June 2024 sermon: "Seeds, shrubs, and the Kingdom of God"

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. Life is hectic. Here is a sermon I gave in the beginning of June.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1-8 and Mark 4:30-34 

This sermon will focus on advancing God’s kingdom and remembering God's kingdom is in stark contrast to the kingdoms of the world. Advancement  means rejecting arrogance and elitism and working together even with people we don’t particularly like. But before I get into that, we need to talk about the apostle Paul and historical context. 

 One thing to know about me is that like most Christians I have a love-hate relationship with Paul. Listen, Paul, like the rest of us, was a human grappling with various complicated issues. Unlike us, however, he had the fortune or misfortune, depending on your point of view to have his  wrestling turned into Holy Scripture and read for thousands of years. People say the internet is forever, but not in the same way as the Biblical text seems to be. Let’s just say that 34-year-old me, is super glad that 12-year-old me’s myspace page and the mini-sermons I wrote then as a Fundamentalist Pentecostal, no longer exist.  

In a similar way, Paul gets a bad rap sometimes. Now this isn’t a sermon to defend him, because well, some of what he wrote or what is attributed to him is not great. But I do want to remind us of two things: 1) Paul’s theology changes and adapts. Like us,  Paul evolves. Unlike us, however, our theological beliefs aren’t handed down and treated like immutable scripture. 2) historical context matters. 

 Reading the letters of Paul is like sitting outside of a cafe and listening to someone have a heated argument over the phone. We may have some idea of what the argument is about, but we only get half the story. In fact, reading Paul is like going to a cafe on a Tuesday, hearing someone have a loud argument over the phone, and then returning a week later to hear this same person have another argument on the phone. Is it with the same person? Is it the same argument? What happened between last Tuesday and now? We are invested in the story, but we don’t have all of the details. And we recognize that.  

We must do the same with Paul. Now this doesn’t mean that Paul doesn’t have good things to say. On the contrary he does. Trust me,  while it’s hard to avoid preaching on Paul as a pastor, I am a guest preacher so I have a bit more flexibility on the passages I get to preach on. But knowing Paul’s context is important in helping us discern what applies to us today and what is best left to his original audience.  

So in 1 Corinthians, Paul is really going through it with the Corinthian community. They are wrecked with conflict: some people want to follow Paul, some people want to follow Apollos. The community is grappling with what it means to be a Jesus follow in a society that overwhelmingly wasn’t. They are struggling to discern how much to participate in the larger society while still maintaining their faith in Jesus. Can they eat certain foods? Can they participate in certain rituals? There was also a faction of the community that seemed to believe that they were much more spiritually mature and better than the others, and they were not afraid to let the community know it. Remote pastoring during the pandemic was hard, imagine what Paul is doing, trying to be a pastoral voice thousands of miles away when the only option they had is letter writing. Not an ideal situation.  

But knowing a bit of the context can help us understand Paul’s snarky attitude. Quick note: I attended seminary with your Pastor and I do believe that our pastoral care classes told us to set aside sarcasm and biting wit, unfortunately, Paul did not have the luxury of pastoral care classes.  

In the first four verses of 1st Corinthians Paul does not hold back. He is specifically referencing the faction of the Corinthian Church that seemed to think they had all the answers and who believed they were spiritually mature and superior to everyone else. While in today’s day and age, I imagine leaders would take a more listening and affirming role and try to mediate and get the different arguing factions together and try and convince those who think they know it all to perhaps listen, Paul decides to go straight for the juglar. “Actually you are so spiritually immature and unfit that I have to give you the equivalent of milk because you can’t handle solid food.” 

 He calls out this faction for not only being spiritually immature, but for sewing divisions in the community that threaten to tear it apart. The spiritual immaturity of this faction is evidenced by the fact that they have forgotten a central truth: that the work being done is not a matter of the intelligence, strength, wealth, or social status of a particular leader. But it is because of God.  The Kingdom of God which is described in this and other biblical texts using agricultural imagery is not the result of human action working at cross purposes. But working together for God.  

Now this may seem really, common sense. Theology 101. Like, “duh, Naiomi.’ You might be listening to this and think, “Naiomi, we don’t need to hear this. Our congregation has no conflict at all. We work together perfectly.” Great, if that’s the case, please send this video to a church who you know has conflict, and tell them to invite me to preach there.  

