Das Gleichnis vom Löwenzahn (JCUM)

Steffen Hollmann

Gleichnisse • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

Mark 4:30–34

Luke 13:18–21

Matthew 13:31–32

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Das Gleichnis vom Löwenzahn

Einleitung

Bernardo asked me to give a sermon this sunday.

One thing first, I

Today I want to talk about a Parabel of Jesus.

the parabel of the mustard seed

I really like that parabels

So please open your bible on .

Matthäus 13,31–32 NTV

31 La siguiente es otra ilustración que usó Jesús: «El reino del cielo es como una semilla de mostaza sembrada en un campo. 32 Es la más pequeña de todas las semillas, pero se convierte en la planta más grande del huerto; crece hasta llegar a ser un árbol y vienen los pájaros y hacen nidos en las ramas».

Before I studied about it, I could never get anything out of the parable.

it is so small, but there are so many deep thoughts in it - thats amazing.

but I needed to learn about parabel.

I could never get anything out of the parable.

| I could never get anything out of the parable.

When I've read the Bible, I just thought:

Yeah, great, it's small and it's getting big.

And that's no wonder.

We people from Europe

o We here

We people from Central or Northern Europe

we are normaly no farmers or think about agriculture.

and so we dont know anything about mustard plants.

I’m not sure how it is in Brazil and Spain,

but I dont think that there are many people here who saw a mustard plant before, right?

| Or how many of you have ever seen a mustard plant before?

We only know mustard from the glass.

But in order to understand what Jesus wants here, we have to transfer the whole thing into our time and culture.

So what to do?

| So what to do?

I went looking for a comparable plant.

First i thought, you dont know them in Spain:

but then I found a lot of them, see here:

a Dandilon

But even for for those who don’t know a dandilon I found an other one

a Thistle (Cardo)

| dandelion spot

take the one that is more known for you

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Matthäus 13,31–32 ELB 06

31 Ein anderes Gleichnis legte er ihnen vor und sprach: Das Reich der Himmel gleicht einem Senfkorn, das ein Mensch nahm und auf seinen Acker säte; 32 es ist zwar kleiner als alle Arten von Samen, wenn es aber gewachsen ist, so ist es größer als die Kräuter und wird ein Baum, sodass die Vögel des Himmels kommen und in seinen Zweigen nisten.

Mt 13,31-32M

Maybe now you're thinking:

He can't do that!

What's he doing?!

Dandelion is so diffrent to mustard!

How can a thistle represent the kingdom of God?

Dandelion destroys everything.

Thistles only disturbs and will never be a tree!

How can you afford such a thing?!

If you think that, then you react in exactly the same way as the people at Jesus time probably reacted to this parable.

It doesn't fit, it's wrong, unrespectful, it's completely out of place.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Folie

But I want to show you why this comparison fits very well.

All plants have very very small seeds.

All plants look very similar

Every child in old Israel knew what mustard was, just like everyone here knows what a dandelion or a thistle is.

All plants can be used, in the kitchen and as medicinal plants.

All plants never become a tree.

birds will never be able to nest in the branches of a mustard plant

They are as little like the branches of a dandelion or of a thistle.

6. But above all, all plants are extremely stubborn weeds!

| But above all, both plants are extremely stubborn weeds!

And that is the main reason, why all these plants are known as bad plants.

So what does Jesus want to say by these parable?

What does he want to point out?

A Lot of!

But I will focus on three points.

Folie

I. Klein wie ein Samen

Erklärung

We all know that a mustard seed is small.

| We all know that a mustard seed is small.

They have this size

And because we have it sometimes in the shelf.

They are as small as this.

Is there anyone,

who already saw it

or who now could find it?

People in Jesus' time waited for the Messiah.

Israel was occupied by the Romans.

The Messiah should free them from it.

He should restore the old kingdom.

He should restore the dignity of the Israelites.

People expected this Messiah to appear with all his pomp.

They wanted a Messiah who would sweep away the Romans.

Folie

It was quite normal to compare the kingdom of God with the cedars of Lebanon.

Thats trees like that

mighty trees

Up to 50m high

Their wood was used for the temple in Jerusalem.

If Jesus had said:

Behold, the kingdom of God is like the cedars of Lebanon!

His listeners would called out loudly:

"Amen!"

maybe some would have started dancing.

But Jesus says: no, the kingdom of God is like a seed.

Tiny

Small

Inconspicuous

Folie

Übertragung

We also often have the expectation that the kingdom of God will appear with all its pomp and glory.

When we read the apokalypsis, we see a glorious battle of which the final victory of Jesus stands.

When Jesus comes again, it will be bombastic.

Heaven will open up

Anyone who laughs at us now will be justly punished.

God will wipe away everyone's tears and finally establish justice.

Isn't it like this?

Don't we often have such ideas?

