A Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Joseph Lund

Seeds

The Rev. Dr. Joseph Lund

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School

Biblical Reference

God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

Doing a little research on Father’s Day, in preparation for today, I discovered a brief history written by Garrison Keeler of Prairie Home Companion fame. It was part of his reflection as to why dad’s don’t get much respect these days. He said the first Father’s Day goes back to a Sunday morning in May of 1909 when a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was sitting in a church in Spokane, Washington listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She thought her own father who had raised her and her siblings when her mother died in child birth. She thought that fathers should have recognition, too. So she asked her minister if he would deliver a sermon honoring her father on his birthday which was upcoming in June. And he did. And the tradition of Father’s Day caught on, though rather slowly. Mother’s Day became an official day in 1914, Father’s Day, not until 1972. Mother’s Day is still the busiest day for florists, restaurants, and long distance phone companies. Father’s Day is when the most collect phone calls are made.

What a gift dad is. I’ve been thinking about my own father recently, he died four years ago and I have been missing him. I have been missing him not in that paralyzing mournful way but in that sort of regretful way. I think I finished grieving, but I think there were opportunities lost. I believe this is so, because I think I know him better now than I did then. There were many things about our relationship which I choose not to remember but there were many more things that warmed my heart. Most of all I think about those many little things that he did for me and taught me that I really didn’t understand then, but I think I do now. I would really like to have the chance to talk to him and thank him about these things.

For my father planted seeds, the seeds of the quality of life that I would encounter later. He planted the seeds of tolerance, thrift, risk taking, loyalty, strong work ethic, community involvement, accountability and racial relationships; and, yes, the love of Jesus Christ. Many of you have similar experiences, but we don’t quite get it until quite later as we reflect upon our lives. Our father’s plant seeds of wisdom, strength, accountability and paternal love. Those seeds sprout and bloom to make us along with the seeds planted by our mothers and others who we are today. We thank God for our father.

Jesus talks about seeds. He compares the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed - many of us have never seen a mustard seed, but we enjoy it as an end product, maybe on our hotdogs. Did you know that 90% of all mustard seeds come from Canada? I brought one in to show you. See it? Of course you can’t, it’s too small. And that’s the point. I confess that in seminary I had to take a course that we lovingly called mustard seed 101 to try to understand this parable. The people of Jesus’ time knew that a mustard seed was the smallest thing in creation. Of course, we now know there are natural things that are even smaller. But this seed is very impressive for its size. We are often told, good things come in small packages, and you hear it every Christmas, some of you. This small seed grows into a bush, sometimes one to three feet tall - it may even grow wild along the road sides — with a stretch, it may even grow large enough to house a few birds or may a nest or two. But this is a parable; clearly Jesus’ called this a parable. And we know parables offer to change the perspectives of its hearers. To turn commonly held beliefs up side down.

How did the mustard seeds change the perspectives of the Kingdom of God? In the first century Israel, the Kingdom of God had specific connotations of power, triumph, holiness, order and goodness. The Kingdom, when it came, would introduce a glorious new age of universal peace, with God’s chosen people at the head of the nations. The cultural symbol of this great perspective was the great Cedar of Lebanon. Cedars of Lebanon were comparable to our huge Redwood Trees that we see here in California. They grew straight up to two-three hundred feet - every kind of bird could enjoy its safety and its shade. This image is deeply embedded in the cultural conditioning of the Jewish people. The Kingdom of God would be the greatest of all nations, just as the Cedars of Lebanon are the greatest of all trees. Instead, Jesus proposes this parable. With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? “It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seed on earth, that when it is sown, it becomes the greatest of all shrubs.” Today, with our great knowledge, we would stroke our chin, and say, how insightful. But to Jesus’ hearers, they would be immediately stricken with another thought — for the mustard seed and the mustard plant is associated with uncleanness. And, uncleanness meant disorder, hardly the stuff of a great kingdom. There were strict rules what could be planted in household garden. There was a rabbinical law about diverse kinds which rules that no one could mix a mustard seed with other plants. It was forbidden in a household garden. Because it was fast spreading and would choke out the other vegetables as it grew. So, when the hearers of Jesus heard this “the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed’, they wondered why Jesus was saying this—this unclean thing. Steeped in that cultural image of the great Cedars of Lebanon, then, Jesus’ hearers are expecting the mustard seed, Jesus’ symbol of the kingdom, to grow and a mighty apocalyptic tree. A mutant if you will. But Jesus’ point is just the opposite. It just becomes a shrub - thus the towering images of the Cedars of Lebanon are discarded as the prophet Ezekiel reveals in our lesson from the Hebrew Bible today. He says “the Lord God has caste it out — foreigners from the most terrible of nations have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys, its branches have fallen, its boughs lie broken and all the water courses of the land and all the peoples from the earth went away from it’s shade and left it.” Jesus is asking his hearers to accept a new image, to be aware what the prophet Ezekiel has said.

