Author: Steve

“Someday this will all be yours.” I said that as I was showing our son-in-law-to-be several shoe boxes filled with rocks and shells that our eldest daughter collected over the course of her childhood. Those boxes had weighed down and bent the shelf in a closet of our home for years. “It’s your dowry,” I told Andrew. But he seemed undaunted and, unfortunately, they have yet to retrieve and take away those forgotten treasures.

More seriously, there are things many of us very much want to hand off to a next generation, whether it’s a house and its contents, a family business, or a set of cherished recipes. My brother-in-law worked in his father’s printing machine repair business for years and took it over when his father died. Such hand offs are part of human life, although they don’t always happen, nor do they always go smoothly.

Our text this week from I Chronicles 22:1-13 shows us David the king making preparations to hand off to his son Solomon the assignment for building a temple for God in Jerusalem. I’m preaching on this text partly because it is one of the few bits in our Immerse reading for the week which does not duplicate content in I or II Samuel.

To continue a theme that I voiced for the past two Sundays, David’s hand off of temple building to Solomon can suggest the general work of God’s people in handing off faith and faithful kingdom building work to those who will follow us. One challenge to American baby-boomer Christians like myself is the seeming fumbled hand off to younger generations. It’s not just about changes in music style, but about failure to grasp Christian complicity in racism and other social justice issues.

So we may have some work like David’s ahead of us, to have something of faith worth handing on to those who come after. And like Solomon, those who follow will need to head David’s admonition in verse 13, “Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid or lose heart!”

There clearly will be a hand off of Christian faith is some way in our time. Besides the generational change, there is the great global shifting of the Christian majority from the northern to the southern hemisphere. The only question is how well older white Christians will prepare to give over the work and the blessing and how smoothly the transition may go.

Here comes a first in 30 years of ministry. I have never preached a sermon from a text in I or II Chronicles. Now I’m about to offer two or three because we will be reading those books as part of the Immerse volume titled Chronicles. It not only includes the titular books, but also Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Daniel. Esther too will be a new preaching experience for me.

I had not ever noticed the absence of Chronicles from my texts but now I find there are a couple of good reasons. First, there are absolutely no readings from Chronicles in the RCL (Revised Common Lectionary), which I generally follow. Esther too is all but absent, with only one reading in three years (actually scheduled for this coming Sunday) to be found in the lectionary set of Hebrew scriptures which follows a plan to “read through,” rather than the set which seeks to match the theme of the Gospel readings each Sunday. I always work with the latter set.

Second, as I’ve begun to read and reflect on Chronicles in preparation, I see why I’ve not dealt with it and likely why it is not in the lectionary. The first nine chapters are pretty bare-bones genealogies, with only the slightest intrusion of narrative content. The rest largely duplicates content from Samuel and Kings, with a few additions and some enlightening changes.

Preaching on those genealogies seems especially challenging, but I’m actually going to do it twice, this Sunday and next. For this Sunday, as an introduction to the Immerse readings, I will springboard off I Chronicles 1:1-27. It’s the genealogy of the human race beginning with Adam and ending, at that point, in Abraham. I’ll be working with several reflections on it:

To begin with, there is the clear record of the diversity of the human race from the outset. Though Scripture focuses the story down to Abraham and his descendants, it also names and makes us aware of the other “branches” of humanity. They are all human and they are all included in the story.

Next, I will simply note the unlikelihood that any of the “families” in this genealogy were what we would call “white.” The name “Adam” for the first human being means both “earth” and “red.” Given what we know of ancient middle-eastern peoples, it’s probable that most of those covered by these lists were brown or ruddy skinned people, including Abraham and his descendants.

Alongside that reflection on color, it seems worth a moment or two to dispel the notorious “myth of Ham,” because of its ugly history as part of American slavery and racism. That is, Noah’s curse on his son Ham (who is included in this genealogy) had nothing to do with a supposed perpetual curse on black people which entitled white people to enslave them.

Finally, I would like to point forward to John’s great vision in Revelation 7:9, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” God’s story of interaction with humanity both begins and ends with pictures of human diversity. Ethnic differences which arose in the branching of human family are not meant by God to be eliminated or “melted down” as people are united in Christ. Instead, the beautiful differences which unfolded at the beginning of human history are part of God’s plan both now and forever.

