Mark
4:26-34
June
17, 2018
Jesus 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.
For
all of his powerful deeds and compassionate works, Jesus was a storyteller.
When he spoke about God, and how God rules over the heavens and the earth, he
often used a story.
Once upon a time,
a traveler fell among thieves, who robbed him and left him for dead. Two
religious leaders passed him by, and the one who took care of him was a dreaded
enemy. Which one is the true neighbor?
There was a man
who had two sons. The younger boy ran off with a share of the family fortune,
blew it all on wine, women, and the roulette table, then came back to his Daddy
with his tail between his legs. Is it right to throw him a welcome home party?
A king threw a
wedding banquet for his son. Invited a lot of people, none of them would come.
Invited a lot more people, they all gave excuses. So he sent his servants to
round up the kind of people who could never attend one of his parties… because
that the kind of kingdom that he wanted to have.
Jesus
doesn’t toss around a lot of doctrines. Nor does he offer a lot of “do’s” and “don’t’s.”
He tells stories, and he leaves it to people like you and me to figure out what
kind of truth may be inside those stories. So today, we have a couple of
stories, each one taken from the experience of farming.
The
second one isn’t actually a story at all. It doesn’t have a plot. In a good
story, as you know, something has to happen. This happens, then this happens,
then this… and in this story, hardly anything happens at all. There’s a little bitty
seed, the smallest of all seeds. Somehow it grows, nobody quite knows how.
It’s
a mustard seed, which grew into something called a “mustard shrub.” It was widely
regarded as a weed. The kingdom of God is
like a weed. It grows out of control. That’s the second story.
The
first one is a bit more intentional. Once
upon a time, a farmer scattered a lot of seed. It was something he wanted
to grow, a crop that he intended to raise. But here’s the thing: the farmer
throws around all that seed and then he goes to sleep. That’s the story. That’s
all there is. One day the harvest will come, but for now…nothing happens.
I
like that parable. I like it a lot. The farmer casts about some seed and lets
it go. He does not hover. He cannot rush. He will not yell, because yelling
would not speed up a thing. For the time being, nothing happens.
Do
you suppose this is the way God is? That God is not a helicopter parent, buzzing
around overhead to make sure we’re doing the right thing? That God does not
hover, or wag the finger, or raise the voice? That God doesn’t plant a garden
and then stand over it screaming, “Now start growing!” No, the farmer tosses
around the seed and lets it go.
What I like about this parable is
also what is most maddening about it. Nothing happens, or it doesn't look like
anything's happening, or if it's happening, there is an unseen benevolence
beyond our control. The lesson seems to be that God is in charge of his own
kingdom. Imagine that! No amount of badgering, controlling, shrieking,
convincing, cajoling, or conniving will advance the rule of God over all
things.
Maybe there’s a lesson here in
parenting or grandparenting, or perhaps there’s a corrective for how our rookie
parents once handled us. As I think of my own father, I don't remember him
yelling very much. I often knew where he stood, but he also gave me a lot of
room to make my own mistakes and to correct them.
Like that summer night when I was
nineteen or so. I was out on a date with a pretty woman. We drove around the
car, we parked the car, we started up the car and drove around some more. Then
we went to a place called “Pancho’s Pit” to get something to eat. The hour was
late, it was time to take her home. So we went out to the car, kissed a little
bit, and then I turned the key to start the car and nothing happened. Nothing
at all. You know how when something doesn't work, you keep trying it again and
again? Yep.
So about one in the morning I was
forced to do the thing I dreaded: call home and see if I could score a ride
home for me and my young lady friend. I mean, they always told me if you’re
ever in trouble, call home, so I did. My father answered.
Whenever he answered the phone in
the middle of the night, it always sounded like he had been awake for hours. In
a deep voice, he said, “Yes?” I told him my dilemma and where I was. He asked
no further questions and said, “See you in twenty minutes.” Twenty minutes
later, here came the paneled station wagon.
