The Sprouting Seed (Proper 6B)

The Sprouting Seed
Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6)
17th June 2012
Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
Ezekiel 17:22-end; Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14; 2 Cor 5:6-10, 14-17; Mark 4:26-34

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

What would the world look like if everything were as it ought to be?  What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now, of everything?   And the way from here to there—from this messed up worlds where things are not what they ought to be, to one where things are right—what does that process look like?  Is it a political revolution or social disaster? A gradual growth in good trends?  Or simply growth in personal piety and righteousness?  Maybe the growing strength of an institution like the Church? 

How do we get from here to there?  God’s reign—God fully in charge, right here and now—how does that happen?  This is a question that Jesus regularly asked himself, and which became the core of his teaching. 

Mark says that Jesus’ message was a joyful proclamation of the arrival of God to reign in power.  “The time has come.  … God’s kingship has come near. Change your ways and believe the happy news!” (Mark 1:14-15).  

To understand what this means, we need to look a little at the history of the times when Jesus lived.

Jesus lived at a time of world empire. He grew up in Galilee, a minor client state on the fringes of the Roman Empire. Rome had conquered, bought, and otherwise swallowed up all the world known to people living around the Mediterranean. But the Pax Romana, like every “world order” put in into place by force, was largely a creation of the state’s propaganda machine: the leader of a nation about to swallowed up by Rome, is famously reported to have said, “You crucify or enslave whole populations, burn their cities and leave smoldering ruins in their place, and then use the word “peace” to describe the burned-out desert you leave behind.” The state spin-doctors would say again and again that the Emperor was God’s son, and that the Empire was the order and peace intended by the Gods. Like our world today, this was a place where might seemed to make right, and where money and power seemed to count for everything.

Judas Maccabee

One of the peoples thus subjugated by Rome was Jesus’ own, the Jews. Just a century and a half before, they had hoped dearly for deliverance from all their foes and the establishment of God’s just and right kingdom. Judas Maccabee and his army threw off the harsh oppression of the Greek Seleucid kings left behind by Alexander the Great. The Book of Daniel, written at that time, had predicted that the Maccabees and their state would grow and grow, like a rock from the mountains cut out without hands, until it would fill the whole world and smash all systems of oppression and wrong. But that effort had gone seriously wrong. The Maccabees themselves became tyrannical, their rule oppressive and harsh, and their religious establishment hopelessly corrupt. The Temple itself became as much a symbol of oppressive taxes and impossible rules as of God’s presence on earth. Members of the Temple establishment, called Sadducees during Jesus’ time, became quickly the quisling darlings of the Romans. What Daniel had hoped would be the kingdom of God had become just another petty and corrupt oligarchy with a compromised religion and horrendous rulers.

 

Some Jews fled the Maccabean establishment and went into the Judean wilderness, seeking to “prepare in the desert” a way for God’s true kingdom. They called themselves the “sons of Zadok” or the “sons of Light,” and advocated a separation of true believers from the rest of the world, whom they called “the sons of darkness,” and believed they would one day destroy them in a great war for God’s kingdom, together with the evil “Kittim,” or Romans. They are the ones who wrote and left what are now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jewish historian Josephus called them Essenes.

Others reacted to the collapse of political independence with the arrival of the Romans and to the clearly compromised credibility of the Temple authorities by calling for more and more rigorous study and application of the Law of Moses, and for greater and greater distinctions between Jews and non-Jews. We call these people the Pharisees, and it is from them that all modern Judaisms trace their teaching.

Others reacted to the political subjugation of the Jews by the Romans by calling for military rebellion. According to Josephus, a Galilean named Judas led a major revolt against Rome around A.D. 5 in reaction to a tax increase.  The Romans crushed the revolt, and then crucified thousands of the defeated Jewish soldiers. A few surviving guerillas fought on as bandits and terrorists. They are called the Zealots, and were later to lead another revolt from Rome that would bring an end to the Temple, ancient Jerusalem, and most Jewish life in Palestine.

All of these groups in their different ways were trying to answer the question “the Reign of God—what does it look like and how will it come?” The Saduccees and Hasmoneans argued that the world as it ought to be was one fully compromised with the Imperial Power, and in which money, prestige, and control of the religious rites brought order.  The Dead Seas Scrolls covenanters argued that the world as it ought to be was one where their kooky sectarian religion had conquered all others by force of arms in apocalyptic struggle.  The Zealots thought the kingdom of God would come through force of arms.  The Pharisees taught it would come through personal piety, scripture study and prayer, and following God’s commandments.