Returning again to the poignant, somewhat dark, Israeli TV series, Shtisel, I recall glimpses of the Orthodox Jewish ritual of hand washing before meals, before any eating. A little research revealed that it’s often done as pictured here, with a two-handled cup with which one first pours water (twice or three times) on the dominant hand and then on the other. No soap is used and there is no attempt to scrub hands (as we all learned to do last year). So the purpose is clearly ritual and spiritual rather than hygienic. A blessings is said, the Netilat Yadayim: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with Your commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands.”

In our text for this Sunday, Mark 7:1-23 (I’m leaving in the verses skipped by the lectionary), we find Jesus confronted over His disciples’ failure to perform what must have been the precursor to the Netilat Yadayim ritual. Verse 2 says of some Pharisees and scribes, “they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.” Mark goes on to explain a traditional custom of hand washing, along with washing of food items, cups, and pots. The Pharisees and scribes ask Jesus in verse 5, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

Given our heightened concern about hygiene in pandemic times, it might be tempting for us to side against Jesus on this one. Why, indeed, would He let His disciples do something so unhealthy as eating with dirty hands? If Jesus were on earth today, would He let His followers run around without masks in indoor spaces? Do spiritual matters really take precedence over and even negate concern for basic health measures, as some churches and Christians have vehemently argued against masks and vaccinations this year?

To grasp that our Lord did not disregard public health, we need to step back and realize that what is true of the current Jewish ritual of hand washing (and of the priest’s washing of hands before the Eucharist in Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches) was true of this ancient form. It was not about physical cleanliness. The Jewish and liturgical Christian rituals of washing are performed even if one’s hands were washed with soap and water (or hand sanitizer) moments before. The point of these things is a symbolic desire for cleansing from spiritual defilement, for a pure heart and soul before God.

Thus Jesus is not flying in the face of both common sense and modern medical understanding when He says in verse 15, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile…” Jesus, along with ancient people in general, knew very well that consumption of various forms of filth would lead to sickness, even death. Jesus was simply pointing out that a particular cleansing ritual does not have the power in and of itself to render pure an impure heart or soul.

So Jesus’ defense of His disciples, in the form of His complaint about the Pharisees’ and scribes’ abuse of tradition in verses 9-13, is directed at the use of ritual to establish spiritual health without an accompanying attention to the condition of the heart. A carefully honored vow has no spiritual value if it is manipulated to avoid keeping a basic commandment like honoring one’s parents.

The lesson on ritual purity versus genuine spiritual cleanliness concludes in verses 21 to 23 with a list of 12 vices, all of which “come out of a person” rather than entering into a person through neglect of ritual. Most of these vices are sins in relationship to others, causing harm or at least damage to the peace which ought to exist between ourselves and those around us. Jesus is teaching us that true purity is a matter of a heart that is in right relationship with God and others.

Thus there is definitely no excuse here in Jesus’ words for disregarding public health and measures against COVID-19 like hand washing, mask wearing, and vaccination. Yet perhaps there is a warning here about engaging in these needed practices in a way that makes our hearts wicked and angry toward those around us who fail to grasp the need. As our reading from James 1 says in verse 20, “your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.” I find myself dealing daily with that sort of spiritual struggle whenever I consider how neglect of basic, tested public health measures has led to the current Delta variant surge and overwhelming numbers of unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths, along with the huge social disruptions and disappointments which affect us all.

Let this difficult teaching of Jesus, then, encourage us to wear masks on the outside because of something good on the inside, a genuine, heartfelt love for others which takes such steps as much for them as for ourselves. Let us not engage in mask wearing or vaccination merely because of human tradition (read “political affiliation”), but because we reject the wickedness, pride and folly which causes one to disregard the welfare of our neighbors in the interest of our own supposed welfare and freedom. And when we encounter those who fail to understand our motivations, as the Pharisees and scribes failed to understand Jesus, let us respond as best we can in both truth and love.

The pelican has long been an emblem of Christ. The connection comes from a mythical notion arising in the middle ages that when food was scarce a mother pelican would stab her own breast with her bill and feed her children with her own blood. She was seen as a symbol of our Savior shedding His blood for us. Thomas Aquinas included a reference to Jesus as the “Good Pelican” in his hymn Adora te devote (I devoutly adore you), reflecting on Christ’s presence in the sacrament of Communion.

