Readings: Ezekiel 17. 22-end, Psalm 92. 1-4, 12-end, 2 Corinthians 5. 6-10, 14-17, Mark 4. 26-34
There is a paradox in Jesus’ use of parables and it is announced, as it were, unashamedly in Mark’s Gospel; “He never spoke to them without a parable; but when they were on their own he explained everything to his disciples.” So why use parables at all? We think of them as a means to help explain ideas which are somehow beyond straight telling, or ones more easily grasped by analogy and metaphor, especially ones of action and growth. It’s not I think that Jesus was deliberately mystifying things (although there is a sense of arcane obscurity in Mark’s version of the Gospel), rather, at least, in the parables we heard today, that Jesus wants to describe a process, as we might say more the medium, than the message itself.
However dark, secret and obscure Mark’s version of the Good News may be, it is also full of action as we sense Jesus rushing forwards to his passion and the Gospel’s rather mysterious conclusion. It’s a Gospel of actions rather than words. In a way the two parables of the growth of grain to maturity and harvest and the mustard seed to a large bush, reflect this as spring wheat grows surprisingly quickly in a hot climate and come to ripeness early- like Jesus’ career.
And in this hectic activity of Jesus’ life and in the quieter but quick growth of the wheat and mustard, it is God who is in control. The growth of crops is mysterious and yet predictable (it would not happen otherwise) and while it may be assisted by human activity it remains essentially the work of an endlessly creating force- that is God. We may weed, hoe, fertilise and water but the magic is God’s creative power quietly active as if at night when we are asleep.
Those are perhaps some parallels in understanding the way the Gospel works, but one is still left wondering what they tell us about the Kingdom of God- which is what they are intended to elucidate. The point seems to be that God will bring about the Kingdom mysteriously and from small beginnings; as message, that at first seems to me rather a damp squib; true but not very inspiring. Perhaps what I find lacking in it is much sense of the effort we need to usher in the kingdom or the responsibilities and challenges that we are privileged to have as God’s children and, in a small way, co-creators with Him. It is, of course, both comforting, and realistic, to be reassured that secretly, quietly, and insistently God is working away with us, and that if –and to the extent that- we succeed, it will be a matter of grace not effort. Effort is nevertheless needed.
It’s certainly presumptuous, perhaps even blasphemous to suggest that there might be a more apt example, a more inspiring parable closer at hand. But I’ll ty it all the same. I am thinking of the young children, Olivia and Violette whom we are about to baptise. They are not now as small as mustard seeds (although they were once) and their growth will be as phenomenal and mysterious as any plant’s. But more than a mere metaphor for how the Kingdom grows, they will be examples, and their lives a paradigm of how it happens- or so they have the potential to be, and will be with the Grace of God and some help from family, friends and this and other congregations.
Baptism was not invented by Jesus, nor even John the Baptist, but the early Christians were clearly quick to adopt and adapt it, adding to the symbolic washing away of sins, the notion of the Holy Spirit entering the candidate. This idea grew, I suspect from the Old Testament treatment of water representing death and breath or spirit representing life. The problem with water is how difficult it is to contain and control, but most of all that it extinguishes life by preventing breathing. It symbolises the opposite of creation, as the Flood, almost, destroys God’s work. That creative work is symbolised most powerfully in the creation of Man; into whose nostrils God breathes the breath of life and man becomes a living thing. In a few minutes Olivia and Violette will symbolically emerge from the water as new creatures with new names.
But Olivia and Violette will, like the rest of us not merely be individuals; they will be microcosms of the church itself; they will be little creatures in which God dwells as spirit; the world wide church is only a bigger- and rather less innocent- version of that. How Olivia and Violette will grow has something to show us about how the church- this one on Hampstead and the many limbed, multi-coloured and polyglot one of which we are a tiny part.
It must seem an impossible- and ridiculously unfair responsibility to load on a child; but for Olivia and Violette to meet their challenge will really only require love; the love of parents, family and wider circles of friends including this community. Like the wheat and the mustard seed they will be watered with love, hoed with patience, fertilized with help and advice and, occasionally may need a little gentle weeding. And from this care they will learn that even tiny acts of kindness in the playground, to fellow students, to colleagues, families friends and strangers will have transformative repercussions, spreading out like the branches of the bush, and eventually like a great cedar, which symbolised a whole nation. Perhaps they will be called to more dramatic acts of love and service, but returning to mustard seed, I believe the emphasis is small acts, easily achieved, if one has been nurtured in the structures of generosity and kindness which it’s our responsibility to put in place with Olivia’s and Violette’s family.
How this will happen is indeed mysterious and totally reliant on the love and grace of God. Like the growth of the wheat ad mustard it will be a matter of action, perhaps merely gestures, not words. I will come through the imitation of kindness and the experience of love and forgiveness. That perhaps is why the parables can seem so obscure; it’s not the words which carry the meaning but the activity they describe. So enough words from me; let us allow the action of the Holy Spirit to do its stuff at the font. Amen.