Pentecost 3B June 14, 2015
Mark 4:26-34, 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 Panzer Liturgical and Patch Protestant Services
I do love Spring. I can’t wait for the garden center to put
out the containers of flowers and vegetables, to look at packages of seeds, to
think of the harvest ahead. We have a big garden plot in our back yard. Last
summer we planted some lettuce, and enjoyed it before the frost came . This
year we waited with great anticipation for it to be warm enough to plant – May
15th. We purchased some flowers for window boxes and pots in the front, four
tomato plants, and seed packets for leaf lettuce, carrots, beets and radishes.
Talk about immediate gratification. It took less than
28 days from planting to harvest to gather a large bowl of radishes – 2
different kinds. And on Saturday, we planted again, so that we could have more
in another 28 days. Our tomato plants
have blooms, some small tomatoes are setting, and so far, no black rust fungus.
Our lettuce is getting close to ready and the beets and carrots have broken
through and look like they are going to make a good showing later this summer.
How does this happen? A seed gets planted in the ground and
sooner or later, a crop is ready to be harvested. Oh, we do a little – make
sure there is good soil, take away the weeds, give them water and sometimes
shelter them from an unexpected cold. But the process of growing is really out
of our hands, unless we kill our crop from benign neglect. What a miracle to
watch fruits and vegetable and grains come into their full potential all around
us. All we have to do is sow and get ready for the harvest.
When you heard the lesson for today, I’ll bet you said, OK,
today’s lesson is the one about the mustard seed, I know this one. In fact, the
mustard seed is the star of parables in all three synoptic gospels, but is used
differently in each. In Matthew &
Luke it’s a simple message – the mustard seed is small, but grows into a big
tree. It’s a metaphor for faith – faith, even if it’s small, is big enough to
uproot the largest tree.
But in Mark, Jesus prefaces the mustard seed parable with
another about sowing seed. It addresses the joint nature of the harvest. The
sower plants the seeds, maybe carefully, maybe just throwing them to the wind
to fall down where they may. But the biggest process is not in the sower’s
control. Botanists can describe in great detail what’s going on under the
ground, but it seems like a huge miracle when you plant a seed that’s the size
of a grain of sand, and a month later you have something crunchy to eat on a
salad. Yes, the sower or farmer can make conditions optimal for growth, but the
power for the seed to sprout and make fruit is the hands of God and his
creation alone.
We are quick to put all kinds of conditions on what it means
to be a person of faith. Did you say the right prayer? Where you baptized by
the right person in the right church by the right means? Are you attending the
right church? How do you interpret scripture? Do you follow the right rules?
But Jesus seems to contradict this premise. In the first
parable we hear that “the kingdom is like scattering seed.” The sower/farmer doesn’t know exactly how it
happens, but the seed grows and the harvest comes. And that makes many of us
uncomfortable, right? We want to ask Jesus, are you sure that the kingdom comes
in spite of us? Apparently, both Matthew and Luke are uncomfortable with this
world as well; they omit this first parable and all talk of secrets. What
remains clear in Mark’s view of the kingdom is that it is a marvelous thing and
not really under our control. Small beginnings cam make for large outcomes, even
when our intentions get in the way.[i]
Our work in God’s fields matter, but when we are tempted to
claim credit for the conversion of souls to Christ or the growth of the Kingdom
of God, we must remember that God works whether we are awake or asleep. No
matter how committed we are to the process, our efforts are small like mustard
seed in relationship to the infinite nature of God’s kingdom, and they are able
to be whisked away in the slightest breeze. But God chooses to bless them and
grow them, sometimes beyond our wildest imaginations.[ii]
And that’s the easy part of the lesson. But there is a more
difficult message imbedded in this second parable… difficult if you like your
Kingdom of God neat and orderly and the way it’s always been. If you ask any
farmer in the Middle East about the mustard tree or shrub, they will tell you
that once it gets in your garden you may never get rid of it. So maybe one of
the first questions a person in Jesus’ audience would ask is, “Why would you
intentionally plant mustard seeds in your garden?” Not only is it a rather
knarly weed, but when it grows large enough for birds to come and roost in its
branches, those birds are going to do a lot of damage to the other crops you
have planted.
Last year we had to place a net over our small lettuce crop,
because the birds kept swooping down and carrying away our harvest. This year
we have applied a different tactic, and so far it’s working just fine. All that
said, roosting birds in a garden will eat your crop, wake you up early and leave
little presents behind … it’s hard to imagine a world where you invite them to
come make a home with you.
But that’s exactly what Jesus did. He invited everyone to
come and follow him. The passage that we read today from 2 Corinthians is
pretty complicated and convoluted, but it ends with a declarative statement.
