OF TREES AND SHRUBS
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Text: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Mark 4:30-32
All of the trees of the field and forest gathered for a beauty pageant – or was it a parade of power? I’m not certain and, frankly, neither were they. In either case, they all vied for first attention, competed for first place, coveted the prize, but, in the end, it turned out to be an exercise in how appearances can be deceiving. Several flowering trees – the lilac, the dogwood, the redbud, the tulip tree – strutted their surpassing loveliness, sure that the Master Gardener would choose one of them. But then the fabled cedar of Lebanon, the regal live oak, the towering coast redwood, the noble fir and the giant Sequoia all crowded forward, demonstrating their grandeur, exercising their power, flaunting their majesty, knowing full well that one of them must inevitably be chosen. However, the Gardener grew weary of the preening and jockeying for position. Looking beyond them all to the farthest edge of the assembly, the Gardener saw the simple, lowly mustard shrub, waving its branches in the sunlight, welcoming the birds of the air, who fed cheerfully on its tiny black seeds, and sheltering the creatures of the field, who rested in its shade. The Gardener made a shocking decision to single it out for recognition because, of all the trees and shrubs and bushes, it was the one so preoccupied with what it was intended to be that it had no time really to join in the competition. Is the realm of God like that? Perhaps so.
Today’s texts speak of this contrast between trees and shrubs. Both texts involve parable and riddle. They seem to expand and challenge our understanding of what God’s realm is like. In telling the Parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus must have known that his listeners would have gotten the face-value point and been thrown off kilter at the same time. A parable often has a simple, straightforward point. Dianne Bergant says of parables that they challenge our thinking as they "engage two very different realities and use one to throw light on the deeper meaning of the other.” She says, “They are used by sages precisely because they force the hearers to stretch their imaginations and to make connections they ordinarily would not make" (Preaching the New Lectionary Year B quoted in Kate Huey, “Flourishing” in SAMUEL, Pentecost +2, 2009, at ucc.org.)
Any person familiar with the land knows that you plant a seed, feed it and water it. Then, somehow, in God’s time and way, it grows into the crop that provides the harvest. It is God’s good earth that makes it so. And those early listeners would have known that, indeed, a tiny seed can produce a significant plant and an abundant harvest. Even we city dwellers know that “mighty oaks from little acorns grow.”
But a mustard shrub? Come on! Why on earth would he choose THAT bush to illustrate his point? Everybody knows it’s really a weed and a pest. In Bible study Tuesday, we played with the notion that Jesus is saying the realm of God is like a dandelion. It has a certain beauty. (Photographers have captured it as both blossom and seed pod.) Of course, anyone with a lawn knows it is a pest, a weed, but then there are dandelion greens in gourmet salads and even fabled dandelion wine. Perhaps even a weed is redeemable in the mind of God. This is the sort of “outside the box” thinking with which Jesus challenges his listeners and us.
The point of a parable is to make us think, to ponder, to wonder about its subject. Here we have a word about the nature of God’s realm. Jesus’ followers had heard him speak of God’s realm, listened to his illustrations, even seen him live it out in their midst. They had some grasp of what he was bringing to their lives. Still, they longed for, desired, expected the restoration of their ancient kingdom in its power and glory. They just knew he would finally lead the revolution, throw the Romans out and overturn the rule of puppet kings, collaborators and all other oppressors of the people. When they heard this parable, their memories must have reached back to the ancient prophecy of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel had gotten it right. His parable begins with a riddle. He speaks of eagles and shoots of cedar that become vines; he says they represent the kings Babylon and Egypt and Judah and the people under their rule. It’s a complicated allegory of the political power plays of the time. In the end, God tires of all the preening and jockeying for power. Speaking of the vine that represents the people of Israel, God tells the prophet, “Say: Thus says the Lord God: Will it prosper? Will he not pull up its roots, cause its fruit to rot and wither, its fresh sprouting leaves to fade?” (Ezekiel 17:9) This is God’s judgment on an unfaithful people.
But Jesus’ listeners would also have known well the messianic prophecy in the final words of this parable and riddle, the words Paul read for us earlier: “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord.”
