Fourth Sunday after
Pentecost (B—Proper 6)
June 17, 2018
Text: Mark 4:26-34
Who
would have thought? Who possibly could
have imagined? This sprig Ezekiel speaks
of (Ez. 17:22-24), a mere twig from the top of the cedar, weak and tender,
broken, yet planted by the LORD on the mountain height of Israel. And it grows and bears many braches and
produces much fruit and becomes a noble cedar, one under which every kind of
bird finds shelter for its nest, a dwelling place, security, a home. Who can help but think here of the holy cross
bearing the weak and tender, broken and dying body of our Lord Jesus Christ,
planted on the height of Golgotha for the life of the world? Indeed, that is what the prophecy is all
about. No one would have guessed that
this tree, itself dead wood and the instrument of death, would, in this
ignominious execution, become the very Tree of Life. The low tree is made high, the dry tree green
and flourishing. This Tree bears its own
Creator. Pinned to the wood is the flesh
of God. And from this corpse, Life. Life grows.
Branches spread. Preachers
preach. Believers congregate. They build homes, familial and spiritual,
under the shade of this noble Tree and the Crucified One who is risen from the
dead. And the leaves of this Tree, which
are for the healing of the nations, and the fruits of this Tree, the body and
blood of Jesus Christ, are given us right here at the Altar. It’s unthinkable, but it’s true. And it’s what our Lord Jesus teaches us this
morning in the Holy Gospel.
The
Kingdom of God is that which is so insignificant, weak, dying, and dead in the
eyes of the world, that the world takes no notice. Who would ever think this could amount to anything?
Better to crush it, like a bug under my shoe. But in the very crushing of it, in its death,
it becomes the very greatest thing. In
another place, Jesus says, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24; ESV). What is true for the wheat is true for the
mustard seed and for the Kingdom. Out of
death, comes life. Beloved, Jesus is the
Mustard Seed. He is the smallest, the
most insignificant, the Last, the Least of these, despised and rejected, broken
and crushed. And from His death grows
the Kingdom of God that is the Church, holy believers in Jesus Christ,
you. It’s the last thing anyone would
expect. It’s the Great Reversal.
Jesus
turns everything on its head. His
thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways. What man considers great is utter
nothingness. What man considers nothing
is the Kingdom of God Almighty. In the resurrection
of the dead, we will see the Kingdom as it really is, in all its majesty. But for now, what we get is the little group
of nobodies worshiping the Man who was nailed to the dead wood. We get the Church on earth, warts and
all. She’s beautiful. We love her.
But she kills us. No offense to
you, but she’s full of insufferable sinners, sinners who are really good at
sinning, even and especially against one another. She has her disagreements, her sad divisions,
her fightings and fears within, without.
She can be unfaithful, adulterous.
In the Old Testament, her name was Israel, and she went a-whoring after
other gods. God help her, she still
suffers those old temptations today.
That’s why God lays the cross of suffering upon her. He gives her budget troubles. He gives her contentious members and
conceited pastors. Sometimes, like
Gideon’s men, He shrinks our number to a ridiculously small company of
people. Apparently you all lap your
water like dogs (Judges 7)! When the
time is just right, God hands us defeat or weighs us down with
persecution. He’s pruning us! He loves you, so, here’s some suffering.
Really. That’s how God works. We know what He does with things that are
weak and insignificant, dying and dead.
We know what He does with our dead Savior. He raises Him! And that’s what He does with us. He raises us from death. Spiritually now, by water and the Word. Bodily then, on that great Day when our Lord
comes again in glory and calls us by name out of the grave. “For…
we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and
he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but
for him who for their sake died and was raised… Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation. The old
has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:14-15, 17).
Who
would have thought this is how God saves the world? Who could have imagined this is how God
births His Church? Cross and suffering
and death. And from that resurrection
and wholeness and life. I love the first
parable in our Holy Gospel. The man goes
out to scatter seed on the ground. That
is to say, the preacher goes out to scatter the Word in the world. The Christian goes out to scatter the Word by
his confession of Christ. And then what
does the preacher, the Christian, do? He
goes to sleep! Because he can’t make the
seed grow. It’s not going to help if he
sits there and watches it or worries about it.
He goes to sleep, and he rises in the morning, night after night, day
after day, and the seed grows, he knows not how (Mark 4:27)! It’s a mystery. God gives the growth. In His time.
