Ezekiel 17:22-24; Mark 4:26-34
Becoming blessedly
scatterbrained is a good and faithful thing.
I’ll explain what I mean by this in just a few minutes. Let’s first focus our brains on the origin
of the New Testament word we translate in English as “parable.”
It’s rooted in two
Greek words. The first word is “para”
which means “beside,” and the second word is “ballo” meaning “to cast or throw.” So we can say that “parables are stories
thrown alongside our lives.”[i] Jesus did a good amount of this throwing
alongside the lives of his disciples. He
did so, as one of my Presbyterian colleagues has pointed out, “to stimulate his
audience’s imagination so that they might perceive the power and presence of
God in a new and immediate way.”[ii] He used these symbolically spoken,
comparisons driven, economically worded, paradoxical parables to teach and
reinforce awesome holy truth.
In this morning’s Gospel passage, we read of
Jesus tossing out twin parables about the word kingdom as it relates to God. What does your mind remind you about
concerning kingdoms? Beyond all the King Arthur images that might
quick bob up to the surface, what you are reminded about is likely not terribly
different than what came to mind for the first disciples who lived under the brazen
reign of Roman emperors and whose own Jewish history was steeped in complex stories
of King David. We think of lands and
ruling people that have all the privileges and perils of greatness and
power. We think of maintaining and consistently
feeding certain social systems, no matter the human cost. We
think of growing kingdoms in terms of conquering other rulers and peoples.
To the ears of those
who directly heard Jesus speak parables about God’s kingdom, and to ours today,
the message is clear – God’s good rule and reign is greater than any worldly one.
By way of His God-in-person presence,
Jesus made it clear that the holy kingdom was very directly, radically, and redemptively
breaking-in. It does so to take over unjust,
sin-swamped ruling structures and to restore God’s loving order and great hope
to all God’s children. I really like
that when it comes to God’s kingdom, some Christians prefer to call it God’s kin-dom since it is truly about being
and respecting and growing the diverse family of God’s beloved community in
Christ.
For those first
century folks being pressed down by the giant thumb of Roman authority – with
its deifying of human emperors, it’s idol worship, it’s hungry lions and such –
this was amazing and radical news. It
doesn’t take much imagination for us to sense how much they must have wanted to
receive and to be part of immediate, miraculous results as the good greater
power promptly trumped the lesser. It
doesn’t take much imagination to realize they wanted to do whatever it took to
make God’s fair, beautiful, inclusive kingdom grow. Their role
and responsibility in this holy revolution is what Jesus is addressing in the
twin-parables of this morning’s text in Mark.
What he had to say, however, did not sound like any brave-hearted battle
cry of William Wallace.
He used the commonly
understood language of farming to get his unexpected holy point across. In
our scientifically enlightened age, many of us here know what is needed to
cultivate good soil. We can explain in
great detail the stages and variables of crop growth. For Jesus and his hearers in their time, it
was enough to just know that a farmer scatters seed and then lived with the day
and night however-long-it-takes process of patiently waiting for the earth to
mysteriously produce of itself. It was
enough to know that the sowing of something tiny and seemingly insignificant – such
a simple mustard seed – can grow into a very great shelter for life.
These twin-parables –
of the seed scatterers and the mustard seed – seem straightforward enough. But it required human imagination then and
still does today to see and accept that the almighty, eternal, egalitarian power
of God works in this way. It does not
conquer and expand by violent, oppressive force. The seeds of it – in the form of the love
Jesus taught by word and personal example -- need to be sown from faithful hands,
but those same hands then need to patiently fold together and trust in God alone
to produce holy-timed harvests. For the
first Christians and every Christian ever since, this teaches us completely trust
in Jesus while we await with great faith the further breaking-in of God’s reign
of love, peace, and justice.
We human beings are such
industrious doers. We have tried and
true methods for producing the results we need, want, expect, demand. We trust in these methods and in ourselves
for carrying them out. As another
pastor puts it, “Being busy and dogmatic makes a lot of sense to us. It fits
with our normal way of being human. We achieve all sorts of goods by working
hard and committing ourselves to our values: well-run offices, good grades, better schools, the
politicians of our choice, svelte figures, neatly trimmed lawns, and so on.”[iii] And I know this industrious tendency
certainly holds true in church life as well.
We want to know exactly how to “sow seeds” that will produce “the
harvest” of more church members, more money coming in, more of whatever it
takes to help us feel the local and national and global church future is
secure.
Yes, it can be
terribly hard to abide in what Jesus taught in these parables. It feels flat out unnatural to sow, let go, and let grow in God’s grace. The timing, depth and breadth of God’s growing
kingdom is not in our control. Once
we’ve obediently scattered the Good News of Jesus Christ in every field we find
ourselves in, we wait on the real power to sprout. The grace of God is all-sufficient. In this we place our most deeply faithful
trust.
The lesson of this
parable also comes into play with regard to our parenting and grandparenting. Mindful of this morning’s parable and
today being Father’s Day, my seminary preaching professor, Dr. Alyce McKenzie,
offers the following perspective –
“Some parents are too
controlling and want to tell the seed exactly what kind of plant to become. Some parents are too lax and don't help create
good conditions for the seeds to grow. While other parents are like the sower
in the parable of the growing seed, they sow and wait with patience.”[iv] As a parent in the “garden” with two
daughters and a step-son in hand (so to speak), I can certainly relate on all
three of these counts! As I aspire to
sow and wait with patience, I’m daily reminded of how very much I deeply trust
in the gracious power of Jesus Christ alive in our lives.
Now, back to the idea
of becoming blessedly scatterbrained. We’ve
been reminded that our daily discipline as Christians is to scatter Gospel seed
on the grounds of our lives. And, again,
today’s twin-parables teach us that we have to then loose our control about
what happens next. We must truly trust
God is cultivating it all. As I
interpret this, we have to become blessedly scatterbrained – that is, we have to
have an obedient mind always at the read to scatter the seeds, but then this
same mind has to become less organized, less in control of direct
outcomes. The flightier in faith we become after we sow,
the deeper our trust in God’s power to bring about holy flourishing!
To bring this home
more, and as a final illustration, let’s briefly consider last Sunday’s
wonderful and successful Fairmount Country Fair. This wasn’t just a festival … it was also
and more importantly faithful farming.
It wasn’t just an event fostering family fun and helping church
funds. It was witness to our Gospel
presence in this community and to our Christian commitment to faithfully work
together in scattering seeds of loving welcome and hospitality. And now that it has ended, we trust that
the grace of God that inspired us to sow will then sprout up in the lives of
all who gave time to planning, presenting and attending. Let’s
be blessedly scatterbrained about it, let’s realize this was more than a
community event … it was a faithful happening to God’s glory and for the sake
of God’s kin-dom. Amen!
[i]
Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the
Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16)
(Kindle Locations 5155-5156). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition
[ii]ibid.
[iii]
Ibid.
[iv]
http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/What-Good-Fathers-Know-Alyce-McKenzie-06-11-2012.html
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