Sunday, 16 June - Trinity 3: Ezekiel 17:22-end, 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 and Mark 4:26-34
At the heart of our church yard is a cedar of lebanon.
It has been rooted there since sometime in the 18th century - apparently one of a number planted by the botanist Peter Collinson - a Quaker who traded in textiles and shared knowledge of science and horticulture.
Our remaining cedar is a striking tree - with its dramatic silhouette and evergreen leaves.
A cedar’s imposing stature is said to represent strength and resilience. The prophet Ezekiel uses it in a vision of God’s desire to restore a community, to bring healing out of despair and new life out of devastation.
It is through this metaphor that Ezekeiel speaks of God’s faithfulness - not only to the ancient covenant with Abraham, Sarah and their descendants, but also the promise of blessing to all nations.
A tiny sprig becomes a lofty cedar.
Such a tree provides shelter to winged creatures of every kind; a promise of the inclusivity of God’s promise to restore and protect; a sign of the universality of God’s love for creation.
Cedars offer shelter - they point to survival and renewal, blessing and fruitfulness. The safety of those aromatic branches is a sign of God’s life-giving grace to all the earth.
God takes something small and brings from it hope and the power to restore. God reverses all our assumptions about power. Whether in the face of personal loss or collective worry, Ezekiel reminds of God’s enduring love.
No wonder then that Jesus picks up this image of how tiny shoots or tiny seeds become places of hospitality. Hope and renewal, protection and blessing start with what looks insignificant. They grow into living places - home to all sorts of life.
The stories that Jessu tells are intended to stretch our imaginations - prompting questions and opening up our hearts to God's ways with the world; ways of blessing and justice, safety and renewal; to what in shorthand we call the ‘kingdom of God’.
Today, he doesn’t just speak of seeds, trees and birds; but also a sleeping gardener and the life giving mystery of soil. There’s something curious about the way Jesus tells that first story.
Whether you have an allotment, garden, window box - or even some cress seeds on tissue paper - gardeners and growers keep a watchful eye on their plants: weeding and watering, pruning and protecting from hungry caterpillars.
The gardener in the parabel scatters the seed - and then sleeps. The seeds are hidden in the soil - as the earth produces of itself the ripening grain to be harvested.
The gardener trusts the soil and seeds to the mysterious cycle of weather and seasons. It might sound counter intuitive and even frustrating - especially when June feels quite untypical, and a million miles away from the heatwave of a couple of years ago.
But remember, Jesus is leading out imaginations into thinking about God’s ways: reminding us of the working of grace and love under the surface of things; the hidden, fruitful process of bringing forth life.
Oftentimes it feels as if we are living in between the time of planting and the harvest: so much uncertainty surrounding the impact of our plans, hoding onto our own expansive hopes; nurturing the potential and planting the seeds of ideas. Beginning. And waiting. Trusting in the long haul that love will build up, restore and strengthen us - individually and together. Not just for the sake of the church - but a kingdom of justice and mercy.
Our lives and our hopes, our work and our desires so often seem to be skating along the surface of the unknown; dancing on the edge of mystery; trusting, if not sleeping!
We plant our prayers and our plans like seeds. Sometimes we have to allow them the space to germinate; trusting others with next steps; faithfully waiting on God’s care, on God’s will to restore and bless.
This first parable tips into an echo of Ezekiel’s vision: this time a seed rather than a sprig, a bush rather than a tree. But still, smallness is growing into a place of shelter for birds of all kinds.
We are taken from the realm of the majestic cedar into that of an unruly, fast spreading plant of the sort often dreaded by gardeners - perhaps like the inability to contain mint for instance. The mustard plant might not have the structural splendour of a cedar, and yet Jesus uses it to say something about God’s kingdom.
Perhaps part of what Jesus is reminding us is of the importance of the small and seemingly insignificant - the potential of those tiny seeds, the fragility of the sprigs of new life.
What does it say about the life of the kingdom if it is like a mustard plant: not something that we can control from the centre, but something which runs through our community, threaded through our lives? What seems to count in God’s economy - or God’s household - are those places of blessing and safety, connection and hospitality.
Perhaps Jesus is pointing to himself too. He comes to dwell amongst us - God’s word of love in human flesh. Born like us. Living amidst the tensions of power and worldly empires. Growing up to be indiscriminate in his friendships and conversations - a woman at a well, a tax collector in a tree; at dinner with leaders and out on the lake with fishermen.
He includes us too: the retiree and self-employed, the manager and carer, journalist and doctor, the musician and scientist, the baker and the administrator, the volunteer and community leader, the student and the teacher, the writer and the gardener.
It really is the case that the working out of God’s ways of love runs through our lives too. We are invited to sleep and rest in God’s care - but also to welcome others into this network of inclusion. Sheltering and welcoming those seeking rest and peace, the curious and the sceptical; the lonely and the extravert; attracting rather than blocking, offering hospitality not demanding productivity.
Such a vision wreaks havoc with strategic plans and the priorities we thought we had decided on. This isn’t a work of our own effort - though it demands our careful attention; this isn’t about reducing people to data - though it is about noticing what we and others need, and where our dreams of blessing lead.
This is perhaps why Paul reminds the Corinthians to walk by faith and not by sight, persuading others out of love of the Lord rather than boasting in himself.
He reminds us that it is the love of God which urges us on - like a seed dying in the ground bringing forth life, Jesus died for all that we might live. That changes how we are to see each other - no longer from the point of view of human judgements and prejudices but as new creations.
We are new creations. We share in the slow and mysterious life of God’s kingdom - of welcome and blessing, of safety and hospitality, of what is justice and merciful, reflecting God’s loving kindness.
Sometimes there will be fallow periods - and times of rejoicing. Sometimes we have to rest and wait - like the gardener taking a nap! There will be small things that surprise us with the life they bring. there will be clamouring birds finding space alongside us.
This is good news, but also challenging news: for us to trust the mysterious working of God’s love among us; for us to seek God in the small things, embracing the unexpected things; planting the sprigs or sheltering in the branches of a cedar.
We are invited to live within this countercultural kingdom - we are invited to the fruit of the harvest, sharing bread and wine and blessing, those signs of Jesus’ presence with us. We are notice the Spirit creating and renewing, prompting and disrupting….
© Julie Gittoes 2024
