Pentecost 3 B

The tree is a powerful image.

These texts about great trees remind me of the Good Ol’ Days. You know, the Good Ol’ Days. Whenever those are in your imagination —- I think the Good Ol’ Days are probably different for different people. When the texts talk about ‘noble cedars’ and ‘flourishing palms,’ I think of ancient groves of giant trees providing shade long before the invention of chain saws and bulldozers. Maybe I have too active an imagination.

Tree image common in scripture and it’s easy to see why…

Before skyscrapers, trees were pretty much the tallest thing around, even on top of mountains

Trees still impress us —- people hike to natural areas; Mayan ceiba tree; it’s not hard to imagine these wooden braces around us as symbolizing a grove of trees that gather together under

Trees are powerfully symbolic. Actually, what’s surprising is that there aren’t more of them … (blame Asherah)

But still, trees are just too good an image, too wonderful a creation to not get wrapped up in helping us think, sing, and talk about God

The story of Scripture begins with the book of Genesis in the Garden of Eden: the original Good Ol’ Days. Growing in that garden was every kind of tree, including two important ones in the story, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.

And one of the final images in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, tells again about the Tree of Life. Reborn, replanted, healing for all the nations.

So it should also be no surprise to us, then, that Jesus uses images about seeds, plants, wheat, fruit, and trees to help teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God.

Often, these botanical images that Jesus uses are found in parables. Parables are a clever method for teaching that Jesus uses.

Parables aren’t just simple metaphors, though. The more you pull them apart, the more provocative or unsettling they get. (Think of the Prodigal Son…) The thing about parables is that they aren’t meant just to explain something to us. They are meant to surprise us.

Even within the context of parables, though, this mustard seed is surprising… you might imagine that Jesus would use an example of a small seed that turns into humongous tree. Actually, that’s what I thought this parable was actually about… But, at least in this Gospel of Mark, the Kingdom of God never becomes more than a shrub.

Both for people that Jesus preached to who thought the Kingdom of God might look like an overthrow of their government to us who think the Kingdom of God might look like a really powerful world religion … I think we all expect more than a shrub.

So what’s this parable trying to surprise us with?

As always, the Kingdom of God is not as we expect. Jesus always seems to be in the last place we’d look.

This is the same Jesus that sends us to our neighbor in order to encounter God.

This is the same Jesus that leads by washing his followers’ feet.

This is the same Jesus that shows us his power by revealing his weakness —- and leaving his life in the hands of his enemies, and leaving his hope in God.

God is at work in the Kingdom whether we ‘see’ it, or ‘feel’ it.

Jesus calls us to see power not just in skyscrapers, but in forgiveness, around dinner tables, in a few honest words exchanged with a neighbor.

Jesus calls us to see the Kingdom of God at work not just under the great trees of our churches —- but also in moments of discipleship in our lives that spring up like new saplings.

God’s not as interested in the Good Ol’ Days. God’s interested in New Creation!

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2Corinthians 5.17 NRSV)

Anyone/anything in Christ … new creation

_ in Christ?: New Creation

a bad day; a hurting relationship; this congregation

God is in charge of New Creation. It’s not a new creation because you went back and did it right this time… There are days you can’t get back. There are words you can’t take back. There are times and ways of life —- the Good Ol’ Days —- that, no matter how hard we try, we can’t bring back.

But in Christ, everything is new again. In the Kingdom of God, maybe quietly, maybe surprisingly, a new thing has grown — without us knowing how. Without us in control. The seeds that God has planted have grown —- maybe not always into the gigantic oaks or cedars we imagined —- but into a new shrub, surprisingly capable. Bearing fruit.

God has planted seeds of the Kingdom of Heaven in your heart. It may surprise you. It may look different than you imagined, or that others imagined for you. It’s not the Good Ol’ Days … It’s New Creation.