One Tiny Seed

Jesus tells two parables in our gospel reading for today. Neither of them is very long. Parables are sometimes challenging to understand. Whenever I tell the Godly Play parables, which come in gold boxes, we are reminded that parables are more valuable than gold and presents given to us long before we were born. We also say, “The box has a lid on it. Sometimes it is as if parables have doors that are shut. You can’t go inside even if you are ready. I don’t know why. It just happens, so don’t be discouraged. Keep coming back again and again. One day the parable will open for you.” (Godly Play, Parable of the Good Samaritan) 

            I find these two parables have doors on them that don’t open easily and I need to keep coming back to them again and again. I read the words and I try to imagine what the message is that Jesus has for us, particularly in the parable of the mustard seed, and I struggle to find it. What’s the good news about seed growing or a tiny seed growing into huge shrub or birds nesting in a giant shrub? What does it tell us about how to live in this world? These are kingdom of God parables and Jesus is trying to tell us something important. 

Perhaps the biggest help to me in opening up these parables to me was the weekly blog written by Dr. David Lose called In the Meantime. He reminded me what parables are all about. “Parables are narrative contrasts – Eugene Peterson somewhere calls them, more provocatively, “narrative time bombs” – that are meant to undermine our assumptions of the various “givens” and even “realities” that we accept unquestioningly and offer us a vision of something different. …“parable” comes from two Greek words, para, “beside,” and ballein, “to throw.” A parable is then throwing one thing (a vision of God’s kingdom) beside another (the world as it is) to see what happens. The comparisons are unpredictable” (vhttp://www.davidlose.net/2018/06/pentecost-4-b-quiet-dynamic-confidence/) 

            The second thing he writes is this, “The challenge with that translation is that “kingdom” seems so static, as if describing some fixed place, whereas basileia is far more dynamic, describing the arenas of God’s activity and influence. Some therefore translate it “the reign” or “rule” of God to highlight that more active dimension of the word. …when we see the world as God does, and when we act toward each other as God would have us, we are living in God’s rule. That means that we can experience and enact the kingdom here and now as well as recognize that even our best efforts fall short of God’s vision and so recognize that God’s activity and reign is not yet fully present among us.” (http://www.davidlose.net/2018/06/pentecost-4-b-quiet-dynamic-confidence/) 

Jesus says, “‘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 then head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickly, 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.’” (Mark 4:26 – 32)

The first parable is about us. Our faith. How does God’s word take root in us and in our daily living. “Dr. Fred Craddock, the eminent retired seminary professor who has influenced so many pastors …once told of the teacher who most influenced him. Her name was, “Miss Emma Sloan.” Miss Sloan was an elderly woman, single. She taught him in the primary department, and since there was nobody to teach his group as juniors, she went right on with them, and taught them for years. She gave him a Bible. She wrote in the front: “May this be a light to your feet, a lamp for your path. Emma Sloan.” She taught the children to memorize the Bible; she never tried to interpret it. …She said, “Just put it in your heart, just put it in your heart.” She used the alphabet, and they’d go around the room saying verses. “A A soft answer turns away wrath. B Be ye kind, one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, as God also in Christ has forgiven you. C Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. D Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. E Every good and perfect gift . . . F For God so loved the world . . .”

He says he can still remember those verses. Miss Emma didn’t explain what the verses meant. She just sowed those seeds of Scripture from the King James Bible in their hearts. … “I can’t think of anything, anything in all my life that has made such a radical difference as those verses,” says Fred Craddock. “The Spirit of God brings them to my mind appropriately, time and time and time again.” (Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories p. 33-34.)

I’ve noticed the same things about scripture. Sometimes those passages and stories which are written in our hearts, sown likes seeds, come to us at just the right time. They remind us how to live following in Jesus way. It helps us to remember who we are as God’s people. This is especially important in a week when passages of scripture were be used to justify separating migrant children from their parents. Thankfully churches of all denominations have stood up and loudly proclaimed that this is not what the bible says. People remember that God calls us to welcome the stranger to care for others in our midst. Some have used the opportunity to remember that Jesus himself was an immigrant. It is at times like this, when the words of scripture are distorted and used to justify cruelty, it then that we need the second parable … the mustard seed. 

In this one tiny seed we are reminded that God’s kingdom is something unpredictable and can take root in the most amazing places. The mustard seed is really a tenacious weed. It grows whether we want it to or not. One tiny seed reminds us that God’s rule, is something right now and something that by God’s grace we live into. And when God’s word takes root in us our world can indeed be a place where all God’s children are loved and cherished. God’s kingdom of love cannot be stopped. God’s justice that flows in the desert. 