When Jesus first began to preach publicly, it caused quite a stir. People were excited. Here was a prophet from the backwards part of Palestine, Galilee, declaring that God was beginning to act to establish his kingdom. “God’s kingship has come near, and is in your midst.”  He quoted Isaiah, saying the time had come to declare liberation to the captive, freedom to the prisoner, and sight to the blind. And when he began to heal people as part of his message that God’s kingdom had arrived, they really started to flock to see him and hear him. Would he overthrow the Romans? Would he thrown out the corrupt priests from the Temple? Or would he just cause a stir and get himself and his followers killed in the process? And then, of course, people started to ask him how the Kingdom of God could have come already when the rule of evil, and of the Evil Empire, was still all too evident. How could Jesus possibly mistake his pathetic little gatherings for sermons and healings with the overthrow of evil and the great and terrible Day of Judgment promised by the prophets?

Jesus told stories from everyday life as a means of letting people know about what he thought about these questions.  Many of his parables begin with the words, “The kingdom of God (or, in Matthew, “of heaven”) is like…” 

What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now?  Jesus’ parables answer this question.  They are directly opposed to the answers of all those other groups around him.   They usually grab you and throw you for a loop—demand a change of perspectives and overthrow conventional expectations, politics, and religion.

Today’s Gospel from Mark has two parables using garden images: the seed growing on its own and the mustard plant. 

 

God coming here and now, fully in charge—It’s like a mustard plant:  a tiny seed that produces a huge plant. Most people think it is a weed and not a cultivated crop.  It grows in unusual places, unplanned, apart from human control.  If it is noticed, it is unwelcome.  If it is some place no one cares about, then it can go wild.  It then will grow really big, though it will never be what you call “mighty.”  It does not measure up to the usual images for God’s kingdom—vineyards, olive trees, or the great cedar tree, which in the passage we read this morning form Ezekiel shelters the wild birds in its branches.  For Jesus, the kingdom is the mustard weed.

God coming here and now, fully in charge—It’s like a growing seed: it sprouts and grows all on its own regardless of whether the person who planted it knows that it grows or understands why it grows.  Jesus says that God’s kingdom comes mainly through God’s action. God will ultimately set things right, and settle accounts, but that is not yet now, he says.

The kingdom, however, is already here, at work, he says. It is like a seed that sprouts and grows on its own, no matter whether see are aware of it, or understand how.

The kingdom won’t come through force of arms. The kingdom will not come merely through human acts. But it will come. It will come. Regardless of how bad things are, how much the evil triumph and the righteous suffer, how overwhelming the imperial power seems to be or how corrupt the religious establishment is, it will come. God actually is in charge, and God’s reign is here and now. And its full manifestation will come. Trusting in God means not worrying that it will, because it will.  It is like a seed growing on its own.

People around Jesus had all sorts of ways to excuse God for not acting, or to try to force God to act, or to act in God’s stead. Jesus focuses on the core issue, the trustworthiness of God. That seed will sprout regardless of us, and will result in something so surprising and so huge that the whole world can shelter in it.

We need to trust in God. We cannot let our impatience get in the way of this trust. We cannot let our laziness get in the way of this trust. We cannot let our pride and desire to control things and have them our way get in the way. We need to surrender to God, and know, in the words of the prayer, that he is doing for us more than we can ask or imagine. That doesn’t mean we are off the hook and don’t have to do anything. But it means the first thing we have to do is trust and realize it is God at work, not us. We have to let God change us and move us to do the works of his kingdom. But again, the seed sprouts and grows on its own. We simply need to let go and let God. We need to get our will and ego out of the way, and let God do his surprising, wonderful thing.

In the name of God, Amen. 

God Here and Now, Fully In Charge (Proper 12A)

God Here and Now, Fully in Charge

24 July 2011

Proper 12A

Spoken Eucharist 8:00 a.m.; Sung Eucharist 10:15 a.m.

Parish Church of St. John the Baptist

Seattle Washington

Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b or Psalm 128; Romans 8:26-39;

Matt 13:31-33, 42-52

 

Jesus put before the crowds another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

"Have you understood all this?" They answered, "Yes." And he said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."  (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen

What would the world look like if everything were as it ought to be?  What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now, of everything? 

