Love as an invasive species

When I took our youth group to see A Wrinkle in Time a few weeks ago, I didn’t yet know that Madeline L’Engle had written four other books in this series. They are sci-fi/fantasy stories about brave children finding their place, learning to make ethical decisions, and facing the unknown in mysteries that transcend barriers of time and distance. The books don’t use religious language, but they address Christian themes – the author is an Episcopalian, in fact. One book, A Wind in the Door, features one of my favorite characters--Meg’s friend Calvin O’Keefe. Calvin lives in a poor family, in an unhappy and unsettled household, in contrast to Meg’s family, which is quirky, and by no means wealthy, but happy and secure. Calvin is a wise boy, capable of great love and friendship. He has suffered, but somehow out of this he has a confidence and courage that Meg relies on in her own struggles—they have a very special bond.

Here's Calvin's wonderfulness on display in a graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time.

At one point, Calvin tells a story about his fourth-grade science experiment. He planted bean seeds in three pots and put them in different locations. He put one in the kitchen window in his home, where it would get sunlight, and he watered it daily. While left alone physically, it “heard” (so to speak)—the “ugly invective of daily speech” in that troubled home. The other two pots went to the library—where a librarian who knew about his home situation had given him a little corner to study. He watered one of the pots, and gave it enough light, but otherwise left it alone. The other plant, the third one, also got light and water, but there was something else--he talked to it. He encouraged it. He read aloud to it when he was doing his homework. And the results are what you might expect:  The first plant was puny, just a pale green. The second, the one in the library window that was left alone, grew normally. The third, the plant Calvin loved, grew to be healthy and luxurious, beyond what a little old bean seemed capable of producing—maybe like that mustard seed that flourished so much that it became a home for birds.

Calvin told his story as a kind of parable. The plants weren’t the point—what he really wanted his friends to get was the power of love in healing. They were trying to save a life, and a powerful enemy was trying to control their minds. Calvin needed a way to make his friends see that love was the answer—so he told a concrete story about something that is not concrete. Many of the people to whom Jesus told his parables were living in agrarian cultures and might have understood that a story about plants was about love. Or they might have misunderstood it---some of them might have heard it as just a story about plants. For as our Gospel implies, not all were able to hear parables as the word of God.

They might have wondered why Jesus was talking about mustard seeds, because mustard plants were weeds in Judea. This would have been like Jesus saying: “The kingdom of God is like Scotch Broom, an invasive species which nobody should plant, ever.” Huh? Who would associate the coming of the Messiah with a mustard bush? Perhaps the mustard seed parable was lost on the disciples, too.     

A mustard tree in Israel

In contrast to the mustard plant are the great cedars in Ezekiel and our psalm- noble plants, the largest trees around. Cedar was a luxury wood—homes of kings and temples were built of it. Jesus was probably making a deliberate contrast with that humble mustard plant. I like to think he was leaning into the non-flashy, persistent, difficult-to-get-rid-of-once-it's-planted quality of the plant. 

Whether mustard plant, or cedar, the miracle is the seed itself. Seeds, unlike spores, are embryonic plants. Everything about what the plant will become is resident in that tiny seed from its very beginning. God’s kingdom--the very dream of God—is like that. It is complete, comprehensive, and it is a dream for everyone, everywhere. That it can be compared to a mustard seed tells us something about this dream—it may appear in humble form, but it is persistent, tenacious, and can grow anywhere. It is capable of thriving, even under difficult conditions.  

And difficult conditions are the backdrop of all our stories today. Ezekiel was prophesying to people exiled in Babylon. Mark was written just after the crushing defeat of the Jewish revolt. Paul’s readers were anxious about the return of Jesus, and weren’t sure how to be a community around a Savior who was no longer with them.

In that mustard seed is hope, however, because it is the good news of God in Christ. And in that seed that symbolizes the dream of God is everything we need. As humble and as unimportant as it may seem, there is so much more to it than it appears. God has dreamed the dream—and has sent the Spirit to invite us to participate in it.  

Paul encouraged the Corinthians to have confidence in the power of the Spirit that was already amongst them. He told them to walk by faith--not to waver because Jesus was no longer amongst them, because the Spirit was capable of great and mighty things in them. Through their faith, they would find a place where they were at home in Christ  that would be a model for the communities that followed it.  

And this is the work of the Spirit--the same work the Spirit gives us. For that seed is given to us as and through the Holy Spirit. We participate in this work but it does not require us to make miracles. We must simply welcome it, and nurture it, and it WILL grow, by God’s grace. If--we walk by faith.

I have seen the Spirit at work in this community. I see a community of people who have been stewards of the Spirit among us. I am confident that life in the Spirit will continue, inside these walls and in the community at large, because it has already thrived. It continues whenever we see ourselves and the people we encounter as God sees them. Whenever we manifest the hospitality and welcome of people as we would welcome Christ. Whenever we focus on serving others as the measure of how we serve Christ. Whenever we say, “Come Holy Spirit”--for it is the Spirit that multiplies us.

And my friends, this is so needed. Because the times we are in are challenging. I look out and see communities under pressure, and pressure is fraying them. I see communities of fear, and how that fear creates a strange solidarity of retrenchment, polarization, “us and them” thinking. I see communities that mask and defend against their vulnerability instead of finding its transforming power. Such communities do not nurture new life. Ultimately, the Spirit cannot thrive in them. Like that plant in Calvin’s unhappy home, they become puny; they wither. Our call is to seek the Spirit in the communities we are in and to nurture it with love.

And yet in these times—there is hope.  For the Spirit is speaking into faith communities. This week, a veritable patchwork quilt--Southern Baptists, Quakers, the Council of Reform Judaism, Moravians, the Reformed Church, Presbyterians, the North American Islamic Society, Franklin Graham, United Methodists, the Council of Catholic Bishops, and yes, the Episcopal Church--came together to call for an end to the administration’s policy of separating children from parents seeking asylum and detaining them in private facilities. The leaders said in part, “we affirm the family as a foundational societal structure to support human community and understand the household as an estate blessed by God.” The work of the kingdom today is to continue in Jesus’ way, for Christ died for all. We are to regard all people first and foremost as image-bearers:  not solely through our human systems of classification, but through the love of Christ. And we must pray for the Holy Spirit to be present in us and in our leaders as we undertake the difficult conversations we must have as a country about the limits and risks of the biblical imperative of welcoming the stranger among us.  

I also see hope marching today. Hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ persons are marching throughout the land on Pride Day. I am proud of how the Episcopal Church community allowed the Spirit to work in us such that we walk with and are led by people walking in that parade today—leaders we have called because we have been able to see them through the eyes of Christ. I know there are those among us who faithfully struggled through this time—but through those times when our church was divided and contentious and fraying at the seams, we continued to walk in faith even when we could not always see a way forward together.   

And so we continue to walk by faith. We call on the Spirit to urge us on when our own vision grows cloudy. By walking together, even in our differences—especially in our differences--we can be the light. We can be the water. We can offer love and care so that our community continues to flourish in the Spirit, and we are a place of love and reconciliation and welcome. A place where we bloom and grow into fullness in Christ. A place where love takes root, and persists. 

Preached at St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland OR:  June 17, 2018 

Proper 6B Lectionary Readings:  Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14; 2 Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 4:26-34