Actually, these ideas don't differ much from those of the people in Jesus' day.

God the mighty world judge.

I think that's exactly why this parable is as relevant today as it was then.

Because Jesus tells us exactly like the people back then:

That's not the point.

That's not important for you.

There will be no direct attack on the empires of this world.

The kingdom of God is tiny.

Small as a mustard seed or as an umbrella of a dandelion.

Small as an umbrella of a dandelion.

The kingdom of God isn't like an angry revolution of the "decent."

The kingdom of God is not like a tank that destroys the capitals of unbelievers.

The kingdom of God is not like a nuclear bomb that extinguishes the evil.

It is completely contrary:

The kingdom of God is like an annoying mustard seed.

It's a dandelion in the nose of an allergy sufferer.

Like a thistle who start to grow in the ruins.

Anwendung

Sometimes I think

what are we doing here?

we are how many people here?

20?

20 people who calls themeselve JCUM Vigo?

20 people who wants to change This area of Moana and Vigo?

20 people who wants to show the kingdom of God to 500.000 people who live in the area of Vigo?

What are we doing here?

How can we be part of the kingdom of God?

a house where mold grows.

A house of which the Old Testament tells us to burn it down?

How can we be part of the kingdom of God?

How can we represent his glory?

shouldn't actually the devil laugh at us?

And God shudder his head in shame about us?

No.

God does not work with the cedars of Lebanon.

it is build out from little mustart seeds.

seeds like we here Moaña.

like we are here in Moaña.

seeds like you in your neighborhood

seeds like a little albuerge on the camino de santiago

seeds like a smile

This seeds does not change the world quickly.

This seeds does not look like a kingdom

maybe these seeds look miserable.

But he decided to build his kingdom with it.

and he decided he'd rather plant his wealth with it

What an incredible honor, isn't it?

Folie

II. Es wächst

Erklärung

Mustard is a weed.

The intro of "Dandelion" actually shows very nicely how mustard grows.

Once it's there, it can't be stopped.

it overgrows whole beds in no time at all.

Mustard was ripped out.

It was removed and destroyed.

The Talmud, the Jewish interpretation of the law, forbade to cultivate mustard in many places.

One of the secrets in agriculture, which was strictly regulated, was how to keep mustard away.

Mustard destroyes order.

And order was a symbol of God.

God orders the desert and empty earth at the beginning of time, after he created it.

Folie

Mustard is like our dandelion.

When a dandelin apears in the garden it will be very fast everywhere like in the garden of the base

Folie

My parents have a very professional garden.

So I learned a few things from then, and one of the things is:

When dandelion appears in our gardens, we have to rip it off!

Spray weed killer on it

And try to exterminate him.

The Garden is not a place for a dandelon!

The big problem is, the dandilon is always coming back.

Maybe becaus a child couldn't resist blowing the liitle dendilon umbrelas

Or because a piece of root always remains in the soil.

Mustard and dandelion are like a disease: invisible and indestructible.

And they are getting bigger and bigger.

Folie

Übertragung

How can he say something like that?

Übertragung

9. explanation

The plants are alluring.

I believe that Jesus this aspect is extremely important in this parable.

Why?

Because Jesus talks right after the mustard seed about leaven .

A little bit of leaven is enough to acidify a whole lump of dough.

That's exactly the same.

Something small is enough to gradually take on something big.

What does he mean by that?

A lot of people tried to rip out the gospel from society.

The message of the kingom of heavens.

Roman emporers, who killed the christians.

Philosophers in the 19th Centrury, who said the christian faith is dead.

Faschists, like Hitler, who tried to infiltrate the church with her idology

Kommunist dictators, who tried to establish a atheistic society

Islamistic dictatorships, who punishes christians.

But non of this where prosperous with this.

If the seed was seeded, it can not be ripped out anymore.

it grows and you can try a lot of things but you will not be able to stop it!

maybe it looks like it is away, but it is still there

but it is there.

A good example for this is China.

the first missionary arrived there in 635 AD

| We are in the small town of Montgomery in the southeast of the USA.

| A yellow bus drives through the streets.

| In the back there are people standing close to each other.

| The front rows are relatively empty.

| A woman gets on, pays and sits down on one of the free seats in the middle.

| The bus drives on and slowly the front seats become scarce.

| Finally, the bus driver notices that three people have to stand in the front area.

and it was piteous.

| He stops the bus.

| "Come on, clear your seats, they're not for you!"

| First they refuse, then three rise and push back.

a few missionarys for such a big nation

| The woman also makes room, she slides to the window so that the three men can sit.

| Why don't you get up?"

| The woman hesitates.

some converted before the faith was forbidden in 845

| "I don't think I should get up!"

200 years it looks like there was nothing left from the first churches.

it looks like it was ripped out.

over the centrurys missionarys tried to bring the gospel back to China.

but it looks like they all failed.

| She's not sick,

And then Mao forbade all religion in China.

