Sermon 2006-10-01

I begin this sermon with a disclaimer.
You will never find a browner thumb than mine.
Instead of going out and buying a package of Miracle Gro,
I always say that if I plant something and it grows,
it's a miracle!
I know that there are not only Master Gardeners in this room,
but landscapers,
and farmers, and ranchers,
and people who know more about soil and crops
than I will ever know about the kingdom of God!
OR soil and crops!

But today's reading from Mark
has decided to combine those two.
Jesus has chosen to talk about seeds and soil //
to share something of what he knows
about the reign of God.
So bear with me,
and let's listen for God's Word
as we find it in Mark's gospel,
the fourth chapter beginning with verse 26.
------------------(reading)-----------------------
Holy wisdom, holy word;
thanks be to God.

Paul and I lived out the first part of this parable
when we lived in Utah.
Our backyard was a veritable Garden of Eden!
Along with a good-sized vegetable garden,
the previous owners had planted raspberries,
plums, peaches, nectarines,
and even grapes!
And the flowers!
The back wall of our house
was thick with deep purple iris every spring.
And the fence in the backyard
was lined with daisies and forsythia.
I did have some good luck planting tulips in our front yard,
but in a climate like that,
there's not much you can do to tulips
unless you plant the bulbs upside down!

We never did anything to that garden
except to sleep and rise.
Between our work schedules
and our lack of gardening inclination,
there was no other choice.
Yet every summer without fail,
the raspberries and plums and flowers came we knew not how.
We had to GIVE AWAY plums
so that they wouldn't spoil.
The raspberries, we took care of!
And even though we managed to ignore the vegetable garden,
we got volunteer sunflowers that were almost as tall as we were,
and some zucchini the size of footballs.
We just shook our heads.
We were clueless,
and yet every summer
we had more fruit than we could say grace over.

We knew that we were the beneficiaries
of the people who used to own our house
and their gardening skills.
Clearly they had put in hours
tilling the garden,
and preparing the soil,
and deciding what to plant where
so that it would also be pleasing to the eye.
That's the deal with gardening.
You reap what you sow.
You decide on the best place to plant things.
Then you prepare the ground,
you pick out appropriate seeds,
you weed it and you water it,
and stuff grows.
Right?
If you tend the garden well,
you get plums and raspberries.
If you don't pick the zucchini in time,
you get zucchini that are huge -
but you wouldn't want to eat them.
You reap what you sow.
----------------------------------------------------------
Clearly,
someone forgot to tell Jesus that.
When we meet up with him today,
he is talking about seeds and shrubs
to tell us about the kingdom of God.
And he says that God's reign -
life in God's economy -
is like when some yahoo,
not necessarily a farmer
but more like someone who shall remain nameless
but who has a brown thumb,
would get some seed
and just throw it anywhere.
Maybe in a prepared garden,
maybe not.
And then,
go home and take a nap!
Or go about their daily life
and not give those seeds another thought.
And without any attention given to watering,
or fertilizer or bug spray,
or covering things over when it freezes,
or consulting even ONE Aggie,
without any of that,
the crop rises and matures
all by itself.

And then to make matters worse,
Jesus compares God's reign
to a mustard seed.
Mustard was considered to be a weed back in the day,
and not a very popular one.
Not only was it pungent,
it was about as desirable as kudzu,
and just about as hard to get rid of
once it had taken root.
You turn your back on it for a minute,
and poof!
There you have it,
the greatest of all - shrubs.
Ooh, how imposing is that?!
The greatest of all shrubs!
But at least it was a shrub that was sturdy enough
that birds would move in
and make it their home.
Birds!
Probably not cute little sparrows either,
but grackles or something.
Scarecrows were invented
to keep birds out of the garden,
and here is a mustard shrub,
just inviting those birds to take up residence.
What's up with that?

Friends, Jesus is not telling us some sweet little story
about domesticated birds
and lovely plants
and skilled, knowledgeable farmers.
Jesus seems to be saying
that the Kingdom of God is present
where almost anyone can scatter seeds,
unintentionally,
and where weeds can come up right alongside the wheat.
That the Kingdom of God
is about as attractive
as a scrubby, sawed-off weed.
That the Kingdom of God
will let just about any old bird
come in and set up house.
What happened to reaping what you sow?
Is this the kind of God we are worshiping,
and the kind of kingdom we are awaiting?
-------------------------------------
Well, actually,
yes.
The good news of God's kingdom
is that you and I can rest well tonight,
knowing that God's kingdom doesn't depend on us
and our best efforts.
It depends on God.
The kingdom of God will be brought about
more in spite of us
than because of us,
and that's very good news indeed.
God is in control.
And when we are busy
scattering around the seeds
that we hope will bring growth in this place,
we can rest assured
that any growth we see
will come more from the efforts of the Master Gardener
than from our wisdom and expertise.

And what THAT means
is that it is okay to live with mystery.
You and I are freed from worrying
about whether we have scattered the right kind of seed //
or enough of it //
or whether we are supposed to be bigger than a shrub //
or whether we are attracting the right kind of birds.
What we sow IS what we reap.
We've got more important things to do than worry.
If we are free from worrying about things
that are only God's to control,
we are freed to scatter seeds of hope
far and wide.
We can look beyond that which we can see //
to that which we can hope for.
That is the kind of work God wants us to do.
God's job is to bring about the kingdom.
Our job is to trust:
to know that good things are going on deep down in the soil,
even though we cannot see them,
to know that we can sleep and rise
and that the world will still turn without our efforts,
to know that God's tenacious kingdom
can and will take root
when and where it will.
--------------------------------------------
Even those of us with brown thumbs
know that any plant or any seed
needs food and water.
Which is why you and I live in trust this day
as we gather at the font
and come together around the table.

Isn't that what happens here?
In a few minutes,
we're going to scatter a little water on Jack William
and trust that,
with a little help from his family and us,
God will provide the growth.
It's such a little amount
that Jack will still need a bath tonight.
But it is enough.
We can't see it happening,
but we will live in hope along with his parents
that one day,
Jack will come to profess the faith for himself
and to lead others to do the same.

And shortly after that,
we will scatter a little bread and wine
upon all those who will come to the table,
even as we celebrate
the way that wheat and grapes have been harvested all over the world
to provide communion for God's people this day.
It's such a little amount
that we will still need to eat lunch here in a minute.
But it is enough.
It is enough to take root in our lives
faster than a mustard seed,
and shape us
in ways that we cannot see or control
into no less than the people of God.

Thanks be to God!
Amen.