Seeds, Shrubs, and the Kingdom of God

Mark 4:26-34

[Jesus] also said, “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.”

He 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.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

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Instead of passing out mustard seeds to everyone, like I’ve done before – in classes and worship where this parable is concerned – I thought I’d do a little searching online for pictures and images of mustard plants to remind us more of what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s Gospel.

But I will start with a picture of a mustard seed.

They’re small, just like Jesus says they are. Not the smallest seed you and I might ever see, but maybe they were the smallest seeds known to Jesus, and his people, and to the region where he was living back in the day. And I found some pictures of the plants these seeds turn into, too, since that’s much of the point of Jesus’ parables this morning.

And what I found may or may not be as interesting or as surprising to some of you farming, gardening, green-thumbing types as it was to me.

When Jesus talks about this mustard seed becoming something worthy of a nest, I was expecting something more like a tree. But mostly what I found were pictures like this:

… and this:

… and this:

This is why it’s funny that Jesus ever even talked about the mustard seed at all. See, we’re used to hearing agricultural illustrations and farming metaphors in the Bible and from Jesus, but when we hear about trees, we’re used to hearing about something much more substantial. And so were the people listening to Jesus way back when.

Like in the book of Daniel, there’s talk of a tree, “great and strong” whose “top reached to heaven and was visible to the end of the whole earth.” This tree was used to describe a kingdom that ruled all the peoples of the world. In Ezekiel, which we heard this morning, too, and in the Psalms, there’s talk of the “mighty cedar of Lebanon” that symbolized the power of the kingdom of Assyria. And there is talk about “oaks of righteousness,” too. And, of course, there are those images of the “Tree of Life” and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” from way back in Genesis and the Garden of Eden.

So in all of this, I picture trees – big, strong, tall, hefty kinds of trees. Something like this, maybe:

a sizeable sequoia.

…or like this:

a giant redwood you could drive a car through.

or even just this:

a big old oak tree, strong enough to hold your favorite porch swing.

But no. Jesus talks about mustard – the smallest of all seeds that grows up to become something great. But not really the greatest of trees, though. I don’t think he’s talking about a sequoia, or a redwood; a high and lofty cedar or a giant oak of righteousness, either.

In the Gospels of Matthew of Luke, Jesus talks of a tree when he tells the parable of the mustard seed. But this morning – in Mark’s Gospel – he doesn’t go that far. This was a bush (SLIDE 8). A sizeable shrub. A flowering hedge of a thing. And so, just like so much else in God’s way of being in the world, Jesus shows us the kingdom in a way that’s surprising and unexpected and not at all the way the rest of the world might think it should be.

And I think that’s his point when he compares the kingdom of God – and our part in it – with a mustard seed and the bush that it becomes.

We sleep and rise, night and day and the seeds we’ve planted will grow – like they did for the guy in this morning’s first parable – by the grace of God, nothing more and nothing less. We don’t have as much to do with it as we’d like to pretend a lot of the time. And this is good, gracious, liberating news, if you ask me.

We’re just people – lowly, broken, sinful, sizeable shrubs of a people – planting our seeds in the world wherever we live and watching God do with them what God will do, and being amazed more often than not at what God can grow and produce and harvest with whatever worship, learning, and service; whatever forgiveness, grace and joy we’ve been able to scatter around us as we go – measly little bushes though we may be.

And there’s evidence of this everywhere:

Last weekend, in Louisville, the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the ELCA, elected our first Black Bishop, Pastor Tim Graham, who told us that the very next day following his election, he’d be celebrating something like 24 years of sobriety. The serendipity of that makes me wonder about – and marvel at – all of the seeds of grace he has planted – and that were planted in him – up until to that moment, over the course of those 24 years. And all of the seeds yet to be scattered and bushes and branches yet to grow and bloom because of it.

I hope you saw or heard about Cross of Grace’s presence at our first ever PRIDE parade and celebration downtown last weekend, too. Amanda and Angi did a lot to organize and plan for the day, but simply showing up, simply being there, simply representing a congregation of Christians for the sake of the LGBTQ+ community that has more reason to fear than to welcome us, was the Kingdom of God alive and well in the world. Simply passing out stickers and suckers and “Mom Hugs,” was nothing more and nothing less than the scattering of seeds for those who received them – and in at least one case, I heard – were brought to tears because of it all. And from those seeds, I have to believe that some kind of shelter continues to grow.

