Itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow-mustard-seed parable

Sermon 6-17-18

Grace to you and peace from God our creator, and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Around this time of year, you may also have noticed something about the fields you drive past this summer. When you do, perhaps even on your way home, take notice of the corners or around the edges. It doesn't matter what’s planted in the field – whether its corn, alfalfa, soybeans, wheat, hay - every corner of every field will be the same: The plants in the corners will be shorter, spindlier, and less robust than the rest. You would probably think that the opposite would be true: that because they don't have to compete with others in the middle of the field for sun and rain and soil, so that they would be taller and healthier because of it. But this isn’t the case. In fact, they are pretty wimpy-looking.

This reminds me of a poem that is sometimes quoted on inspirational posters in junior high schools, the one by Douglas Malloch that goes:  

The tree that never had to fight for sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain and always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king, but lived and died a scrubby thing. (Sound Familiar?)

Today, right now, you might feel like a scrubby thing, pre-Forest King or Queen – still a tender shoot, removed from all that is familiar and transplanted, physically or figuratively, to that high and lofty mountain where the air is thin, and the wind blows strong. But you are not on the mountain alone. Growth is slow and hard, but God is the one who is our gardener, and puts people in our lives to help us grow and thrive.

Who in your life has their roots firmly planted in the house of the Lord, as we said in our psalm today?

I once knew a woman in another church who might be a surprising candidate for “Best Flourishing Palm Tree” or “Cedar of the Year.” We’ll call her Janet. In her younger days, before I met her, Janet was an extremely active church member while raising a large and loving family. But when I knew her, she lived in a nursing home specializing in memory care, which she lived for many years before she passed away.

Janet may not be aware of what day or season or year it might be, but her memories of Holy Communion are deeply rooted, still green and full of sap, despite that she could not remember that her sister had preceded her in death, or the names of her grandchildren. But I always brought her communion, and she always knew all the words to all the prayers. One day she noticed a crease in the communion liturgy leaflet we would use together. As she held it in her hands and examined it, she said, “Look, there’s a fold in it. It must be from the many hands who have touched this before today.” The Lord’s promises were so deeply rooted in her, no memory loss could take that away. But someone had to have planted that very first seed in her.

We plant the seeds every single day, but we don’t always know how they are going to bloom… whether it’s days, months, or years later, like in Janet’s case. For example, a few years ago I wrote some reflections for the devotional called “Christ in our Home,” some of them on these very texts. In one of them, based on our 2^nd Corinthians reading, was about would be like to be running a challenging course while remembering that Jesus is cheering you on AND running along with you. I send these devotions off and promptly forgot about them, having moved on to the next thing. Weeks after they had been published, I received an email from two women who told me about a road trip they did to run their first half-marathon. They were nervous about it, and took along this devotional. The day of the race, as it happened, was this very text, with my devotion! They found it so encouraging to think about while they ran. They wrote: Your words, God's presence and our faith… made it a day we will always remember.”  

My reflections on Paul’s words went out into the world and someone found meaning in them. I can tell you, there has been very few times in my life where I have actually gotten to see the fruits of my labors, so to speak.

But if the Kingdom of God is like a seed… what kind of seed is it? Well, Jesus, in true Jesus-fashion, tells us that the kingdom of God is like on of the least desirable seeds on the planet.

Must.... pull... weed..... 

As I probably have mentioned once or twice, I grew up on a small dairy farm in central Wisconsin, where my Dad planted fields of corn, alfalfa, soybeans, and hay as food and bedding for the cows that we raise. As you can probably imagine, myself and my siblings had a few chores to do growing up. One of these summer chores was “picking mustard.” How many of you know what a mustered plant looks like? Sort of like goldenrod… it can be found in a lot of fields and ditches around these parts. I’ve never seen a mustard plant become a great tree, but I do know that one plant in a field, if unchecked, will shortly become one field of mustard, since it’s a very invasive weed. When a single mustard plant “goes to seed,” it releases thousands of the tiny little buggers.

Taken by one of my members on a trip in India... holy cats look at all that mustard!!

Have you ever tried to put glitter BACK in the container that it came in? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. So, when we would go out to pick mustard in the field, if we were too late, we would pull up one plant only to witness a shower of seeds falling to the ground…. Knowing that we would just be out there again pulling all of THOSE mustard plants in a few weeks’ time! It was so frustrating!

But isn’t it interesting… Jesus compares the kingdom of God… not to a mighty cedar, but instead, to something like this mustard plant. Stubborn…. Persistent… often with uncontrolled or unpredictable growth… annoying to our carefully curated lawns that we would like our lives to be. Something so small and so insignificant has been elevated, in God’s eyes, to be the star in a parable about the most important kingdom on earth. Because in the kingdom of God, the least important and most overlooked are often given the position of most importance. You know – the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

I’d like to think that the Apostle Paul would be aghast and appalled at how his words have been recently used to justify acting in a way that is the very opposite, while in the name of “the kingdom of God.”

The kingdom of God is NOT support the separation of youth, children, and infants from their parents, when the reason is parents seeking a better life for their children in the first place. The breaking up of families, and the further traumatizing of the most innocent among us – helpless children – in this way abhorrent to the Lord and works against the rules of God’s kingdom.

What Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a rejected, tiny mustard seed, he is saying that God’s kingdom is not built by our hands, though we may do the planting. God’s kingdom is growing, even when we don’t know how or when. God’s kingdom may seem weak compared to the powers and rules of the world… but in the end the smallest, most vulnerable seeds will grow up to be the greatest in the Kingdom. 

The kingdom of God belongs to the weak, the tiny, and the helpless.

The kingdom of God is going to show up when we least expect it, in the very people we would not have anticipated.

The kingdom of God is spread through every act of love we do in the name of Jesus… and sometimes God has to bring forth the kingdom without our participating because of the weeds of fear and selfishness choking our hearts.

The kingdom of God is an infestation of a stubborn weed that we try our hardest to get rid of… and yet, it keeps growing back.

The kingdom of God is invading our lives, and will overgrow and break down our hearts of stone… and that is good news. Thanks be to God. Amen.