Preached at St. James Lutheran
Hanford, California
June 17, 2018
Mark 4:26-34 (NRSV)
26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
This time last Sunday I was on a plane, finally
returning from Luther Seminary – via one plane delayed by thunderstorms in
Minneapolis, new flights that could have puddle-jumped me home then delayed by
a mechanical issue, an overnight in Dallas and then finally a last smooth
flight to Fresno. We wouldn’t want life
to be boring and predictable, right?
The week before that, though – was just
incredible. The Greek professor at
Luther, David Fredrickson, is a highly resepcted New Testament scholar – now that I’ve had a couple of classes with him I’ve started noticing
his name all over things like the Fortress Commentary and any anthologies of
essays on the gospels or on Paul’s letters – he has been amazing in my online
courses and I got to spend eight hours a day with him going through the Gospel of
Mark last week – Lots of incredible new insights, lots of Greek geek happiness
– all that.
But knowing that I got to preach on this text here
this week, I was really looking forward to going through the parables with him
– and what happens? “Okay, it’s been
great that we’re going into depth, but I’m afraid we’re not going to get to the
end, so for now we’re skipping chapter four and going straight to the Gerasnes demons…
I stayed during the break to talk to him – “Dr.
Fredrickson, I’m preaching on chapter 4 next week, any new insights?” “Yeah,
that section’s really weird. Let me know
what you come up with.”
Welcome, my friends, to the glory of a seminary
education…!
Grace and peace to you from God our creator and our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen
Many of us are familiar with the parables in the
Gospel of Mark – and we also might be aware that each time Jesus speaks to the
crowd in parables he says that he does so “in order that they might see and not
perceive and hearing, not understand…”
And though he explains the meaning to his disciples
privately on each occasion, sometimes Mark lets us in on that and sometimes he
doesn’t. This is one of the “doesn’t”
times, so I get to add a snarky “thanks, Mark!” to the original “gee, thanks,
Dr. Fredrickson!”
But what we do have as a reader and not a member of
the crowd are these tantalizing little clues embedded in the parables that come
up again and again in other parts of the gospel. And the one that most strikes me here is
Jesus’ references to the farmer sleeping, getting up, and sleeping again – all
while the “kingdom of God” is arriving right under his drowsy nose, without any
help from him.
So how is “sleep” important in the Gospel of Mark, and
how does sleeping – or wakefulness – relate to how we live as citizens of the
kingdom of God?
It seems to me that in this Gospel, staying
spiritually awake means seeing the invisible around us
.
Now when I say “invisible around us” – that could
sound like some kind of magical or other-worldly thing, right? But I don’t mean that, and I don’t think Mark
does, either. When Jesus says to stay
awake, he is asking us to notice things that we would rather not see. People, situations, problems – as humans, we
are SO good at not seeing what we don’t want to, aren’t we?
The great 20th Century theologian Douglas
Adams – not really, he was actually a geeky British comic science fiction novel
writer – his claim to fame was the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series –
but even if he wasn’t a theologian, he had some great insights into human
nature. In his science fiction novels,
there are products that help people cope and keep things invisible – one is
called the Somebody else’s problem field.
Discussing the cost of making something invisible, they discover that…
“The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and
more effective, and what's more can be run for over a hundred years on a single
flashlight battery. This is because it relies on people's natural disposition
not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain.”
Gotta love novels like that… you’re going along,
things are good, you’re laughing – and then a zinger, straight to the heart.
I’m not exempt from this. I don’t want to see things that make me
uncomfortable and unhappy. I don’t want
to think that I could be one emergency surgery or car accident or whatever away
from BEING what makes me uncomfortable and unhappy. And I’m a pretty decent human – I mean, if
one of you were to ask me for a ride to the airport or help moving today I
would probably say yes! I expect most of
you would do the same!
But this Jesus… he asks us for something
different. He asks us to stay awake and
see the invisible. He asks us to see
what we don’t want to see. He asks us to
see WHO we don’t want to see.
And he’s blunt about it. Do you remember what happens when the
disciples try to stop people from bringing children to him?
It’s in Mark 10, starting with verse 13.
“And they brought children to him, in the hopes that he
would touch them, but the disciples rebuked them – and, having seen this, Jesus
became angry and said to them – “let the children come to me, don’t prevent
them for they are the kingdom of God.”
THEN he turns it on them, also – and he says, “I speak
the truth: whoever will not receive the
kingdom of God as a child, may not enter it.”
