Sunday, June 13, 2021

No Such Thing as "Too Little"

 

Messiah Lutheran Church, Fargo, ND

June 13, 2021 (Pentecost 2, Year B)

Mark 4:26-34

 


In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

 

Two months ago a photographer captured a memorable image that in so many ways reflects what life has been like during the pandemic.  It’s a picture of a very elderly woman, sitting all alone in a church pew, grieving for her late husband, at his funeral.

 

This funeral—like so many others during the pandemic—had just a handful of mourners in attendance, all of them masked and observing strict social distancing protocols.

 

This particular widow, though, was unlike so many other women who lost husbands during 2021.  Her full name is Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor and she is both the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch in history.

 

When she was born in 1926 Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, ruled over not just the United Kingdom, but the entire British Empire—a realm so vast, wealthy and powerful that it was called "the empire on which the sun never sets.”

 

Since succeeding her father in 1952, Queen Elizabeth has overseen the gradual transformation of that old British Empire into a loose confederation of territories now called the British Commonwealth of Nations—a shadow of its former self, a kingdom in name only.

 

Because nowadays real kingdoms are hard to come by—you and I are especially challenged whenever we hear biblical passages like this morning’s gospel lesson, in which Jesus asks:  With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?”

 

That’s actually a loaded question, because whenever folks like us hear that word “Kingdom,” it conjures up all sorts of assumptions and associations.

 

·      When we hear “Kingdom” we probably picture a vast territory, more acres or square miles than we can count.

 

·      When we see that word “Kingdom” we envision overflowing wealth and riches beyond measure.

 

·      When we read that word “Kingdom” we immediately assume that tremendous power is afoot—that control is being exercised by an invincible ruler who has “command authority” over everything.

 

All those associations and assumptions are conjured up whenever we see, hear or read that word “Kingdom.”

 

My friends, it’s essential that we pay attention to these preconceptions about what earthly kingdoms are usually about….because, when we shift gears to consider the Kingdom of God, all bets are off!   

 

For, you see, God’s reign, God’s kingdom is totally opposite of what we usually think of as a “kingdom.”

                        

God’s Kingdom is a topsy, turvy, reality. Some have even called it an “upside down Kingdom!”

 

With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?” Jesus asks here in St Mark, chapter 4.  And then he answers his own question by declaring:  It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all seeds upon the earth.”

 

When, out of the clear blue, we hear the word “Kingdom,” our natural human tendency is to “think BIG.”

 

But Jesus, instead, invites us to “think SMALL.”    Think “magnifying-glass-small”….think teeny, tiny “microscopically small!”

 

Because for God, you see, “small is beautiful!”

 

I think that’s because God knows how size and appearance can easily deceive us.

 

We see that wonderfully played out, not just in our gospel lesson but also in today’s Old Testament lesson, in which the prophet Samuel discovered that God had chosen none of the older, taller sons of Jesse to become the king of Israel…but that God had singled out the smallest and youngest of eight brothers, the runt of the litter, little no-account David, chosen by God to be anointed King of Israel.

 

For God, “small is beautiful”…and I think that’s because large realities in this world almost always start out small.

 

My wife Joy and I grew up on farms in southern Minnesota.  We mainly raised corn and soybeans which meant that every summer we prayed for timely rains, fought off the bugs, and pulled up weeds relentlessly…especially that, if given a chance, could multiply and over-run a soybean field—almost overnight!

 

That’s why, if our fathers spotted a lone thistle, or a single buttonweed or just one yellow mustard plant our dads would wade through growing crops, sometimes for up to half a mile, just to uproot that one super-spreader weed before it could go to seed and take over the whole field.

 

With what can we compare the Kingdom of God ? It is like a mustard seed, which when sown upon the ground is the smallest of seed…yet when it is sown upon the ground it grows and becomes the greatest of all shrubs…

 

…and all of that—that entire process of germination and growth—seems to happen on its own,  automatically, without any human assistance--God’s creative hand, God’s miraculous green thumb hidden under what appears to be a purely natural process….

 

But this miracle of the mustard seed is so much more than a spectacle that wows us.    This wild, out of control mustard seed growth serves a larger purpose.  It nurtures life and extends God’s wondrous creation.   The teeniest seed—Jesus tells us--produces a mega-shrub with branches big enough and spread out wide enough to provide shelter for the birds of the air.

 

In saying this we describe not only the surprising miraculous growth and vastness of God’s Kingdom, but also the wealth and the power of God’s Reign.  

 

For you see, the wealth of God’s Kingdom has nothing to do with what God creates and keeps stored up for himself. 

 

Rather, God’s wealth is what God lovingly chooses to give away, in order to nurture the world God has created, represented here by birds finding new homes among the branches of this amazing mustard plant…which is why, in our prayer of the day, earlier in our worship, we prayed:  “O God, you are the tree of life, offering shelter to all the world….”

 

Neither God’s wealth nor God’s power serve any selfish purposes God might have in mind.  

 

Rather, God’s wealth is everything that serves the life of the universe which God has created and handed over to us…and God’s power is to give himself away for the care and nurture of all that He has made.

 

We see that in this parable of the mustard seed that Jesus told….and we behold it even more vividly in the drama of the mustard seed that Jesus enacted in his own life, death and resurrection.

 

Our Lord Jesus spoke of the mustard seed, but he also lived out this story when he gave away his life on the Cross for us and when like a tiny seed he was buried in the earth for us, so that three days later he could “germinate” in the power of the resurrection for us and our salvation.

 

This story of the mustard seed isn’t just a great story Jesus told.  It was also the “script” for the life he lived with us, among us and most of all for us….

 

…And even that isn’t the “end of the story!”

 

Jesus told this story, spun out this parable for all who had ears to hear it….

 

And then Jesus lived this story in his own life, death and resurrection…

 

And then Jesus got us into the act, when through the water and Word of baptism we were joined to, incorporated into Jesus Christ…so that we might live out this story--small though each of us may seem to be.   

 

Thank God, God loves small things like mustard seeds, and like the little baby Jesus,  and like little old you and little old me!

 

Thank God—God fashions a life for us in which our greatest delight is to follow Jesus, dying to sin in order to rise again with Christ, giving ourselves away through our faith, hope and love…and  continually sacrificing all that we have and all that we are, to nurture God’s gift of life that fills the whole creation.

 

And here’s what’s best about our “mustard seed” faith, hope and love:   God takes what we offer and God “super-sizes” it for the sake of our neighbors and the whole creation….so that nothing we might offer up (in gratitude for all that God has given to us!)…nothing will ever be too little for God the Holy Spirit to work with and accomplish wonderful things--all in the surprising, surpassing power of  the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Let us pray:   "O God, you are the tree of life, offering shelter to all the world.  Graft us into yourself and nurture our growth, that we may bear your truth and love to those in need, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  Amen."