Mark 4:26-34 - "Beanstalks, Kudzu, and Japanese Knotweed)

            I remember, I remember…..one evening, when I was a child, that my father brought home a Jack-in-the-beanstalk planting kit.  It consisted of a very small plastic cup, a very long piece of thick red yarn, and a single bean seed.  The kit directions instructed us to moisten one end of the very long piece of red yarn and stuff it into the very small plastic cup and then extend the remainder to the ceiling and tape it in place.  Finally, we were told to nestle the single bean seed in the moistened red yarn in the very small plastic cup – and wait. 

            In not too many days, the bean seed sprouted – and then it began to grow.  Soon it was winding itself around the yarn, valiantly surging upward toward the ceiling.  It grew two feet, then three feet, and before too much time had gone by, it came perilously close to reaching the ceiling and the end of the yarn. 

            That was when we transplanted the seed into a flower pot with soil and ran a piece of string across the length of the dining room ceiling, thereby extending the growing space of our single bean seed.  It was about that time too that the vigorously growing plant began to flower – and then to bear fruit.  Green beans hung from the vine that ran across our dining room – and even provided our evening vegetable for a couple of meals.

            I remember, I remember…..several summers ago when a group of us from our church traveled to Tennessee on a mission trip.  For nearly a week, we painted houses and built handicapped ramps.  We constructed porches, additions, and stairs with railings.  It was a first time for me doing that sort of work, and it was also the first time that I ever saw kudzu. 

            Now kudzu is a coiling, trailing, climbing vine native to Japan.  However, in the southern United States, it is considered an invasive species and noxious weed.  It grows over everything, literally everything – plants, shrubs, trees, walls, and, if left to its own devices, even houses.  Its huge leaves shade out anything in its path.  You can see it right on our bulletin cover nearly burying a pick up truck.

            I remember, I remember….when we moved to our farm in Naples three years ago, that I noticed some lovely looking bamboo-like trees on the other side of the road.  And there was even a clump at the corner of a garden that I hoped to rejuvenate near our house.  The plant was quite picturesque – very serene looking, in an oriental sort of way. 

            However, before the spring was out, this plant seemed to have rooted everywhere, and shoots of it were even growing up through the planking of our deck.  No matter how much I tried to pull out the stalks, more sprouted up in their place.  This spring, I even cut out the clump in the garden.  However, the root mass was so deep that I could not get it all, and so I put rocks over what remained of it.  However, shoots continue to reappear every few days, growing in the small spaces in between the stones. 

            I finally found out that I was doing battle with Japanese knotweed.   Though delicious in a pie with strawberries in the early spring when the stalks are small and tender, Japanese knotweed gives new meaning to the word, “tenacious.”  You can cut it down, and it will grow back.  You can dig it out, and it will still grow back.  I suspect you can put all sorts of chemicals and herbicides on it, but it is here to stay.

            “With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?” Jesus asked his disciples.   Oh, that Jesus!  He was always asking questions and talking in parables, which perhaps you already know are little stories that are like puzzles or riddles.  There are about 40 of them in the Gospels, and Jesus only explains the first one he ever told. 

The others he leaves up to his disciples  (and down through the ages, us) to figure out.  No easy answers from this rabbi!  

            Lutheran pastor Stephen Molin tells us that  “German theologian Helmut Thielke says that we cannot comprehend the parables of Jesus until we see ourselves in the story. Like a small child, recognizing herself in the mirror for the very first time, when we see ourselves represented in the story, then we finally get it.

            Then we realize that we’re the snotty younger son who ran away with his father’s fortune. We’re the Levite who passed by the beaten man on the road to Jericho. You might even be the wise man who built his house upon the rock, and I might be the fool who built my house on the sand. Once we see ourselves in the story, the story takes on a whole new meaning, and then we understand.” 

            And so Jesus asks:  “With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?’  And you and I reach both into the parables and into our own experience to answer that question.  When we look at the parables we read this morning, the first one seems relatively straightforward.  It is rather like our family experience with the beanstalk.  You plant your seed – or your garden – and you wait.  Inch by inch, row by row. 

            What I love about gardening is the sheer miracle of it all.  You plant, you water, and you wait.  You trust in the soil and the rain and the sun.  You wait.  It takes great patience, but when the harvest time comes, there are beans to freeze and tomatoes to can.  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done of earth,” we pray.  The kingdom of God is like planting a garden.

            The second parable presented in today’s scripture lesson is a bit edgier, in my opinion. Of course, one interpretation of that parable might be that big things come from small beginnings.   With a small dose of your faith, God can do great things.  And perhaps that is exactly what Jesus did mean. 

