2 Pentecost 2009
Mark 4:26-34
“Towering Cedar or Lowly Weed?”
Pastor Chris Enstad
Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.
I love Jesus’ parables. The root word of “parable” is parabalo from which we get the word parabolic, that half arc that carries with it the sense of some kind of motion and that is indeed what these teachings of Jesus were. Stories of the kingdom of god lobbed into the middle of our everyday lives like verbal hand grenades with the pin pulled. One way or the other, when one hears these parables something is going to happen.
I love these parables of Christ because they resist the human temptation to make moralistic or legalistic rules out of them. We can’t take them and demand anything specific from each other in order to “be Christian”. Indeed, Jesus’ parables take all of our assumptions and turn them on their head yet do so in a living way that begs us to stay close, to hear them over and over again to to stand in wonder at this amazing Word of God that can change us and our world.
And that is another thing about parables that I love. While they resist us attaching moralistic rules to them they also deny us the opportunity to just sit in our pews and nod our heads in assent or shake them in disbelief. They are not philosophical issues for us to decide to agree with or not in our head… these parables, when heard by a believer, create movement, they require us to change our assumptions, our values, our priorities, our attitudes and our actions towards each other and our neighbor. Is God ruling or not? If God is ruling then we better tune our ears to hear just how that rule sounds and change our hearts to show love to each other and our world in a radically different manner then we are doing right now.
So here we have Jesus looking around himself and his surroundings and to answer the question, “What will is the kingdom of God coming to earth like?” The answer becomes this, God’s coming to this world should be compared to a person sowing a field.
Huh? Come again? You are telling me that the kingdom of God is like a farmer waking up one day, looking out at his or her field, and deciding that it’s time to plant some seeds? Well, ok, we can handle the agrarian theme it fits contextually with Jesus time… so we’ll listen a bit longer. So the person slept and got up night and day and the seed did what seed does, and the earth did what the earth does, and things started to grow. And when the grain was ripe the farmer went into the field with a sickle to be a part of the harvest.
Jesus, I think you may have lost us there. Would you care to try again?
Sure, Jesus looks around, let’s see let’s see what can we compare the kingdom of God to… hmm… do you have a spice rack? Umm, yes. Where’s that jar of mustard seed? Here you go. Ok, Jesus says, as he dumps one little mustard seed into his hand, the kingdom of God is like this mustard seed.
This small seed grows into a large bush and those who need rest use its branches.
Is it any wonder Jesus pulled the disciples aside to explain these parables to them. At least we don’t need any explaining. You guys get these things right?
No? But I must because I’m the expert right? Well, guess what, when it comes to the parables Jesus puts us all on even ground. These things are not meant to be easy and they are supposed to be disturbing. They are meant to kick us off center and create some kind of response whether that response be belief, disbelief, thankfulness, or frustration.
Let me give it a shot and keep in mind that how these parables hit you might be different than they hit me and tomorrow our perspectives may have switched places.
The church growth movement really took off these past 30 or 40 years. Much emphasis was placed on, many conferences attended, books written, committees put together, people and money enlisted, to get our congregation bigger. But guess what? The church growth movement is now being seen as a product of the unhealthiest parts of our culture. The same culture that landed us in this recession is the one that said bigger is better and successful equals big and if we keep adding staff and programs so that there is always stuff going on it will feel alive and big and that’s good right?
Guess what, that model of church was wrong. It felt good, it looked good, it went after what people felt they “needed” but what it failed to do was produce a Christian who could take charge of their own faith, who knew how to nurture, feed and sustain themselves. Bill Hybels out at Willow Creek was the first to discover this but closer to the Ltuheran church is Walt Kallestad down in Arizona and for him it took a heart attack to bring about a change of heart. If we work just a little harder to get just a few more bodies in this building then we will be successful. Turns out workaholism is not a model for being the church either.
No, church growth does not equal church health and I think that’s what we’re being called to in this new era. As congregations grow larger folks start actually becoming disconnected from each other, from God, from God’s Word and from what it means to truly be a Christian living fully in the world. Church becomes something you do or a place you go on Sundays and Wednesdays and all of those other hours in the week are given over to a God-absent, faith-starved, joyless life where your neighbor goes hungry or naked, your kids succumb to anxiety and depression, and the marriage failure rate is at 50 percent. Does that sound healthy to you?
So what if we listened to these parables with the ears of a Christian wondering what it will look like when the kingdom of God comes? What if we listened to these parables with the ears of a person for whom church the way it has been done made them only more tired and frustrated and with that call of lament, Jesus, what are we supposed to do? And is it worth it?
Well, then here’s what I would say… look at what the sower is called to do and then look at what God does in that first parable. The sower sows, then he sleeps and wakes, day by day, and the growth happens. He takes care of himself and God does what God is supposed to do. And when it is time for the harvest, that farmer is there in the field ready to help. Plant the seeds, take care of yourself, get ready for the harvest. That strikes me as a good deal different then the way we do kingdom work isn’t it? Man.
And that second parable, that one will convict me until the day I die. You know I am just like any other person when it comes to my ideas of Jesus, God and heaven. I walk around all day looking up looking for the big, the bold, the beautiful I’m looking for the cedars of Lebanon, for God who stays far away from my life and just sits to judge if I’m good or bad, and for Jesus to have a big letter S on his chest to come as superman to kill all my enemies.
Today I hear of a God come near in Jesus Christ, who would find his victory in his death, talking about the kingdom of God as a common weed, a shrub.
Instead of looking up we should be looking down brothers and sisters. Our junior and senior high students are on mission trips this week and that is one of the best things that happens on those trips… no one can predict just how they will go but one thing is for sure. That hustle and bustle of a crazy, unhealthy life where all anyone is taught to care about is me, myself, and I goes bye-bye for a few days and the gear shift is dropped a few gears to get these kids to slow down and look around and then get to work making their neighbors lives just a bit better.
Because you know we treat people much the same way we treat our faith. We like to hang out with the flowers, not the weeds. We like to hang out with people at our social level or higher and have little time or effort to expend on the least, the lost, or the lowly.
But you know what, that is where the kingdom of God spreads its power in wonderful and amazing ways, often despite our efforts. I had my driveway repaved and guess what those weeds found their way up and through the smallest of cracks. And that drought last month… my grass got brown but the weeds? Nope… more than ever.
That’s why this parable disturbs me but then causes me to give thanks to God. For the work of planting, sleeping, waking, and harvesting and for the kingdom of God that is already at hand despite all of my assumptions about what Christianity should look like, how God should do God’s work, how I should do my work, and how Jesus should do his job… through all of this is that thread of truth. The kingdom of God has spread its branches so that all of you who are tired of this crazy and insane life we have built for ourselves might find rest. Rest in the arms of the One who spread his arms for you and for me on the cross and who beckons us, even today, in the bread and wine, to come find our rest.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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