Perhaps the pelican myth (pelicans do not actually feed their children with their blood) helped Christians come to terms with what is actually a more disturbing image in our text for this Sunday, John 6:51-59. In a clear evocation of Holy Communion, Jesus says in verse 53, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

Some Protestant exegetes following Zwingli have gone to great machinations to argue that this text has nothing to do with the Lord’s Table. But that is plainly nonsense because John wrote at a time when the practice of Communion would have been well established and Jesus’ words would have immediately been connected with the bread and cup of the sacrament.

For non-sacramental Protestants who insist on a supposed strict literalism of interpretation, I always find it amusing to point out that it is the Roman Catholic tradition which has maintained and insisted upon the absolutely literal understanding of our text. For them, the reception of Communion is literally and actually the eating of Christ’s body and blood.

But rather than try to decide between the extremes of a Catholic literalism versus an anti-sacramental metaphorical interpretation of the text, why not admit both sorts of meaning to be present? For any Christian the literal flesh and blood of Jesus is the necessary sacrifice for our sins and the accomplishment of our salvation and new life. But for any Christian this is no assertion of cannibalism. What Jesus says about His body and blood is full of mystery which we must not hasten to explain away in order to relieve our discomfort with it.

So Jesus’ invitation to eat His flesh and drink His blood may be understood as a call to constantly feast on Christ as spiritual food and drink in love and devotion, as well as a call to physically consume food and drink in the sacrament of Communion. Both are in view here.

Which is all to keep constantly before us the truth that we are not Gnostics. Both our lives and the life of Christ by which we are saved are inextricably bound up with the physical, with flesh and blood. We were not saved by a purely “spiritual,” that is, non-material, atonement, nor is our day to day experience of Christian life and salvation only a matter of spirit. We live our salvation out in our bodies and the end of our salvation is the resurrection of these bodies.

So as squeamish as we might feel about the literal sense of Jesus’ call to eat Him, we ought not try to escape it all together. And that’s good news, because it confirms the importance of the truth which begins John’s Gospel, that “the Word became flesh,” and the truth that our Lord loves us a whole persons, body and spirit.

I stared down at unappetizing noodles mixed with brown bits simmering in an aluminum pot over a little white gas burner. Another boy mushed water together with pale powder then squeezed the resulting white glop into the pot. I was eleven years old. It was my first Boy Scout backpack trip. I was encountering dehydrated beef stroganoff for the first time.

I’d never had beef stroganoff before, so I was doubly unprepared for this concoction created of dehydrated beef in a brown gravy with reconstituted sour cream mixed in at the end. A couple of my fellow young Scouts took a look at it, turned up their noses, and went hungry that night. It was the only food we had. But I was too hungry. I gave it a try and found it wasn’t too bad. It eventually became one of my favorite backpacking meals until the manufacturer brought out a freeze-dried version, replacing the little dehydrated meat pellets with bits which actually looked like beef.

Our text for this coming Sunday from John 6:35-51, shows some of those who listened to Jesus turning up their noses at the food He offered. In effect, they turned up their noses at Jesus Himself, because He continued to expound the statement in verse 35 where we ended last week, “I am the bread of life.”

His hearers expressed indignation in verses 41 and 42 at His claim that He the Bread of Life came down from heaven. Jesus pressed them further by suggesting that He is the only meal available. In verse 45 Jesus says that anyone listening to the Father will come to Him and in verse 46 that only He, Jesus, has actually seen the Father. Finally in verses 49 and 50, He insists that other food, even the miraculous manna received by Israel in the wilderness, does not cut it. Only the Bread of Life, only Jesus, offers eternal life. “I,” He declares in verse 51, “am the living bread that came down from heaven.”

Our relationship to natural food may help us grasp Jesus’ metaphor of “living bread.” The simple fact is that all the food we eat is “organic,” in the original sense of the word, not the contemporary sense in which “organic” is a style of growing things without pesticides, etc. All food is derived from other living things. Though one can ingest non-organic substances (like a child might eat dirt), those things are not food and cannot nourish us. Even those less than palatable early backpacker meals had to be fashioned from living food sources grown and raised. They couldn’t just be mixed up from chemicals in a laboratory. To sustain life, food must come from that which is alive.

