Pentecost 2b – Mark 4
preached by Pr. Phil Heinze at Calvary Lutheran, Richland Hills, TX

I talked to my friend and colleague Pastor Ryan Mills this week. He told me he went to Whole Foods because they have bulk mustard seeds and he wanted to use one in his children’s sermon. He put the seed in the little bag they provide and wrote the number on the tag and took it to the check out. The clerk put the bag on the scale, and then lifted it up, then put it back down, then lifted it up and put it back down. He looked up at Ryan and said, “You only want one seed? Take it. It’s free.”

So, the kingdom of God can be compared to a pastor who gets a single mustard seed for free because it’s too light to be weighed on the scale.

Almost all of Jesus’ parables are about the kingdom of God which should be understood not as a place – a physical kingdom – but as a reign or a rule or the power of God – or better - what the presence of God in the world is like - how it operates – where you find it – what it does. The second thing to say about the parables of the kingdom is that while they do relate to each to other as scenes within a movie they operate independently like a single frame of a longer production. Each parable tells a truth about the kingdom of God but not the whole truth.

The 4th chapter of Mark contains three parables of the presence of God in our world, all of which use the image of a seed. The first is the longest and the more familiar parable of the sower and the four soils – what happens to seeds sown on a hard path, or rocky soil, amongst weeds or in good soil. It is one of the few parables explained in detail. Mark chooses not to give us Jesus’ explanation to these two short parables, but perhaps they don’t need it.

Maybe the danger is in over thinking these two short descriptions of God’s presence in our world. We might get caught up trying to provide more detail than Jesus chooses to give. The truth of these two word pictures can be found in their simplicity. They are parables of the unexplained, the unexpected and the seemingly insignificant.

The unexplained. The seed grows unseen under the earth and despite all the grade school science projects where children witness beans germinating and sprouting in paper towels the process happens without any help from farmer or student. I think we get that part because it is true to our experience. Anyone who has planted a seed knows you simply wait for it to come up. You don’t dig it up everyday to check its progress. You wait and then one day there it is. And so we believe and accept that God works in the world without our help according to whatever God has in mind and we can no more explain it than we can create it.

But then as all good farmers or master gardeners know once the plant sprouts it needs our help. In fact depending on the plant and the conditions it can’t survive or thrive without constant attention. But here Jesus would disagree. The presence of God happens in our world from dusk to dawn while we go through our daily routine of waking and sleeping, working and playing, eating and drinking. The description of the farmer sowing and harvesting is secondary to the punch line of the parable. “All by itself the soil produces grain…”

The Unexpected. There is a temptation that may be peculiar to the American church that believes bigger is better, that every failing church could be a success if it had more exciting worship, more programs, better marketing, or location, location, location. And anything that doesn’t happen in the church or at least is prompted by the church is not as good or even not of God.

But the presence of God in our world sometimes isn’t about the church at all. As many of you know on Tuesday we celebrated the life of Darin McCown, a son of this congregation whose picture is in the Fellowship hall of those whose faith was confirmed within these four walls. His mother, Lanelle, told a story of about Darrin and the time he got his first wallet. It was at Christmas and in the service when the offering plate came down the aisle he got it out and took out all his money and put it in the plate. He didn’t realize what he had done until it was too late and Lanelle said the look on his face said it all. Darrin didn’t go to church much after he was confirmed but if you heard the stories of his 40 years of life you would have heard about a man who spent his whole giving himself away, not unlike the boy who was so proud to have a wallet he gave away all his money. You don’t have to go to church to act like Christ in the world in the same way that all by itself the soil produces grain…The presence of God happens in unexpected ways.

The insignificant. The parable of the mustard seed is not simply about small things producing larger ones. If that were the case there are smaller seeds in Palestine in the same way that are larger plants. The cedars of Lebanon in the Ezekiel vision begin as a very small seed but produce a tree 120 feet high and 9 feet in diameter. That seems a more dramatic example of God in the world and Jesus knew that image very well.

And so Jesus chooses a shrub that many consider a weed to be a sign of the kingdom. It is a small seed to be sure or at least one that doesn’t weigh very much, but the plant itself is only 2 to 8 feet tall and the only birds that can nest in its branches are very small, as insignificant as the seed that provides their home. It’s just like Jesus to compare great things – the presence of the Almighty God - to simple things – a garden shrub that grows like a weed. But then an insignificant mustard seed is not so much a parable as an analogy.

He was born out of wedlock to poor parents in an occupied country. For a short while he gathered some enthusiastic followers but in the end they betrayed, denied and deserted him. He was condemned as a criminal and died naked on a tree. But buried in the earth the seed sprouted and grew and the cross that was the cause of his death became a tree of life for all people.

We miss the kingdom if we don’t look for it in places our world considers insignificant.

Next week we leave for El Paso where we will see the kingdom in the unexplained and the unexpected and the insignificant. I remember last year a little girl in the Colonia of Aqua Dolce. She came running out of a broken down trailer with no electricity or running water to get on the bus to come to day camp. She had almost reached us when she stopped, turned around and ran back to the trailer because she forgot to close the door. She stepped up to the door, closed it with one hand and with the other grabbed a short 2x4 and wedged the door shut. She turned and ran back to the bus with a big smile on her face absolutely unaware of the poverty in which she lived and so excited about getting on the bus with her new friends. A mustard seed of an idea to do a mission trip sprouted some ten years ago and in seeing the joy on a little girl’s face I was the one who found a nest in the shrub that is the kingdom of God.

But that is the way of the kingdom. It is a gift to us as we are a gift to others in the unexplained and the unexpected and the insignificant. But it means we have to give up any notion that we make things those happen. “All by itself the soil produces the grain…”

Last Sunday I was greeting people in the narthex and came up to Melissa Court and her daughter, Rebekah. I tried to make her smile by making faces and talking in that silly way adults do around small children. She gave me a look like what’s wrong with you?

It was the very end of communion when Melissa came up with Rebekah and her parents Jerry and Carol to kneel at the communion rail. I blessed Rebekah and tried again to make her smile. Melissa whispered you have to give her a kiss. I hesitated for just a moment and then bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Sure enough she grinned from ear to ear – and her grandpa next to her could hardly stop laughing.

The kingdom of God is just like that. And maybe the truth is if we were all more like little children we’d know it was God kissing us on the cheek with bread and wine, body and blood, just to see us smile.

To the God who is revealed in the unexplained, the unexpected and the insignificant be all glory and honor and praise. Amen