God makes seeds grow: 3rd after pentecost

Notes for understanding: this past week Rocky Mountain Synod's Council voted to close the minsitry of Christ the King, where I serve as Pastor and Mission Developer, effective August 31st.  The congregation found out on Thursday, so this was our first time together since finding out the news.  Here is my sermon manuscript, which I mostly followed.

The other reading I refer to is 2 Corinthians 5:6-17.

The holy gospel according to Mark (4:26-34)

²⁶Jesus said,

       “The dominion of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,

              ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day,

                     and the seed would sprout and grow,

                            the sower does not know how.

              ²⁸The earth produces of itself,

                     first the stalk,

                            then the head,

                                   then the full grain in the head.

                                          ²⁹But when the grain is ripe,

                                                 at once the sower goes in with a sickle,

                                                        because the harvest has come.”

³⁰Jesus also said,

       “With what can we compare the dominion of God,

              or what parable will we use for it?

                     ³¹It is like a mustard seed,

                            which, when sown upon the ground,

                                   is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;

                            ³²yet when it is sown

                                   it grows up

                                   and becomes the greatest of all shrubs,

                                   and puts forth large branches,

                                          so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

³³With many such parables Jesus spoke the word to them,

       as they were able to hear it;

              ³⁴he did not speak to them except in parables,

                     but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

The gospel of the Lord.

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Today of all days and this week of all weeks, it would be easy for us to hear Jesus’ words about the dominion of God and scoff.  Everything does not seem new.  Seeds have been planted here in this community for more than 8 years.

We had hoped those seeds would sprout and grow into an organized congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and yet we come to hear the news and discern what it will look like to close this expression of the ELCA here in South Jordan.

It would, perhaps, also be easy to say that our planting failed—that we have failed.  But that would be, as Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, regarding things “from a human point of view.”  This community of faith has failed if our only metrics are how many butts we got in chairs in worship and our inability to financially sustain the whole ministry.

Those are not God’s metrics.  God’s measurements deal with more important things: how many people’s lives are different because we have existed in this place?  We’re not just talking about how many people have worshiped here over the years, but how many children in crisis were comforted by our Project Linus blankets?  How many faith lives were challenged and strengthened by receiving God’s grace through baptism and Holy Communion? 

How many people had a little more to eat because of our food bank donations and ELCA World Hunger collections?  How many Native American Elders have toothbrushes and toothpastes, children have books, and kids dealing with grief have snacks because of our Lenten efforts?

How many people are still on the path to recovery because we have made space for Alcoholics Anonymous and Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous?  How many more children of God know that God loves them and that there are communities of faith that care about them, because of our presence with other communities of faith in the Pride Parade last weekend?

While Christ the King will come to an end, many of the seeds that have been planted are still in the ground.  “The earth produces of itself” and you continue to be a follower of Christ in the world.   

Your engagement with the Bible, the prayers you lift up each week, your faith expressed in the ways you care for neighbors; these ways God continues to work to make God’s love and grace known through you are not only fruits of the seeds planted already, but they also plant more seeds.   

And so even while the body of Christ gathered here may change and go our different ways, the dominion of God continues to spread like the mustard seed—greatest of all shrubs, and a weed that takes over wherever it is planted.

What is our task in the coming weeks and months?  How will we as a community of faith bear witness to the God of death and resurrection?  How do we continue to sow the seeds of faith in and with each other?  To nourish them in the time we have together?

What if we really take the time and spend our energy in the next couple of months watering the seeds that have been planted, making sure they are in good soil, not rocky?  What if we focus on nurturing this community?   

What if we focus on even something as simple as prayer?  What if we took this time to really pray for the church, the whole cosmos, and all those in need?  If we took our prayer list with us throughout the week and prayed at stoplights, in grocery store lines, or even doodling our prayers at home before bed or before breakfast?

In our Sunday evening worship we’ve been praying through origami by writing prayers on pieces of origami paper and then I usually fold them into cranes, praying with the one who wrote the prayer.  In Japan, there is a legend that if anyone folds 1000 paper cranes they can be healed, or have luck forever, or their wish will be granted.

What if we made 1000 paper cranes of prayers for the healing and wholeness of all of God’s creation?  It would be a mustard seed of the dominion of God.  Each paper crane prayer might not seem like much, but like a mustard seed, our prayers—the time we spend intentionally with God is not time wasted.  It grows in us and it grows in the world like a weed.  Spreading to take over more than we can even know or imagine.

How will God continue to nourish the seeds we’ve planted over the years?  How will God nourish the ones we plant this summer?  “The sower does not know how.”  It is not for us to know or say, but to trust God on this journey of faith, as we have so many times before.  Because God does nourish and grow the seeds of faith in us and in others, always.

Thanks be to God.