Tuesday, September 12, 2017

When We Least Expect It

When We Least Expect It
Matthew 13:31-33[1]
If you’ve spent any significant time in the Southeastern United States, you know that “Kudzu” is bad word.  A very bad word.  People in that part of the country hate Kudzu with a passion.  The reason is that it is one of the fastest growing invasive plants ever to make it to our shores. In fact, it’s called “the vine that ate the South”! Of course, in these parts we’re more concerned about various kinds of thistles, cedars, and weeds like poison hemlock that affect crops and livestock. But authorities in the worst-affected areas of the country spare no effort to eradicate Kudzu.  Or at least to try to stop it from spreading. 
I think one would be hard-pressed to make the case with people in these areas that Kudzu might have any beneficial uses.  In fact, however, in Southeast Asia Kudzu is considered a food crop!  According to Wikipedia, in its native China Kudzu is considered one of the “fifty fundamental herbs” and is used as an herbal remedy for the treatment of alcohol related problems, including liver disease!  There are even some hints that it may show promise for treating migraines, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer!  Wouldn’t that be a twist—if medical science discovered the ultimate cure for cancer in the plant that we’re spending millions of dollars to eradicate!
Something like this kind of twist is involved in Jesus’ parables from our gospel reading for today.  To use a mustard seed as a means of describing God’s kingdom would have been about as shocking in that day as telling a native of Florida that Kudzu might provide the next miracle cure.  It just doesn’t compute.  Mustard is just about as virulent as Kudzu.  Once it takes hold in a field, it will eventually take over the whole place.  It’s just about impossible to eradicate.  Modern farmers hate it because it gets in their crops.  Ranchers hate it because it not good for their livestock.   What possible good could come from mustard seed?
But that’s part of the point that Jesus is trying to make. God’s Kingdom doesn’t work the way we expect it to.  In fact, it works contrary to our expectations.  And the same was true for the people of his day. The eventual success of the kingdom Jesus proclaimed at transforming this world into a place of justice and peace and freedom would have been about as unexpected to the people who originally heard this parable as the idea of something as troublesome as Kudzu turning out to cure our most serious ailments.   It just didn’t make much sense.
The reason for this is that the Kingdom that Jesus envisioned was one of humble self-sacrifice and mercy. It would have been just as hard to understand how something like that could somehow transform the world of his day as it is for us. It just isn’t the way the world works.  In our world money talks.  Might makes right.  Nice guys finish last.  Those who lay down their lives for others become doormats.  Humility means weakness.  Mercy means being taken advantage.  Speaking the truth to those in power means losing your job—or going to jail! In a world that works like that, Jesus’ vision of a kingdom of sacrifice and mercy that would bring justice and peace and freedom to this world seems hard to swallow.
Unfortunately, we who claim to follow him tend to want to take matters into our own hands. Not content to trust that Jesus knew what he was talking about, we adopt the means of this world to “force” the issue.  It’s difficult for us to go on sowing Gospel seeds, waiting patiently for the harvest, leaving the outcome seemingly to circumstance and luck, with no guarantees but the promise of faith and hope. Many call themselves Christian and genuinely want to see the justice and peace and freedom of God’s Kingdom in our world take shortcuts to get results.  They try to guarantee the success of God’s Kingdom by their own efforts.  Some of them even try to ensure the success of the Gospel by any and every means, including manipulation and deceit. 
But what those who take these shortcuts miss is that you cannot promote the justice and peace and freedom of God’s Kingdom by methods that are inconsistent with God’s truth and God’s ways.  While it may be true that many achieve success by those means, I would have to say that in my opinion it is not God’s Kingdom they are promoting.  Rather they are promoting their own agenda, or their fame, or even worse their prosperity. And all at the expense of many who can least afford it!
In the midst of this, Jesus’ strange parables remain as an encouragement to those who are willing to wait in faith and hope for their Gospel seeds to bear fruit.  The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast in the dough both suggest that, despite all obstacles, and despite all indications to the contrary, God’s Kingdom of justice and peace and freedom is here; it is real among us now.  And these parables point to the promise that one day God’s Kingdom will define all of life in this world, just as surely as the mustard plant will take over a field.  
As unlikely as that may sound to us, Jesus was no fool.  I think he knew that his message about God’s Kingdom was unlikely at best, and at worst it came off as ludicrous.  It made about as much sense as talking about weeds taking over fields like it’s a good thing. The “kingdom” that Jesus brought is something different entirely from what most people expect.  But if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that sometimes something unexpected can be more satisfying than anything we could have imagined.  God’s justice, God’s peace, and God’s freedom break out in this world when and where and how we least expect it.




[1] ©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/30/2017 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

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