And when God’s word take root in us we live with compassion and mercy. With God’s words ringing in our hearts we live our faith daily by show love to our neighbours and one another. When we plant those seeds amazing things happen in our world.Archbishop Oscar Romeo writes, “This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one-day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. (http://rainandtherhinoceros.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/we-plant-seeds-by-archbishop-romero/)

            Just like the tenacious weed, God’s kingdom cannot be stopped. God will work through us and our brothers and sisters in faith to transform the world bringing healing, hope, justice and peace for all. Let us live into that kingdom. Let us live into that love. Amen.   

No Fair!

When I was a kid I had a keen sense of fairness – particularly when it came to my brother. If he got more than me – no fair. Or maybe it was the question “why did he get to do that and not me?” No fair! Maybe it wasn’t so much a sense of fairness but it seemed that it should be the same for both of us. As a parent now, I know m parents must have grown weary of my cries of no fair because sometimes I would be told, “Life’s not fair.” Fair doesn’t always mean the same. At the heart of the no fair complaint is the idea that somehow we are missing out on something a sibling or neighbour has or that someone has received something more or better. This not something that exist between sibling. It is part of our culture. We expect that that who work the hardest, longest best will get the biggest reward. We expect that those who’ve done the right things be held in higher esteem than those who have not. 

I’m guessing things weren’t much different in Jesus day. Somehow, we want what the other has. Then Jesus comes on the scene telling parables that open our minds and change our hearts. Today is a kingdom of heaven parable. Parables about the kingdom of heaven remind us of the difference between our world and world shaped in God’s image. Today’s parable gets to the heart of what’s fair. This parable reminds us that our sense of what is fair is so different what God says is fair. It is one of those challenging parables because sometimes I think we would like to keep God’s grace in a box and dole it out only to those we think are worthy or who have earned it. 

Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out to hire day labourers.” They agreed to work for the usual daily wage and went to work in the vineyard. Life for day labourers was extremely difficult. They went to the market place each day hoping and praying that someone would hire them. It was a precarious way to earn a living. The usual daily wage for day labourers is barely enough to support a family. You can imagine how important it was to get hired.  The landowner returned to the market at 9 o’clock, and noon and three and saw people waiting to be hired for the day. So hired more workers each time. Each time the landowner told the workers hired later in the day that he’d pay them a fair wage. At the end of the work day all the workers are told that those who were hired last would be paid first. So the labourers all line up. The landowner then pays those hired later in the day the usual daily wage. They must have been shocked. They did not expect this at all. They were only expecting a portion of a day’s wage instead they got the whole thing. 

    As the line worked its way toward those who were hired at the start of the day, you can almost feel the expectations rising. Can imagine what those hired first are thinking? They ones who’d worked hard all day. The ones who saw everyone get the full days wage. They were expecting some kind of a bonus. They are probably thinking to themselves, “If they got the full day’s wage, then I surely will get more. I worked through the heat of the day” Not unreasonable. But when the land owner hands them the same as those who’d been hired late in the day, they cried out, “no fair. I worked all day, through the heat of the sun and I get the same as they do? No way.” The landowner says, “'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” (Matthew 20:13 – 15) It is the kind of parable that turns people’s expectations upside down. 

    In this kingdom of heaven parable there are no favourites. This is God’s generosity at work. The truth is no one has been robbed of anything or treated badly. It is more a problem of expectations. Those who worked longest and hardest expected that they would get more than those who only worked a portion of the day. It does not jive with their sense of justice that says, “those who work hardest and longest deserve the most.”  From the perspective of the one who was hired late in the day – it is an unimaginable gift. He is the one who worried about going home yet again with no money for food. For him it is a story of incredible grace. 

    And so it is with God’s grace. It is generous. It gives us all that we need. It is a parable that reminds us that God’s kingdom is for everyone those who laboured through the heat of the day and those who come late. We all get the same gifts of grace, forgiveness and abiding love. 

It is perhaps easy imagine that this parable has nothing to do with our daily living. But maybe there are times where we too might confess that we resent that others have something we want or don’t have. I know I’ve been there. It is hard place to be because the resentments grow and fester and it has a way of blinding. When hearts are filled with resentment it is difficult to appreciate what you do have. Filled with longing for what others have we miss the signs of God’s grace at work. Jesus reminds us that God’s generosity is not limited by our expectations of what is fair. 