And our annual SonRise Vacation Bible School did it again, too, last week … planted more seeds and grew more grace for me and those who joined the fun, I mean. We simply eat and sing and tell stories and share communion and try to come up with – sometimes silly – ways to tell of God’s love. And our friends – with different, limited physical and intellectual abilities – receive it with such faith – to the degree that one of them asked to be baptized at the end of it all. It’s a lot of work for the likes of Sharon and the other leaders, but from those simple seeds of story, song, and silliness, the Kingdom lives and moves and blooms in beautiful ways.

That’s why it’s so amazing that God uses us – shrubs and bushes like you and me – when there seem to be so many bigger, better trees out there in the world. You know what I mean? And, unfortunately, too many of us Christians do know what I mean.

See, I’ve come to know that what keeps too many of us from living out our faith most fully as followers of Jesus, is a lack of esteem and understanding about how qualified or capable or gifted we are to do whatever it is God hopes for us to accomplish.

We tell ourselves and pretend that we don’t know enough… that we aren’t talented enough… that we aren’t sure enough… We aren’t sober enough… We don’t have enough time… We aren’t wealthy enough… We aren’t leaders enough to lead… Or teachers enough to show someone else the way… We have too many questions of our own to even try to offer answers for somebody else…

To ourselves, we’re just “seeds” or “bushes” or “shrubs” too much of the time and we keep ourselves so small in our own eyes that we forget just how worthy we are in the eyes of God.

We keep waiting to become “trees” – mighty enough, strong enough, smart enough, faithful enough, wealthy enough, whatever enough – to do something more, to be something more, to offer something more – we forget that God used a “tree” to accomplish the greatest grace of all time, for the sake of the whole wide world.

If God can turn a mustard seed into a shrub… If God would dare turn a tree into a cross… If God can turn suffering and death into resurrection and new life… What can’t God do with the welcome and hospitality; with the love and forgiveness; with the good news and grace each of us has to scatter, to plant, and to grow in the world wherever we live?

Amen

Holy Trinity - God as Plot

John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus said to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can one be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus said to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I have said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus said, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

Very truly I tell you, we speak about what we know and we testify to what we have seen and you do not receive our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, and just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

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Holy Trinity Sunday can be kind of a chore for preachers and kind of a snore for those who show up for worship – and on a holiday weekend, no less. On Holy Trinity Sunday, preachers are invited – and expected, maybe – to do the theological gymnastics of TEACHING more than PREACHING, it seems to me, about the doctrine of God’s identity that church people call the Trinity … about the namesake of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit … about how they are three in one and one in three … about how they relate to and through one another and to you and me in a very academic sense. Like I said … a chore and a snore. There’s a place for all of that, don’t get me wrong. I’m just inclined to think it’s more meaningful in the classroom than in the sanctuary. It’s a head thing, not a heart thing, if you will. And I believe worship is a place for more of the latter.

One of the redeeming things, though, about the lectionary on a high-minded, theologically taxing day like today, is that we get to wonder about this moment between Jesus and Nicodemus as part of it all. See, I imagine Nicodemus seeks Jesus out, looking for something like a little academic instruction … some intellectual insight … some theological gymnastics of his own that he can use to either find some common ground or fight with Jesus about it all.

And Jesus surprises Nicodemus by being all “you must be born from above” … and “what is born of the flesh is flesh,” and “what is born of the spirit is spirit” … and “the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.” And Nicodemus is like, “How can these things be?!?!”

I had a conversation not long ago, that came to mind when I read, again, about Nicodemus coming to Jesus – by night – with his questions about life and faith, flesh and spirit, signs and salvation, and the nature of God. My questioner came by night, too. We were in a bar. This young man knew what I do for a living and, like Nicodemus, had some questions. (I don’t remember them exactly, to be honest. Did I mention we were in a bar? And had been there for quite some time, if you know what I mean.)

