Sermon for June 13, 2021 Pentecost 3 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Mark 4:26-34; Ezekiel 17:22-24 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
They bring color to the world. They are an unmistakable sign of springtime and warmer weather. They are free, and with them you can make everything from games, to bouquets, to salad, to wine. What am I talking about? Dandelions!
What’s not to like? Yet we devote much time and money every year trying to get rid of them! They are weeds, and they grow everywhere. Just when you think you’ve gotten rid of them, they come back, and if you’re not careful they will take over your lawn. Argh!!! Dandelions!
During Jesus’ lifetime, however, it wasn’t the dandelion but the mustard plant. It grew everywhere, whether you wanted it to or not. It had many uses, from being a cooking ingredient, to having medicinal qualities, to providing a shady home for birds to make their nests in. Mustard seeds grew into plants that were thick and dense, and they spread over the hillsides to become (as Jesus put it) “the greatest of all shrubs”.
Wait--shrubs? Jesus really wants to compare God’s kingdom to a shrub? Instead, why doesn’t he compare it to the tall and majestic cedar, like we hear about in today’s reading from the prophet Ezekiel. Yes, the cedar has its place as an analogy for God’s kingdom, reminding us of God’s greatness, power, and eternal time-frame. But on a day-to-day, regular life basis, a shrub will do just fine, Jesus says. The mustard plant reminds us that God is everywhere.
Like the “greatest of shrubs”, God’s kingdom provides welcome, offers a home, adds some spice to life, and is there to bring healing to people. Like the common mustard plant, God’s kingdom comes wrapped in what is humble, and is found within things that we consider both good and bad, both beautiful and ugly. How can God’s kingdom be found in such a variety of places? It might be easy to think of finding God’s kingdom in what is good and beautiful in the world--because those things are where we most often look for our blessings and give God thanks and praise.
But can we really go looking for God’s kingdom in the bad and ugly things of life? Yes we can--and we must. Because Christ himself did not forsake the cross. He gave himself over to death on the cross at the hands of sinners, and by his holy cross he sealed for us his promise that he does not forsake you, when you experience the bad or the ugly side of life. Christ meets you, whatever the circumstances, no matter how disappointed you are or how dire you feel the situation to be. Christ reaches out his hand and says, “I am here to lift you up. Will you cast your burden aside and hand it over to me? I’ve got grace and mercy more plentiful than the mustard plants and the dandelions combined. So let me welcome you and help you through your difficulty--if you’ll be humble enough to let me.”
The kingdom of God is like the tiny mustard seed, which grows into a mustard plant, the greatest of shrubs. This parable teaches us to see things from God’s point of view, because God lifts up the lowly. And when Christ looks at us from the point of view upon the cross, we are the lowly ones--and we are saved through him. Christ exchanges our sin and death for God’s forgiveness and salvation. Since we are saved through Christ, we are now free to offer ourselves in taking part in the things God is doing in the world.
Which leads me to the other parable in today’s gospel--and it’s an example even simpler than the mustard plant. Jesus says, the kingdom of God is like any plain old seed that someone scattered on the ground. When those seeds get covered up in soil, it’s a bit of a mystery as to how the seed grows, but we know that the seeds grow just the same. That mystery brings new life into the world. And we can offer ourselves to being part of that mystery--like, we can fertilize the ground, and water and pull weeds to make it easier for the plant to thrive. We can teach the science of germination and photosynthesis. Yet even though we are able to describe what happens, and even have a hand in it, we still can’t watch what happens underground. If you were to dig up the seed to take a look, you would kill it. So we simply trust the mystery that it grows. Then we wait until just the right time arrives, and we feed ourselves, and share with others.
Just as God works a transformation of the seeds when they are planted underground, in a way we can kind of explain but also find kind of mysterious, so it is with faith. There is a lot going on inside each one of us, far below the surface of what other people see--things that are not visible to most people, and maybe not even visible to you yourself. But God sees, and God is right there with you, embedded like a mustard seed in the ground, deep beneath the surface of your life.
The more layers of your life that you can surrender to God in faith, in prayer, in humility, in honesty, then the more the Holy Spirit can really do God’s mysterious work of transformation and growth within you--like a mustard seed growing into the greatest of shrubs.
As St. Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5, “Regard no one from a human point of view. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away; behold, everything has become new!” Amen.