Pentecost 2 B

Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13] 14-17; Mark 4:26-34

Good Morning. We have moved into a time in the church the Methodists actually call kingdomtide. It is a time in the church year when we get to hear all about God's vision for the kingdom, about what it means to be living as children of God in the kingdom of God, right now. So today we start out with some stories about different kinds of plants and how they relate to the kingdom. And I want to talk about that more but first we're going to start out voting on something, don't worry it will be quick and painless.

We are going to vote on how you might describe the kingdom of God. Remember this is God's reign in the world now and in times to come. Our texts provide two choices today, the kingdom can either be described as a mighty cedar tree majestic, towering over the land, giving shelter to the birds and homes to other creatures or it can be described as a mustard plant, which is really a bit of a weed in the middle east, grows all over the place, isn't very big or very pretty...Those are your two choices, mighty tree or weedlike bush, how would you describe the kingdom of God?

Who votes that it be described as a mighty tree?

Ok, now how many of you would vote that it be described as the bush?

Hmm, okay we'll talk more.

Let's talk about the mighty tree first because it won the vote and because it is a classic example of the kingdom of God. In order to talk about that I want to tell you about a tree, In the bible they talked about cedars because they were the mightiest trees in the land but the mightiest trees here are sequioas so let's talk about one of them for a minute.

There is a a certain tree in California, a beautiful tree, not unlike all of its neighboring trees. This tree has been growing since Jesus walked, when Jesus gave his sermon about seeds and tiny plants growing this tree was itself a tiny plant. But now it is so big that you could build a small home in the base of it. A few of its neighbors, you might have seen this or even been to visit have actaully had the center of the trunk at the bottom cut out or they have split naturally at the bottom, so that cars can drive through them and the trees are so darn big they live even without that part of the trunk. But that is how big they are, cars can easily through their bases and they get almost 40 stories high, nearly 400 feet tall, as tall as skyscrapers.

Now this tree is amazing too because it is so big and so tall and so old, there it has an entire ecosystem in its canopy. They have been sending teams of people up into these trees to study the life that they harbour. The people actaully have to get into the trees like mountain climbers and when they do they find organisms that have never been seen anywhere else. There are things that happen within the kingdom of this tree, new life that sprouts that could never be found anywhere else. Whole systems of life are supported by one tree.

This tree that I started telling you about has been threatened with fire more than once but here is the thing these trees are almost magical, almost perfect creatures, parts of creation, they are fire resisitant, have you ever heard of that? A type of wood that is fire resistant? Well they are, they have almost no resisn so they don't burn. Once when there was as great fire in the city of San Francisco, you know how there used to be great fires in cities and the fire was fianlly stopped when it got to a line of buildings framed with lumber from these redwood trees, they just wouldn't burn.

The kingdom of God is like this, indestructible, filled with life, brimming with life so much so that things happen in it that could never happen without it, peace is made, people are healed, families are mended, the lonely are loved, the broken are cared for. The kingdom of God is like a mighty, mighty tree, you were all right!

Except...If you go back and you look at your text Jesus voted for the bush...for the mustard plant. He said that the kingdom of God is like this, it is as if someone sowed tiny, insignificant little mustard seeds and without their knowing how, up sprung a bush, or a tree...It depends a little on how you translate, this, it can either say bush or tree.

But we know what a mustard plant is and they really know what a mustard plant is where Jesus lived! It is farmed sometimes, but it is also a weed. They strugle in places to keep it under control because it grows up anywhere, anytime. Wheter someone has planted it or not. That is kind of the way with weeds, they grow like crazy. It is a bit of a shame that we can't turn the way we think about weeds and worthy plants around because it sure is easier to grow the ones that we don't want.

You know, just decide that dandelions are prettier than roses, that kind of thing because weeds will grow anywhere! Anywhere. I was walking along Green avenue this week looking at the work that has been done and I noticed in the places that they had to tear up lawns where the town easement is they planted grass seeds and those are starting to grow, slowing popping up in the bare earth but oh, the weeds! They're already partly grown! Weeds are amazing, nothing can keep them down, you can plant them just by walking around because their little seeds cling to your shoes and plant themselves in the places that you step.

I've seen weeds growing sideways out of boulders on hillsides where you can't even figure out where the soil that they must need is. I've seen weeds crop up in tiny cracks in heavy pavement where nothing else will grow. I've seen weeds in the desert and in the frozen places far north in the middle of winter. I've even seen weeds that have been underwater for a whole season live to tell about it when waters have receded. I've seen weeds grow where destruction has happened, filling broken places that no one wants to go with their little gold and purple and white flowers.

And I've seen weeds planted just because a person has walked along a path in their daily life.

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like the mustard seed, easily planted by the careless hand of a child, or the daily walk of elderly woman, or the rough but friendly play of teenage kids or the mindless tossing of seeds plucked from a stem as you walk along. By the offhanded remark that you are praying for a friend, or that you have a church that feeds the hungry or that you are going to quilt with the church folk on Wednesday or teach Sunday School on Sunday, or have dinner with a great friend you first met in worship. Little seeds planted by daily walking with Christ. They grow like weeds, by the power of God in places that we never knew they could and never would have tried to plant a mighty tree.

Now here is the peculiar thing, like I said before in the text from mark and in other
places the distinction between the mustard plant and a tree is not very
clear. It sounds like Jesus is claiming that a huge tree will grow from
a dandlaion puff so to speak. That that mighty redwood will grow like a mustard seed grows, not over 2000 years, not from a carefully cultivated trimming that is planted in just the right spot and grows only by the most careful tending but like a seed cast to the wind that falls on soil and takes root.

I don't think Jesus was mistaken about horticulture when he called what grows like a mustard seed a tree, I think Jesus was telling us that it is our job to plant tiny seeds and trust that they will grow into the kingdom of God, mighty like a redwood, tall, filled with new life all of the time, indestructible and as persistant and unstoppable as a mustard plant.  Amen