Pentecost 2 B, 6-14-2009

Pentecost 02 B, 6-14-2009
Salem - Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 4:26-34;

Let’s talk parables. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks in parables once again. He does that a lot. If you were in our recent Bible study on Opening the Book of Faith and you remember the four ways we read the Bible in the Lutheran Church then you might remember that we can use a literary reading of the Bible to help us understand it here.

Remember your old English Lit class? One would hope that among many other things they taught you about parables. Many times Jesus used this literary device called a parable to get his point across. In this reading from Mark’s gospel we hear that Jesus preached only in parables as the people “were able to hear.”

Parables are short stories that paint word pictures for us. They are not meant to be literally true, and they are not always strictly factual, nor are they meant to be that, either. Even so God has always delighted in talking to us with parables, and so we find them used throughout the Bible. Dr. Terrence Fretheim, professor of Old Testament at LSTC, who taught a couple of Bible studies and forums at the Synod Assembly last weekend touched on this during his presentations. I distinctly remember him pointing out that one Old Testament text says God is like a maggot. (I think that was Fred Beaver’s favorite comment during the whole assembly. Definitely one of mine: God is a maggot.) But is God a really maggot? No, but God could be pictured as having the qualities of a maggot, especially when one remembers that maggots were used in ancient medicine to clean infected wounds. God cleanses us completely of the wounds that scar our lives.

A parable with an unlikely image can communicate great truth. This is especially so in the New Testament where we find Jesus teaching with parables many times to communicate truth about the kingdom of God. Parables are a kind of extended metaphor, which is one way – and maybe the best way – of taking hold of what the Episcopal priest, the Rev. Dr. J. Barrington Bates, calls “the amazing wonder that is God” within the limits of our ability to communicate.

Today’s parable is just that: a metaphor, a word picture, not factual, not literally true, but still giving us the truth about the “amazing wonder that is God.” Jesus calls it the “kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God is like someone who would scatter seed on the ground, and the seed grows, but he doesn‘t know how.

How is that like the kingdom of God?

Lamar Williamson, in his commentary on Mark writes that “the Kingdom of God grows in a hidden, mysterious way, independently of human effort.” He goes on to say that the kingdom of God develops in history independent of human efforts as a miraculous work of God. The harvest that comes of this is a gift from God. Williamson says that this is important whenever we take ourselves and our efforts too seriously, seeking by our plans to “bring in the kingdom of God.” That is human arrogance which runs up against God’s “hidden presence and power.” (pp. 97-98.)

I agree, and yet, so many would say that there are far too many people in churches who are content to be pew potatoes - the church equivalent of couch potatoes. It’s a universal problem in the church. Ask any pastor. Pr. Brian Stoffregen at Faith Lutheran in Marysville, California illustrates the problem with this story that he lifted from a church newsletter from St. Mark’s Lutheran church in Roswell, New Mexico:

A preacher in the midwest was called by a woman who wanted to speak to him about her dissatisfaction with the program of the Church. He invited her to come to his office and talk the problem over with him. She accepted the invitation and brought to his attention some of the things that were needed and could be done.
He gratefully acknowledged the wisdom of her ideas. He then said, "This is wonderful that you are so concerned and interested in this. You are the very person this Church needs to head up this program. Will you take the job?"
Her reply was just as immediate. "Oh, no, I don't want to get involved. With my clubwork and the hours that I put on some other things, I just don't have the time. But I will be glad to advise you any time."
The preacher's answer was classic and well put: "Good, gracious, lady, that's the problem now. I already have 400 advisers. I need someone who will work."

We are fortunate here in Parrottsville that we have workers in the kingdom. Consider the people who worked for Luther Memorial’s yard sale this weekend. They did a great job and they were so speedy and efficient at packing up on Saturday morning that I couldn’t catch up with them. They just left me in the dust. I tried to catch up with them but everywhere I went they had already been there and gone. It seems the kingdom was moving along without me quite well. I ended up in the Salem Cemetery keeping company with the guys who were fixing tombstones. And I got to do a little tombstone work myself.

Pr. Stoffregen points out that we all have our jobs to do: casting seed on the earth and being ready to participate in the harvest when the time is right while God's "job" is to create "natural" growth.

When I was in New York I took a couple of seminars on Natural Church Development. NCD is designed to evaluate any congregation in terms of the eight most important characteristics or qualities a congregation can have, identify the weakest area of a congregation‘s life, and then focus on strengthening that area so that all areas of congregational life will improve over time. I wanted to use NCD in Hudson and Churchtown but the Synod Staff kept telling me we didn‘t qualify and so we never were able to use it there. Too bad, because I think it could have helped, and it would have helped because NCD research shows us that as we go into the 21st century the key issue for us is not church growth but church health. (Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development, p. 17.)

This is good news for our small churches in rural communities where growth is going to be hard to come by and we struggle with the idea of outreach amid our limitations.

If seeds grow "automatically," the concern for the farmer (or the pastor or the person in the pew) who has planted the seed of God's word, is not how to make it grow; but what might be hindering the growth that would come naturally. What hinders the growth that we trust God wants to give? It may be that what the Episcopal priest, the Rev. Dr. J. Barrington Bates has to say on this score is relevant to many churches:

“In the kingdom of God,” he says, “we would put aside our own egotistical need to have power over anyone else and instead cultivate compassion, understanding, and cooperation.”

Back to the parable. The sower does nothing after sowing the seeds. Doesn’t even understand how it all works. Real farmers spend a lot of time and money and effort working against all those things that would keep those seeds from sprouting. They know how it all works. And they tend to be successful. Yet, even with all that work, farmers still wait in faith and the growth happens while they sleep.

Me, I’m fighting a loosing battle against weeds in my garden. I go out an take the hoe and even use my bare hands and remove those weeds and they keep coming back. It reminds me that the kingdom of God is like a weed, a mustard plant, growing from a tiny seed, resilient, hardy, persistent. Maybe I try too hard sometimes. The kingdom of God seems to be able to move along just fine on its own. Maybe the thing to do is to not try so hard to make the kingdom work, but to do the work that the kingdom brings our way.

Peace be with you.