Loading...A year ago, I heard an adage which you also may have heard, probably from another preacher. It goes something like this: preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
In other words, use scripture for preaching, but also real life. Have in mind the question: “How does scripture and what’s going on the world intersect?”
The Bible helps us to understand world events;
and world events are heard & experience by a people shaped by God’s Word.
Today, we have a fascinating and very real set of parables from Jesus (including a bit of information about why Jesus uses parables), and a part of a prophecy from God through Ezekiel, juxtaposed with a range of current topics and events:
Father’s Day;
the two year anniversary, this past week, of the killing of 49 people and the wounding of 53 others at Pulse (a gay nightclub) by a man wielding a semi- automatic rifle and semi-automatic pistol; and
the information has come to light this past week that as of May 31st this year, 1,995 minors have been separated from their parents at the US border with Mexico, a policy being used to enforce immigration laws.
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“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
Honestly, this is kind of a boring parable, as parables go.
The seed is scattered and it grows.
The farmer is clueless about how it all happens, but it does anyway.
Then, when the seed has grown and it is ripe, harvest time!
Buh-dum-bum. That’s it.
And for my next trick.....
It’s a pretty boring parable, but it is a parable all the same. The kingdom if God is like THIS. God’s vision/plan/hope/work in the world happens with or without us. It will grow on its own. That may be a gradual beginning, so gradual that you don’t even notice, but it’s there. And, suddenly fruit is born.
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Two years is a long time – especially when more people, especially many students – have died because of the violence of mass shootings,
• but more and more people are responding and working on community appropriate controls and regulations;
• more and more people are empowered to speak and to act;
• more and more people are connecting in neighborhoods to help and support those affected by violence or who struggle with loss.
The vision of God that we would love our neighbors,
that we would care for them with compassion and love is a seed that is planted in us.
• We don’t know how it grows – indeed it seems some days as though the seed is dormant or has died in the soil.
• We don’t know how it grows, but as people of faith we believe that it is growing – germinating in ways we cannot always understand or see.
• We don’t know how the seed of God’s vision for the world is growing, but as people of faith we are actively involved. We don’t MAKE it grow, but we notice it growing in ourselves and in others and we nurture it.
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“[Jesus] also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’” (Mark 4:30-32)
Ah, sanctuary.
While we still have the Bible in our hands, I’d like to let you in on the joke of this parable. It turns out that Jesus told quite a few jokes mixed in with his parables, but because we live in a different time, place, and culture, we don’t always get them.
The mustard seed which Jesus uses as an object lesson? Not the one you’re probably thinking of, the one that might be in your spice cabinet that’s used in pickling. The seeds to which Jesus refers ARE small, but they are NOT the smallest of seeds.
Also, no farmer in their right mind would actually SOW such a seed. Where Jesus lived, this plant was a common and hearty weed, a little like ... tumbleweed around here. It popped up and multiplied and seeds would go everywhere as it spread.
It’s true the plant had medicinal qualities, but it was not a cash crop.
The other part of the joke about the mustard seed/shrub is that while the plant is dense and prolific, it is hardly grand or magnificent.
It is NOT the grand cedar tree to which Ezekiel refers in the Old Testament reading!
Yet, Jesus still calls it the greatest of all shrubs.
There’s Jesus, turning things around, changing our perception, and challenging us to re-think what we think is great or grand.
Mustard plants may not be tall and grandiose, but they sure are persistent and resilient! And, they take over a place, inch by inch, and bring transformation!
The reign of God – this grand, magnificent, and great thing – will take over the world inch by inch and all the while, it will provide sanctuary.
It will provide rest.
It will give hope.
It will crowd out other concerns, including hesitation, resistance, or cultural conventions.
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Now, here’s where the newspaper (or, internet, nowadays) side of the preaching adage comes into play:
Sanctuary for people who are hurting,
especially children separated from their parents.
The mustard seed-turned-shrub that is the kingdom of God may not be a grand majestic plant that makes people stop what they’re doing, stand in awe, then stand aside.
Rather, the way we offer sanctuary is to all the “birds of the air”
• children who, for whatever reason, experience trauma
• elders who have lost their savings
• refugees and immigrants
• LGBTQ brothers and sisters
• men and women who live with mental illness
• anyone who is drowning in despair.
The reign of God is both for you and is at work in you for others.
You are given sanctuary in the grand mustard shrubbery and that compassion and care for others spreads into your life so that you can now offer sanctuary to others.
This is the power and pervasiveness of the mustard seed.
This is the greatness and majesty of the mustard shrub.
YAY! Alleluia!
It is the kingdom of God, the vision of God for all the world, that despite the trauma, loss, hopelessness that we encounter and feel in our life or in the newspaper and news reports,
the hope, life, and healing of God’s mercy and love will grow
(we don’t always know how!) and spread,
including us in its power, life, and greatness.
Amen
