Henrietta United Church of Christ

Scripture: Luke 13:18-21

18 He said therefore, `What is the kingdom of God like? And to what should I compare it? 19It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.'

20 And again he said, `To what should I compare the kingdom of God? 21It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.'

Sermon:

The first thing we know about Jesus as an adult is that he went down to the Jordan River on the edge of the desert to be baptized by John the baptist. Last Monday, I heard biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan explain that John was proclaiming that God was coming soon in righteous judgement to cleanse Israel, break their yoke of oppression, and restore Israel to prominence and power. What was holding God up was the people’s sinfulness. John told the people of Israel to go back and redo the Exodus, that took them through the water and into the Promised Land. John called them back into the wilderness, back into the water, to get cleansed of their sins, so they could return to the Promised Land a repentant and righteous people worthy of God’s intervention.

I wonder what was on Jesus’ mind as he made his way out to the Jordan River where John was baptizing? No doubt Jesus was feeling God’s call very strongly to be used by God in a powerful way to save his people. Jesus might have been thinking about how firmly the military boot of the Roman Empire was planted on the neck of his people. He knew that every day more land and more possessions were taken away from the peasants and put in the hands of the rich. Disease was rampant, and orphans and widows begged in the streets, with most people believing that God was punishing them for their sins.

Rome was constantly proclaiming the euangelion, the gospel or “good news”: a new era of peace had come to the world through the son of God, the savior of the world, God incarnate, their redeemer and lord. Who did these terms refer to? Caesar Augustus, of course, who had brought the pax Romana, the Roman peace, to the world. The Roman “peace” was achieved by conquering much of the known world and forcing the people to revere Caesar as their Lord, Redeemer, and God incarnate. When in the Roman Empire, you had to “do what the Romans do”.

Jesus saw how this order of oppression, division, judgment, and domination was numbing people’s souls. And he knew God had a special plan for him. As he walked out towards the Jordan River, he knew he was leaving behind his old identity as the carpenter son of Mary and Joseph. As John plunged him under the flowing water, Jesus let all of his claims on his own life be washed away. He emerged ready to answer God’s call with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, wherever it might lead. As he stood there cleansed and open, God’s Holy Spirit descended on Jesus “like a dove,” filling him and empowering him with God’s truth, compassion, wisdom, and power as nobody else has even been. After forty days of self purification in the wilderness, Jesus was ready to incarnate God’s Spirit so fully that he could truthfully say, “I and my Father are one.”

What do you suppose Jesus felt and thought and saw after that? Who can say? But we can see from what he began to do that God had given him a way to help his people, and people in all times and all situations, to move from being defined, stifled and oppressed by the world around them to becoming co-creators with God of a new kind of reality. Jesus called this new reality the “kingdom of God,” or better, “domain” or “realm of God.”

This word we translate as “kingdom” or “realm” also means “empire,” as in “Roman Empire.” Jesus was deliberately setting about creating an alternative to the oppression of the Roman Empire, an alternative to the order of injustice created through the greed of the rich, and an alternative to the order of exclusion created by self righteous judgement.

The Roman Empire tried to impose its “peace” through violence and domination. God’s realm would create true shalom through love and liberation.

Where do you find this new realm? Jesus answered, “The realm of God is within you.” We begin by finding a whole new self being born by turning toward God, just as we are. Jesus told the story of the prodigal son to tell us, even if you took all God gave you and squandered it all in wanton selfishness, even if you’re so far in the gutter you’re wishing you could eat pig slop, listen! God is still waiting for you and watching for you, and God will embrace you in total love and joy if you only come back home to God, just as you are. That’s how God begins to reign in your life.

Jesus said that the realm of God is also among you, as soon as you release your self righteous judgements of others and embrace each other as sons and daughters of God. He told the story of the good Samaritan to open our eyes to the inner worth of the people we despise by showing us that they are capable of having compassion on people like us. “Love your enemies,” Jesus commanded his followers. “Forgive those who wrong you. Pray for those who persecute you.” When it dawns on you that those people are also God’s children, you find yourself in the realm of God.

Jesus touched untouchable lepers. He deeply honored and valued women. He ate with the poor. He invited himself to the house of a tax collector. In God’s realm of perfect love for every son and daughter God has created, how can there be enemies, and people who are looked down on, rejected, or excluded?

Jesus gathered twelve ordinary men--fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot–ordinary people, and several women–including Mary Madeline, whom some ancient writings depict helping the twelve men understand what Jesus was trying to get across to them. Jesus taught these closest followers how to create this kingdom, not only by his words but also by his actions: showing God’s compassion for the poor, the despised and the outcast; trusting God in everything; taking off his robe, bending down and washing the disciples’ dirty feet.

