mustard seeds, life

Sermon. St Anselm’s Hayes. 17 June

Trinity 2

Ezekiel 17.22-end

Mark 4.26-34

I’ve been thinking a lot about control. How much control do we have over our lives? My own circumstances at the moment seem to suggest: not much. More importantly, I know that is the case for you, in all of the discernment process about the future of this congregation and church. It’s hard to see the future. And we might also have to say: However things do unfold, it won’t be quite as you would like it, were you to be fully in control.

I’ve also been thinking of control in the light of all that stuff in the media over this last week. I am thinking - you’ll have guessed - about the Church of England’s official contribution to the consultation on the proposal for same-sex marriages. I am not going to go into the matters of substance. It just occurs to me that one interpretation is that the Church of England (or these spokespeople) want to be in control over the regulation of marriages. Some would say they just want to be guaranteed control over church marriages. I am not saying what is right or wrong in all of this. But I am saying that my notion is that what will happen is that it will emerge that the Church is not in control of the process. It may think it has great wisdom about marriage and relationships, and of course, at its best, it does. But it is not in control.

And… we know this, don’t we…? We are not in control of our own births. The vast majority of us are not in control of our own deaths. Along the way, many things happen to us, over which we have no, no control. In fact, our language emphasises this. What is it ‘to suffer’? To ‘suffer’ means to be at the receiving end of something else, not to be in control but passive, to be at the mercy of something/someone, typically something/someone you’d rather not be at the mercy of. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’? It means ‘let them; don’t control them’. ‘I am suffering terribly’? It means: I am at the mercy of something bigger than me.

Brothers and sisters, I think one theme in today’s gospel is a set of reminders that it is the same with our relationship with God. We are not in control of our relationship with God, neither as disciples, nor as a community. Your first thought might be: Of course not! God is God and we are creatures, how could we ever think that we are control? And that’s right. But… deep down, and if we brutally honest with ourselves, it can feel different. Because we’re not really sure about God, because it’s all a mystery anyway, we can allow ourselves to think that maybe we can be in control.

Maybe, if I say my prayers, and say the right prayers, I can manipulate God, and get my way. Maybe, if I really plead with God, I can get my way. Maybe, if I sign up to twenty church committees, God will feel he owes me something, and I can get my way. I do hesitate to put it this way, as we do not like to think we think this way. Now, most of us, most of the time, do not think this way. But! But we know (don’t we?) that there’s the thinking at the front of our minds (the thinking we share with others), and there’s the thinking at the back of our minds (which we dare not share with others). Well, the Christian gospel is good news. And the good news is this: we are not in control of our relationship with God. This might be hard news, but it is good news.

That is surely one message we learn from today’s parables. Life with God is like working in a garden, or in a field. As any gardener, any farmer, will tell you, when you work with the natural world, you are not in control. You cannot stop the weeds from appearing. You cannot guarantee that the plants you want to grow will actually make it. You can plan, toil, assist, hope, nourish, and weed and weed and weed, and you can make a difference. Yes, you can most assuredly make a difference. But you are not in control. This is (I say it again) what life with God is like.

But I do think that’s only half of what we learn from today’s parables. What we also learn is this: and the kingdom of God is all about life! When we know we are not in control, we can feel small, frightened, endangered, meaningless even. But, when we know we are not in control of our lives with God, we do not have to feel any of that. Indeed, we must not feel any of that. Because life with God is all about life, liveliness and abundance. Jesus himself tells us this, repeatedly, in this morning’s short gospel. First of all he tells us the simplest story of the gardener or farmer. He (or she) plants, nourishes, and awaits the harvest. And it works. Because it’s about God, it is about life. Then he tells us it’s actually more than that. It’s actually like the mustard seed, the smallest seed which becomes this ridiculously large bush-tree-monster. Because it’s about life and abundance.

By the way, I say ‘large bush-tree-monster’ because some commentators do think Jesus is overdoing it here. Yes, the mustard bush is a large one, but not normally the ‘greatest of all shrubs [with] large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’ In other words, here Jesus is telling a joke.

It is about life and abundance, and it was ever thus. The whole story of God’s choice of Israel is so that there is a people in the world, singled out to explore and enjoy the abundant life of God. That’s actually what ‘holiness’ in the Hebrew Bible means (but that’s another sermon). That’s clearly the message of Ezekiel this morning. Do take it home with you, and read it carefully and expectantly when you have time and leisure.

So, sisters and brothers, let me leave you (us) with this. We are not in control of our lives in the world. That can be painful. We are not in control of our lives with God. That can leave us bewildered at times. But it is also something to give thanks for, to rejoice in (if we can), because it is by our not being in control of our lives with God that life and abundance come to us. We can be that mustard seed. In fact, we can be as many mustard seeds as we want to be. Amen.