            However, I keep thinking that there must be an alternative explanation because that one is so tame and safe, and Jesus was hardly a tame and safe human being.  Consequently, I think we need to take a few minutes to look deeper.  After all, as Lutheran scholar, David Lose, wrote, “Parables…are meant to overturn, to deconstruct, to cause frustration and, for those who stay with them, transformation.”

            Keeping that in mind, I  believe had Jesus been a 20^th century American, he might have compared the kingdom in this parable to kudzu or Japanese knotweed.  But instead (being a first century middle eastern Jew and all), he likened it to a mustard seed.  

            Now we can not know if Jesus was resorting to comedy to get his point across, but surely his disciples – though born and bred as fishermen and tax collectors rather than farmers – knew enough to slap their knees and gaffaw, “A mustard seed??!!! The Kingdom of God is like ... a mustard seed? C'mon, you must be joking?  Surely the Kingdom of God is like something majestic, something powerful, something really big. Like a mountain, or a cedar, or an eagle.   But a mustard seed?’

            Now as far as seeds go, a mustard seed is pretty small – smaller than a bean seed to be sure but not as small as an orchid seed, for example.  However, to really understand the significance of the image Jesus chose to compare the Kingdom of God to, you need to know something about mustard seeds and the plants they produce. 

            In the ancient world, the mustard plant was considered a weed.  Think dandelion.  Except for some small number of varieties raised for medicinal purposes, you would never find mustard actually cultivated in gardens because it would quickly take over and spread out-of-control.  Think Japanese knotweed.  Even the smallest tendril will root itself and propagate.  Think Jerusalem artichoke.  You would be more likely to find mustard plants in an abandoned field or overtaking the side of an open hill.

            And the bit about the birds making nests in the mustard shrubs?  Sounds cozy and bucolic, but what farmer wants a bunch of birds feasting on his seeds? Why do we have scarecrows?  Think black birds and ravens.  It is like Jesus is saying that once the mustard plant takes hold, even the “undesirables” show up!

            The kingdom of God is like wild onions – or crabgrass – or milfoil.  The kingdom of God is like dandelions – or kudzu – or Japanese knotweed.  It grows everywhere – and you cannot stop it.  The kingdom of God is like a noxious weed, like an invasive species.  It starts out small.  It might even start out picturesque.  Sometimes, in its own way, it is beautiful. But watch out! 

Even the tiniest slip of it can take hold and take over. 

            And, as the blogger of “Magdalene’s Musings wrote, “And… we’re not necessarily going to like it. It’s going to disrupt our pleasant and cozy places. It’s going to make us uncomfortable. It might even crack the foundations of the things we think we treasure most… our homes, our institutions, our churches. The (kingdom) of God is wild, and untamable, and uncontrollable. We will wake up in the morning and find that it has made its way into the comfort of our homes. We will probably be distressed, we will probably be freaked out, we will probably want to find some way to fix it or modify it or eradicate it. But it is the (kingdom) of God, and so it cannot be fixed or modified or eradicated.”

            In London during World War II, a church was all set to celebrate its annual harvest festival.  It had been decorated with vegetables and corn stalks when the sirens sounded, and people headed for shelter from a German bombing raid. 

            Unfortunately, the church was destroyed that day, and so there was no harvest festival that year.  The vegetables were destroyed, and the sheaves of corn were scattered by the explosions.  The congregation, of course, was devastated that nothing remained of the church.  However, the next spring, a small patch of corn was discovered growing through the rubble.  In the end, life will not be stifled – nor will the Kingdom of God.

            The Kingdom of God is coming.  It cannot be stopped – not by cynicism, not by war, not by amorality, not by abject indifference.  The kingdom of God is like a single bean seed that grows and grows seemingly without limit in a small plastic cup up a piece of thick red yarn.  The kingdom of God is like Japanese knotweed that cannot be destroyed.  The kingdom of God is like kudzu that eventually overtakes everything in its path.  The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.  That is the message of these parables, and it is a message of great hope. 

            I just finished reading the Hunger Games Trilogy.  There is a scene in the movie in which President Snow, the totalitarian ruler of futuristic Panem, asks his chief Games-maker -- the one charged with creating a spectacle as entertaining as it is barbaric -- why they must have a winner.

            The answer? Hope. He wants to give the oppressed people of Panem hope that maybe, just maybe, the odds will be in their favor and they may win the Hunger Games and escape their life of poverty.