This is a question that Jesus regularly asked himself, and which became the core of his teaching.  Mark says that Jesus’ message was a joyful proclamation of the arrival of God to reign in power.  “The time has come.  … God’s kingship has come near. Change your ways and believe the happy news!” (Mark 1:14-15).   When Jesus teaches us to pray, he tells us to ask God, “your kingdom come” (Matt 6:10; Luke 11:2). He works marvelous things and then says, “If I by the finger of God heal the sick and cast out demons, then the kingship of God has come near to you” (Luke 11:20).

Today’s Gospel has several parables comparing this arrival of God to rule in power to images taken from everyday life: the Mustard Plant, the Yeast, the Hidden Treasure, the Costly Pearl, and the Dragnet.    We are reading them in the Gospel of Matthew, which regularly uses the discreet euphemism “kingdom of heaven” for what everyone else in the New Testament knows as “the Kingdom of God.”  Again, the idea is God coming to reign in power, the world becoming as it ought to be, what things would like if God is here and now, fully in charge. 

What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now?  Jesus’ parables answer this question. His answer is not like those round him.  The Saduccees and Hasmoneans argued that the world as it ought to be was one fully compromised with the Imperial Power, with its Roman Peace, and in which money, prestige, and control of the religious rites brought order and submission.  The Essenes or the Dead Seas Scrolls covenanters argued that the world as it ought to be was one where their kooky sectarian religion had conquered all others by force of arms in apocalyptic struggle and no one but observant and faithful Essenes remained.  The Zealots thought the world as it ought to be was one where they had revolted against the Roman occupiers and set up their own state controlled by their own people, practicing their own religion.  The Pharisees taught that the answer lay in personal piety, scripture study and prayer, and putting a fence around the law so as to separate Jews from gentiles more and more.

What would it be like if God were truly in charge, right here, right now?  Jesus parables do not repeat the tired formulas of the religious groups around him.  They usually grab you and throw you for a loop—demand a change of perspectives and overthrow conventional expectations, politics, and religion.

God coming here and now, fully in charge—It’s like a mustard plant:  a tiny seed that produces a huge plant. Most people think it is a weed and not a cultivated crop.  It grows in unusual places, unplanned, apart from human control.  If it is noticed, it is unwelcome.  If it is some place no one cares about, then it can go wild.  It then will grow really big, though it will never be what you call “mighty.”  It does not measure up to the usual images for God’s kingdom—vineyards, olive trees, or the great cedar tree, which in Ezekiel shelters the wild birds in its branches.  For Jesus, the kingdom is the mustard weed.

God coming here and now, fully in charge—is like a woman who hides a bit of yeast in three measures of flour.  Note—religious Jews did not link Passover, hopes for redemption, and the ideal King of the future with leavened bread.  It was unleavened bread—without any yeast polluting it and making it impure—that was the controlling image.  But Jesus says it is the bread of ordinary life that is like the kingdom.   Besides that, the measures of flour at issue here are grotesquely big—the three measures mentioned equal about fifty pounds in our system, much more than a peasant woman could bake and consume before it would go bad, precisely because it was not unleavened.   Note also here that the kingship of God is likened to a woman's work, to domestic activity.

God coming here and now, fully in charge—is like a peasant who finds a treasure in a field he is working in. Excited, he buries it, and then scrapes together everything he has so he can purchase the field and have clear title to the hidden treasure. Note that it is a field worker, not the land-owner, who finds the treasure.  Usually it is only the ones getting their hands dirty in the work, not the mid-level or senior managers, who actually know its details and run into its unexpected realities. From the point of view of the land-owner, this is a morally and legally dubious affair.  The treasure is his, right?  But the reality is that the peasant feels no obligation to protect his oppressor’s so-called “right” to further property based on the property he already has:  Finders keepers, losers weepers. The point is that no matter how hard it is for the poor peasant to scrape together the necessary capital to buy the field, he will do it once he has had a glimpse of the treasure, since it is so wonderful. 

God coming here and now, fully in charge—is like a purse-seine or a drag-net that catches all sorts of fish.  It is not selective or discriminating.  It does not distinguish between clean and unclean, between normal and abnormal.  It works below the surface, hidden, but catches everything it touches.  The point is the net’s inclusiveness.   The mention of separating the good and bad fish on the shore, which works against this basic image, is almost certainly an addition to the parable by St. Matthew, who repeatedly in his Gospel tries to tame and regularize some of Jesus’ more “anti-religious” statements.  Where Jesus was trying to simply shock his listeners into engagement with God right here, right now, Matthew was trying to guide a religious community. 

