The Rev. Robert Lundquist       Proper VIB            6/18/06       St Paul’s, Ft Collins

 Mark 4:26-34   -- Online Text -- 

We might reasonably ask if today’s Gospel lesson is really about the Zen of farming.  Jesus and his parables present us with puzzles.  For example:

v      There’s a legend in the Middle East that God sent 2 angels to earth with sacks of rocks, the rocks for the entire world.  One of the bags ripped open over the Holy Land, thus half the rocks in the world are in Palestine.  Farming is therefore difficult, backbreaking.  So the idea of crops growing effortlessly must have been amusing to Jesus’ hearers.

v      Jesus’ sense of humor continues in the 2^nd parable – Who in the world would sow mustard seeds?  They’re weeds!  Probably a lot like dandelions our bedevil our lawns today. 

To say that these parables are about farming is to claim that Moby Dick is about a whale.

The Parables of the Kingdom of God, the city of heaven, tell us about ourselves and our relationship with God rather than agriculture.  They’re about God’s ways, not ours.

v      The Kingdom is very near, says Jesus.

v      The Kingdom is both intensive and extensive.

It’s intensive in its explosive growth and the untended harvest.  It’s extensive in that it is not only coming but is already here, already all around us.  “The Kingdom of God has come near to you this day,” Jesus says many times.  Today we hear what the Kingdom is like…  It’s not fully describable, it can only be compared.  

And get this – we don’t build it, it builds us.  God gives the growth – always.  Perhaps our realization of that is like the Kingdom…

Today we’re presented with the paradox of small being large.  We live in the age of the mega-store, the super-mall, and the big-box church.  Have you ever gone to a fast-food outlet and ordered a mini mac?  Have you ever visited the home of the itty-bitty?

But God works with small.  God does tiny:

v      God works through a babe born to a couple of nobodies

v      Jesus places a child in the midst of his followers and announces, “Unless you become as a child…”

v      Jesus feeds thousands with 5 loaves and 2 fish.

We find God in the tiny everyday gestures and phrases of our lives:

v      “I’ll get that.”

v      “I love you.”

v      “Allow me…”

“I have come not to be served, but to serve…”  Like the mustard seed, the small unfolds into the great in God’s Kingdom.  I suppose it’s like those fold-up bicycles that so fascinate me, those things that unpack from suitcase size to a machine capable of transporting an adult hither and yon.  The small reaches beyond itself in the Kingdom…

That means there’s hope for me, as insignificant as I am.  And hope for you as well, I pray.  God’s realm is near enough to touch, says Jesus.  So we must live a life of looking, seeking that Kingdom of God.  We’re called to puzzle over the clues, the parables that Jesus told us.  When you pay attention, they will lead you steadily towards God’s people, the hurt & lonely & needy who are also looking for that heavenly City.  Welcome them in some small encouraging way, with a kind word and a smile.  From that mustard seed may a great shrub grow, a bush that will provide shelter and comfort to a child of God.  Remember that God gives the growth and calls you to the harvest.

Someone once said that seeing how Jesus gave up his life for the love of God, perhaps that Christian can step outside his or her comfort zone for that same love. 

May you live a life of pointing towards God, because the Kingdom of heaven is like…