            "Hope," he explains, "is the only thing more powerful than fear." He goes to say that "a little hope is effective; a lot of hope is dangerous."

(David Lose)

            These parables we read this morning offer hope – a lot of hope, dangerous hope that in the end God’s kingdom will win out. We cannot control it.  We cannot even summon it.  And we certainly cannot stop it.

            

Act 2:1 - 21 - "Power, Passion, and Pentecost"

            I grew up in a big old downtown mainline first congregational Protestant church.   It was assumed that everyone who attended was kind of Christian and a good solid citizen.  The men wore jackets – and often suits – and ties on Sunday morning, and the women wore dresses.  The children were dressed as miniature adults and were proud of the Sunday School pins they displayed on their chests, the ones with all the perfect attendance bars hanging down.

            We had a nativity pageant at Christmas and lilies on Easter.  There was a pipe organ in the sanctuary, and we paid our soloists.  We made Advent wreaths in December and waved palms (kind of) on Palm Sunday.  But in all the years I attended that church, I do not remember ever celebrating Pentecost.

            That would have been too much.  After all, though in some circles tamely recognized as simply the birthday of the church, Pentecost is clearly about the Holy Spirit – and that was way too weird and far out for my big old downtown mainline first congregational Protestant church. 

            I mean, face it, the noun “Pentecost” is surely too close for comfort to the adjective “Pentecostal.”  Though at least one of the nicest people I know in our church family here has Pentecostal roots, in my big old downtown mainline first congregational Protestant church, “Pentecostal” conjured up images of revival tents, altar calls, and speaking in tongues.  Being caught up in the Holy Spirit was just not something that happened at my church.  We were too much a part of mainline American Christendom for that.

            And so for many of us  - even today - who come from similar religious roots, Pentecost is a church celebration we tend to hold at arm’s length – not quite sure how to respond to it or what to do with it. 

            Though we think of Pentecost as a Christian event, it actually has its origins in Judaism.  “Penta” is Greek for “fifty” and so Pentecost was an important Jewish festival that occurred 50 days after Passover.  It was also called the Festival of Weeks or first fruits.  It was a kind of harvest festival but also commemorated when God gave Moses the law (the Ten Commandments) on Mt. Sinai. 

            Pentecost was a time of pilgrimage, and so thousands of Jewish people flocked to Jerusalem to celebrate this pivotal event in their history as God’s chosen people. They came from Parthia and Medea, from Judea and Egypt, from Crete and Rome, and from a bunch of other places we Western Christians do not even try to pronounce unless we draw the short straw and are the appointed lay reader on Pentecost Sunday. 

            And all these Jewish pilgrims were out in the streets and alleyways of the Holy City on this particular Pentecost that we as Christians remember.  They came to bring the first fruits of their harvest to offer to God.  They came to remember the law.  They came to their sacred city – and with no immediate forewarning the Holy Spirit came as well.  Just as Jesus said it would. 

            He had told his disciples to wait, to wait in Jerusalem for his return – and for once, they had followed his instructions.  They waited in that stuffy musty upper room – and Jesus did return – though not quite like they thought he would. 

            The author of the book of Acts tells it this way:  "Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where the disciples were sitting. And divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them." 

           As Episcopal priest Charles Robertson writes, “With rushing wind and tongues of fire, the apostles experienced the presence of God. In power and in intimacy, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and sent forth to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, to heal aching souls, to bear witness to divine, incomparable love.”

            The image of the Holy Spirit presented in this story is hardly that of the gentle dove slowly descending from heaven to land on Jesus’ shoulder at his baptism.  In contrast, this Holy Spirit is wild and wooly.  It is like the continually blowing gusty wind Joe and I experienced the week we were on Iona – and maybe that is part of the reason that Celtic Christians imagined the Holy Spirit not as a gentle dove but as a noisy, honking, unpredictable, irascible goose.  There is nothing safe and sweet about this Spirit at Pentecost.  It even flirts with danger – what with the tongues of fire and all. 

            But when you think of it, that is how the Holy Spirit is most often depicted in the Bible.  After all, God’s Spirit called out the Old Testament prophets and infused them with whatever it took for them to speak bold and dangerous words. 

            And look at Ezekiel.  He saw a vision of God’s Spirit blowing over a valley filled with dry bones and breathing into them until they fairly rattled and danced with life itself. 

            And God’s Spirit did not send Jesus out into the wilderness for 40 days with a kiss on the forehead and a box lunch and thermos.  No – if we read those Gospel narratives, we will rediscover that the Spirit actually drove Jesus out into the wilderness.  Drove him out!  Surely there is a power and passion embodied in the Holy Spirit. 