The parable implies that if we accept God, the God of every day life, we can find God in every day life; we don’t have to wait for a large mutant mustard plant for our apocalyptic deliverance. We do not have wait for an epic-worthy liberation. The kingdom is available right now. As his hearers absorbed this parable they come to know that God is not necessarily going to intervene in this world for the triumph of the just. God may not intervene in an apocalyptic way to deliver Israel or to bring about justice and peace. For God has entrusted that to us. We are not to wait around for an epic event to do the job that we are called to do. God’s work is not always done on a grandiose level. God’s kingdom can be found in every day life with its ups and downs and remarkably in insignificance. This is where most of us actually live, the kingdom is readily acceptable to everybody.

Grace is like a mustard seed, sown in us, the smallest of seeds, it is growing but it is not going to turn us into the Cedars of Lebanon. We’ll be doing well if we become and ordinary and modest shrub. The mustard seed, remember, to the first century Israel is just one step ahead of being an ordinary weed. So, if we are looking for a vast expansion of the faithful who follow Christianity, making it into a great visible organization with influence on this earth - we are on the wrong track. That is not God’s idea of success. The mightiest works of the kingdom are accomplished in our attitudes. And mostly in secret. Where there is charity, there is God. Opportunities to serve the least of us are everywhere to be found. No one may notice our good and unselfish deeds including ourselves. The Kingdom of God manifests itself with the modest changes in our attitudes and the little improvements of our behavior that no one may notice or reward, but God knows.

But what of God, Jesus asks? The Kingdom of God is manifested in ordinary daily life in how we live it. If we can accept that image, then we can enjoy the kingdom here and now without having to wait for the apocalyptic event to deliver us from our difficulties. In my years as a priest, I continually heard from parents that they were concerned about their adult children who had stopped attending church and no longer practice the faith that they learned in their homes. This can be a great concern. There isn’t much we can do to keep our children in the faith once they have grown. We can plant the seed and nurture them, we can weed the garden of faith when they are little but we cannot guarantee that children will practice the faith when they grow up. I know several priests that have told me that their adult children have announced that they are atheists. Indeed, parents of small children have their work cut out for them. There are so many pressures on families and it’s hard to keep everyone in the same room to do any weeding or nurturing. It is our privileged task to nurture children in the faith, and to teach the truth of Christ in our homes and in our churches and in Sunday school, youth groups, vacation Bible School and in every day play. They need some foundation to resist the temptations of the world and the frightening behavior that can choke out the bloom of a good life. So, weed pulling in the Christian home and positive influence of the church and community cannot be over emphasized.

Blessedly in my years of ministry I have also seen those young adults returning to the church. Returning to the faith they were raised in. They come back because they have families, they come back because they are looking for a purpose and meaning in their lives, they’re looking for genuinely fine people to know and associate with. They come back because they want to feel the joy of a life in Christ. They come back because the seeds you have planted bloomed in a powerful way. God is at work. It’s not our job to make followers of Christ or laborers of kingdom, only God can do that. It is our job to scatter the seed of faith, see to it that the plants get water and sun and tend to the weeds that grow to try and choke out the growing plants. That’s what nurture is all about.

I have heard many faithful Christians who are involved in the confirmation process moaning the lack of the enthusiasm of their charges. Some people who teach the catechism of our faith deem their work only a success when the young person or adult declares their belief as Jesus as their savior. That is not their task. They plant the seed and nurture it for a while; they may never see it bloom. We all know adults who are faithful and a blessing

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