But if you are like any of the many congregations I have visited or actively participated in, conflict happens, even amongst the healthiest of congregations. And while perhaps, the conflict may not be the same as the ones that Paul and the Corinthian Church grappled with, they can be painful, with lots of emotions and misunderstanding.  Even minor conflicts, can cause relationships to falter and can make the work of being the church much more difficult.  

And while I don’t recommend Paul’s sarcastic tone and acidic wit in handling conflict, he does have a point when he talks about God being the one to ensure that the work we do grows and takes root. It’s not about the talents, gifts, and wealth of any particular person. All of us are necessary for this work. We each matter. And we need to do this work together.  So what does this mean for us living in the here and now? Do we pretend conflict doesn’t exist and go on our merry way, where there is a constant undercurrent of tension that everyone can feel but no one talks and everyone politely pretends to like each other. No, I don’t recommend that course of action either.  

Instead working together isn’t a matter of simple slogans and cliches about how unity matters (although it does), instead it means doing the hard work of hashing out the issues, and recognizing that we are all seeking to advance God’s kingdom, even if we disagree on the methods needed to do so. Working together means being honest with each other when we are in the midst of conflict, and also remembering that the people we are in tension with are also beloved children of God. It doesn’t mean we have to particularly like them at any given moment, but we do need to remember that God loves them as much as God loves us. And that means recognizing they to have a place in this kingdom work, even if we’d prefer that place was a bit further away from us. Paul, is reminding us that we all have a place in working to advance the Kingdom of God and that no one of us is “better” than anyone else. God works in the midst of us and through us.  

Now Mark 4:30-34, also uses agricultural imagery. In this case, the parable is about a small seed. There is a bit of irony in this passage that one can miss, if one doesn’t know the context. The mustard seed is a small seed and it grows into a pretty decent sized shrub-about 10 feet tall. Now while that is large, it’s not the large, majestic tree that is sometimes used in illustrations accompanying this passage. But again, if we know anything about how the gospels portray Jesus and God, this imagery makes sense.  

The kingdom of God is not necessarily like the Roman Empire, which is based on violence, domination, and control. For the Roman Empire, a shrub would not cut it. The stone pine trees, or umbrella tree, often associated with the Roman Empire, are tall growing to between 60-80 feet tall, and although they were thin, they projected an image of regality and beauty. In contrast to a giant shrub as depicted in Mark. But again, the purpose of many of the images and parables in the gospels isn’t necessarily to have the kingdom of God mimic the Roman Empire but to stand in contrast to it.  

In Paul’s passage, the working towards the kingdom of God means letting go of arrogance and elitism (something Paul struggled with himself, to be honest) and working together. In this passage in Mark which is part of a long list of parables about the kingdom of God, Jesus is reiterating that the kingdom of God is in direct opposition to the kingdoms of the world. It is comparatively speaking relatively small and seemingly insignificant. And yet it is in this seemingly small insignificant, seed where hope can be found. 

In a similar way, the work that we as Christians do as part of a community, often feels small and insignificant. Especially during the moments where we are in conflict. When everything is going smoothly, everyone is getting along, the budget expenses are being met, it is very easy to say, “Well God is working here.”

Much harder to do so during the moments where we aren’t necessarily getting along with one another, or where we are finding it harder to pay the bills each month, and where everything the parishioner sitting next to us does, seems to annoy us to no end.  It is hard to see God and the Kingdom of God during those moments. But this parable reminds us that even in those times, God is working to advance God’s kingdom. Now obviously this parable isn’t an excuse to stay stuck in conflict and division, but it is a reminder that our hope rests in a kingdom unlike our the ones in our world.  

 God can be experienced in the midst of conflict, but we need to be willing to open our eyes to that reality and we need to be willing to see God in those who we are in disagreement with. And we need to hold onto the hope that God can and will turn our moments of pain and dissension into something bigger and better.  

Amen 

Image: leaves and sketches of leaves. Text: The Kingdom of God differs from the kingdoms of the world. It is comparatively speaking relatively small and seemingly insignificant. And yet it is in this seemingly small insignificant, seed where hope can be found.