            And it was this powerful and passionate Spirit that drove the disciples out of their hidey hole that morning in Jerusalem long ago.  And when that happened, all language barriers were broken down, and the disciples who had been holed up in that Upper Room for the past 50+ days, now filled with the Holy Spirit, took to the streets. 

            And people thought they were drunk – a 9:00 in the morning, no less.  Had they been drinking new wine?  Heavens no!  They were the new wine – the new wine of the Spirit. 

            And Peter who had never done much more than bumble his words at the most inopportune times preached the sermon of his life.  With power and passion he proclaimed as the prophet Joel had in earlier times, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams" – and so the Gospel message of healing and transformation, of love and compassion, of forgiveness and reconciliation began to spread to the ends of the earth – and the church was born.   

            Baptist pastor Randy Hyde notes that “Pentecost is the season of fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost is the season of wind, the wind of the Spirit that blows and gusts (its) way into the hearts of those who are committed to God and (God’s) kingdom.  Pentecost is the time when we need to be reminded that sometimes being the church can be dangerous.  Annie Dillard is rather famous for saying that we ought to wear crash helmets in church and strap ourselves to the pews, because we don’t know what a dangerous place this is.”

            If we read between the lines in this story of Pentecost, this tale of a mighty wind and tongues of fire, we will find that one point of the story is that, when it is truly alive, the church is always alit, is always burning with the fires of Pentecost.  When it is truly alive, the church reflects the power of the wind and the passion of the flames.  If God is still speaking, then surely God is still speaking through the church.

            And if I am right about that inference, then Pentecost Sunday is a very good Sunday to be asking the inevitable question.  Here, in this place, in our church, is the Spirit evident?  Is God still speaking through us?  As Randy Hyde reflects, “We are Easter people, yes, but are we Pentecost people as well?”

            The great philosopher Soren Kierkegaard told a parable of the wild goose.  It left its flock flying in formation in search of food.  It was weak and starved.  By happy providence it found a barnyard filled with good food and ate until full and slept.  When it awoke it was alone, no fellow birds in sight. Then he heard the sound of geese honking above.  The sound stirred his spirit, but the comfort and plenty of the barnyard kept him there.

            The next day he heard the birds in flight, the stirring was there but fainter.  And again he resisted the calling of his spirit and stayed.

            One day the birds flew by in "V" formation honking their call in flight.  And the wild goose felt nothing.

            Sometimes, like that goose, it would be nice to just forget about the Holy Spirit because, you see, the Holy Spirit does not solve problems.  Rather, it creates them – and a lot of times, it creates them for the church.  If we take the Holy Spirit in our midst seriously (as we must), then we have to ask ourselves some downright difficult questions.

            If the Spirit of Pentecost is about power and passion, then where does our power lie, and what is our passion? Or have we tamed the Holy Spirit?  Are we like the goose content to stay fat and happy in the barnyard? Is our passion to get the bills paid?  Is our passion to be a club where everyone is like we are and the only membership requirement is that we show up for an hour on Sunday morning – or some Sunday mornings?  Those passions are hardly the stuff of which wind and flame are made.

            Or does a mighty wind continue to blow in this place?  Do the flames leap high and hot in our congregational life?  Where is our power, and what is our passion?

            Are we passionate about Christian formation - about making sure that our children know our Christian story and even more sure that we adults understand our roots, so that we can share it in meaningful ways with others who may not even attend our church? 

            Or are we passionate about missions – about connecting with people here in Maine and in the U.S. and throughout the world, connecting in deep and meaningful ways, so that strong relationships are born and nurtured, relationships that encourage us to receive as much as we might give?

            Or are we passionate about music and worship – about offering people far and wide creative opportunities to explore their spirituality and the ways that God is present in their lives through various media and styles – perhaps different media and styles than the ones we grew up with?

            What is our passion?  What is the power of the Holy Spirit driving us out to do?  Those are critical questions, especially as we define a growth strategy here at RVCC.  Those are important questions to engage one another in.  What do you think?  What does your pew buddy think?  I encourage – nay challenge – each one of you to give some thought to the question of passion and power, of the Holy Spirit in our midst – and to share your thoughts with someone else.

            To do so seriously will not be easy because it will require looking deeply and honestly at an institution that we all love and may feel uncomfortable critiquing even a teeny bit. 

But as you embrace this challenge, know that you are blessed by the passion and power of the wild, unpredictable, surprising, challenging, and renewing Holy Spirit, by the Pentecostal mighty wind and tongues of fire.