6^th Sunday after Pentecost - July 12, 2009

Kingswood UMC Buffalo Grove IL

Text: Mark 4:1-9

It’s been a week when the news has been filled with images from the popular culture ... Man in the Mirror, Thriller, Neverland Ranch, huge crowds gathering, people making pilgrimages from all over the world. All the other icons of Michael Jackson’s career were on nearly every media outlet over and over again. The music and dance are central ... but also the stories ... weird and wonderful. And it has likely only begun. There will be books and movies ... maybe more music .. we’re promised that there is a lot in the vault that has never been released. How this story is being told is a function of the popular culture of 1^st decade of the 21^st century. The motifs of suffering and love and service .. and of the world and oneness ... are told in newsbites and musical offerings and tributes on the stage of the world. That is how many popular culture stories are told now.

What we call the Gospel of Mark was also a story told in the popular culture style of its day. It is an example of the ancient novel. The story line is different but the genre used is from the popular culture of the 1^st century... plots told in episodes, key turning points, repetition, foreshadowing, parables that summarize the larger story. It is likely that, if Jesus had been born in 1950 and died in 1988, and someone was beginning to pull together the story of his life now, it would be in the popular culture forms of today ... music, newsbites, tributes, interviews.

In the earliest part of this short novel about the life of Jesus, Mark, the writer sets the stage: he introduces Jesus as God’s son and then quickly moves into a series of episodes where Jesus calls disciples to join him in a ministry that brings the good news that God’s kingdom has come near in him. Jesus heals, he goes on a preaching tour, he takes questions as people begin to follow him and he gathers a group of folk to help in the ministry. There is the foreshadowing of betrayal ... and rejection, too. He is misunderstood by many. The setting is Galilee ... in the towns and villages and near the sea. After this introduction, we come upon an incident and a story that is considered to be one of those plot summaries ... crystalizing in just a few verses the whole of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee and beyond. Let’s hear it now.

Mark 4:1-9

Jesus went back to teaching by the sea. A crowd built up ....

Listen. What do you make of this one?

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he scattered the seed, some fell along ...

Are you listening to this? Really listening?

Jesus uses this parable ... or short story about seed, soil and sower ... as an invitation to listen for God’s presence and Word in the everyday images of farming, to watch for God’s activity in the ordinary experiences of our lives. Today and for the next few weeks we are going to learn this parable ... and attempt to enter into it by asking what it means for us to be the seed, the soil and the sower.

Today we’re going to focus on the seed. How are we the seed? What is the nature of being a seed? And if the seed in Jesus’ parable is the word of God, how are we the word of God? How do our lives tell of God’s kingdom and love?

You all have some seed with you this morning. Look at it. What do you see?

Small

Varying sizes

We don’t know what all of the seeds are for ... this is bird seed mixed with some left over flower and vegetable seeds. But they are different, aren’t they? We can’t tell just by looking at them, but we know that different seed requires different conditions ... some may need more sun, some more shade. Some may need a lot of moisture, some need to be well drained.

So right away we know that if we are the seed, or the Word of God, we’re the seed and Word in all our diversity. We’re different sizes and shapes and colors. We have different accents, different thinking patterns, different needs. Some of us are extroverts and blossom in social settings. Some of us are introverts and are best nourished in solitude. Some of us are early bloomers ... hitting our stride and producing our best efforts in our youth. Others of us are late bloomers ... growing in wisdom and strength over many years before it is clear what fruit is our offering. But it is as we are who we are that we are the seed/Word that God scatters in the world to give evidence of God’s kingdom.

What else is there about seed that we might consider?

Well, seed is the fruit of an earlier sowing, growing season and harvest. Seed itself is the product of someone else’s planting or scattering. Of course, most of us go to the store now to buy any seeds we might need. Though a few of us may still have ties to farming, most of us ... actually even most farmers now ... get the seed in packages or bags. But not so long ago ... and certainly in Jesus’ time ... the seed was preserved from a previous harvest, set apart from that which was sold or bartered or used for food.