Anyway, he wanted to know something about things like grace and forgiveness and about what it means to “be saved” or “to get into heaven,” and – in short, I think it’s fair to say – do we all make the cut? Is there a way to know for sure? Are there any limits to the grace, mercy, and love of God, that churches like ours preach, teach and talk about so much? Like so many of us do, my questioner had been hearing competing versions of the story.

Like Nicodemus, he was surprised and skeptical about what I tried to say. “How can these things be!?!”

I had another conversation a week or so ago (this time over the phone, not at the bar) with a mother – not from here – whose daughter, away at school, was being forced out of a Christian organization she helped bring to her college campus, because she refused to sign a document or make a profession of faith that denounced and excluded and otherwise deemed LGBTQ+ people to be sinners in need of repentance in order to be worthy of God’s love.

Like Nicodemus, this wise, faithful, grace-centered, love-your-neighbor-as-yourself kind of young woman was asking, incredulously, “How can these things be!?!”

In both of these conversations – and the many others like them that I have fairly often – my go-to Bible verses include this one from John, chapter 3. It’s one most people have seen or heard before. But, as some of you know, I prefer verse 17 to verse 16 – or at least I don’t like so much that John 3:16 gets all the press and verse 17 never makes it onto the T-shirt or the poster board. Verse 17 says, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus came NOT to condemn, but to SAVE. And I think it’s safe to assume that if that was God’s goal and intention, then it’s likely God can make that happen.

My other go-to is that bit from Romans where Paul is convinced – and convinces me – that nothing in all of creation – not hardship, or distress, or persecution – not famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword – not death or life, not angels or rulers, not things present or things to come, not powers, or height, or depth – not who or how you love – not the color of your skin – not your gender or your pronouns, and not even if they match the way the world thinks they should – not anything else in all creation, Paul says – nothing – no thing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“How can these things be!?!”

I’m just getting to know – by way of his writing and speaking – a guy named Pádraig Ó Tuama. Among so many other things, he’s an Irish poet and a theologian. His book, In the Shelter, was the first thing I read when I started my Sabbatical, a year ago, and he’s been popping up in meaningful ways ever since. In Christian Century magazine recently, an interviewer said to him, “My sense is that you are not particularly interested in questions about belief. If that’s the case, what does interest you?”

Ó Tuama replied, “I mean, what is God? God’s just a sound that we make with our mouths. Whatever God is … is discovered … in the possibility of doing something surprising. That sounds like something Jesus would say. “The wind blows where it chooses … you hear it … but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going.”

And Ó Tuama also said this: “I don’t believe in God as character, but I do believe in God as plot.”

And I like that, because it, too, sounds like something Jesus might say. And it resists our temptation and the pretense of Holy Trinity Sunday, that we can put God in a box, labeled with a name – or even three names. “I don’t believe in God as character, but I do believe in God as plot.”

In other words, for me, at least, God is a plot that doesn’t sit still long enough to be defined in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions of even the wisest, most learned theologians – unless, maybe, that theologian is also a poet.

God is the love that lives and moves and breathes among us. God is the hope that allows us to love one another when too many others refuse to share that love. God is the peace that passes all understanding, that catches us off-guard, when we least expect or deserve it.

God is plot – in action, on the move, alive and well – not a character, with a single name, standing still, waiting to be painted and hung on a wall or captured with words and printed on a page. [Even God refused to name God’s self when they met up with Moses at the burning bush, way back in Genesis. God was “I Am,” whatever that means. And Moses, in his own way, was like, “How can these things be?!?”]

God is plot – the unfolding of a story, the development of the narrative, the movement of grace gathering us together and moving us along, too, toward one another and out into the world.

God is plot – being born, rushing like water, blowing like wind, ascending and descending, lifting up and being lifted, sending and saving – never perishing, not condemning.

My hope for Holy Trinity Sunday – and every day – is that we’ll always be on the lookout for the surprising ways of God in our midst. That we’ll communicate that with one another and out there in the world – not just by wrestling with doctrine and definitions – but by wrestling with ways to get in on the PLOT of God’s plan that we love one another, forgive one another, share grace and generosity that is undeniable, abundant, and as life-giving as the God we know in Jesus, crucified and risen – not to condemn – but to SAVE the whole wide world and God’s people in it.

Amen