What the missionaries did was seeding seeds

it looks piteous.

it looks like the chinese people are deaf for the gospel.

but in the undergorund the church was growing.

and it

And today there are at least 2,5% of the Chinese people christians, in 1997 it was just the half of it.

pitous, too, right?

But this are 50-100 Million people.

almost 2 Spains ;)

Mustard is growing,

you cannot stop it.

| She's not any old or tired than usual,

| She doesn't have any heavy bags either.

| She's just sick of the way they treat her.

| She's tired of being treated as a second-class person just because she's black.

| "So are you gonna get up?"

| "No."

| "Well, then I'll have to call the police who'll lock you up."

| Then you should do it."

| A policeman takes them away.

| Why do they do that? Why are they pushing us around like that?"

| The cop is completely perpelx:

| "I don't know... but the law is the law and you're under arrest!"

| Rosa Parks spent the night in a cell.

| One seed.

| But this seed fell on the right ground.

| Because it grew and grew.

| This act by Rosa Parks was the actual beginning of the US civil rights movement.

| A largely non-violent movement.

| Led by the Baptist preacher Martin Luther King

| Their goal: To end the discrimination of blacks in the USA and finally give all citizens of the USA the right to vote.

| Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated for it.

| King gave his famous speech "I Have a Dream" in front of over 250,000 people.

| And finally, racial segregation was abolished and every citizen was given the right to vote.

God's kingdom grows like mustard.

Quietly, unnoticed, sneaking, right above the ground.

And gradually it overgrows the old order.

Anwendung

This is how we usually describe sin.

Once she is there, she stays

Once she is there, she stays and eats herself away.

it destroys the good order that God has established.

But Jesus does not describe sin here, but the kingdom of God, the good.

Often we have the image that all the good is a weak plant that has to be protected.

The one that dies at the slightest gust of wind.

But Jesus tells us here: No!

Nothing is as powerful as the kingdom of God!

Even when the dandelion bends over from the wind, the seeds are carried on.

| And when the dandelion bends over from the wind, the seeds are carried on anyway.

You saw what happens in China

They have the potential to change the world!

| Rosa Parks "only" refused to get up and changed the USA.

You saw what happens in China

And that's just one example of what can happen when a mustard seed rises!

Jesus tells us: it doesn't depend on the size of the act.

It doesn't depend on the size of the seed.

It could be a mustard seed or a dandelion.

It is HIM who lets it grow.

HE makes something great out of it.

Even if we don't see it right now.

We often have the feeling that our actions have no effect.

What can we do?

But mustard crawls over the floor.

Unnoticed, the dandelion grows in every crack.

Its roots are up to one meter long.

And then it suddenly sprouts out and forms a yellow blossom!

This is how the kingdom of God spreads.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Folie

III. Der Baum

Erklärung

There are different types of mustard and It's not quite clear what kind of mustard Jesus is talking about.

It's not quite clear what kind of mustard Jesus is talking about.

But they all have one thing in common:

even the highest mustard plant reaches a maximum of 3 m.

Normally mustard grows between 30 and 80 cm high.

When it is planted, it looks like a rape field.

Yes, dandelion is a bit smaller

But there are also species up to 80cm high, especially in summer.

But one thing is clear with dandelions as well as with mustard:

That's NOT a tree

Normally a tree is a woody plant with root, trunk and a leafy crown.

you can say jesus is talking about another plant

Normally a tree is a woody plant with root, trunk and a leafy crown.

you

Normally a tree is a woody plant with root, trunk and a leafy crown.

Dandelion and mustard only have roots.

A crown or even wood is missing.

But that was it then.

A crown or even wood is missing.

And what is more important for a tree, than wood?

So it's clear:

| So it's clear:

Mustard and dandelion never become trees.

They are also not tree-like

And the idea of birds nesting in them is absolutely grotesque.

But imagine the audience back then!

Yes, something small becomes big.

It's logical.

Thats also happens with an apple seed.

Nice parable ;)

they expected a cedar, but Jesus was talking about a mustard!

And why not? How shall we know how mustard grows?

But imagine the audience back then!

The others can only shake their heads about Jesu dumbness.

| The others can only shake their heads about so much stupidity.

And still others are blushing with anger:

Does this Jesus have no respect at all?!

why does Jesus say that?

Wasn't he a botanist?

Wasn't he a farmer?

Did he said something that he did not mentioned to do?

Was he translated badly?

Mustard was an everyday plant.

It wasn't a plant only botanists knew about, every child knew them

In Israel, mustard is a plant like our dandelion our thistle.

So it seems absurdly that Jesus had no idea.

And it is the same for the people who translated and passed the gospel.

They knew the plant, why would they make such an obvious mistake here?