So in our physical, biological nature, we are fashioned to sustain our lives from that which is also alive. The same is true spiritually. We are created to be nourished by life derived from the living Person who is the very source of all life. Jesus presents Himself as the Bread of Life, living bread, because there is no other option if we wish to live and not die, to eat and enjoy eternal life.

We can only guess at the reason for the complaints in verse 41 about Jesus claiming to be the bread from heaven. It may have been a rejection of His claim to have come from heaven, or it may have been offense at the image of a person also being food for consumption. However, in our day Jesus’ claim to be the living bread given for the life of the world may offend in its seeming exclusivity. We know only too well the variety of food which can sustain life. Why should we think the menu is so limited in spiritual matters?

We will not serve Jesus or our neighbors well by trying to soften too much the exclusiveness of His claims. He is the one and only living bread. But let us remember our Lord’s own inclusive invitation to receive that food. While insisting on His role as the only Bread of Life, Jesus meant to open eternal life to anyone who would receive it. That’s why in verse 51 He says, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

So let us steer both ourselves and others away from lifeless substitutes for that which truly nourishes all that God made us to be. Life must come from that which lives, which means ultimately from God. Jesus is the one who came from Heaven to show us God and bring us to Him. Yet let us remember that the one and only living bread is also available to anyone and everyone who desires to receive it, be nourished, and live.

We’ve saved for a new roof. It’s supposed to happen next month. Our savings will cover the estimate, but there is always the chance that once the old roof is pulled off there will be unexpected problems like rot, etc. So I still worry that we will have enough money for the project.

Many of our worries are about whether supplies of what we need or desire will be adequate. Earlier in the pandemic, we worried about enough vaccine being available soon enough. Now we worry, at least in this country, about whether enough people will use the abundance of vaccine that is available so that the pandemic can be ended.

There is much to learn from the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, our text this week from John 6:1-21. It’s the only miracle (except perhaps the Resurrection) recorded in all four Gospels, and Jesus Himself has a lot to say about it in the rest of John 6. But for this Sunday, thinking directly about the miracle itself, I’d like to focus on the abundance that was created by Jesus. Verse 12 says “When they were satisfied…,” clearly showing that everyone in the crowd had enough to eat. Then verse 13 tells how twelve baskets full of leftovers were gathered up by the disciples. There was more than enough.

It’s all too familiar that we often operate on an economy of scarcity. Prices for lumber, cars, and other basic parts of life in the United States have risen because pandemic limitations on production and transportation have caused there not to be enough now that people are buying again. Computer builders and gamers are more than aware of a scarcity of graphics cards caused by both pandemic problems and the cornering of the market first by bitcoin miners, then scalpers. Scarcity of medical supplies and facilities of all sorts still plagues the world, including parts of the U.S. where COVID-19 is on the rise.

So we ask, “Will there be enough?” If we’re honest, that question often implies the continuation, “for me?”

The message of the Gospel for this week, then, is the divine assurance that there will be enough. Our Lord is not a God of scarcity, but of abundance. Now all we need is to grow in a discipleship which finds that gracious abundance coming from Jesus even when it seems like we don’t have enough of other things in life.

You’re watching your friend, spouse, whoever, drive nails in fence boards. Suddenly you see the hammer slip off the nail and land on the thumb that is holding it. Your reaction? Before you rush over to inquire, offer help, etc., if you have seen clearly what happened it’s likely you yourself will wince with pain, maybe even before the other person cries out, swears, or whatever. According to (somewhat controversial) neuroscience, that’s the structure of your brain at work in what’s called the mirror neuron system.

When we perform actions and experience feelings and emotions, neurons in our brains fire in certain patterns. The amazing thing is that, apparently, mirror neurons in our brains fire in similar patterns even when we merely witness those actions or feelings in others. Some scientists believe mirror neurons constitute the brain biology which supports our understanding of other people’s actions, thoughts, and feelings. That means they help us feel empathy and compassion when others around us are hurting.

The very words we use to describe the experience of feeling what others feel demonstrates a recognition of something like “mirroring” going on. The Greek roots of “sympathy” mean “suffering together.” The Latin roots of “compassion” suggest something like “co-suffering.” However, the word translated “compassion” in verse 34 our Gospel text for this Sunday, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 is an even more graphic, literally visceral, way of suggesting a shared pain. That word is ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, esplangchnisthe, which derives from σπλαγχνoν, splangchnon, which denotes one’s bowels or entrails. It’s used in Acts 1:18 to tell how, when Judas fell in death, his “bowels gushed out.”

