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06/13/21 – Under the Surface

UNDER THE SURFACE

June 13, 2021
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
1 Sam.15:34-16:13; Ps.20; 2 Cor. 5:6-10, 14-17:  Mark 4:26-42
Rev.  Denise Clark-Jones

Years ago, I was sitting in a veterinarian’s office with my dog on a busy Saturday morning. I noticed a man there that looked out of place. First, he didn’t seem to have a pet; and secondly, he had the intimidating look (that is intimidating to me) of a motorcycle gang member. He was dressed in familiar black leather and had visible tattoos. You can tell how long ago this was since tattoos are now ubiquitous. There was a lot of noise in the room, barking, whining, meowing and cats clawing at their crates. There was a distinct high-pitched yelping that rose above the fray. Suddenly, I saw the well-groomed head of a white toy poodle poke its nose out of the motorcyclist’s black leather jacket and I discovered the source of the yapping. The owner looked down tenderly at the pup and admonished: “Hush up. You can’t whup none of them.” How often we make judgments about others by such surface features as dress, skin color, age, hairstyles, or body type. The thematic thread of deceptive appearances is woven throughout the Old Testament story about the boy-king David, the mustard seed from Jesus’ parable, and the Apostle Paul describing the Christian life as ‘walking by faith and not by sight.

When Samuel was puzzled that God passed over Jesse’s strong and stalwart first-born son and directed him to anoint Jesse’s youngest son, God explained: “the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  With the anointing of David as the new king of Israel, God does something unexpected. God changes God’s mind. God corrects the course set by Saul’s anointed by selecting David rather than Saul and his line of succession. God gave the people the king they wanted – a king who looked like a king but had no other leadership qualities. Saul was tall and handsome. He looked like a king that would impress others and the people were pleased and hopeful.

With the extensive coverage of the G7 summit this week, we see how critical appearances can be to diplomatic relations between nations.  But Saul did not wear the crown with the level of faithfulness God desired. Saul ran afoul of God when he, on several occasions did not follow God’s instructions to the letter. He allowed his own judgment to supersede that of God’s. Saul’s actions did not appear to adversely affect the Israelites. Perhaps God saw that Saul was on the slippery slope of disobedience that might have disastrous consequences for the people.  It was not until Saul learned he was not to continue in power and David was God’s choice to succeed him that he resorted to evil to retain his political power. As is the downfall of many who pledge faithfulness to God, fear initiated Saul’s turning away from God.

The start of trials for some of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who pledge their loyalty to white supremacy – the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, demonstrates the rejection of God’s will for peace, love of neighbor, and justice out of fear and the desire for individual privilege and gratification. Many of the Pauline letters address this same problem in the early churches. In today’s epistle reading from 2 Corinthians, one of the Deutero-Pauline letters, the church in Corinth is warned about the consequences of being swayed to reject their faith in Christ out of fear of persecution. The writer emphasizes that discipleship demands ‘walking by faith, not by sight.’

Samuel could have asked plenty of other questions as God rejected one of Jesse’s sons after the other until finally sending for the youngest and smallest of Jesse’s boys, who were out in the field tending the sheep. David’s qualifications? Scripture only tells us he was “ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome.” What was different from Saul other than age and height? This time God did not consider what the people thought they wanted. God saw potential in David and pledged to be with David every step of the way that he might succeed in being the king Israel needed. Unlike Saul, God gave David the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. Samuel had no clue he was playing a tiny but significant role in God’s plans.  Reading further in 1 and 2 Samuel, it is revealed that God worked across generations to fulfill the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 11: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” At the time of God’s charge to anoint young David as Israel’s new king, Samuel could not see what God saw in David’s heart, but he ‘acted in faith and not by sight,’ as Paul advised the Corinthian congregation.

In Mark, Jesus described the mustard seed as “the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it grows up becomes the greatest of all shrubs.”

It grows to be a… shrub?

That doesn’t sound like a very high achievement in the flora world. In Matthew, Jesus teaches his disciples:” “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full-grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” This description echoes the Old Testament prophesy of Ezekiel that God’s kingdom will be like “a mighty cedar sheltering the birds in its branches.” Mark also tells that the mustard seed will shelter birds that come down from the sky to make nests in its branches; but Mark’s mustard seed doesn’t become a mighty tree – the giant cedar in Matthew’s version of the parable. In Mark, a mustard seed becomes a mustard shrub. In the Middle East, a mustard seed grows into, a wild, uncontrollable, shrub that pops up in the most undesirable growing conditions and forces its way upon the earth with no human effort. It is like kudzu or crown vetch, once it starts growing it spreads quickly wherever it wants to grow – not necessarily where we expect or want it to be. Like the boy David, who was younger and smaller than his older brothers, the tiny mustard seed contains the potential for growth and divine purpose.

