Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church
June 13, 2021
Year B, 3 Pentecost, Proper 6

1 Samuel 15:24-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-17
Mark 4:26-34

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“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.”

Do you remember the magic-eye-pictures trend in the 90s?  For a while, Magic Eye pictures seemed to be everywhere.  They were prints of seemingly-random patterns – pixilated dots or swirls of color or constantly repeated shapes – that if and when you figured out how to really see, beyond the pattern, turned out to be 3-dimensional images of something else entirely.  You couldn’t really be taught how to see these images.  There were all sorts of tips about getting up close and then backing slowly away, or going slightly cross-eyed, or looking through the pattern (if you knew what that meant), but ultimately, it was just a way of looking at the picture that you had to sense your own way into.  You’d be looking at one of these pictures on a poster in school or in a window at the mall with all your friends around and you’d end up saying to each other, “Oh! I see it now, I see it!  Wait, no, I lost it.  No I got it again.  Do you?  Look, can you see it now?”

Jesus’ parables are like the Gospel version of Magic Eye Pictures.  Each parable is like a pattern that, if you can see beyond it, if you are “able to hear it,” will reveal to you the shape and image of the kingdom of God.  Because getting to know the kingdom of God, understanding how God’s kingdom looks, isn’t really possible by looking directly at it, for it is something divine that we approach with human minds.  But, by looking through the patterns of Jesus’ parables, we can catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom and begin to understand how to live now in that dimension of reality. 

But, before we can really think about the parables themselves, we must first come to grips with what Jesus means when he talks about “the kingdom of God.”  Some folks think of God’s kingdom as some spiritual place you spend your life trying to get to; others think God’s kingdom is a time, an eternal moment that begins after this life.  But when Jesus talks about the kingdom of God as he does in Mark’s gospel, he’s not talking about time or place, but a state of being, a way of living in the continual presence of God who is always with us. 

And in this passage from Mark – and in parables throughout the Gospels – Jesus seems to imply that in order to be with God, in order to live in God’s kingdom, you’ve got to be a gardener.  How appropriate to hear as we gather in the garden!  But it is not good news for me, because as many of you know, I am not a gardener.  Vestry members past and present will tell you that when discussion of Thankful’s garden comes up on the Vestry’s agenda, I audibly groan.  Part of the reason why I hate talking about the garden is because I have a black thumb.  But, I think it’s also because it all seems so messy and mysterious to me.  No matter what I do, no matter what I really want, plants and flowers don’t grow to my tastes.  I am not in control of the outcomes.  Instead, I have no choice but to be like the gardener in today’s parable who watches life grow before him but “he does not know how.”  Our life, our world, God’s world unfolds before us and we do not know how.

And, like those 3-D images in the Magic Eye pictures, we are often surprised when we finally do see the kingdom suddenly springing up around us.  When we experience healing in a place of brokenness, selflessness in a selfish world, courageous love triumphing over blind fear, life where there was only death, then we are brought up short by our wonder and amazement, that we are always already living in God’s kingdom if we could only see it.  It is as unexpected and yet as magnificently life-giving as the “greatest of all shrubs” that springs from the tiny mustard seed. 

But, to our modern minds, perhaps to all human minds – no matter the age – it’s rather unsettling to live in the midst of, even as part of, such unknowable, such un-controllable life.  And that’s exactly where we find ourselves: between the first incarnation and Christ’s second coming, between the planting and the harvesting, invited to participate in the growing life of God’s kingdom, but without any blueprints, without knowing the “how.”  To non-gardeners like me, it’s hard to live in that in-between time without anxiety.  We are always fighting the urge to dig up those seeds to, you know, make certain they’re sprouting, to make sure God’s kingdom is coming in the way we want and expect it to.

And it’s in that space, fraught with possible anxiety and our oh-so-human need to control, that the grace of faith comes in.  Because, ultimately, if we are to live into God’s kingdom, we must trust that this whole messy, unsettling, unexpected, abundant chaos is not ours to shape but is God’s life-work, God’s love-work.  We will get nowhere trying to control it, but we are invited to participate in the “new creation” being made in Christ even now, scattering the good news like seeds and trusting in God’s promise – not for individual prosperity or corporate growth – but for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, that God’s reign is ever growing.  Even black-thumbs like me are called to come and work in God’s kingdom-garden, scattering seed and harvesting grain and trusting in the promise that “everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!”  Look, can you see it now?  Amen.