In His way. That’s how it is with
the Kingdom. Now, I’m going to go to a
Church convention this week, and we’re going to be all hot and bothered about
what we need to do to make the Kingdom grow, and you can either cry or laugh
about such a thing, so I’m determined to enjoy the rich irony that we’re having
these discussions mere hours after we’ve all preached on this text, the point of which is that you can’t make
the Kingdom grow! God has to do it! I’ll need a little therapy, or at least some
TLC when I get back. But see how what
Jesus says here takes all the pressure off?
Our job is not to make the Kingdom, the Church, grow. When we do try to make it grow, we’re
basically saying God has no idea what He’s doing. He needs our help. Repent.
I repent. Because I suffer those
same illusions. And I worry about
it. I toss and turn at night about what
will happen with the Kingdom of God in this place. You know what? It’s not my business to worry about it. It’s not yours either. God will do what He will do.
Now,
we are given to sow the seed. That is vital. We are
given to preach, proclaim, confess!
Teach your kids the faith. Bring
them to Church. Invite others to Church. Be here yourself. Give an offering to support the
ministry. God can sow the seed without
us, but He has given us a gift, that we get to be a part of it. He does it through us. The results of it all are up to Him. We are simply to be faithful, to speak Him to
one another, to Moscow, to the world.
But then He grows the thing.
There is this great Bonhoeffer quote in the Treasury of Daily Prayer, and it’s so important for us to keep in
mind as we go about the Mission of Christ in this place. He writes: “It is not we who build. [Christ] builds the church. No man builds the church but Christ
alone. Whoever is minded to build the
church is surely well on the way to destroying it; for he will build a temple
to idols without wishing or knowing it.
We must confess—he builds. We
must proclaim—he builds. We must pray to
him—that he may build. We do not know
his plan. We cannot see whether he is
building or pulling down. It may be that
the times which by human standards are times of collapse are for him the great
times of construction. It may be that
the times which from a human point of view are great times for the church are
times when it is pulled down. It is a
great comfort which Christ gives to his church: you confess, preach, bear
witness to me and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is my province. Do what is given to you to do well and you
have done enough. But do it well. Pay no heed to views and opinions. Don’t ask for judgments. Don’t always be calculating what will
happen. Don’t always be on the lookout
for another refuge! Church, stay a
church! But church, confess, confess,
confess! Christ alone is your Lord; from
his grace alone can you live as you are.
Christ builds.”[1]
And
now, here we sit at Augustana Lutheran Church, a newly established,
self-standing congregation of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Who would have thought? It’s not much to speak of. Oh, you
see the potential. At least I hope you
do. I certainly do. But, I mean, we’re a pretty small group, an
insignificant nothing in the world’s eyes.
We congregate in a borrowed building (and many thanks to our very
gracious hosts), but we’re like the Son of Man who has no place to lay His
head. No one who’s anyone thought we’d
get this far. I never thought I’d leave
Michigan for Moscow, Idaho. But here we
are, thanks be to God. Not by our
efforts. Oh, I know you’ve put forth
plenty of effort to make this happen, and there is plenty more effort to be
asked of you. But that didn’t make this
place. All you’ve done is sow the
seed. If God didn’t want a congregation
here, it wouldn’t have succeeded. But
look, the seed is sprouting. A branch is
growing from the Crucified and Risen One.
The Tree of Life spreads its shade even here. I don’t know what will happen. Maybe this will take off like gangbusters
(what is “gangbusters,” anyway?). Maybe
attendance will dwindle and we won’t last long.
I don’t think that will happen, but it’s not up to me. God will do what He will do. Just take up the seed and toss it. Confess it!
Then go to sleep without a care.
We walk by faith, not by sight (1 Cor. 5:7). Then again, faith sees a lot here as the Lord
works in this place. The Gospel is
preached. Baptisms bring children of God
to new birth. We gather, week in and
week out, with the whole Church of God, in heaven and on earth, to be nourished
by the fruits of the Tree of Life, the true body and blood of Jesus
Christ. The Kingdom has already
succeeded here! We pray it will continue
to take deep root and grow. What began
as a tiny, insignificant hymn sing at Kraig and Tanna’s house, is a place where
Christians can settle in and find a home.
Who would have thought?
Apparently, God did. And so it
is. In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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