The Jews of Jesus’ world were tired of waiting for Roman occupation to end. Some leaned toward the idea of the Zealots, a Jewish sect that believed violent insurrection against the Roman oppressors was the only way to restore Israel.  Jesus’ slow, laborious foot travel through Galilee, befriending the friendless, feeding the hungry, and healing the sick wasn’t showing them any great transformation in the plight of the oppressed, Roman-occupied Jewish province, Judea. We can identify with their impatience.  We want, if not instant, at least quick gratification.  Jesus spoke words of patience.  The seed that will become the harvest in the kingdom of God starts small, its growth is hidden in its early stage of growth, and the progression is often imperceptibly slow.   This parable is for people like us, who are discouraged when wrong seems to prevail and we begin to doubt that God will make all things work according to God’s good promises.    Mark tells us when Jesus told this parable, His disciples were also growing impatient.  They had seen him perform miracles and they wanted this glorious kingdom to come immediately.  Where were the dramatic changes for the people of Israel that were promised when the Messiah came?

The tiny mustard seed, about the size of the head of a pin, can grow into an eight-foot shrub – not as impressive as a cedar tree, but able to provide a home for God’s avian creatures.  The mustard seed has a small beginning with a much larger finish.  So too was the ministry of a traveling preacher who was once a humble carpenter in Galilee.  So too was the tiny band of disciples that began the Church.  For over 2,000 years these miracles of growth beyond human imagination have been fueled by faith producing abundant harvests with God’s grace.

What does a seed represent in Mark?  It may represent more than one thing in these two seed parables.  For illumination, we look to other verses in Mark.  In chapter 4, just before the verses, we read today, the sowing of a seed is associated with preaching about the beginning of God’s rule on earth ushered in by His Word, enfleshed in Jesus.  The members of Mark’s community may well have identified the seed scattered on the ground as their ministry of spreading the Gospel.  But Jesus only reveals that the mustard seed represents a part of the vast umbrella of God’s kingdom. In the first of the two parables found in today’s scripture passage, Jesus describes his disciples as the seed-planters, and God as the One who causes the seed to change and grow into a plant that is bigger and radically different in appearance and purpose.

Small in appearance, but powerful. What better contemporary example than the Covid virus and vaccine? Invisible to the naked eye, the Covid virus changed the world. Lockdowns and public health restrictions were initiated, and the downturn of our economy and different social behavior ensued. The virus took over 600,000 lives in this country and 3.8 million worldwide. Fortunately, decades of scientific research into the type of virus circulating enabled the quick discovery of vaccines. Each shot contains a few micrograms of vaccine, but there is the God-given miracle of science packed in each one. A tiny drop of medicine has the potential of ending the worst pandemic in a century. Our task now is to get the vaccine to poorer nations that now lack access to enough vaccine dosages to curb the raging spread in their populations. The virus does not recognize political borders. Globally, what we do for others affects us.

In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, tiny, insignificant, vulnerable, useless from all outward appearances, but explosive with potential and the promise to nurture, shade, hide, protect, and give respite to all creation. In comparing the kingdom of God to the planting and growth of a mustard seed, Jesus indicates that we cannot determine when, where and how that mustard seed takes root and grows as God wills — not as the human sower wills. The seed will not necessarily grow in the gardens of faithful church attendees who look and act like us. From other seed parables Jesus told, he revealed that the quality of the soil enhances the seeds’ potential for growth and weeds can thwart that potential.  In Paul’s recitation of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, he identifies the human threats to the fruits. Thus, we could see these as “the weeds” in the biblical agrarian metaphor. Paul identified impurity, licentiousness, 20idolatry, sorcery as impediments to harvesting fruit for God’s kingdom. What is sorcery today? We might include the magical thinking that creates conspiracy theories to alter others’ behaviors as such. Global Satan-worshipping child pornography rings operating out of pizza shop basements and microchips in Covid vaccines come to mind. Think about it. Why would the government need to put something in the vaccines to monitor our location? Our cell phones and computers already do that and more. To the list of “weeds,” Paul adds enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions… and things like these.”

We are chosen by God to lead – not because we look good or are good, but because God is good. It is often easier for us to keep judging others (including ourselves) by human standards, as the epistle reading from 2 Corinthians 5:16 tells us than it is to allow the Spirit to give us a new vision to see everyone through the lens of Christ’s love for them. We cannot receive the newness of life in the Spirit without letting go of comfortable old thought patterns and habits that are not loving and life-giving. Like small seeds, our efforts for the kingdom of God easily get trampled, eaten, washed away, or overtaken by weeds, but God has the power to nurture our seeds into flower and fruit – an abundant harvest.

Amen. May it be so!

 

 

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2021, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org  | 309.673.8501

 

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