Readings:
Sermon:
Jesus told lots of stories about the natural world, the world of agriculture and fields. It was a familiar work setting for many, if they were not out on the lake all night catching fish or on the hills tending the flocks.
Jesus often compared the kingdom of God to growing things – trees, plants, seeds. The kingdom of God is organic not static. Always on the move, always alive, even in the secret places of the earth.
But remember that those first hearers of the gospel narrative were not living some idyllic life in the country with fields and sheep and harvest suppers.
It was a tough and precarious life, and they lived and worked in an occupied land. Governed by a power that was at times oppressive even cruel.
And in a world where power mattered – when has it not – this parable could be considered quite dangerous.
We may have a picture in our mind’s eye of the mustard and cress we once grew at school, sowing tiny seeds on a wet cloth and taking it proudly home to when it had sprouted in its pot to add to the salad.
The mustard seed that Jesus was talking about was rather more like an invading weed. It wasn’t often a choice for planting – it could be the bane of a farmer’s life, a struggle to remove it before it took over crops and fields like a wild fire.
But Jesus uses this tenacious plant as a metaphor for the kingdom of God. It grows from a tiny seed - not a recognised seat of power – it is not immediately impressive and showy, yet slowly, steadily the growth from this seed takes over wherever it is, and while we were not looking, infiltrates and becomes strong and tall in unexpected places in unexpected ways.
Jesus talked often of the kingdom of God and sometimes as a paradox. The kingdom of God was present with us, within us, and yet was not yet here, still a future hope.
The kingdom of God was near and yet at the same time, far off. Jesus followers were encouraged to read the signs of its arrival, yet at the same time were told they would not know, could not know, when it would come or how.
Yet our role as Jesus disciples now is to continue to pray and work and believe that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. That the values of God will be real and present here in the created world.
We are called to make it our hearts longing, our deepest treasure and desire, our life’s work, our most earnest prayer. And to begin by living as though it is already here, a present reality.
We begin by being open to what God can do through us and in us. For before the kingdom can come on earth, through all the earth, it begins in those who most long for it, with an openness to possibilities that lead to the transformation of individual minds and hearts and lives.
In some parables we are the field in which God is at work, planting and nurturing and calling into life. And perhaps the mustard seed will grow tall and strong so that we become - in our churches, in our congregations, in our families, in our communities, the place where the birds of the air may find a welcome a place to settle and build. We can become the welcome that others long for, the generous spirit that does not judge but reaches out with compassion.
But part of our reluctance, perhaps, can be the huge disconnect between our idea of the kingdom of God and God’s idea of the kingdom of God.
We might not always think God is the most discerning or tasteful or practical or strategic worker – certainly not the fastest. Sometimes we think we could do it very differently.
Throw around a bit of weed killer here and there, pull up the roots of things we don’t like, cement in as permanent fixtures those things that we don’t want changed, ever, whatever God might have in mind.
Because we want to hold onto some sense of power and control, after all. We’d rather not give it all over to God. We want to preserve our favourite bits to rescue them from any transforming life that might threaten to take over and make it all unrecognisable from our old existence.
Or we can remember as our old testament readings confirm that God looks on the heart, not on the outward appearance – that the most unexpected people and places - the ones the world might easily have overlooked or been quite unimpressed by – become the very places where God chooses to dwell and be at work.
Like David – the youngest of the sons of Jesse – a worker in the fields – whom God instructed Samuel to anoint with Holy Oil for the work of God as king over the people.
Like the promise to the prophet Ezekiel – that God would take not a mighty cedar, a symbol of prestige and dominance, but a tiny tender shoot and plant it on a high place, and under it every kind of bird will live, and in its shade find a place to build a nest. A place to grow and be nurtured and from which to one day fly.
Yes, the kingdom of God could well disrupt all our carefully laid plans, all our understanding of what is right and proper. Disrupt all our power struggles and partitions.
Jesus prayed that we would one day understand the unity that is God - that we might all be one as God is one, and as we are one in Christ. A new relationship. A new world. If we are Kingdom people then we are also people who are open to all the unexpected and wondrous things that God might choose to do in us and through us, disrupt all our pre-conceptions, so the very smallest and most insignificant detail could be a force for all the goodness in the world.
Oh, might that be so – Oh that we might be part of it!