 Contact us: 508-362-3977 stmary@cape.com |
||
|
Sermons at Saint Mary's
The Second Sunday after Pentecost Almighty God, the breeze of your love and grace is ever blowing; may we set our sails to capture that breeze, and may it inspire these words and those who hear them. Amen Did you ever try to explain to a small child where babies come from? I’m not talking about the “facts of life” talk with an older child but about the kind of conversation you might have with a younger child who is about to have a sibling, or who has heard about a baby being “in Mommy’s tummy”—a situation where you know the facts and you want to be accurate, but you also know that whether because of age or immaturity or lack of experience, your audience just isn’t quite ready to grasp all those facts. And so you end up with a “sorta, kinda” explanation—it’s sorta like this, kinda like that— you talk about birds and bees or planting seeds or use other simple metaphors, and wait for a fuller understanding to emerge as time goes by. If you’ve ever had to make that kind of explanation about anything, you might have some empathy for Jesus in today’s gospel. Jesus has the monumental task of trying to explain the kingdom of God to his disciples and to the crowds that follow him everywhere he goes. Surely Jesus knows EXACTLY what the kingdom of God will be, but he also knows that his audience has a very different conception of what a kingdom is, and likely isn’t ready to absorb or understand how God’s kingdom is different. So Jesus resorts to parables, to similes and metaphors that will “sorta, kinda” clue his audience in. One commentator has likened parables to political cartoons. A good political cartoon will have surface value, an immediate impact that doesn’t require deep analysis. There is something in the cartoon that is funny or ironic at first glance, something that captures our attention. But a good political cartoon also invites deeper analysis. It may cause us to question an assumption, to see a situation from a new perspective. Or it may confirm or strengthen something we already know or believe. And sometimes, a political cartoon will fall flat. We don’t get it; the irony misses its mark, the humor fails, we react with an “eh” and we just move on. So it is with the parables we hear in our gospel. These parables come at the end of a whole series of parables that Jesus tells his followers, beginning with the familiar parable of the sower, parables that are meant to “sorta, kinda” convey what the kingdom of God is all about. Almost all of these parables rely on agricultural metaphors, using images that would resonate with Jesus’ audience, images that would have immediate meaning. But like political cartoons, these parables use the familiar images with irony, humor and paradox and invite one to go deeper, to come to a richer understanding of the message. In the first of these two parables, one that is unique to Mark’s gospel, Jesus tells his followers that the kingdom of God is like someone scattering seed on the ground and then going home and going to sleep, only to return to find that the seed has sprouted, “he knows not how.” Of course the paradox any good farmer or gardener would be quick to point out is that it is seldom that easy. Seeds must be watered, weeds must be pulled, tender young plants must be protected from the birds and animals that would feast on them prematurely. And yet, Jesus says, these seeds just sprouted and grew and produced a bountiful harvest. Just like that. The second parable is one that is more familiar, so familiar in fact that we risk missing the irony that it conveys. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like the mustard seed, the tiniest of all seeds, that when planted grows into a large and sturdy shrub, one so large and sturdy that like a tree, it can provide shelter for the birds of the air. This is, of course, a reassuring image—out of something tiny something great can grow—but the irony here is that the mustard plant was a weed, not something that anyone would’ve planted on purpose in their fields; in fact, great effort had to be expended removing mustard plants where crops were planted. So the kingdom of God is paradoxically (sorta, kinda) like seeds that grow to produce an abundant harvest without any tending; the kingdom of God is ironically (sorta, kinda) like a tiny seed that sprouts into an enormous shrub, even where it was not necessarily wanted. Like the disciples, we’re left to work out how we fit into that kingdom, what our role in its instantiation might be. To an audience living in a world dominated by the Roman Empire, a world in which following Jesus was a subversive, even dangerous endeavor, understanding that God’s kingdom could—and would— grow and flourish under less than ideal circumstances would’ve been reassuring. The disciples were sent to sow the seed—to spread the Word—but it would not always be possible for them to stay and tend to the crop. But no matter, for God ultimately is the farmer, the one in whose care our faith is nurtured, our lives in Christ supported. And like the mustard seed, communities of believers would take root from a tiny seed and grow in the most unlikely of places. We need only to look at the ministry of Paul to see how the emerging church blossomed from modest beginnings in unexpected places, growing and flourishing despite efforts to weed it out. In our world, it’s no longer dangerous or subversive to follow Jesus, but we too should be reassured by what these parables teach us about the kingdom of God. Like the disciples we are called to sow the seed, to spread the Word, and like the disciples we must trust that in God’s care those seeds will grow and produce fruit. We might not see it happen, we might not know the outcome—and in today’s world where measuring productivity is so essential that goes against our grain—but that should not, cannot prevent us from continuing to be evangelists, to share the good news of God in Christ in our words and in our actions. Nor can we underestimate the power of a simple word, a small gesture, a kind act in sowing that seed to spread the kingdom. What is the kingdom of God like? In this world, we are still children who can only “sorta, kinda” understand God’s kingdom; truly knowing the kingdom of God, truly experiencing it is something that will come only at the last days, when we are joined to God in eternity. But the gift of Jesus means that we are allowed glimpses of that kingdom, we are invited into that kingdom every day even as we work to enact it. The parables we hear today encourage us to look for that kingdom of God in possibilities and incongruities, not in a world where things are always planned and linear and logical but rather in a world filled with mysteries and surprises. Perhaps we can only “sorta, kinda” understand God’s kingdom, but we are invited to delight in it and we are invited to share it with others. At the end of our service each week, we are sent into the world to love and serve the Lord. Today I invite you take those words seriously, to go forth remembering that we never know when a seed that we plant might take root and grow to produce fruit, remembering that there is no word or act too small to plant to spread the kingdom of God. Amen. top | home | site index |
||