Yes there is an other option, you can search for a plant, which is like the description

and yes there is a tree, who some people call mustard tree

but it is quite unclear if it was known at the time of Jesus and if it was called mustard.

You can say: mustard was growing different in jesus times.

Or you can look for other solution.

today we don’t know what Jesus is really talking about - because we are not living in Jesus culture.

But we can interprete, what jesus is talking about.

And for me the most convincing interpretation is:

jesus was really talking about the very commun mustard!

Jesus wanted to say something very specific here!

the one that will never be a tree.

Übertragung

Even with human help and optimal conditions, this plant will grow to a maximum of 3m.

A mustard seed never becomes a tree naturally.

And also: When we sow a dandilon seed, we don’t think about planting a tree, right?

And yet:

When Loren Cunningham, recieved his Vision of the waves of young people, he probably never thought,

that this will start one of the biggest mission movements in the world, who are able to take the gospel to alost every country in the world

he probably never thought that he will establish the f

When Rosa Parks remained seated on the black places in the bus, she probably never would have thought,

When the black Rosa Parks refused to stand up for some white people, and remains on the seat of the whites in the bus, she probably never would have thought,

that this starts to bringe down segregation in the Unitad States and will give the blacks the right to vote.

When the Christians in Philadelphia ate with the homeless, they probably never would have thought,

that they would be called freedom fighters for it.

When Greek fishermen went out because they heard screams from the sea, they probably never would have thought,

That they would soon save thousands of refugees.

When Henry Dunant, contrary to his plans, took care of the wounded at the Battle of Solferino in 1859, he probably never would have thought,

That the International Red Cross would emerge from it

From a human standpoint, it was inconceivable,

it was so unexpected that nobody even dreamed of it.

Often it wasn't planned, desired or hoped for at all.

But normaly it was so unexpected that nobody even dreamed of it.

Folie

Because who's planning: "I'm gonna blow on the dandelion here to plant a tree!"

Her first reaction was, "What? I didn't do anything!"

That's the normal reaction of a mustard seed grower:

"I only blew on a dandelion.

How can a tree arise from it?"

These people didn't do much more than plant a mustard seed.

But God let it grow and prosper.

And out came a tree.

Something that you couldn't imagine before.

Which nobody intended to do either.

Because who's planning: "I'm gonna blow on the dandelion here to plant a tree!"

It's naive in a way, childish.

Just like the kingdom of God.

We're not supposed to plant trees.

We're supposed to throw seeds and hope to God that he'll let them open.

Because when people take care of it, it doesn't grow much more than a dandelion.

But when God takes care of it, a tree grows out of it.

A tree in which birds can nest.

Something that serves other creatures.

The kingdom of God.

This tree is a miracle, its not from this world.

What we mean when we talk about "paradise".

It is something heavenly

it will

it is his kingdom.

A Area, where he

We are often not aware of what we actually do when we do something good.

We plant the kingdom of God.

Folie

We don't know what God makes of it.

But God tells us here: It has the potential to be a tree.

Jesus

So big that it grows bigger than anything you could have imagined.

It is Jesus' own story that begins in the same way.

In a tiny town,

at the end of the world at that time

A little helpless baby is born.

But this baby is not like it seems to be

This baby is God Himself.

He gets involved with this world.

He wants to come down to the dirty and damp field of the world.

And he and his message grow up.

The message is simple:

People have distanced themselves from God

But God loves people so much that He Himself becomes man to meet these people.

He comes into the world as Jesus.

o And he loves people so much that he dies for them.

And he loves people so much that he dies for them.

The miserable little plant dies in the dry earth

But that's not the end of the story yet:

Jesus defeats death.

he rose up again

the seed, the dandilon seed, became a tree

and He leads those who believe in Him back to life.

He overcomes this separation between man and God.

And begins to build his kingdom here on this earth with us.

Now.

Today.

Here.

The little mustard seed was Jesus.

His message is spreading.

And none of us can guess what will happen when it comes to her fulfillment.

when it will become a tree.

A tree awaits us, a tree in which birds can nest =)

Whatever that means.

Amen.

| Diese Personen suchen nicht nach einer Gelegenheit die Welt zu verändern.

o Sie leben einfach ihr Leben.

o Völlig unspektakulär.

o Sie laufen nicht mit einer handvoll Reich-Gottes-Samen herum.

| Sie haben nicht viel mehr als ein paar vollkommen irdische Senfkörner.

| Eine Pusteblume in der Hand.

| Und plötzlich mitten in ihrem Alltag schenkt Gott ihnen eine Situation.

| Eine Situation in der nicht ein Senfkorn vonnöten ist, sondern ein ganzer Baum.

Alles was Senfkornpflanzer haben sind ein paar mikrige Senfkörner.

Und aus Naivität werfen wir sie auf den Acker.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

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