Ezekiel 17:22-end, 2 Corinthians 5.6-10,14-17, Mark 4:26-34 - Kitty Price

In the name of God, creator, redeemer and sustainer, Amen. 

In my reflections last Sunday, I said how I wasn’t much of a gardener.  This was probably too generous.  Not only am I not a gardener, I am a killer of plants, despite being born to a mother who still has plants from 30 years ago.  Please don’t give me a houseplant because I will either kill it or have to give it away in the plant witness protection scheme.  Similarly, I can’t do anything with yeast.  Perhaps I am not to be trusted with bringing about and sustaining new life?  I was wryly amused by the gardening themes in our Old Testament lesson and the gospel.  Why me?!  In fact our new dog, Albert, is a better gardener than me – he knows exactly which flowers need to be deadheaded!  

In our gospel reading we have two parables.  The word parable comes from the Greek parabole, which means placing two things together for the purpose of comparison; for Jesus he is comparing ordinary, accessible, visible things to the extraordinary, inaccessible, and invisible things, namely God and his kingdom.  This morning we have two parables for the price of one.  Two seed parables.  The second, the mustard seed, is also found in Matthew and Mark, but the first is unique to Mark.  The kingdom is present in tiny form, but in the future, it will be seen in all its glory.  Does this represent Jesus, whose identity so few understood at that time, but more would eventually?   

There’s also the notion that it is God who is the head gardener, not us.  The mustard seed is tiny, but the bush is large and can keep many under its branches.  Last week I wrote about gardening hope.  This is hard when the whisperings of a delayed end to lockdown are getting louder, when tensions in the holy land are running high, when cronyism seems more explicit and rife in politics than ever before.  But there is always going to be something.  Ezekiel was one of the exiles taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II in 596 BC.  In one of my commentaries, the person who examines Ezekiel – appropriately names GalamBUSH – describes him as “the most difficult of the major prophets.”    

The Book of Ezekiel is not an easy read, where he focuses on the sins and deserved punishment of Jerusalem and the exiles for being faithless and disobedient to God.  He even describes Jerusalem as a whore.  Easy, Ezekiel!  Yet he tempers his tone towards the end and speaks of restoration of the Temple and Jerusalem.  Ezekiel has overwhelming and disorientating visions; he has periods of being mute and experiences paralysis.  It would be tempting to diagnose him with a medical condition.  But even if we did, that does not automatically mean that he is not a visionary, that God was not working through him.  Neurodiversity is not a stumbling block for God, even if it can be for us.   

In a similar vein to the parables, there is rich imagery of God as head gardener in this passage, with many resting in the shade of its brances.  I love it.   

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. 

All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.              

What humans attempt, God will complete.  He can work with us, but we need to let him in.  In our courtyard garden across the road, we have a former Christmas tree in a pot.  It didn’t like the move from Southsea 2.5 years ago and grew bald and withered.  We thought it might have died, but this spring branches started growing again, towards the top of the tree, with new vibrant green growth.  If God were to take the sprig from the top he would get the newest and the best.  But he loves us even though our trunks might be withering and bare.  

This is where the Christian faith comes in.  I may be hopeless with actual gardening, but in terms of cheering people up I’m Monty Don!  I have a tendency towards depression, which is something I have learnt to deal with, but despite – or because – of this, I can usually find a way to lift someone’s spirits.   

Our non-Christian friends should be able to recognise what Paul wrote about in his letter to the Corinthians, “that the love of Christ urges us on”, in the words of the psalm used in the choir’s anthem, “O sing unto the Lord a new song.”  If our song is tired, then it isn’t going to evangelise as effectively as a fresh, new song.  It doesn’t have to be falsely cheery but sing of hope: hope for the kingdom of God in the future, and our actions showing that we are trying to bring about the kingdom of God now.  We need to sew hope, show hope, and know that whatever we do to aid this process, ultimately it is God who works in and through us.   

Well, towards the end of our Gospel reading it says: “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.”   So Jesus told disciples stuff, and said elsewhere that he used parables to confuse us.  I don’t like that as it feels like a deliberate exclusion by one who is inclusive.  Is it a clumsy way of saying we will never really understand in this lifetime – as Paul writes elsewhere that “now we see through a glass dimly but then we will see face to face”?  It’s not as if the disciples really grasped what was going on anyway!  We know this from having heard the events leading up to his crucifixion – they didn’t understand even though he told them. 

Apart from having great icons, deep singing voices, beards and dunking their babies naked and headfirst into the water at baptism, I think the Orthodox Churches have a lot going for them because they don’t try to explain everything, they celebrate the mystery of God.  They refer to communion as The Divine Mystery.  They don’t feel the need to define and explain everything until we have full understanding, because if we have full understanding then there is no need for faith.  1,600 years ago, St Augustine said, “God is best known in not knowing him.”  

So after my rambling, what cuttings can we take away from today’s readings?  That God is the head gardener, that his grace is more powerful than our actions, though that doesn’t devolve us of responsibility.  That parables can sometimes be more confusing than they are revealing, that God can work with and through neurodiversity, so therefore so should we.  “God is [indeed] best known in not knowing him.”  Amen. 

A reading from the book of the prophet Ezekiel. 

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. 

All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.             (17.22-end) 

A reading from the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. 

 So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.  

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  (5.6-10,14-17) 

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark. 

All Glory to you, O Lord. 

Such a large crowd gathered around Jesus that he got into a boat and began to teach them using many parables. Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’ Jesus also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’ With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.   (4.26-34)