"Turtles, Mustard Seeds, and the Kingdom of God"

Today we begin what the Church once called the season of “Ordinary Time.”

You may have noticed that most of the action of the church year comes in its first six months. Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection, and ascension; and the coming of the Holy Spirit – it all happens in the first half of the year.

Five liturgical seasons in six months; the colors on the altar changing almost every time you turn around.

But the green hangings that are on the altar today can stay there for a while – until Advent, in fact. No major feasts or festivals or holy days are on the horizon. We are in ordinary time.

It seems appropriate that ordinary time comprises the longest span of the church calendar.

Most of our lives are spent in ordinary time. There are celebrations of births and weddings and graduations – important milestones and markers of life’s transitions. Important events that we remember and celebrate.

But most of our lives are lived in between these special occasions. Who we are, how our lives are shaped and unfold, is in large part determined by how we live out our ordinary day-to-day existence.

Appropriately enough, our scripture readings today give us some guidance for how to live in the ordinary times of our lives.

We start with the prophet Micah speaking to the people of Israel, reminding them of all that God has done for them, bringing them out of slavery and into the Promised Land.

What should God’s people do in return for God’s graciousness? they ask. Should they make extravagant sacrifices and gifts – calves, thousands of rams, rivers of precious oil, maybe even a firstborn child?

Absolutely not, the prophet says. God does not desire such extraordinary, extravagant gestures.

But here is what God does require – to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

Now we can think of these requirements in extraordinary terms. We can think of justice on a national, or even global scale. And we should be concerned about the gross injustices that plague our planet, that keep us from realizing the kingdom of God.

But thinking on that scale can overwhelm or paralyze us. We think that there is nothing we can do to right injustice on such a massive scale, and so we do nothing. And I don’t think that’s what God or the prophet Micah had in mind.

Perhaps what Micah did have in mind was what happened in our Vacation Bible School this week. Ellen built Vacation Bible School around these verses from Micah, and helped our children relate them to their own ordinary lives and the care of the planet.

On the first day of Bible School, the children participated in a skit. They came into chapel together and saw a road sign pointing in two directions. The children followed the arrow pointing to the “It’s All About Me” road.

It led to a stream filled with fish, and the children pretended to fish and fish and fish, long after they had caught more than they could ever eat.

And then the prophet appeared and told them of the consequences of overfishing the stream, and told them to repent, to turn around and go a better way.

And so they went back to the road sign and discovered the other arrow, which pointed to “the way of the Lord.” Going that better way, the way of the Lord, is remembering that it’s not “all about me.” That is what it mean to walk humbly with God.

Throughout the week the children learned that Micah’s instructions – to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God – could apply to the most ordinary of life’s situations.

How they distributed snacks said something about justice, taking care of the earth through even little things like not littering or recycling said something about kindness, remembering the needs of a friend or sibling was a reminder that it’s not all about me, a way of walking humbly with God.

I saw those lessons in action one day when some of the kids discovered a turtle on the grounds in front of the church. They thought he seemed hot and lethargic (something hard to judge in a turtle), so they went to get him some water.

The turtle, no fool, withdrew into its shell when the kids approached. But as they poured water over him, he poked out his head, then poked out his tongue and eagerly drank their offering. A simple act of kindness to one of God’s creatures, a reminder that the earth is not “all about us,” but about justice and sharing.

Now we can nod and smile and say that is cute and nice to see our children learning these things. But it is so much more than that.

One wonders if Wall Street executives taking in multi-million dollar bonuses while average investors watch their nest eggs dwindle ever had to fairly distribute snacks at Vacation Bible School.

One wonders if those who pollute our waters and air were ever taught to be kind to the earth and its inhabitants, even in small and simple ways.

One wonders if those intent about consuming a large percentage of the earth’s resources or imposing our will on other lands were ever told as children that the “It’s All About Me” road is not the way of the Lord.

It is those myriad small decisions we make every day in our ordinary lives that form and shape us. And ultimately those decisions form and shape the world in which we live.

Those who scoff at the idea that learning justice, kindness and humility in Vacation Bible School may someday change the world should listen again to Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel.

“The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how,” Jesus said.

Jesus also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet 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.”

Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan has these comments on the mustard seed:

“Once it has been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.

“It tends to take over where it is not wanted, it tends to get out of control. And that, said Jesus, is what the Kingdom is like.”

This week at St. Dunstan’s numerous mustard seeds were planted – seeds of justice, seeds of kindness, seeds of humility.

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Readings

Micah 6:6-8

"With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others; but we ourselves are well known to God, and I hope that we are also well known to your consciences. We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you an opportunity to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast in outward appearance and not in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet 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.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

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