And Jesus taught them how this realm of God can be extended out into the world. That’s what the two little parables in today’s scripture lesson are about. You just need to start with the faith that even a tiny mustard seed of divine love planted in the world grows into a tree, because its nature is to grow. And birds of the air will come and make their home in its branches (and will eat its seeds) because they find there what they need. And they in turn will help spread these seeds, in the way birds do that we won’t go into detail about here, and mustard plants will start sprouting up everywhere, as mustard plants do.

And the parable about the dough reminds what every woman knows: all you need to make a whole lot of dough rise is to knead in a little bit of yeast, and it mysteriously goes to work and changes the whole loaf.

Jesus was saying we don’t need an army or political power or money to make God’s realm begin to change the shape of the world. All we need to do is faithfully keep kneading the all-embracing love and life-giving truth of God into the world around us. And the world around us will rise to a higher level, because that’s what yeast makes it do.

This is the DNA of the kingdom: the transforming power of God’s love, truth, justice, and peace working in our lives and working through our lives as it touches the world. As Desmond Tutu said, “Without God we can’t. Without us God won’t.” But when we become carriers of this seed and kneaders of this yeast, God makes it grow, replicate, and spread; grow, replicate and spread, because that’s what God created it to do.

If we had heard Jesus’ plan for ushering in a new kind of order 2000 years ago, with no money or power, and with only a ragtag group of followers who were pretty slow to get it, would any of us have ever predicted that after three brief years of teaching ending with a public execution, this DNA would have quickly spread into the world, creating a new culture of compassion instead of judgment for the suffering, starting churches from ancient Persia to India to Turkey to Rome, replacing the religion of the Roman Empire, spreading into every country of the world, and creating compassionate, inclusive, justice-seeking communities of faith like HUCC?

So here we are, pondering how we can “create our future” right here in our world in this 21^st Century after Jesus lived and died. There is a part of me that says, “Well, we ought to develop a strategic ten-year plan, with goals, objectives, tactics, time frames, allocation of resources, and delegation of responsibilities.”

But that doesn’t seem to be how God’s realm grows, replicates and spreads. I think creating our future got off to a great start by developing our new mission statement. That document is all about how we are seeking to embody, cultivate and spread God’s realm within us, among us, and in the world. We see around us right here lots of ways that God’s realm of all-embracing love, truth, compassion, justice, and peace keeps growing like a mustard tree; and it keeps putting out new branches for people to build their nests in. Within a couple days of each other, two different people recently mentioned groups they’d like to start in January to help nurture people’s faith in their daily lives. That didn’t come out of a strategic plan. That sprang out of the life that naturally grows when we let ourselves be agents of God’s Spirit working in the world through us.

The main thing we need to do to create our future is to continue creating adequate soil for this mustard to keep growing. It looks like that will mean adding onto our parking lot and building. Our Church Facilities Task Force will be meeting this Thursday to do more discerning about the feasibility of the concept our architect presented last January. I say, as long as our plans help us continue our mission of growing a fruitful mustard tree of God’s realm, we will succeed, because we are aligning our will with God’s will for mustard seeds to grow. To paraphrase Desmond Tutu, With God we can, and with us God will.

We also need to look at staffing. Our worship attendance and activities have about doubled in the past six years. But we still have the same amount of office help as we’ve had since I came 18 years ago–a secretary working 12-15 hours a week. That means that I spend a lot of my time handling daily communication, coordination, questions, and concerns for a very busy church. That leaves me with almost no time for pastoral care or for providing spiritual nourishment for individuals, groups, or the whole church. And I feel physically depleted from trying to cover more bases than I am humanly able. Every time a get a virus, it takes me months to recover my energy.

Our Church and Ministry Committee and Board of Trustees both looked at that situation and are recommending that we create a position for a part-time administrative assistant to handle those routine things that don’t really need a pastor. Once that person is trained, they are agreeing that I should take a sabbatical to replenish my body and soul, preferably when Pastor Martha and Mark Dibelka are around to cover for me. By then, we’ll have a new Caring Team the Deacons are helping create to extend the church’s care to folks who can’t get to church or are sick.

But when I think about creating our future, the thing I see most of all is us sending our roots down into the rich soil of God’s boundless love, reconciling peace, and life-giving truth. I see us growing more branches that enable other birds to come and build their nests and find their spiritual home here with us. I see each person here carrying the seeds of God’s realm within them, and us encouraging each other to keep it growing and bearing fruit in our lives. And I see us finding more ways to spread the seeds of God’s realm into the world around us, as individual and families and a church.

As long as we continue to seek first the kingdom of God, whatever challenges we face or projects we tackle, we have a bright, fruitful future ahead of us. I can’t imagine a church with a brighter future than HUCC. With God we can, and with us God will!