    The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out to hire labourers for the work of the vineyard – and gives everyone gifts of grace. The kingdom of heaven is not like the world we inhabit day to day. The kingdom of heaven has nothing to do with fair or not fair. It is the promise that all who follow in Christ’s way will receive gifts of grace, forgiveness and abiding love. It is generosity beyond our imagining. Whether they worked through the heat of the day or were hired at the last minute, we God’s grace defies expectations. The gifts of the kingdom are for everyone. That is good news. That is grace. Amen

Wheat and Weeds

As you might imagine, the gospel reading for this morning has inspired me to think about wheat and weeds. Gardeners and famers all know that they don’t want weeds in their flower beds or fields. They take the good nutrients from the soil and they make it harder for the stuff we want to growing to grow. My front lawn, much to Scott’s chagrin, is a testament that very principle. We want grass but there are dandelions everywhere. For several years we even waged a battle with gout weed in our flower beds.

            Here is my problem. I like weeds – well maybe not gout weed. Some weeds have beautiful flowers. A field of dandelions is a glorious shade of yellow. When I come home from work and see that field of yellow, I smile. Queen Anne’s lace has a delicate flower. The thistle is beautiful shade of purple and green. The lilies of the field that Jesus talked about – beautiful red weeds that grow in every crack in the concrete. I’m not alone. The Iona community published a whole book called Dandelions and Thistles. My favourite poem from the collection is called Dandelions and Thistles.

In the beginning

God saw the cheerful unrepentant weeds:

Thistles and dandelions—

They were fruitful and multiplied.

They bloomed on poor soil

And in the barren wilderness;

They brought colour into a solemn world.

…

God, knowing the secret of life and death,

Created green shouts that spring up after rain,

flowers that follow sun

fruits that will only grow

if they fall in the earth and die.

These weeds – as down-to-earth as you or me

are parables of the wisdom and work of God.

            Jesus parable for us today is as complex as our relationship with weeds. Don’t get confused with last week’s parable of the Sower. This different. Jesus is talking about wheat and weeds. It is another kingdom of God parable. There once was a farmer who sowed good seed but at night while the hired hands were sleeping, an enemy came and sowed weeds. When the wheat started to grow so did the weeds. The farm hands came and asked the master if he used good seed. He says, “An enemy has done this.” (Matthew 13:28) When they ask if they should pull up all the weeds. The farmer says, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:29 – 30)

This is a parable of God’s grace. It is easy to miss if we focus the weeds being bundled and burned. Pay attention to some other details in the parable. The person who planted the seed was the boss – the master. In Jesus’ day that was unheard of. The master doesn’t plant, the workers do. Then, the master instructs them to let the wheat and weeds grow together. Elizabeth Johnson says, “What Matthew most likely refers to, however, is darnel or cockle, a noxious weed that closely resembles wheat and is plentiful in Israel. The difference between darnel and real wheat is evident only when the plants mature and the ears appear. The ears of the real wheat are heavy and will droop, while the ears of the darnel stand up straight.” https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=979

Here is the challenge of the parable and for us in our daily lives. You can’t always tell the difference between the wheat the weeds and God looks on things very differently than we do. Maybe we humans are a strange mixture of wheat and weeds; good and bad. Sometimes we do wonderful things and sometimes we turn from God’s ways. The master, God, lets them both grow together because you can’t always tell who is going to be bear the fruit of the kingdom. That’s the beauty of this parable. God is telling is it not up to us decide who is the wheat and who is weeds – who is in and who is out. God is saying – leave that to me. Because sometimes – maybe most of the time – people will surprise you.

 That was certainly true of Jacob. God did not choose Jacob but not because he was perfect or even at first glance a good human being. Jacob is a liar and a cheat. He stole his brother’s inheritance and blessing and now his on the run from his rightfully angry brother. After a long day spent fleeing his brother’s wrath, Jacob find himself alone in strange place. God comes to him in a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder.  As he dream, God makes a promise to Jacob that echoes the one made to Abraham and Isaac before him:

            “I am the Lord... the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:13 – 15)

            Then Jacob changes. Love has a way of transforming lives. Jacob says, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, ... so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house.” (Genesis 28: 20 – 22)

            This is the heart of the good news. It is for all of us. God’s love transforms our lives. God takes the broken or missing pieces in our lives and makes us whole. Jacob was a strange mixture of wheat and weeds and yet God made him the heir to a promise. God says “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” The same is true for us. God is with us no matter what. God knows our hearts. We too can pray Psalm 139, “O God, you have searched me and known me. ...How deep your designs are to me, O God! How great their number! I try to count them but they are more than sand. I come to the end – I am still with you.” (Psalm 139)

            God’s kingdom is beyond compare. God searches our hearts and knows us – the good and the bad – the weeds and the wheat and loves us and walks with us. That is God’s amazing grace to us. We do not need to worry about who is in or who is out. Our calling is simple – follow in Jesus way of compassion and love. Then leave the rest to God’s infinite and amazing grace. Amen.