They were just sure that God’s reign would be like a mighty Cedar of Lebanon, the majestic tree so associated with David’s royal rule. Ezekiel’s messianic word promised a return to the power and glory of Davidic rule. For Jesus to compare God’s realm to a mustard shrub was bad humor at its best and blasphemy at its worst. Yet, here we have those very disturbing words. Jesus takes Ezekiel’s mighty cedar and turns it into a nasty old mustard shrub. Well! It may be that Jesus is messing with them, playing with their minds, at the same time he challenges their expectations. A good parable is a pointed story; it is also a riddle and a mystery. It shakes folks up and makes them think.
There is added irony in their expectation of the renewal of Davidic rule. Another lectionary text for today is the tale of Samuel choosing and anointing David as king (1 Samuel 15:34-16:13.) When the old prophet is sent to Bethlehem to choose among Jesse’s sons, each of those strong and handsome men parades past him without garnering God’s approval. They have to send to the field to bring in little David, who is tending his father’s sheep. Surely this is not kingly material! But, as Kate Huey says of this text, “Bring in the little one, the one left out, the one not considered or included; bring in the shepherd and make him a shepherd-king, anointed by God to lead the people and to live on throughout their history as the greatest of kings, the hope of the people, a vision for the future” (Kate Huey, “Flourishing” in SAMUEL, Pentecost +2, 2009, at ucc.org.) Here is the measure of God’s messianic promise in the good heart and beautiful song of a shepherd boy, not in any obvious claim to dominating power or the trappings of glory.
What if God’s realm really is about the power and glory of people like little David, the shepherd boy, or those peasants gathered around Jesus? What if it has nothing to do with royal power and glory? What if its origins really are in a village like Bethlehem or a backwater like Galilee? What if it takes root among the poor and the outcast, the marginalized and the disempowered? What if it wants no part in the exercise of dominating power or superficial beauty? What if it cherishes simple fare for the birds of the air, a branch big enough to support a songbird and shade a chipmunk? What if it is simpler and more mundane than they, or we, ever imagined? What if it’s a mustard shrub and not a cedar tree?
Peace and love, not power and glory; simple living not conspicuous consumption; radical hospitality, even for the down and out or for ancient enemies, rather than gated communities or border walls; care for the least along with care for self rather than self absorption and self indulgence. The realm of God is like that. Maybe it’s not so different than what they already knew of life and love, of care and compassion, of joy and sorrow, except that it is all to be experienced in the assurance that this life is in God’s hands and will be redeemed by God in God’s time and way.
How might these ancient parables and riddles speak to us today? Perhaps we are not so unlike our predecessors in our anxieties about the future, in our desires for security, in our hopes for some form of power and glory. Except that unlike them, we are already people of privilege with so much to hold on to and protect, so much to prove. In a sermon on this text Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that contemporary anxieties can be seen in our preoccupation with things like “perfectionism, drivenness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God. She calls anxiety ‘an occupational hazard of being a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities’” (Quoted in Kate Huey, “Flourishing” in SAMUEL, Pentecost +2, 2009, at ucc.org.) Do you or I ever find ourselves in such a state?
What would soothe our anxieties while shaking up our dreams for the future and bringing us closer to God’s will and way for us, both as individuals and as a faith community? Where do we see God at work in our own lives and in the world around us? Jesus says that those who eventually get his parables are those with ears to hear. How are our ears these days? Do we depend on what seems obvious or do we sometimes to seek to listen with the ears of our hearts? Is God still speaking to you and me, somewhere deep inside, in a most mysterious form? Do we have a word of hope and possibility in a world rife with hate crimes? Do we have a cup of cold water for those who thirst, a meal for those who hunger, shelter for the homeless? The kingdom that looks like a mustard shrub promises these and more. Are we part of that realm? Do we want to be? Do we believe that such a small community as ours, no bigger than a mustard seed, is still blessed in God’s hands and in God’s time?
There is a challenge for us to be so rooted and grounded in God’s good earth, in the fertile soil that only God can provide that our small seeds might sprout and become a mighty…shrub! OK, well, then, maybe as lovely and possible as a dandelion. Unlikely as it may seem, there is life in that promise and there is life here in our little community – life as parable and riddle, life as mystery and wonder, new life, abundant life, amazing life,. It is ours for the claiming.