Opening prayer:
Our Lord Jesus Christ, we remember with gratitude the people who generously sowed the seeds of faith in our lives.
Above all, we recognize how you have blessed our lives with the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that our faith has miraculously and mysteriously grown.
We know that when we become disconnected from you and our faith, our lives become parched and unfruitful and our faith becomes stunted and dry.
Bless and renew our lives, we pray,
strengthening our faith to expand and grow strongly and vigorously to bear the fruit of your mercy.
May the words today be seeds,
planted faithfully and nurtured lovingly
so that God’s way may be realized anew in this world.
Grant us the humility we need to plant and then tend your precious garden and creation. Amen.
Amen.
Gospel Mark 4.26-34
26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Sermon: “Sown and planted.”
Nature marks our seasons in such a wonderful way. The flowing yellow mustard fields/ rasp marker in Denmark is one of the finest and most beautiful signs of Spring and early Summer – along with newly green leaves on the Beech trees and lilacs along the winding roads.
The mustards plants of an abundance of yellow are also a sign of Spring and hope and renewal here in California. A sight that I have come to love in the Springtime.
Along the endless freeways, on rolling hillsides, in parks and along golf courses we pass these waves of yellow mustard plants spread with an abundance and a force that can only give us hope and joy. Across the Californian countryside, carpeting the bright green of spring with their yellow brilliance the mustard plants are a welcoming sign of renewal, spring, hope and life.
This has also been so this spring of 2021, - but do you remember a couple of years back after an unusual wet winter, how we were overwhelmed by yellow mustards and orange puppies like never. I was breathtakingly beautiful and remarkable. I remember my parents were visiting and we went to Chino Hills Park – and we were surrounded by yellow. That year it made sense to sing: “The hills are alive, with the sound of music…. And yellow!”
While we rejoiced back then over the beautiful abundance of yellow and growth, we also started to wonder and fear, how the fire season would be, when all these withered mustards plants would cover the dry and fire ridden hills of California.
The Spanish mustard seeds, whose plants now blanket most of the California coastal area, were first scattered in the 1800’s by Father Junipero Serra on his way up the coast from Mexico to explore possible mission sites.
Just like Johnny Appleseed bore apple seeds across the continent, so this group of West Coast explorers and conquerors spread mustards seeds. By the time the priest and his Catholic mission headed back to Mexico, the mustard plants were in full bloom. Their yellow waves made a colorful pathway marking what would later become a trail of the California missions along the coast. A trail of missions that all children in CA knows, as they all study them and learn about their history – for better and worse. As we visit these missions, walk their red-tiled corridors or run our hands along the thick white adobe walls, history whisper to us about mission and faith, but also the history of oppression, power and injustice. This beautiful trail of missions and history along the coast teach us valuable lessons
As the yellow mustards plants on the hillsides always gives us joy and hope, there is always the duality of worry and fear too as we fear wildfires and mudslides, - and so the California missions also tells us a history of faith and mission combined with oppression and slavery.
From the Catholic priests, who brought Christianity to California, who planted good seeds of faith, hope and love, - something else were also planted. The Native Americans were pressed into slavery, forcing them to convert and abandon their own proud culture. History is never one sided but multifaceted with good and evil, mistakes and successes intertwined.
As we might struggle with these historical contradictions, the beauty of the mustard plants and the yellow abundance might lose some of its brilliance and innocence. Light and dark, good and evil, are woven together throughout history – and through our own human actions too.
What might seem like the best intentions at the time can nonetheless lead to unintended consequences, that we never completely have control over. Our history is filled with best intentions that had unintended consequences, - and we today must embrace that history with honesty and humility, and try to make the future better, brighter, more just, more peaceful and less oppressive.
The tension between beauty and destruction runs through nature.
The tension between good and evil runs through human nature.
The mustard seed that Jesus uses as a metaphor in today’s Gospel, - is despite all is springtime beauty, a weed that can spread wildly. Invasive, pervasive, blown by the wind and once the mustard plant takes root, it takes over with force and unpredictability. It cannot be controlled.
And yet Jesus chooses the mustard seed as a metaphor for the rule of God, the Kingdom of God. God’s rule, God’s word, God’s Spirit cannot be controlled – it spreads, it changes, it moves, it challenges, and it grows.
The duality of dark and light, good and evil, growth and destruction, are all there in the mustard plant, - and in our common human history and in us as individuals.
Indeed, beauty can sometimes grow out of the darkness; indeed, goodness can sometimes grow out of evil. Maybe something good and lasting, something just and compassionate, can grow out of history and an honesty about faults, mistakes, oppression, inequality, and injustice. Maybe something right can grow out of accepting some wrongs.
Maybe that is why in the Gospels Jesus tells such compelling stories about God’s kingdom and God’s presence.
Life and its paradoxes unsettle us, keeps us guessing, pushes us off balance. Perhaps the best we can do is to acknowledge with honesty, what we are and what we can. Knowing and confessing that what we do and what we do not, contains the potential for dark as well as for light, - and with this humble honesty, we might be able to face our actions, our lives and our history with greater humility.
The week before Pentecost, I was attending a Webinar called “Festival of Homiletics.” It was a haven for pastors, as I was able to sit in my office or in my coach or in the garden and listen to profound sermons by other pastors. During that week and webinar, I listened to 4 daily sermons or lectures, and it was wonderful to listen to other preachers’ words and let words and hope be sown and planted.
The first preacher was the esteemed Episcopalian Bishop Michael Curry, who got famous for preaching at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, - but first and foremost he is an amazing inspiring preacher and human being.
Michael Curry talked about how walls, pandemic, crisis and curses could not stop Gods’ Spirit. Pentecost is always stronger than any Pandemic. The Spirit moved the church, like a wild Mustard Seed, and the spirit moved us to dare to explore new ways in the middle of a crisis. In the middle of a nightmare, we dared to dream, to be creative, to be resilient and to be church in spite. The Seed was spread and grew.
Michael Curry stated that we as pastors should remember that we are not Recreational Cruise ship Directors but called to be Prophets on Turbulent Waters. And he pointed at the center of Christianity; he pointed at Jesus Christ. And claimed that if Jesus is not the way, the church loses its way. So, let us put Christ back into Christianity. And let us love, give, forgive and live like him. “If bigotry is your game, Jesus is not the name!”
Let us walk with Jesus, love like him, give as him, forgive as he did. Then we will spread and plant good seeds of faith, hope, compassion, change, justice and love. And our faith will be golden and yellow and stubborn like the mustard seed, and we may find rest in its shade and comfort. Amen