August 3, 2008 ”Mustard Seeds and Sidewalks”
Mark 4:30-32
One of the most recognized sounds of city life is the jackhammer. It is an international sound recognized in any city, anywhere in the world. The pounding of an air powered hammer, destroying pavement. When I was a kid growing up in Pawtucket, RI, there was a similar thing going on all the time only it was going on silently. In retrospect, it makes me realize how easy country trees have it. Country trees just grow up through regular old soil. City trees grow right up through the pavement doing exactly the same thing that a jackhammer does, only a lot more silently and peacefully. Those of you who grew up in cities like Quincy, or Brockton know exactly what I’m talking about. City trees could and did lift up whole sections of the sidewalk cracking it and breaking it to pieces. I remember sections of the sidewalk on Bloomfield St. on the block where I lived that looked like someone had just randomly thrown down pieces of concrete and called them sidewalks, all because of the trees growing up through the concrete. Very quietly, without very much to do and certainly there was none of the ear splitting racket that accompanies the famous jack hammer. You could sleep right through the destruction of the city sidewalks without any trouble at all.
Today, we’re talking about the kingdom of God. Actually we’re just repeating some things that have already been said about the kingdom but they are worth repeating. Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 “Seek first the kingdom of God” does He not? But he also says in Luke 17 that the kingdom of God will not come by your careful looking for it, people will not say , here it is or there it is, because it is within you.” And that’s the place where we have to start. Can you believe in the invisible? Can you believe in a kingdom that you cannot see? Can you believe in a reality that is probably more real than this one but is described as a mustard seed? Can you believe in something that is possibly dangerous and risky to the way you live your life? Can you believe in something that is out to make you more human but less like anything you are likely to find in this world, something that is so powerful that its goal is to break through the concrete sidewalk of our lives and transform the way we think, feel, and act, down to our very souls? Can you believe in that? Something that at its core, is out to change the world in a quiet, unassuming but extremely powerful way? Like a tree through a sidewalk. Something that in fact, happens so quietly, so unassumingly that you can sleep right through it and I have to say, many people do.
Now that something is what Jesus calls the kingdom of God and that he says is something. . . like a mustard seed. All I really know about mustard is that it goes great with hot dogs and onions and is delicious on warm, soft pretzels, both of which are not included in my diet anymore by the way. But Jesus says this kingdom is like a mustard seed. Boy, a mustard seed is tiny isn’t it? I could be holding one right here between my fingers and the people in the front row wouldn’t be able to see it. Jesus is talking about the way we see things. Something is small and we judge it to be insignificant. Something is small and we judge it to be of no consequence. Something is small and we think of it, if we think of it at all, as something to be ignored. Silver Lake Chapel, by just about every standard you want to use, is small. Like a mustard seed, easily overlooked, easily ignored, but that is what Jesus says, is what the kingdom of God is like. Hidden, unseen, growing.
Jesus said that the kingdom of God is not seen by careful observation but the kingdom of ‘God is within you. That mustard seed is planted by whatever means God plants it. You are here worshipping today, the seed is planted. You read your ‘Bible, the seed is planted. You pray, the seed is planted. You hear a word on the radio, the seed is planted. And then the seed starts to grow. Slowly at first and it doesn’t disturb much. It just pushes a little dirt aside as it inches its way up, up through the dirt and then it hits concrete. The kingdom of God almost always is obstructed by the concrete sidewalk of our lives. So often, we construct our lives to get them just the way we want them. We work hard to get things comfortable and secure for us. We arrange everything to make our lives stable and in order. All the ducks must be in a row, mustn’t they, . . . but the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It grows where we cannot see it. Often it grows without our awareness. And more often than not, it cracks and breaks through the hardened concrete of our security, the place where we have invested our hearts. A colleague of mine says that we live our lives as if we’re going to live here forever. I agree with him and I would go a step further and say that we arrange our lives as if we will always be protected and taken care of by the security we build, here. But meanwhile, we ignore the inevitable.
The people that Jesus was talking to were looking for him to establish a kingdom of this world. They wanted him to be a king they could understand.
A king that used a sword and vanquished his enemies and marched on their cities and ruled with a powerful army. The Jews believed that this was the kingdom that God would establish here on earth and it is the one they were looking for. This kind of kingdom is the one they kept asking Jesus to give them. If He really was the Messiah, then they wanted him to get on with it. They wanted and needed this king to take over the country, throw out the Romans, conquer the world, and give the Jews financial and political security. Jesus used metaphor after metaphor to teach them and us that the real kingdom of God was not to be found ever in the way they were expecting. Jesus reply to them was that, “You aren’t going to see the kingdom of God by careful observation. You can look all you want and you just aren’t going to find it that way. The kingdom of God is within you, it’s under your sidewalks. Kingdoms come and go, fortunes come and go, empires come and go, life itself comes and goes, yet still we continue to look for the kingdom of God in worldly, insecure, temporal places. We live our lives HERE, as if we are going to live forever, HERE. We strive to satisfy the real desires of our hearts with the things of this world and we make our security blankets as tough and solid and concrete as we possibly can. God doesn’t use a jackhammer to break us up. The mustard seed of his kingdom works quietly from within and our sidewalks crack open underneath our feet from the growth and stirrings that we cannot see. Circumstances in our lives that are not to our liking, are just evidence of the sidewalk breaking up under the fierce power of the kingdom of God forcing its way through the hardened walls of our hearts.
Does it hurt, of course it hurts. Does it leave a mark? I have yet to meet a serious follower of Jesus who doesn’t have some scars. But out of this uneven, broken, wrecked sidewalk, comes real life. The tiny little mustard seed that Jesus was referring to produces a plant about twelve feet high. Not quite a tree but certainly big enough for birds to live in. Birds are a symbol of freedom and life. Out of the wreckage of our sidewalks, from the brokenness of our hearts, God produces wonderful, spirit filled life. When the kingdom of God breaks through, it doesn’t just break. It shoots forth. It grows. It produces real life, the real kingdom, real security.
Oh, we can fight it and we usually do. We patch up the sidewalk, sometimes we rip it up and start over again but it doesn’t matter. Some people spend their whole lives trying to keep the kingdom of God from breaking through in their lives. They keep ripping up and rebuilding, ripping up and rebuilding. But that mustard seed is going to break through at some point anyway. Do you honestly think you can hold God back?
When your concrete cracks. When life is not going the way you think it should. When stuff just isn’t going according to the blueprint and you can see that mustard plant poking its way through your sidewalk. . . rejoice, for the kingdom of God has come.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