Paul writes:
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died… So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 2 Corinthians 5:14,17 (NRSV)
Paul said a lot of things that we as the church declare as
definitive – absolute must-follows for faith. Well, I think we need to add this
one to the list. Here Paul echoes the message of the parable. Jesus came and
died for everyone… for you, for me, for the person next door, for the guy who
stole your parking place at Wal-Mart, for the people sitting on death row in
Texas, for those who haven’t even heard of him yet, for those who don’t
believe. And when people do commit
themselves to Jesus, they are a part of our family, whether we want them to be
or not.
But do we really believe this? Do we believe that every
person who has walked on this earth has value simply because “Christ died for
all”? Do we believe that because Jesus was willing to die for everyone, that
gives their lives intrinsic value? Even at my most optimistic, I would have to
say, No, we don’t.
Author and pastor Dawn Chesser puts it this way:
In fact, most of us live quite the opposite of this. We want to say, ‘IF you do this, you do that, you live this way, you say these words, you vote this way, you vote that way, THEN you will have value.’ But Paul says that each person’s value has already been established through Christ’s death… We don’t need to know whether or not a person has confessed Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior before we decide to treat him or her with dignity and respect… We don’t need to know anything about the person, because we already know all we need to know: he or she is valuable because Christ died FOR him or her, just as for us.[iii]
It’s easy to get caught up in a “them vs us” mentality. In
our worlds of education, position , income and status, we forget that “the
original followers of Jesus were, in the eyes of the culture, all pretty much
losers – lowly fishermen, despised tax collectors, prostitutes and criminals,
lowlifes loathed by the religious establishment. [But ]maybe that’s the way the
followers of Jesus have always looked to the rest of the world – those people
desperate enough, lowly enough, to find hope in Jesus’ message.”[iv]
But this where we find hope: When we are struggling,
experience significant loss, or just can’t seem to find our footing… when we
wonder what the future holds and if this Jesus life is really for us, Jesus
reminds us that the Kingdom of God comes of its own…and it comes for us. There
is room for everyone in this kingdom. Jesus’ parables tell us that all things
are possible because our God is great. We
are those rascally birds who come to the giant weed-shrub for shelter, making
noise and leaving a trail behind us. We think the work of faith is difficult,
but really all we have to do is recognize our own need, and the needs of others
to be a part of a community where everything is possible through the love and
power of God.
I served a church in Oklahoma in a small, rural community it
the middle of a high plains desert. It was hot and flat with lots of wide open
spaces, which is pretty good if you want to teach new pilots how to fly big
planes. The people there were either farmers and ranchers, worked at the Air
Force base or at the local meat processing plant, or supported those industries
with stores and restaurants, schools and churches.
In this town, there is a right and a wrong side of the
tracks. And it would be easy to keep those distinctions, especially in church.
But when kids at the local elementary school told their parents that some
classmates didn’t eat from school lunch on Friday to breakfast on Monday, a
backpack ministry was born, sending home non-perishable foods to tide students
over for the weekend. When teenagers from the youth group encountered folks
asking for money for food when they were having a camp fundraiser, a monthly
free meal was started, and soon spread to other churches so that every Saturday
there was somewhere to get a hot meal at lunchtime, no strings attached.
When the local Christmas toy drive was short on the number
of gifts needed for the children registered, $10,000 was raised in two days,
with individuals and businesses pitching in to help. Last year, Project Noel
provided gifts for 700 children and youth in that community. This year, their vacation bible school invited
children from every neighborhood to participate and dozens of adults and youth
helped them get excited about Jesus.
Each week, a bus or van goes to each neighborhood and picks up whoever
wants to come to church – children and adults alike. It’s no wonder that people
refer to this church as “the one that helps people.”
Perhaps the next hardest part of our Christian journey is
not how we come to faith ourselves, or even how willing we are to spread the
good news around us, but how we respond to those who believe and are willing to
come to Christ. The Christian church, especially in the United States and
Europe, seems preoccupied with the numbers related to church membership and
blind to the way that faith is being lived out in the world. Maybe it’s not
enough to focus on the macro - like asking about how many people are coming to
worship on Sunday morning.
Instead, we need to understand God's measure of growth: love.
And in the process, we are compelled to ask ourselves these questions: Are we
totally committed to loving God and neighbor? Do we make our every encounter an
opportunity to witness his love? Are we guided by his word? Do we live in an
ongoing dialog of prayer... speaking and listening to the divine presence in
our lives?[v]
Today’s readings inspire us to see God in unexpected people and
places. We are called to look beyond the obvious to discover God everywhere, in
everyone. And while the life unfolding around us often feels precarious and
unimportant – and our role infinitesimal – a great harvest and great
possibilities are on the horizon for those who see from a God’s eye view, through
the eyes of faith. Great things do come from small beginnings.[vi]
Amen.