God coming here and now, fully in charge—is like a jewel merchant who runs into the absolutely most ideal pearl he has ever seen or is likely to ever see.  Like the peasant in the field, he sells everything he has in order to purchase the prize.   That net, as we just saw, catches all sorts of fish.  Not only dispossessed field hands can find a treasure.  Those accustomed to trading fine things can as well.  Maybe even the religious, maybe even the pious and observant--those who are often the butt of the jokes found in Jesus’ parables—may yet encounter God, and be permanently changed.   But the cost for them is just as high as for the dispossessed.  The final remark in this reading—“a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who lovingly shows his guests his treasures—old and new”—is Matthew’s ways of restating this.  Even scribes like him, with their concern for keeping unchanged what is valuable from the past, can be totally changed by this coming of God, here and now, fully in charge. 

Note that most of these ways of describing God in charge contain a shock element: unclean leaven, a dishonest means of gaining a treasure, a fish harvesting method that makes no distinction between clean and unclean, a weed that takes the place of the noble Cedar of Lebanon.   But they also include pure, unmixed joy and overwhelming, almost grotesque abundance.  And they provoke a desire to sacrifice all to have to obtain that joy, to share that abundance. 

I think that often we don’t hear the parables because they are so familiar, and because they use images that come from common life experiences in Jesus’ Palestine, but not so common in our modern lives. 

So I propose here several modern parables to make the same points, with a similar shock value. 

God coming here and now, fully in charge is like a woman who buys a winning lottery ticket.  She not only wins, but she wins big.  For a dollar ticket, she wins a prize of 10 million dollars.  Imagine how happy and shocked she is. 

God coming here and now, fully in charge is like a man who gets a bad tattoo.  It is not what he had in mind, since he poorly explained what he wanted to the artist, and the artist was not all that good anyway.  After several years of being dissatisfied, ashamed, and unhappy every time he sees the tattoo, and wearing long sleeved shirts to hide it, he goes to another artist, known for his skill and ability in adapting old tattoos into new ones.  Seeing photos of the artist’s work, the man gets excited, and goes and refinances his house to get the money together.  After many hours of pain in the chair, the man looks at what the artist has done:  he used the defective ink-work as part of a larger piece.  The result is much better than even what the man had in mind originally, and he is so happy with the result that he constantly tries to find occasions where wear short sleeves so he can show it off.

God coming here and now, fully in charge is like the Boston Red Sox in 2004.  From 1918 on, the curse of the Bambino meant that the Sox could not win any title game.  Then one night, the Red Sox came back from a 0-3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the League Championship and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the the World Series.  The joy in the streets of Boston that night is like God coming in full power here and now. 

God coming here and now, fully in charge is like a woman in the process of a nasty divorce.  Her husband hired the better lawyer, and she is about to lose almost everything.  But in sorting through things that the husband couldn’t be bothered to look at, she finds the old coin collection he inherited from his father a few years after their marriage and which he has never bothered to even look at.  She notices a couple of coins that look rare and checks up on them.  They are worth more than all their other assets combined.  So she says nothing, puts the coin collection on her ledger in the agreement, which the ex-husband signs happily.

God coming here and now, fully in charge is like an HIV/AIDS patient who is cured by an experimental stem-cell treatment. 

Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom emphasize the presence of God in everyday life—glorious messy everyday life.  But they stress the utter strangeness of God in this messed up world we are used to and to the messed up people we are.  In these stories, you encounter constantly abundance, joy, the fulfillment of human desire and the turning of tables on the oppressor. God is immanent, and this brings abundance and joy.  But God is also transcendent, and this calls us to joyfully sacrifice all for the abundance he offers us, and to change our ways of thinking and of behaving.   This is in sharp contrast with the ideas Jesus’ contemporaries had of God’s kingdom, the results of political or military action, of sectarian isolation, of legalistic religious observance, or of accommodating oneself to the systems of oppression we see around us. 

God come fully in charge—here and now.  Here indeed is something that calls us to joyfully give up what alienates us from God and from each other. 

May we this week work in our prayers and quiet times to identify the areas where we are the oppressors, where we enable the oppressors, and where we, "in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and left undone," have alienated ourselves from God and from what God intends for us.  And may we pray for the joyful abandon that we might turn away from these things and make amendment of life.  May we pray and live, “your kingdom, your will be done,” and know the abundant joy of God coming here and now, fully in charge.   May we live the happy news that Jesus proclaimed. 

In the name of God, Amen.