· Ezekiel 17:22-24
· Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15 (12)
· 2 Corinthians 5:6-17
· Mark 4:26-34
Let me tell you something about mustard. There are many varieties of mustard; some of them are domesticated and eaten by us, others are wild. The wild ones are called "wildflowers" when they're in the woods, and "weeds" when they're in my garden.
Now my garden is on a concrete balcony on the seventh floor. I have a bird feeder, but no birds ever come there. In the winter I put out dog food for the ravens; in the summer, I don't. I don't even get a lot of insects. And I certainly do not use my gardening tools anywhere else. So I have to ask, how in the world would a weed get into my garden? But it did. Specifically, a type of black mustard has gotten into my garden. I don't know if it's carried on the wind, or stuck to insects, or on the dog's fur, or on my clothes, but it got in somehow.
The first year that I had black mustard in my garden, I didn't know what it was, so I left it alone to see if it would turn into something pretty.
Well.
Starting from a seed so small I've never even seen one, the black mustard can grow two feet tall and as thick as my thumb within six weeks. And this is north of 60°, remember, where the sun isn't that strong. Oh yeah, and my garden is in part shade. So imagine how ginormous this creature would get in a sunny spot in Israel. Then, and here is what gets me, the mustard puts out the tiniest, most ridiculous puny unspectacular flowers. They're maybe 2 mm, tops. That's about 1/16th of an inch. That explains why the seeds are so minuscule, then.
Now that I know, of course, I pull the black mustard seedlings as soon as I spot them. And I'm a pretty fastidious person, so I keep a pretty sharp eye on my weeds, if I do say so myself. Yet, I keep finding mustard in bloom in my garden. How can it get from zero to flower within me noticing it? I don't know. Maybe it's just that the leaves are similarly-shaped to some of my actual flowers, and I just don't look closely enough.
So the Kingdom of God is like that. You can't even see the seed. You certainly don't see it coming. Maybe it comes on the wind, or on a raven's feet. It comes unnoticed, on the wings of something completely mundane. And then it grows. And you don't even see it grow, even though it's shooting up like a weed before your very eyes. You're looking right at it at least twice a day, and you don't even notice it. Until one day, it flowers, and then you're like "whoa, where did that come from?" And by the time you try to weed it out, it's probably put out its seeds for the next generation already. There is no getting rid of it. It's not just the immensity of it that's interesting, it's the way it has of sneaking up on you from nothing at all.
So then what? What do we do once we find the Kingdom of God growing in these unlikely places?
Conveniently, the author of Mark juxtaposed the mustard seed and the man with the sickle. And I love the man with the sickle. Sows his seeds, goes about his business. And then suddenly, he leaps into action with his sickle, because the time has come. Frankly, I love anyone who will leap into action instead of sitting on his hands hemming and hawing. I can't stand slackers.
Of course this parable came up in a Bible study I was at, and I tried to say that obviously Jesus is telling us to act, not sit down and pray and wait for him to take care of everything. As always, nobody's buying that. Nope, Jesus does not expect us to do anything, all we gotta do is make shopping lists and say "we ask this in Jesus's name amen" and poof, Jesus is gonna take care of everything.
Yeah, well, that's nice, but that's not what he said about the guy with the sickle. It clearly says right here in the book: "when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." And of course Jesus also told us, as I always like to quote, "keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come."
Jesus expects us to be ready, and nowhere does it say that we have to be ready to sit down and do nothing. Oh, pardon me, sit down and pray and wait for someone else to solve our problems. I think Jesus made it very clear, in this parable and at other times, that he expects us to act. So how do we know when, and how do we know how?
I think, when you look at the Gospels, it seems like Jesus expected us to know exactly what we're looking for. Whenever someone asks him, he says something a lot like "it's self-evident." He never really tells you what, exactly, "it" is. You're supposed to know it. So it's got to be something that is gonna be really obvious when you see it. You don't know what you're waiting for, but all of sudden you will see it and you'll know immediately that this is it, this is what you've been waiting for. And whatever it is, we already know that it calls for decisive action.
So what is the Kingdom of God? I think you should be seeing it for yourself. It's very obvious. It's right in front of your eyes. It's any moment when you know without having to think about it that God expects you to act. Not sit down and pray, act. Whenever you see an opportunity to do something for the Lord, you've seen the Kingdom of God. Corollary: if you're not seeing any opportunities to do something for the Lord, you're not awake. You're not keeping watch.
If you're not finding opportunities to serve the Lord, if you're not seeing them all around you, and if you're not leaping into action without hesitation, I think you might want to rethink your approach. Because you may be saved by grace through faith, but if you can't see the Kingdom of God when it's right before your eyes, do you really have faith? Did you actually hear what Jesus said? Or are you just talking a lot of talk?
Keep awake, therefore, and be ready to get to work when you see the Kingdom of God before you.
Today's hymn: #798, Will You Come and Follow Me.
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