So the word for compassion in the text implies a shared pain or sorrow that is actually felt with one’s body, in the “pit of your stomach,” if you will. That internal bodily movement of shared feeling is what we’re told Jesus experienced in regard to the crowd that met Him and the disciples as they landed at a deserted place along the lake in the hope of getting some rest.

The proximate cause of Jesus’ compassion in verse 34, we’re told, is His perception that the crowd was “like sheep without a shepherd.” Here all the shepherd imagery of Scripture boils up for us, like Psalm 23 which we will recite together, and the promise in Jeremiah 23 that God will give His people good shepherds in place of the evil ones who have been harming them.

In any case, we then get to see Jesus’ response to the compassion He felt. Focusing on the feelings and needs of the people before them, He first, as is often pointed out, fed them spiritually by teaching, then fed them physically in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Jesus let what He did be motivated by the lost and hungry feelings of the people that were mirrored by His mind rather than being driven by the need for rest He Himself felt along with His disciples. Compassion moved Him to action.

As we read it from the lectionary, we skip over both the actual feeding of the five thousand and then Jesus walking on the water as the disciples in a boat rowed away from that place. We simply pick up in verse 53 with “When they had crossed over,” only to find that people there too recognize Him and came rushing to Him, this time to be healed. What follows is a description of a great, comprehensive ministry of healing that seems to have left out no sick person in villages, cities or rural areas throughout the region.

In this age of self-protectiveness, acknowledging valid concerns for self-care, can Jesus’ response to compassion be a model we may truly follow in some way? How can we let ourselves be more receptive to the suffering of others, feel it in our own guts, and reach out with teaching, sharing of basic needs, and healing for those around us? That seems more and more like an important question to ask ourselves in these times.

This is a very rare post here that is not connected with an upcoming sermon. A couple weeks ago, in response to our governor’s lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions (except those still federally required), our church council voted to no longer require masks for indoor worship, beginning July 11. But on that Sunday I showed up in worship wearing a mask.

I began an explanation of my mask by quoting a few verses from the Johnny Cash song, “Man in Black,” his explanation of why he always wore black:

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Living in the hopeless, hungry side of town.
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime
But is there because he’s a victim of the time.

I wear the black for those who’ve never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity.
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well, we’re doing mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes.
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a man in black.

I then said that, like Cash wearing black, I was wearing a mask to help me and the rest of us not forget a few things:

There were at least two children who had regularly come to in-person worship while we were wearing masks, but who were not there and would not be there in the near future because their family is ministering to another family in which one of the parents is immune-compromised.

I said we also do not want to forget that 600,000 people in the United States and 4 million around the world have died of COVID-19. I should have added that some, perhaps many, of those had died without a chance to hear about Jesus.

I also said that, as far as I can determine, a hundred more people would die of COVID-19 that day in the United States. We don’t want to forget that fact either.

So, paraphrasing Johnny, I said that, no matter how comfortable we might all feel being fully vaccinated and protected against serious illness and death, up front, there ought to be a man in a mask.

May God keep us from forgetting those who are weaker, oppressed, and disadvantaged as we make decisions about things like masks and all sorts of other decisions regarding how we behave as followers of Jesus.

On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama for marching for civil rights in defiance of an order by a circuit court judge, prohibiting any marching and demonstration in the area. He spent eight days in that jail, and while there wrote one of the last documents of the movement, the Letter from Birmingham Jail. It declared the need to act in defiance of unjust laws when necessary. Just this year in March, though the jail was torn down long ago, pages from its logbook surfaced at an auction, showing several signatures from King during his time there.

Our text from this week shows us another of God’s servants in jail for defying the powers of the world. In Mark 6:14-29, we find John the Baptist in Herod’s dungeon for the crime of pointing out the king’s immoral marriage to his sister-in-law. Though Herod appears here clearly ambivalent about John–in verse 20 we find the king fearful of harming a holy man and even wanting to listen to him–Herod is finally trapped by his resentful wife Herodias into doing away with the prophet.

Mark gives us more of the sordid details of the story than do Matthew and Luke, letting us catch a glimpse of the way in which Herod’s household was much like the conniving ruling families of Rome, with whom he consorted. At the request of his teenage stepdaughter in reward for what was almost certainly an erotic dance before Herod’s birthday banquet, the king gives the girl, and thus her mother, the head of John on a platter.

