Mark
4:26-34
Ezekiel
17:22-24
2 Corinthians
5:6-17
Faith Conversation: Where do you
find hope growing in your life, in this neighborhood, and in this world?
Every year when I was in grade
school, I planted a sunflower in a little dixie cup and set it in the classroom
window. Every year, I took that sprout
home when it was about 2 inches tall, and within an hour, I had broken it. I was too curious about my plant. I wanted to touch it, to discover everything
I could about it. I wanted to understand
how it stood so straight and supported 2 little leaves. I wanted to know how that little seed I had
planted had become this new creation. I
wanted to know everything about this little plant and I destroyed it in the
process. Now I realize, they should have
had us plant two of them, one for poking and prodding and the other for
planting and leaving the heck alone.
“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, she does not know
how.’” I was so curious about my plant
that I couldn’t do the sleeping part. I
couldn’t let go of it to let the plant be itself and grow into something even
more amazing. I never actually grew a
sunflower until Sterling said two years ago that he’d like to plant a
sunflower. Now there’s a plant that can
support birds! I love seeing the birds
landing on a full headed sunflower, the large head swaying back and forth, the
bird holding on for dear life, all for the chance to pluck a seed from it and
be fed.
The Kingdom of God, the realm of
God, the sphere of influence of God, the presidency of God, the place, the
time, the situation, in which God’s values and vision are being realized—God’s
values and vision of shalom: love, trust, hope, wholeness, peace. God wants us to share that vision. God wants to bring in the vision through
us. God wants us to recognize places and
times and situations in which that vision emerges or breaks in.
God wants us to share God’s
vision of love, trust, hope, wholeness, and peace. If we only have this world as is, we are in
despair, because what is there to hope for?
We are always looking ahead to what might be. We remain hopeful. That is the seed. In the seed there is possibility. We know not all seeds germinate, however
within a seed is everything needed to make a new plant. Add a couple of other ingredients, add
favorable conditions and the seed will sprout and grow. New life is possible. Maybe it will produce fruit that we can
eat. Maybe it will provide shelter for
us or for insects and birds. No seed is
too small. No possibility of new life is
too insignificant to matter to God.
God wants to bring the vision in
through us. God wants to include us in
the work of bringing the Kingdom into being.
Are we the sewer, tossing the seed, sleeping and waking and not knowing
how it takes root and grows? That sounds
like us, in some ways. We have our
active part to play. We have our seeds
to plant, conversations to have, actions to take. Then we have to let go of what we have no
control over. God is the one who knows
how the seed begins to sprout and gives sunshine and rain in proper quantities
that new life can grow, and if not here, perhaps nearby. If not this year, perhaps next year. But we could also be the seed, that God
created and makes to grow. None of us is
too small to matter. We can all make a
difference to someone. We can shelter a
bird and by doing so, give glory to God.
We can all write a letter to connect.
We can all show up and protest the brutal treatment of families that
cross our borders. We can all contact
our senator or representative. We can
all contribute. We can all bring hope to
someone.
God wants us to recognize when
and where the vision is taking root. Sometimes
we look at this world and we feel trapped.
We feel small. We don’t know if
things are getting better or worse.
Sometimes that vision overwhelms us of a world in which people don’t
have enough to eat, children are being torn from their parents’ arms,
corporations develop seeds which they copyright so no one else can plant them,
war drives millions from their homes, natural disasters take the lives of
people and animals. Simultaneously, the
Kingdom vision is near. Children learn
one another’s languages, habitat is restored for endangered animals and plants,
someone comforts a neighbor who is grieving, people speak out against
oppressive regimes. Despite the sin and
despair, there is hope, because God has given us a promise and a story of a
people who live by this promise.
Through our faith, we know a
story of love that reminds us in our darkest moments that death and despair will
not have the last word, that there is reason to hope, that there is reason to
act and make sacrifices and suffer for what we believe in. We know this is a story of a people long ago,
whom God brought from slavery into freedom.
We know this is a story of Jesus, who taught people to be free of
religious authorities, who used principles of nonviolence to oppose the powers
of the world that destroy and demean. We
know this is a story of us, being liberated from our idols and our comforts and
our despair, to cross over a point of no return, to learn to trust, to live our
values, to begin to sprout and flourish as part of a new creation. This is a story of us standing up to the
Pharaohs and the Pontius Pilates and the Herods and saying, “No more.” This is a story of God using us to bring
liberation to the oppressed and a place to nest and be comforted for the least
of these.
I find hope in the parable of
the mustard seed. I could never be a
cedar. But I can be a mustard
shrub. I think Jesus told this parable with
a twinkle in his eye. It’s like saying
that the Kingdom of God is like a pigeon, when you’d be expecting and
eagle. It’s like saying the Kingdom of
God is like a dandelion, when you might expect a rose bush. The 2nd reading for today, says,
“We regard nothing from a human point of view.”
When we use our human point of view, we want the grand, the beautiful,
the regal. But when we regard life from
God’s point of view, the cedar is no better than the mustard seed. They both are a new creation. They both provide shelter for birds. They are both God’s good creation. And they can both be inspiring to us. When we see the world through God’s point of
view, we are honest about the broken parts of creation, the pain and the sin
that separates us from God and each other, and we also never lose the vision. In fact, we see that vision, that Kingdom breaking
in all the time. We see it in a
cedar. We see it in a pigeon, we see it
in art, we see it in a drug addict, we know it is in the prisons, we know it is
among the poor, we pray that it would come among us and that we would be
liberated from our complacency, our fear, our comforts to see it, name it, and
be part of it. God’s Kingdom is all
around us. New life is all around
us.
I challenge you. Wherever you see oppression and hopelessness,
look at it with God’s eyes. Let yourself
get angry at the injustice. Let your
anger spur you to action. Then picture
the gates swinging open, picture the families reunited. Participate in new life all around you. Be part of the liberation of our
neighbors. Plant your seeds, no matter
how small, and trust that God will make them flourish. Wake and sleep and let them be, until every
bird has a place to rest, until every family is reunited. Look for and name new life around you. Notice it.
Give thanks to God for it. Say to
yourself and others, “I am so grateful for…”
This is one good way of planting seeds.
Not only will you grow spiritually, the Kingdom of God will be furthered
as others around you are affected by your gratefulness and start to see new
life, too, and increase their gratitude. The sunflowers are growing, despite us, and
God is breaking in with nourishment, beauty, shelter, community, justice, and
hope
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