SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2024 | AFTER PENTECOST - Proper 6 (B)

Texts

Revised Common Lectionary 6-16-2024: Proper 6

Old Testament Ezekiel 17:22–24

Psalm Psalm 92:1–4, 12–15

New Testament 2 Corinthians 5:6–10 (11–13) 14–17

Gospel Mark 4:26–34

Notes:

Ezekiel:

Allusions to the chosen nation - picking an underdog was intentional

2 Corinthians:

“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation”

Mark:

Kingdom of God grows and the time of harvest is coming

Mustard seed - a mighty shrub. A very useful plant that. It may get a bad rep because of sulphur mustard or mustard gas - but they are different, manmade

Good morning,

And Happy Father’s Day to all fathers and fatherly figures.hw For the first time, I am also a father on Father’s day - ta-da! Or as Lily says: dada! So here’s to our responsibilities, joys, and hardships!

Fathers are of course important, after all, Jesus had two! Basically a stepfather Joseph that did the hands on fathering and then theologically God the Father, who did the supernatural fathering. A facet of God did the fathering as theologically speaking, God as an entity doesn’t and cannot have just one gender, God cannot be reduced to just one identity, however alluring that may be!

And that is okay - we now know that identity is a complex thing and so are families! Sometimes a family means two dads, two moms, a whole bunch of aunties and uncles and a single parent, and various permutations of.

If we open ourselves to the diversity and wonder of God’s creation, we might end up with a surprise or two. In Ezekiel, we have the reminder that the Israelites weren’t chosen to be God’s priesthood because of their proclivity to right worship or their power and influence in the region - no, if anything, the opposite is true: God chose the underdog nation, not the powerful one and as we have seen throughout the Bible, one that has to painfully learn how to worship the Great I am, the One true God. Quite the surprise. In the epistle, we have the reminder that to be in Christ means new creation and I think it is clear that entails a lot of surprises as well.

And then there is the surprise of the mustard seed. A mustard seed? That itty bitty thing is compared to the Kingdom of God? It doesn’t even grow into a tree, it is a plant and it is of the same family as cabbage or horseradish - or as Wikipedia puts it:

Brassicaceae (/ˌbræsɪˈkeɪsiːˌiː, -siˌaɪ/) or (the older) Cruciferae (/kruːˈsɪfəri/)[2] is a medium-sized and economically important family of flowering plants commonly known as the mustards, the crucifers, or the cabbage family.

Say whaat? A kingdom of God is a crucifer? A cabbage? A flowering plant? Now that is a proper surprise! Dear me. But the more we think about it, the more it makes sense really - the plant has a long history with various civilizations as newer studies suggested it may have been domesticated as long as 6000 years ago in Central Asia and According to the Saskatchewan ((/səˈskætʃ(ə)wən/) Mustard Development Commission, "Some of the earliest known documentation of mustard's use dates back to Sumerian and Sanskrit texts from 3000 BC". As well as their use in Hellenistic and Roman times as crops.

And there is quite a bit of variety - white mustard grows wild in North Africa, and Mediterranean Europe; brown mustard is grown commercially in India, Canada, UK etc.; black mustard in Argentina, Chile, the US, and some European countries. Mustard, apart from its use as spice, can be used as a cover crop to suppress weeds and protect the soil against erosion; an ingredient for biodiesel, or a pesticide. The diversity and wonder of God’s creation exemplified in one plant! In size, Jesus probably meant the mustard bush, the toothbrush tree, the evergreen shrub, which can grow rather large and resemble a tree. But even if not every mustard seed grows into this shrub that can provide shade and place for birds, what results serves an important role in the ecosystem.

So the comparison to the Kingdom of God makes much more sense, I think - it may take on many forms and roles, but there is no doubt of its importance and it makes us wonder at the surprising majesty of God’s creation. WOW!

Of course, the people at the time didn’t have all this background - no Latin genus names were invented yet and normal farmers wouldn’t have all the scientific knowledge. However, that is the beautiful thing about the parables of our Lord - the more we know, the more we can ultimately glean from his symbolic language.

And that is not just about Kingdom of God, but the rest as well - God's mission entrusted to the church through the work of accompaniment and reconciliation, our understanding of marriage,  the creation story, the Ten Commandments... It is all subject to transformation and progress, if only we open ourselves towards it and allow God's word interpreted through the Holy Spirit surprise and delight us in new ways, generation after generation.

There are those that currently want to turn the clock back a century or two and nothing and nobody is safe from that mindset because if you go far enough, just about anybody's identity was discriminated against - middle class women, Italians, Germans, Jews, Chinese, people with a disability and so on.

The progress that has been made in inclusion and equity is good - if the Kingdom of God is likened to this mighty shrub that provides shade and room for all that need it, then that is a call for us to keep extending our tables and widening the tents, especially as many others build taller fences and put lids on their dishes. We are all beggars in God's bread line and preventing others from joining is not only silly, but also downright opposite to Kingdom of God, where all are invited to have shade and room to thrive.

This father's day and any day really, let us celebrate God's wondrous and diverse creation - be it people of different identities and backgrounds, families of all kinds, nature, religions, schools of thought and more.  Let us embrace the idea of a shrub that provides for all of us as one of the important images for the Kingdom of God. Amen.