So how are we ... as the seed ... the product of someone else’s planting? Well the most obvious is the quite literal act conception. We even use the idiom of planting seed to talk about this process sometimes ... maybe he just needs to sow his wild oats. But beyond our very lives, there is also the planting that is done in us ... through the love of parents, grandparents, siblings ... through experiencing the beauty of creation that we come to know as God’s handiwork ... through early training and treatment that shows us how to care for others. And the songs and stories of faith begin to give us language for the movement of the Spirit and God’s presence in the world.

So as seed, we are diverse and the fruit of a previous sowing. What else?

Seed is also food. In fact ... that is the larger purpose of the crop, isn’t it? To provide food for the body and soul. The birds that picked up the seed along the path in Jesus’ story were just using the seed for its primary purpose ... even though it wasn’t the plan the farmer had. The birds eat the seed and then deposit it in some other place ... spreading the seed to places the farmer has never known. Perhaps the seed that we are will also get carried to places not originally intended by those who raised us ... but that is the nature of the Kingdom, I think.

But how are we as seed/Word also food for the body and soul? Eugene Peterson has written a book on the art of spiritual reading called Eat This Book. He notes that we are invited to taste and savor God’s Word and words ... "taste and see that the Lord is good." (Ps 34:8) He speaks of the reading of scripture and other spiritual writing as entering our souls as food enters our stomachs, tasted, digested, metabolized and spreading through our blood to become part of our very cell structure, to become holiness and love and wisdom. (p. 4)

But how are we this kind of food? How are you food for others? What nourishment do you provide by your very being? What of your life do your children or others take into themselves and wonder about, chew on, digest, metabolize and make part of their very being? Are you food that is savory or sweet? Crunchy or soft? Food filled with empty calories, or with nutrition that helps them be healthy?

So it is in the nature of seed to be diverse, to be the fruit of an earlier planting and to be food. But that still doesn’t quite capture it all, does it? The real seed-ness of a seed comes in the process of being planted. First it needs to be hidden in the soil, in the dark, where it waits and the farmer waits ... not knowing for sure what will happen next. Uncovering it to see what is happening creates a risk that could damage the plant. And even though there are ways now to watch this happen ... it remains a mystery ... what happens, how it happens occurs in the dark. In our story from Seedfolks today, we saw Kim plant the seeds ... and then wait and watch. Of course, it turns out that she wasn’t the only one watching to see what was going to happen. But this time in the dark for the seed and for the sower is essential.

I’m thinking that most of you have known that time of waiting and watching in the dark, too. As seed, the time of darkness is essential when there is something new waiting to be born. The word of God in us, and in the world, is present in the dark ... in fact, probably even requires the darkness before it can grow.

But when conditions are right, there is also a time to enter the light. That brings us to the culminating step, the germination of the seed. Finally the seed must surrender its seedness to become a seedling and finally a young and growing plant. For this to happen, there has to be a breaking open, a surrendering to the power of life through the acceptance of death .... a moment of letting go and letting God ... as we say in popular parlance these days.

So how are you the seed, the word of God? Are you able to honor your diversity and remember those who’ve planted before you and given you a chance at life? How are you food for others? Where are you in the dark? And what part of you needs to be broken open and die so that new life can be born? For indeed, this story is not only the plot summary of Mark’s gospel and Jesus’ life, but of our own. Let us learn this parable and live it.

Listen. What do you make of this?

A farmer went out to sow her seed.

As she scattered the seed, some fell along the path and the birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they withered because they had no root.

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.

Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying 30, 60 and even 100 times.

A week filled with images from popular culture .... Michael Jackson ...

Gospel of Mark ... popular culture style ...

Earliest part of this short novel ... foreshadowing, rejection, plot summary

TELL THE STORY ... MARK 4:1-9

Jesus uses this story as invitation ...

Focus on seed ... how are we the seed? What is nature of being seed? How the word of God?

You have some seed ......diversity.

Fruit of an earlier sowing

Food

Darkness ... waiting

Breaking open ... surrender seedness to become seedling

So how are you the seed, the word of God?

TELL THE STORY AGAIN!!!