate to one another. The kingdom was the reality of God working to shape human life in keeping with God's design for it. In kingdom language, that translates to the concept of God's reign in human affairs. And for us, the church of Jesus Christ, that means that working for the kingdom of God is basic to all that we do.

In our reading today from Matthew, Jesus gives us some images of the kingdom to focus our thinking. What is the kingdom of heaven like? It is like a tiny mustard seed that will grow into a large tree. In the moment, it may seem small, but it is destined for great growth. Note that Jesus doesn't say it could become great given favorable conditions; he says it will become great. Why? Because it's God's venture on earth. The old hymn tells us "God is working a purpose out as year succeeds to year"-and God's work is not a losing cause.

Second, the kingdom is like yeast, which leavens bread and so, causes it to rise. The work of God's kingdom is to leaven all of life and so enable it to become all that it was meant by its creator to be. Some of you are old enough to remember how, back in the 40s, margarine was sold uncolored in plastic bags, but with a coloring capsule enclosed in the bag. So in order to color your margarine and make it look like butter, you had to pinch open the coloring capsule and then knead the margarine until the color worked through the entire bag. Well, the kingdom of God is meant to have that kind of transforming effect on our world. It is meant to infuse human life with a sense of God's will and purpose for it, so that it takes on all the color and fullness it is meant to have.

And finally, Jesus tells us the kingdom is like a pearl of great value. Just as a pearl merchant would cash in his other merchandise in order to buy such a pearl, so the kingdom is worth our committing all we have as our investment in it. It is the most valuable thing in life we can give ourselves to, Jesus is saying to us.

These are strong statements about the kingdom of God. But if we include ourselves among those who have been called according to God's purpose through Jesus Christ, as Paul states in Romans 8, then these claims of the kingdom apply to us. This means that God's work in the world merits all we can give to it, because it is our pearl of great value. It is the horizon toward which we are beckoned. Our calling is to help the kingdom achieve its growth and to leaven and shape our world. And so if you ask what this means for the church entrusted with carrying out Christ's ministry today, I would put it this way: the church is called to help shape our world for good in keeping with God's intent. That isn't its only calling, but that is at the core of what the church is about. The church is called to act on behalf of God's will and purposes for our world. The world should be different in some ways because the church exists, and we, as members of the church, are called to be a part of that holy action.

Today we at First Church are celebrating the 5th anniversary of Family Place, one venture of this congregation that has helped to shape our world for good. A few moments ago Russ Whittenburg summed up some of the good that Family Place has made possible in the lives of families in need over these past five years. I know of the amount of commitment, dollars, and hard work many of you gave in order that this expression of Christian mission could become a reality. You ought to feel good about what you've achieved, for it has been significant.

Now, it's true Family Place still needs our acts of caring and support as it carries on its work-things like household goods for its families as they transition, volunteer help with the children, and financial support. But Family Place is now established as a service agency. If this congregation is going to remain faithful to its calling of shaping our world for good, I believe we are now at a place where we need to be looking at new possibilities for mission and service. And I say this not only because this kind of reaching out is at the heart of our identity as a church of Jesus Christ-but also because of what our mission ventures can do for us.

Let me digress a moment and tell you the story of Chippie, the parakeet. One day Chippie's owner was vacuuming the bird's cage with a canister vacuum-the kind with a metal tube and various attachments. She was cleaning the cage using only the metal tube, when the phone rang. She turned her head to pick up the phone when she heard the horrible sound of Chippie being sucked up into the canister. Immediately she put down the phone, ripped open the vacuum bag, and found Chippie stunned, but alive. Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him, ran into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the water to clean him off. She then grabbed the hairdryer and turned that on the bird to dry him off. Well, somehow the local newspaper got wind of this saga and saw it as a good human-interest story, so they sent a reporter out to interview the woman. After the woman recounted the saga, the reporter wanted to know, "So how is Chippie doing now?" And the woman replied, "Chippie doesn't sing much any more. He just sits and stares."

You all recognize that we as a congregation have experienced significant trauma in these last few years-trauma in the transition and change we have been going through in terms of leadership, financial challenges and declining membership. And, like Chippie, we may feel sorely inclined not to sing much any more, but just to give in to the trauma and sit on the sidelines. But, friends, how sad that would be, for we still have so much to sing about and so much to give as a people of God, in a world that still needs our singing and reaching out. And I believe that investing ourselves in concrete ways of shaping our world for good can be a powerful way of energizing us and giving us a song to sing. Our youth Sierra Service work team is just back from the Wiyot Indian reservation in northern California. Ask any of them if they got inspired and energized by their experience, and you can be sure what their answer will be. We're looking now at the possibility of intergenerational work teams so that more in the congregation can have this kind of experience. A number of you are involved in various community service projects, and you do so because of the payback you get for meaningful service to others. Again and again, that has been true for me. One reason I'm working now, after supposedly retiring, is because I find using my energy and gifts for others is more satisfying than just living for myself. So, I am suggesting that when we as a church unite in outreach projects that make us know we are shaping our world for good, we will be energized and inspired in our corporate life in some powerful ways. We'll have a renewed sense of direction and purpose that will make us excited about being the church. And that, as much as anything, will help us grow and find our way into God's future for us.

Wesley United Methodist Church in Long Beach is a church which should have died by now, according to the usual calculations of church life expectancy. By 1994, the congregation had dwindled to a small number of aging, mostly Caucasian members in a neighborhood fast becoming ethnically diverse. A few brave souls were trying to carry all the leadership in the congregation. And when the pastor opted to move that year, the church realized that it was at a crossroads. If it did nothing different, it would likely close in two or three years. But the people of that congregation decided they were not ready to give up being the church. Instead, they said, we're going to marshal all our resources in trying to serve our community better and to count for all we're worth as a congregation. And their first action was to request the appointment of a black pastor with skills in community ministry. The Rev. Cherrye Cunnigan was appointed, and things began to happen. A community food and tutoring program soon expanded into a Shalom Zone, a recent United Methodist model for addressing drugs, violence, and other community needs. A Head Start program was launched, a program to counter domestic violence took shape, and now a "back to work" project offers skills and support for those who need jobs. Wesley Church has become such a model of community ministry that the Conference Leadership Team recently spent a day learning from them. The church is still small-but how alive and vital it is, because it is invested in shaping its community for good.

You see, the question is not whether God is going to continue working for good in the world. As much like a mustard seed as God's kingdom often seems, that seed is growing in God's good time. The question is whether we will be a part of that growth in a meaningful way and so find the blessings that go with that investment. God's mission is the pearl of supreme value that is offered to us. And Paul, in our reading from Romans, assures us that "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." God's purpose is that we share in growing and shaping God's kingdom, both individually and as a church.

Archbishop Oscar Romero faced much more threatening circumstances in his ministry than we do, and in fact, became a martyr for his faith. But he never wavered in his conviction of what the church is called to do. He expressed it in these words:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
[Yet] this is what we are about.
We plant seeds that one day will grow or maybe die.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something and do it very well.
It may be incomplete but it is a beginning.
An opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

To be the church of Jesus Christ today means to operate with convictions like these. Ultimately it is God's cause to which we commit ourselves. We do so believing it is our pearl of great value; it is the meaning of our life together as Christ's church, and in helping to shape our world for good, we too will be shaped for good and will find blessing.