Seeds of Wonder
Text: Mark 4:26-34
With moving into a new house, Sarah and I have been confronted with a new reality. We have moved from being part of a townhouse condominium complex to actually owning our own property. We now have our own lawn, small little front garden, and the freedom to do with it what we choose. Some of you might remember me commenting that when it comes to gardening, it is a skill better exercised by someone other than me. If they had a TV show on Canada’s Worst Gardener, I’d be a shoe-in. Lesley can tell you that the only plant that has managed to survive in my office is one that doesn’t really need watering. The only reason that it has lived this long is because she tends to it.
But now we have our own lawn… and not just any lawn, the most sickly, pale green pathetic lawn you’ve ever seen. Right now we don’t even own a lawnmower… but this lawn has been so pathetic that we don’t need it, at least not yet. The evidence points out that this was a hastily sodded piece of land. We are not left with a choice, we have to do something with it. I’ve pulled weeds, I have put down new grass seed, watered it, fertilized it… but only time will tell if any of that work will have any effect.
Because I’m not really that much of a gardener, some background info was helpful in looking at the parables of both the Growing Seed and the Mustard Seed that Jesus tells. I’ve been using some gardening images as of late, so this is more about that wonderful plant… mustard.
As a spice crop, did you know that 90% of the world’s mustard is grown in Saskatchewan? While it is a useful and robust crop… most of us experience mustard as something else much more annoying. Even though it has many practical uses, the bottom line is that mustard is a weed… a plant that grows where it isn’t really supposed to… and actually gets in the way of other plants growing.
Mustard seed is so light that it is easily carried by the wind, or dropped by a passing bird that couldn’t digest it. It grows where it is not wanted, and virtually impossible to get rid of. Not exactly an inspiring image is it? The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is like an annoying weed…
God does the impossible with the annoying in the most unexpected of places. We hate to think of Jesus as a weed, but if we think about it, he certainly was to those in the establishment who had to deal with him.
Through his parables, Jesus reveals something about the Kingdom of God by using some very ordinary images that we would otherwise miss. But there is something else at play here. As annoying as the mustard seed is, and the weeds that it produces, he is also pointing to the potential.
It is the potential that matters… the kingdom of God appearing in unexpected places, with a potential that we scarcely can begin to understand.
I’ve not often talked about the Mediaeval Mystics who wrote about their own personal experiences of God… Perhaps I should, because it may help us put our own into focus. In reading the mustard seed there is one particular mystic whose reflections and experiences are deeply profound. Known as Dame Julian of Norwich, she lived as a hermit next to the church of the same name in Norwich, England in the latter part of the 14th Century.
In one of her reflections on God, she wrote about a hazelnut… or rather something that looked like a hazelnut. I’ve updated the language a bit, but she wrote:
“God also showed me a tiny thing in the palm of my hand, the size of hazelnut.I looked at this with the eye of my soul and thought “What is this?” And this is the answer that came to me, It is all that is made. I was astonished that it managed to survive: it was so small that I thought it might disintegrate. And in my mind I heard the answer, It lives on and will live on forever because God loves it.” So every single thing owes its existence to the love of God.”
From Julian’s experience, the reality of our existence can be understood in the smallest, tiniest of seeds, brimming with potential… and signs of the wonder of God’s love.
Yet there is something else in the parable of the Mustard Seed that we often miss. We talk about the mustard seed as being this unwanted weed… which is entirely true… but when Jesus tells the story about the mustard seed, what ends up growing is not a small little weed… but a mighty tree… and makes reference to Ezekiel’s beacon of hope of the massive cedar tree… one of the largest trees in the eastern Mediterranean.
So not only is Jesus using the parable to show that the kingdom of God is like the tiny seed of a weed that shows up in the most unexpected and even unwanted of places, but that its potential for growth far exceeds what anyone could possibly expect from it.
Maybe we need to be reminded of this when we try to put limits on where God can act in our own lives. Maybe we need to reflect on this tiny little seed when we think that Jesus only taught people way back then… and maybe we need to realize that in fact the God is working through the Holy Spirit in the most unexpected of places… especially in our own lives.
These stories are about things that are small, things that are so tiny that we would scarcely notice or care about. Here Jesus takes this very thing that we would so easily miss, as it could be blown away on the wind, and reminds us of its potential. Here, Jesus takes the very thing that we would so easily dismiss, because it will only ever be an annoying weed, and reminds us that there is far more potential than even the most observant of us can realize. The kingdom of God is like this, and yet we can so easily miss or dismiss it... ...and yet Jesus blows us away by showing us the unlimited potential of God by simply holding up a tiny little seed, and reminding us that small things count.