An important question to ask about this text is why it is part of another Markan “sandwich,” squeezed between Jesus sending out the twelve apostles and their successful mission in the first part of the chapter and their final report to Jesus in verse 30. For now I will simply suggest that it is Mark’s way of showing that successful Christian ministry and faithfulness to Jesus will undoubtedly be accompanied by opposition and suffering.

In verse 30, the fact that John’s disciples came and retrieved his body “and laid it in a tomb,” has clear overtones for what would happen to Jesus. Sandwiched into the mission of the disciples it suggests that, as Jesus says plainly elsewhere, His followers should expect such things to happen to them as well as to their teacher Jesus.

As we see in Acts and read in Paul’s letters, imprisonment was a common Christian experience. And we need only think a little to remember that it has been so throughout history, from John Bunyan in the Bedford Gaol, to Bonhoeffer in Flossenbürg to more recently Meriam Ibrahim imprisoned for her faith and refusal to recant in Sudan. It is easy to forget it all, however, as we imagine that the results of following Jesus well should be uniformly peaceful and comfortable. May we learn the lessons we need for true discipleship from John’s story this week.

My wife was laughing about Amazon listings for the item pictured here, or more specifically, for the seeds to grow black roses like the one in the photo. A handful of disappointed reviews made the thing even more ludicrous. No actual rose looks like the one in the picture, and it is next to impossible for a home gardener to produce a rose bush from a seed.

Yet as our Gospel text for this Sunday, Mark 4:26-34, suggests, there are plenty of seeds in the world which do produce remarkable results, perhaps even with little or no effort. We might be wise to doubt the seeming ease with which the seed is scattered in verse 26, the sower does nothing else in verse 27, a full crop grows in verse 28, and then a bountiful harvest is reaped in verse 29. The farmers I used to know in Nebraska would certainly tell you it’s never that simple.

Part of what Jesus is up to in the first of two small kingdom parables is countering what might have been a false impression created by another parable about seeds and farming in the first part of chapter 4. The B cycle lectionary skips over the longer “Parable of the Sower,” and leaves it to Matthew’s more elaborate treatment in year A of the lectionary. Instead, we read this little story which is unique to Mark. In fact, it’s the only parable in Mark which does not appear in any of the other Gospels.

In any case, the earlier parable of the sower might have left one with the impression that the arrival of the kingdom is founded mostly on human effort, even careful attention to the sort of “soil” in which one plants the word of the kingdom. But this “Parable of the Growing Seed” indicates that the “earth produces of itself,” “automatically,” as the actual Greek word suggests. Here is great comfort and encouragement toward patience for those of us who may be discouraged by lack of results from the efforts we put toward doing God’s work in the world.

Likewise for the much more familiar parable of the mustard seed in verses 30-32, which also appears in Matthew and Luke. Here the emphasis is not so much how the seed grows independently of human effort, but on great and perhaps unexpected results from a small beginning. Again, there is encouragement toward patience for those who do not yet see a hoped for arrival of significant changes in this world, while at the same time assuring us that such changes will appear.

The first parable says, in verse 27, that the one who planted the seed would “sleep and rise, night and day,” while the second parable, in verse 32, indicates that the mustard plant grows large enough that “birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” While we ought not take either parable to suggest that human inactivity is the sole proper way for us to relate to the kingdom of God, we can discern in both of them a comforting word about that kingdom being truly of God, that is, being the result primarily of His activity rather than ours.

More than once, I’ve wearily finished a Sunday worship time and sermon or perhaps a hospital visit or some other pastoral activity like a Confirmation class, feeling as if my efforts have fallen fall short and that nothing has really happened or changed. But every once in a while God grants a glimpse of how a seed has grown as an unexpected person tells me how a bit of the message blessed her or I years later see what was once a squirrely Confirmation student all grown up and engaged in meaningful ministry for the Lord. And I realize that it was all God’s doing and very little of my own.

Those little glimpses of the growth of the kingdom are sort of like the explanations of the parables Jesus gave His disciples, as described in verses 33 and 34. Much of the time things are unclear and baffling, but then the Lord comes along and shines a little light on it all. We’re not planting impossible rose bushes, but the grand trees of a kingdom which will one day cover the whole earth.