Tour Guides for God (Sermon for 6/14/09; Proper 6B/Pentecost 2B)

Tour Guides for God
Sermon for 6/14/09 (Proper 6B/Pentecost 2B)
Mark 4:26-34; Ezekiel 17:22-24

And now for the interactive portion of our sermon. Raise your hands--How many of you have ever raised a garden--be it for vegetables or flowers? OK, you can put your hands down. Now raise your hands again--How many of you grew up on a working farm or live on a working farm today? OK, you can put your hands down. As I suspected, many of us have had at least some experience working in a garden or farm where we worked the soil, planted seeds or seedlings, and watched as the seasons changed and brought different looks to the garden in the cycle of life. But even thought many of us have experience with gardens, I doubt that many, if any, of us rely solely on our gardens and farms to feed our families. Thankfully we have grocery stores, farmers markets, and restaurants that provide most of our food these days. At the same time we have choices for the source of our food, we can easily loose our connection to creation and our Creator because we spend less and less time with our fingers in the dirt and our senses heightened by the changing seasons.

Jesus lived in an agrarian culture where farming and crop cycles were a tremendous part of basic survival. During those days, I can only imagine how closely they watched the seasons, crop cycles, and weather just to be sure there would be food to last through the year. As we read through Scripture, we quickly notice that crops, trees, bushes, seeds, plantings and harvests cover a huge landscape of Jesus' parables. We read two of these very parables today--the first one that only appears in Mark, and the second about the mustard seed that is likely much more familiar as it appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Of these two seed parables, the growing seed parable resonated with me much more this week than the mustard seed one. I can relate to that someone who goes along, plants some seeds, and a while later realizes how much they have grown. Steve and I have gotten into vegetable gardening this year for the first time. A couple of months ago I ventured into my local Home & Garden store and walked out with seeds, dirt, peat cups, and hope for what we would be harvesting later this summer. I diligently planted the seeds, remembered to water them occasionally, and low and behold, in a few days we had sprouts growing up. Then, as many of you know, we bought a house the end of May, and the first thing we did after our closing was to head to our new house to build the raised-bed garden.

We needed to transfer our seedlings into the ground quickly, since they were quickly outgrowing the small peat cups. I set up the soaker hose on a timer and spent the next two weeks sun down to sun up trying to get everything moved from one place to the next.

All of the sudden one day last week I looked out in the backyard, and was amazed to see our garden. It's huge--so huge in fact that yesterday afternoon we spent time digging up some of the squash plants and transferring them back to big pots to make some room for the rest of the garden--I guess I should have listened to the spacing directions on the package better! Amazingly, after only a few weeks our lettuce is ready to eat. We picked our first lettuce Friday night, and it was so exciting to eat our first real dinner in our new house and enjoy the lettuce of our labors.


As I've thought about the parable of the growing seeds and my own gardening experience this year, one detail in particular jumped out. In Mark 4:27 the text says, "and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how." This gardener does not know how the seeds grow. Yep-I relate to that! Can anyone else relate? Sounds to me like Jesus shared this parable and used me as the example--I'm pretty much clueless as to how the whole seed process works. I just know it does--with a little water and sun added in, and voila--we have fresh veggies for dinner. This little phrase "he does not know how" in the Greek uses the word that we derive our word "automatic" from. The seeds grow automatically. But this word in the Greek subtly shows that in fact, it was God's work that helped the seed grow automatically. God provides the sun and rain. God provides the seed. God created the soil and God's hand is right there tending the crops.

This parable deals with the ordinary, mundane, and not always so exciting process of planting, growing, and harvesting. It takes place in the minutia--the stuff of life that most of us likely do somewhat automatically without thought. We watch the seasons change, but sometimes it's hard to tell when the change has actually taken place. We generally wake up one morning, turn off the heat, forget the scarf and hat, and go about our business, not realizing that in fact winter is finally over and spring is here to stay. We notice the days getting longer and longer, but just keep going about our ordinary lives--not thinking about the movement of the created universe that makes all of these things possible. Our lives are very much automatic--winter leads to spring, trees grow leaves, fields become vibrant with growth, and then it's time for the harvest and the process starts over again.

The someone in the parable might not know how it all happens, and we might not understand seed germination and growth, but our Creator God certainly does. God is at the heart of this yearly planting, growing, and harvesting. God is present in the ordinary, mundane details, even when we're on autopilot. God is omnipresent--everywhere--and has a hand in every detail, no matter how small--from the mustard seed to the tall cedars that soar. Seeing the crops and watching the seasons change help us to know God is in fact Creator and is not a distant, far off God. God is present here and around us and in us every moment of every day. One writer I came across this week said about this parable that "Jesus invites us to see and to hear God in the familiar rounds of daily life... to sit still and contemplate quietly until the commonplace wakes our minds and hearts to wonder." [1] Does your garden cause you to pause and wake your mind and make your heart wonder?

This past week in our Velvet Elvis small group, we read a section that caused much discussion and connects with this parable. Rob Bell is discussing mission trips, which many of us are either just returning from, or about to leave out on. Bell is relating Paul's work with different people groups in Acts 14 to current mission endeavors today. Paul tells the group he is working with, "God has not left himself without testimony; [God] has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; [God] provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." [2] Bell then says, "Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it. You see God where others don't. And then you point [God] out. Perhaps we ought to replace the word missionary with tour guide, because we cannot show people something we haven't seen. ...So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst." [3] He goes on to explain, "Tour guides are people who see depth and texture and connection where others don't. That is why the best teachers are masters of the obvious. They see the same thing that we do, but they are aware of so much more. And when they point it out, it changes the way we see everything." [4]

Tour guides for God. It is certainly a different way to describe our mission adventures. It might be a good bumper sticker or T-shirt slogan. But something in that resonates with me deep down. God is present everywhere. God makes the sun to shine and the seeds to grow automatically--we do not know how. God is at work in the mundane, ordinary actions and interactions, and when we take notice, we can draw closer to our Creator through creation. It is up to us to see with new eyes, intentionally pay attention, and notice where the seeds of faith, love, and hope are sprouting around us. Maybe God's presence will be obvious and you can't miss the sign at all. Or maybe it's a secret garden that isn't really located on the map, but you can see glimpses of our Creator in the flowers and trees around you. It also reminds us that sometimes the seeds are planted and we must wait patiently for them to sprout to be tall enough to be seen through the dirt. Sometimes we are planting seeds that will take months or years to be able to identify. Do not give up hope--growth is taking place with God as the gardener.

This summer, I invite you to think about where you see God around you. Where is God working automatically, so much so that we are oblivious and need new eyes to see God's presence? Where can our mundane, ordinary experiences become places to pause and begin to wonder about all God has created? How can we connect with our Creator through gardening, hiking in nature, hammering nails, painting walls, or having conversations with friends? How can we be tour guides to show others where God is already at work? And how can we help others see with new eyes to point out God in their midst too? And just as Thanksgiving is a celebration of the bounty of the harvest, let us not forget to give thanks for the garden bounty, the signs of God in our midst, and all the new eyes that become tour guides directing us closer to our Creator God. Amen.

[1] Lamar Willimason, Jr., Mark: Interpretation Series (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1983) 100.
[2]Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005) 87. Bell references Acts 14:17.
[3]Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005) 87-88.
[4]Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005) 89.