Its almost summer. And it’s the third
week of Pentecost. In the ancient middle east, this would be time of first
harvest. For us, with our very short growing season, its really the end of planting time. Our vegetables are
still pretty small and we have some lettuce and peas just ready to pick. For
the early church, these first few weeks after Pentecost were the very beginning
of the Jesus movement, just as followers of Jesus were forming community.
I guess it makes sense to read
Jesus’ parables about growing things, this time of year.
I always laugh a little at the
parable of the mustard seed. This parable doesn’t make much sense to me. I
mean, I’ve seen a mustard plant—maybe not the same kind as Jesus is talking
about—and they are kinda small. At the largest, they are a small, spindly shrub.
The seeds are small, but the mustard plant is not really the “greatest of all
shrubs,” not even by Palestine standards. I always wonder if maybe the writers
of the gospel were never farmers themselves and got the plant wrong. In the
U.S., mustard is mostly a weed, expect the stuff grown to flavor that yellow
stuff on your hot dogs.
But, no matter what plant Jesus was
talking about. The point of the parables is that the kingdom of God doesn’t
come like other kingdoms. Not like Rome, with pomp and fanfare, with wealth and
power, with violence and oppression. Not even like the empires of our day, with
bombs and red carpets, private jets and giant estates.
It comes like wheat in a field and
vegetables in your garden. Like whatever that mustard plant is—small, ordinary
things. It comes to farmers and gardeners, to slaves and peasants and
villagers. It comes in ordinary flesh and blood, in the backcountry, in the
small towns, in the back streets. It comes small and it comes silently and it
comes in ordinary moments. It comes in fragile soil and regular work.
While the world around us tells us
to look to the headlines, to look to the political and economic figureheads, to
look to the rich and powerful—Jesus tells us to look at the gardens and to look
in the forgotten places. God works at the grassroots, where everyone least
expects it.
God’s kingdom is being built in the
remote mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico, where the Mayan people are
building schools and communities. God’s kingdom is being built by farmers in
India who are reclaiming land. God’s kingdom is being built here in Grays
Harbor too.
We are building a community garden
in Westport, working together and growing food for our little growing
community. When I see people coming together, working to build something
different, working to build a place where people are valued in a place where so
many people are struggling, I see Jesus’ parables come alive.
Its been a crazy two weeks in
Aberdeen, as I’m sure you know. In this little town that for most people is on
the edge of the world, through incredible odds, a small group of homeless men
and women, most of them well under 40, are building a new world. I know that
sounds almost fantastical. But its true. The kingdom of God is not coming with
great fanfare or at the hands of people with great power. But it is coming in a
tiny parking lot,
Its coming in the 22 people who
chose to try a completely different kind of community, in a tent city, and its
coming in the dozens of volunteers who helped them move in the wet and cold.
Its coming in the messiness and
craziness of trying to build community,
Its coming in the faithfulness of
new leaders,
Its coming in the courage of people
who have lost everything and still demonstrate to the world what new life looks
like.
Its been growing in the dark along rivers and
back alleys. Its been growing in the hearts of community members. It is growing,
we pray, we hope, into great change in our community.
And its not respectable. It’s
downright scandalous—especially if you talk to some folks in Aberdeen.
Its like that mustard plant, or
whatever it is—a shrubby weed. Bringing new life and flocks of crazy birds and
messiness. God’s kingdom comes in the weeds.
In our Bible study for Pentecost, we
are reading through the stories of Acts, the history of the early Jesus
movement. It was pretty scandalous too. A bunch of Galilean fisherfolk build a
community that took care of each other. A community where all were fed and no
one was hungry. A community that faced terrible odds in a world of terrible
poverty. A community that welcomed outcasts.
That is the kind of community that
God’s kingdom is all about.
About people that those in power say
are nobody leading new community. About a community coming together to honor
the dignity of every human being.
God’s kingdom is growing—God’s
kingdom is coming, my brothers and sisters, coming in the here and now, coming
in the harbor, coming to you, to us all.