As it turned out, it was a busted
distributor cap which I would have to fix the next day. Dad arrives, my friend
and I get in back seat. He looks at me in the rear view mirrow, doesn’t say a
word, but I know the look. So say to my friend, “How about if you ride in the
front seat and I'll sit in the back?” Dad smiled. We took her home, dropped her
off, I walked her to the door, climbed back into the front seat. We started up,
and Dad said four words: “You never mentioned her.” I gulped. He said two more
words: “Pretty girl.”
We drove the rest of the way home in
silence. It was about two o’clock as we rolled into the garage. It seemed that
I was going to get off without a speech. The car came to a stop. He turned off
the engine. I reached for the door handle, breathing a sigh of relief, and Dad
said, “Wait a minute.” I froze in horror. I braced for the speech. The silence
was deafening.
Then he said it… know what he said to
me? He said, “Just be glad that your mother didn't answer the phone.: That's
all he said. He never had to raise his voice at all.
Maybe you have noticed this is
precisely how God works most of the time, how God parents us all. There’s no
yelling, no badgering, no bullying, no exertion of influence. We have freedom
to grow, freedom to flourish, freedom to mature, and freedom to both take note
of, and respond to, the unseen kindness that grants us life.
It can be a terrible freedom. If God
gives us the room, we can do all kinds of things. We can make all kinds of
mistakes. Yet we also have the freedom to grow, to flourish, to change, to
grow. And it can happen when it really doesn’t seem like anything is going on.
It’s like the wisdom from Malcolm
Gladwell. He says, “If you do anything for ten thousand hours, you start to
become good at it.” Twenty hours of work a week, for ten years; that’s a
long time. Then you realize, “I can knit a sweater, I can write a novel, I can
play the clarinet, I can run a marathon. It didn’t happen overnight; good
things take a while. Even in the moment when the fog lifts and we get a
clear-eyed view, we might just discover there’s some progress we have made… and
it might even be in spite of us. The kingdom of God grows because God is at
work. Usually just out of sight, but out there, staying busy, sometimes
effecting change even in us.
I was talking to a medical
professional the other day. I’ve been making regular visits, due to my
sedentary, lazy, middle-aged life, and the effects of too much pepperoni pizza.
In the middle of our conversation, I blurted out that I have begun walking on a
treadmill. She looked at me in astonishment and said, “Are you feeling okay?”
We both had a good laugh, and it felt good.
Sometimes good things happen, or healthy
things happen, because God awakens us, or nudges us, or simply works behind the
scenes. That is one way of saying that we shouldn't take a lot of credit for
what's happening to us due to the grace and kindness of an unseen God. The seed
is planted, it grows and bears fruit, and it happens even when we are asleep.
So if you are frustrated with your
life, or dismayed at the general condition of the world, take heart. For this
is God's world. And I think we can give God a good bit of the responsibility
for how things are going to turn out. That's faith.
Perhaps
you have heard the name of Angelo Roncalli. Ring a bell? Later in life, he took
the name of Pope John 23rd. He presided over the Roman church in a
time of enormous turmoil. It was John 23rd who oversaw a great many
sweeping changes at the time of the Second Vatican Council: a less legalistic
approach to faith, a turn away from a legacy of medieval gloom and doom, a
change from worshiping only in Latin to the language of the people, an openness
to non-Catholic Christians.
These
were enormous changes, and they came with a high emotional toll on the Pope. He
would stay up late at night, reflecting, fretting what would happen, worrying
what he should do. Some nights he would open his heart in late night prayers,
as he thought the trials and tribulations of the day. So he would say out loud,
“Angelo, who governs the church? You – or the Holy Spirit?” After a pause, he
added, “Very well then. Go to sleep, Angelo. Go to sleep.”
As
for us, we can welcome the rule of God if we’re patient, if we hang in there
and persist over the long haul. There’s a poem that I like, from the Jesuit
scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. My mom gave me a copy years ago, probably
after years of putting up with my dad. The poem keeps popping up, so I think
that’s a sign to give it to you. I’m going to read it, sit down for a minute,
and then we’ll get on with the rest of the service. Here is the poem:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
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