Amen.
With moving into a new house, Sarah and I have been confronted with a new reality. We have moved from being part of a townhouse condominium complex to actually owning our own property. We now have our own lawn, small little front garden, and the freedom to do with it what we choose. Some of you might remember me commenting that when it comes to gardening, it is a skill better exercised by someone other than me. If they had a TV show on Canada’s Worst Gardener, I’d be a shoe-in. Lesley can tell you that the only plant that has managed to survive in my office is one that doesn’t really need watering. The only reason that it has lived this long is because she tends to it.
But now we have our own lawn… and not just any lawn, the most sickly, pale green pathetic lawn you’ve ever seen. Right now we don’t even own a lawnmower… but this lawn has been so pathetic that we don’t need it, at least not yet. The evidence points out that this was a hastily sodded piece of land. We are not left with a choice, we have to do something with it. I’ve pulled weeds, I have put down new grass seed, watered it, fertilized it… but only time will tell if any of that work will have any effect.
Because I’m not really that much of a gardener, some background info was helpful in looking at the parables of both the Growing Seed and the Mustard Seed that Jesus tells. I’ve been using some gardening images as of late, so this is more about that wonderful plant… mustard.
As a spice crop, did you know that 90% of the world’s mustard is grown in Saskatchewan? While it is a useful and robust crop… most of us experience mustard as something else much more annoying. Even though it has many practical uses, the bottom line is that mustard is a weed… a plant that grows where it isn’t really supposed to… and actually gets in the way of other plants growing.
Mustard seed is so light that it is easily carried by the wind, or dropped by a passing bird that couldn’t digest it. It grows where it is not wanted, and virtually impossible to get rid of. Not exactly an inspiring image is it? The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is like an annoying weed…
God does the impossible with the annoying in the most unexpected of places. We hate to think of Jesus as a weed, but if we think about it, he certainly was to those in the establishment who had to deal with him.
Through his parables, Jesus reveals something about the Kingdom of God by using some very ordinary images that we would otherwise miss. But there is something else at play here. As annoying as the mustard seed is, and the weeds that it produces, he is also pointing to the potential.
It is the potential that matters… the kingdom of God appearing in unexpected places, with a potential that we scarcely can begin to understand.
I’ve not often talked about the Mediaeval Mystics who wrote about their own personal experiences of God… Perhaps I should, because it may help us put our own into focus. In reading the mustard seed there is one particular mystic whose reflections and experiences are deeply profound. Known as Dame Julian of Norwich, she lived as a hermit next to the church of the same name in Norwich, England in the latter part of the 14th Century.
In one of her reflections on God, she wrote about a hazelnut… or rather something that looked like a hazelnut. I’ve updated the language a bit, but she wrote:
“God also showed me a tiny thing in the palm of my hand, the size of hazelnut.I looked at this with the eye of my soul and thought “What is this?” And this is the answer that came to me, It is all that is made. I was astonished that it managed to survive: it was so small that I thought it might disintegrate. And in my mind I heard the answer, It lives on and will live on forever because God loves it.” So every single thing owes its existence to the love of God.”
From Julian’s experience, the reality of our existence can be understood in the smallest, tiniest of seeds, brimming with potential… and signs of the wonder of God’s love.
Yet there is something else in the parable of the Mustard Seed that we often miss. We talk about the mustard seed as being this unwanted weed… which is entirely true… but when Jesus tells the story about the mustard seed, what ends up growing is not a small little weed… but a mighty tree… and makes reference to Ezekiel’s beacon of hope of the massive cedar tree… one of the largest trees in the eastern Mediterranean.
So not only is Jesus using the parable to show that the kingdom of God is like the tiny seed of a weed that shows up in the most unexpected and even unwanted of places, but that its potential for growth far exceeds what anyone could possibly expect from it.
Maybe we need to be reminded of this when we try to put limits on where God can act in our own lives. Maybe we need to reflect on this tiny little seed when we think that Jesus only taught people way back then… and maybe we need to realize that in fact the God is working through the Holy Spirit in the most unexpected of places… especially in our own lives.
These stories are about things that are small, things that are so tiny that we would scarcely notice or care about. Here Jesus takes this very thing that we would so easily miss, as it could be blown away on the wind, and reminds us of its potential. Here, Jesus takes the very thing that we would so easily dismiss, because it will only ever be an annoying weed, and reminds us that there is far more potential than even the most observant of us can realize. The kingdom of God is like this, and yet we can so easily miss or dismiss it... ...and yet Jesus blows us away by showing us the unlimited potential of God by simply holding up a tiny little seed, and reminding us that small things count.
Amen.
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