Pentecost 2

The Reverend Martha Frances

Year B, Pentecost 2, Proper 6

14 June 2009 

Texts:  Mark 4: 26-34; I Samuel 15: 34-16: 13

Other readings:  Psalm 20; II Corinthians 5: 6-10 (11-13), 14-17 

      First I want to thank you all for welcoming me back from my holiday which was partly vacation & partly continuing education.  I'm only sorry to see that, in my absence, you let the temperature & the price of gasoline rise far too much!

      When I left here last month, we were in the season of Easter, & now we are in the season of Pentecost, the longest liturgical season which lasts from now until Christ the King Sunday which is around Thanksgiving, after which we begin a new church year with Advent once again.  This season is also called Common Time or Ordinary Time which is when we spend the majority of our lives, isn't it?  During the long hot days of summer & into the fall, the scriptures chosen for us to read & grapple with involve the teachings & daily activities of Jesus as he moved from place to place with his disciples. 

      Traditionally, the focus for this time of year has been in our own growth as disciples and the renewal of the Church.  Our Collect for the Day which we said together at the beginning of worship captures our theme well.  We ask God to keep God's household or family the Church growing in steadfast faith & love so that we may be bold in the proclamation of God's truth & compassionate as we minister with God's justice, all through God's grace, not by our own efforts or abilities. Our prayer acknowledges that God does the initiating, & we pattern our lives after God's will.

      All our scriptures today have to do with the ways in which God works in the world for renewal, & God's call us to participate in such a call.  Way back in the days of the Hebrew people, the prophet Samuel is grieving because Saul has turned out to be such a defective king of Israel, & even God regrets the choice of Saul.  However, God calls Samuel to action, gives him a job to do.  God takes the initiative to send Samuel to Bethlehem where God has already chosen the next king of Israel.  Samuel is frightened since he knows the anointing of a new king while Saul is still king amounts to treason, so God gives him a cover, so to speak.  Samuel is to make a sacrifice to God, a common part of a priest & prophet's life, & to invite Jesse & his sons to the sacrifice during which the new king will be anointed. 

      When Samuel goes about fulfilling God's instructions, he is surprised to find that those of Jesse's sons presumably most capable of kingship are not God's choice.  God has to remind Samuel that God's criteria for leadership are not the same as we would choose.  Much is made in the story about mortals' limited vision which only sees outward appearances while God looks upon the heart.  Samuel rejects Jesse's 7 sons & asks if there is another, & Jesse has clearly not considered his youngest, David, a likely candidate for leadership as he is still in the fields tending the sheep. 

      We, too, might be surprised that it is the youngest son whom Samuel anoints, yet our Hebrew scriptures are full of younger sons whom God chooses for special leadership roles, Isaac & Joseph among them.  In addition, David's first profession as shepherd foreshadows his role as King, since the image of the king as shepherd was common in Israel & throughout the ancient Near East.  Further, David's family tree includes women who were unlikely vessels of God's grace:  Ruth, the foreigner; Tamar, the Canaanite woman almost executed for adultery; & Rahab, another Canaanite woman known as a prostitute. 

      A friend with whom I went to church when Barbara Harris was elected bishop fumed about her shortcomings.  She hadn't gone to a proper seminary, she was divorced, she hadn't pastored a cardinal parish.  I wondered at the time whether he was truly more upset that she was female or that she was African-American.  She has recently retired as the much-beloved Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, & General Convention will soon celebrate her becoming bishop 20 years ago.  All of which puts me in mind of the verse from the Psalms that Jesus quoted about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the chief cornerstone.  In our communities where power is deeply entrenched, God's word to Samuel is applicable: God does not see as mortals see; mortals look on outward appearance but God looks on the heart. 

      When we turn to the Gospel of Mark, we find 2 short parables about seeds which are the only 2 Mark gives us to visualize the Kingdom or the Reign of God.  Both parables stress God's initiative in dealing with humans.  Someone scatters seed on the ground—we're not even told it must be an expert so perhaps even I could be the sower in this parable—for then the sower does not stand over the seed to encourage it to grow or even worse, dig it up to see how far along the process has come.  The rhythm of the parable even in English suggests the necessity of patience until the seeds germinate in God's time (notice the similar phrases in our offertory hymn today):  the sower would sleep & rise night & day; the earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  All God's timing & maturing.  Then the sower can become the harvester. 

      The 2^nd parable today is very familiar to us, especially those of us old enough to have worn necklaces as youth with a small mustard seen encapsulated in a plastic bead.  God's reign starts out on earth (presumably just as Jesus was actually telling the parable) like a mustard seed, so small that it is almost invisible.  Mark is careful to preserve the meaning when he says that it grows up to become the greatest of all shrubs.  It still does not have the majesty of a cedar of Lebanon, but it has branches strong enough to house bird nests.  I've often wondered if this parable is true to life & was discussing it with our parish administrator Mary the other day.  She said she could certainly relate to this parable since their church has a community garden (not a bad idea, perhaps), & the mustard shrubs had to be taken out as they were overtaking the space for all the other vegetables in the garden.  Indeed, that small seed does produce prodigiously. 

      Can you just imagine Jesus telling this parable to a crowd of people who are discouraged at the seeming lack of progress or growth in their spiritual lives or faith community?  What a sign of encouragement that mustard seed could be to poor or marginalized people in the backwater area of an occupied country in the Middle East.  In fact, for those of us who can get wrapped up in outward signs of success, the mustard seed can certainly speak to us today.  After all, our country is in a recession, people are losing jobs, necessities are more expensive than ever, & life seems very difficult when a family member is ill or simply because the heat drains everyone of energy.  Furthermore, here at Hope, our church hasn't grown the way we had hoped it would, attendance is lower in the summer than usual, pledges are down & people are slow in paying them, & it's hard to encourage more people to make & keep commitments.  Aren't these the ways we judge success out in the world? 

      Jesus offers us the mustard seed.  Jesus tells us that the growth of God's reign is God's initiation & God's grace.  Our part is to do some sowing, some weeding, a lot of praying for the community & for those within it, & to align our will to God's in every way possible.  God gives the growth.  Yes, there are things we can do, & we should do.  Thank God for the work being done by parishioners on the gardens here at Hope as well as the remodeling recently done—the new kitchen & restrooms in the parish hall, new furniture in the offices, new computers for the day school.  As disciples, we are to participate in God's work in the world—growing in our own spiritual journey & sharing in the spiritual deepening in the community.  Critical & destructive conversation has the opposite effect of the sort of encouragement which Jesus' mustard seed parable gives us.  Imagine my surprise in returning from my time away to find that rumors have been flying that I am leaving!   I certainly hope that is not true; I don't believe our ministry together here at Hope has been done yet.  We all need each other, & Jesus reminds us in these parables that God's ways are not our ways, that our task is to continue to pray & give & grow as sowers & harvesters in God's field, leaving to God the growth of the mustard seed.  Please join & continue in the Hope-ful community in our journey of faith.