4th Sunday After Pentecost
Jun 19, 2024
Mark 4:26-34
In the movie Mask (1985), Rocky, whose face is deformed, tries to find a way to describe color to Diane, who is blind. How does one explain what blue is if you’ve never seen it? He comes up with an idea and uses a rock he put in the freezer and places it in her hand. “This is blue,” he says. He gets an avocado and has her smell it. This is green. He takes a hot boiled potato and puts it in her hand and tells her it is red. As it cools, that’s pink. And he gives her a handful of cotton balls and tells her, “That’s billowy. Like clouds.”
And how does one explain Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to a person who can’t hear? Or the fragrance of flowers to one who can’t smell? I think that’s what Jesus is up against when he tries to describe what the Kingdom of God is like to his followers. He almost seems to be searching for a way to try and explain it when they (and we) have yet to truly see it. “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?” When it comes to truly understanding the Kingdom of God, we are all blind and deaf. None of our senses of taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound can fully explain it. We can only be told about it by metaphor, like Rocky describing the color blue.
We get three different parables from Jesus today that try to illustrate it for us. This first one points to the hiddenness of the presence of the Kingdom, the mystery of God at work among us. As God’s people, we may take what we have, ourselves, use what abilities we have to plant the seeds and do it faithfully, but we can’t make that seed grow. There are so many other elements that come into play here that are out of our control. But we don’t avoid planting the seeds because we have no control over it or because it’s just too risky to do so or because we come to believe that it’s impossible. After all, there is no guarantee of success. But the planter of seeds knows that God has asked them to plant the seed. That’s it. The outcome is not ours. We do what we can, and then we rest. The earth produces of itself and we have to be ok with not being in control over that seed but trust that there is something at work that is far greater than anything the seed sower, or you and I for that matter, can manifest. This is like the Holy Spirit at work in our community and we are asked to do our part and trust that the Spirit is working in ways we cannot see or understand.
Scientifically we now know more about germination, the sprouting of a seed, usually after a period of dormancy. The absorption of water, the passage of time, chilling, warming, oxygen availability, and light exposure may all operate in initiating the process. But we don’t make it happen. We plant the seed, do our best to tend to it, and let it go. And one day we see a plant emerging from the earth. The spiritual process is often about letting go. That is how the kingdom of God is at work in us. Work and rest and mystery.
Our difficulty arises in confusing the way of the kingdom with our ordinary way of doing things. Jesus is calling us to a very different way of being with ourselves, with one another, and with the divine by asking us to recognize that spiritual growth and intimacy with God arises as naturally as seeds growing. Our distrust of this process and our over thinking can really get in the way of mystery at work.
Jesus comes up with another attempt to explain the kingdom of God which is here now, but also not yet. Paul alludes to this in his first letter to the Corinthians when he explains that now we see through a glass dimly, but then we shall see face to face. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It’s a tiny seed, hardly noticeable and yet a huge shrub-like plant comes out of it. We often think that our practices of faith in our small church can’t possibly make much difference, but we can make a world of difference to the lives around us. It’s like Jesus is telling us not to evaluate God’s work among us in what things appear to be. Mother Teresa understood when she said all of us can do small things with great love.
The other revealing truth Jesus plants in this parable is that the mustard seed grows into the greatest of all shrubs. Now, this really made me smile because Jesus truly knows how to throw some shade (no pun intended.) The mustard seed does not grow into a magnificent oak, nor a beautiful elm tree. It’s a shrub. No glamor, no dominance over the other trees, just an ordinary (although unwieldy) shrub that no one would think was special when they walked by. They might even think it’s not worth anything. The shrub did not develop into something flashy and spectacular, it was what it was, a shrub made from a tiny seed faithfully planted in the ground and it became what God intended it to be. A place where the birds could find a place in its cool branches to call home. The shrub became so much more than what its origins as a tiny seed would lead anyone to believe. So much more than we could ask or imagine. It became a place of community and fellowship.
“You are never of little consequence.
You matter the world to Christ.“
Even with these stories and parables that Jesus uses to teach us, we cannot quite understand. Even though he taught the disciples privately, explaining further the Kingdom of God, they also didn’t get it completely. Kind of like Diane in the movie Mask trying to understand what blue is, we can only grasp a vague understanding of the true beauty of what God’s kingdom is like.
In these kernels of truth buried in these parables we find hope. Jesus tries and tries to get us to see the paradox of the kingdom, of how he turns our understanding of what is important and the promise of the Good News upside down. We are only asked to do our part, but we must do our part. The seeds that never get planted result in no harvest which in turn results in famine, both physical and spiritual. But we are not asked to do more than our part. Sometimes we help someone else shoulder theirs, sometimes others help us, but we plant in faith and are not in charge of the outcome. Our responsibility to support our ministry here at St. Christopher’s is our faithful pledge to God, not to the outcome. We give of ourselves, our time, our treasure, and our talent to God. God will take those offerings given in love and faith and set about God’s business. We have to trust this.
Likewise, our small offerings matter greatly. The mustard seed reminds us that to compare ourselves with other bigger and more impressive things is to underestimate what God can do and how God often prefers to work. Jesus did not come as a handsome movie star to impress us so we would follow him. Quite the opposite. Jesus doesn’t play like that. He was unimpressive himself, and certainly had no stake in wealth or power. His chosen disciples were not exactly successful and powerful people themselves that would entice large numbers of people to follow him. They were people on the sidelines: fishermen, social outcasts, people of no consequence in the world. Those are the kinds of seeds Jesus planted because Jesus sees the value and worth of those small things that we think don’t matter. You are never of little consequence. You matter the world to Christ. Jesus sees what you have to give and will plant you, where you are as you are, and through the power of the Spirit, not your own, you and we will grow into a place where others can find welcome and healing and a place to call home.
We may not understand how it all works, but we can trust that God will take what we offer and plant it and let it grow while we rest. God’s kingdom is like the color blue that we try to understand by holding a cold rock. It is a mystery, but one we trust to be true. That is faith.
Magdalena's Musings 