What are the first images that enter your mind when
you hear this verse?
I’ll tell you mine:
It’s a painting. A painting of
that kind of ethereal Jesus in a white robe and blue sash – and he’s sitting
under a tree with a bunch of just adorable kids, and there’s a blonde curly
headed beautiful girl in his lap that is staring adoringly up at him. It is a beautiful scene. And I want to be that kid, don’t you? I want to be that sweet, innocent little girl
in the pretty dress with the scrubbed face, all fresh and ready to encounter
Jesus.
Of course, I never would have been that kid. If I had been in that idyllic scene by the
tree I would have been the one playing with a stick and finding interesting
bugs in the mud puddle left just outside the painting. But that’s another story.
How many of you have that image when you hear “receive
the kingdom as a little child,” or one like it?
The problem is, that’s not the child Jesus is talking
about. The author of the gospel of Mark
alternates between two words when he is talking about receiving children -- “paedion”
and “ptoki.”
That second one – that’s an important word. Do you hear the “spit” in it – the “pt?” For 1st century people, that was
the sound of warding off a curse. A
first century “God bless you” that you did for yourself. (demonstrate)
You’ve seen that, right? Yiddish
grandmothers.
A “ptoki” is not that cute little blond girl in my memory
painting. 21st century
Americans love and idealize children.
Not so in 1st century Palestine. A ptoki stinks. A ptoki carries diseases that will kill an
adult. A ptoki probably has ringworm or
some other unpleasant parasite. A ptoki
has the distended ugly belly and the scrawny arms we see in commercials
designed to repulse us into guilt and giving money. A ptoki has little ability to provide for
themselves and no way to offer us anything if we take them in and care for
them. In fact, if we do, our friends are
probably going to talk behind our backs.
“I wouldn’t mind if she had just given that homeless man money when we
were downtown, but she actually sat down with him and talked to him. It was embarrassing.” “He’s gotten so political these days –
sometimes you just have to chill out and let people enjoy life.” “Can you believe they took in foster kids? I mean, it’s nice, but what about their own
real kids? How is that going to affect
them?”
Yet Jesus says these nothings are the kingdom of
God. Jesus says that if we don’t receive
the ptoki with hospitality, we will not enter into the kingdom of God. I have to be honest, that language is
harsh. It makes me uncomfortable and
unhappy. Because I’m not good at it. The same few people are always at the end of
the freeway exit by my house. Sometimes
I give them money. If I think about it
and have stopped, very occasionally I will bring them a hot or cold drink,
depending on the season. But my
confession before you and before God is that I have driven by and averted my
eyes far more often than I have done either of those things. And I haven’t parked my car and gone to talk
to them. Not once. And I think in these passages about the
kingdom of God that Jesus is telling me to.
Not to fix them. Not to get them
“off the streets” – just to talk to them and hear their story as if they are a
human like me, and not a ptoki.
Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is growing up
around us as we sleep. The ptoki are
growing in numbers, they are edging in, they are branching out. And then he says the harvest is ripe, go get
the kingdom! It’s so easy – and it’s so
incredibly difficult.
My professor at Luther last week says that the closer
we draw to Jesus Christ, the more we will develop a sensitivity for those that
He loves. That the more I intentionally
try to connect with Jesus, the harder it will be for me to drive by the people
at the bottom of my freeway exit. And I
am finding this to be true. I may not
have acted on it yet, but my heart is getting more and more stirred. I am beginning to wake up and see the
invisible.
But the good news is that this awakening doesn’t mean
despair. Jesus doesn’t say “SOLVE THE GIANT
PROBLEMS AND GO SAVE THE WORLD.” That’s his job, right? Not ours.
What he says is to be hospitable to the invisible. Stay awake, be sensitive. As individuals, we don’t need to solve the
problem of homelessness in Visalia or Hanford or Tulare County or the
world. We don’t need to feel responsible
that there is a foster system. We don’t
need to solve the whole huge problem of addiction in America. What Jesus asks us to do is to treat the
individual people he puts in our way as though they are the kingdom of God,
especially if they are not valued by the world.
And then, if we trust what he says, we believe that when we receive
them, we receive Jesus Christ, and the one who sent him. Who knows the ripples that could go out from
that? Jesus says that something
important could come out of something small and inconsequential.
It’s almost like tiny mustard seeds that branch into
huge trees.
Amen
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