A guy goes into the woods where he saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle making shadows of people on a tree. Maybe you think I’ve got things backwards talking about mud.
At creation, humans are this beautiful mix of earth and divine, planted in a garden of abundance, bounty and plenty. You can feel the promise. But then humans wanted to put themselves in the center of everything and kick God out and we haven’t been on good terms with dirt since. It’s reflected in our metaphors. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, after all! That family is dirt poor. My friend hit rock bottom. This information really muddies the waters. He bit the dust.
I wonder if you’ve ever found yourself in a situation that is very messy. It may be a mess of your own making, or you may have found yourself in the tangles of someone else’s decisions and failures. Often times it is both. In such times perhaps there is no way out that doesn’t involve getting muddied or muddying the water around you.
Or perhaps you are in a winter season, when the earth is cold and stagnant and unmoving. It is like a bit of you is hibernating…watching and waiting and yearning for the ground to soften and for moisture to seep in, for light to reach you. Instead you only know a sense of being trapped and immobilized in a place with hard edges, cold comfort and few signs of life. You’re stuck, unable to move in any direction and it’s dark and frigid.
This is where Jesus’ words today have something to say. He tells two parables, both about seeds and soil, though each slightly different. One is a parable of the growing seed; the second one is the parable of the mustard seed. I want to look at both. In the parable of the growing seed, the dirt and soil are one of the characters. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like when someone sows seed and it lands in the dirt…and as the world sleeps, something mysterious happens. The earth produces of itself new growth. The word in Greek for “produces of itself” is the word automates. This is where we get our word automatic.
We’re use to automation, today we call them intelligent. In the same way, this parable speaks to the automatic nature of the earth producing growth.
I suspect most of us here had some kind of childhood experiment with dirt in a clear plastic cup with a lima bean or some other seed that we could watch as the seed essentially hatched and grew. But this parable is from before clear plastic...and we hear the element of mystery.
People would plant seeds, and before too long little green blades would shoot from the earth…how on earth does this happen? Really, such a mystery! It is as if the soil has some power on its own to encourage the seed into its plant destiny.
This was before Gregory Mendel, an Augustinian friar who worked with the seven characteristics of pea plants, helped us to understand genetics. He pioneered how the seed itself carries a DNA and RNA code. Nevertheless the kingdom of God is often mysterious and hidden as it coaxes and charms and brings forth new life. Soil here kind of has a life of its own.
Do you remember as a kid watching those old westerns where the bad guy would end up in quicksand? We still imagine those scenes where dirt and mud have the power to submerge and consume and destroy. But if you’ve ever found yourself in a situation that is a big old mess, especially a situation where you don’t have a lot of control, you can understand how dirt can become a metaphor for all that brokenness and grief. Sometimes it feels like it has a power beyond you…making you yearn for rescue. If you’ve ever known the trap of addiction, or depression, or mental illness, or your own poor choices, or someone else’s poor choices, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
And that brings us to the second parable…the mustard seed. It is a very wee seed. This seed…this small, scant, insignificant seed…this seed will expand and take root and grow branches that reach to up heaven and allow birds to rest in it. And Jesus says this is like the kingdom of God.
We often read this as if we are the seed, and I’ve tried to be a good seed…to plant myself in good earth…a place that will allow me to take root and to grow and to be the kind of person that always reaches towards God, and in so doing allows others to find safety and rest in the tree that is me.
But really, that can be kind of narcissistic. It is presumptuous to make us the center of the story. This isn’t what Jesus wants us to get out of the parable, because it’s not about us. A seed, even very tiny seed, transforms the soil. It will crack and burst open, it will shatter and transform the surrounding land, it will pierce the earth and take root…spreading throughout the clay and dirt, reaching deep into the earth and touching every part.
And the seed then grows upward and outward into a tree of life…this scant seed not only transforms the soil, but has the power to transform the world above. A tree becomes the thing that bridges earth and heaven…it digs its roots deep into the soil, but reaches for the sky.
We’re not the seed in this parable. The God shaped space is the seed. Jesus is the tree that bridges earth and heaven for us. And Jesus nestles himself in the very midst of all of our mud and messes. He embeds himself in the very center of our grief and shame, humiliation and need. He spent three days wrestling the grave, the mud, and the mire, and just like the seed, Jesus’ wild and reckless love shatters the earth with the grace that transforms our whole being. Jesus is the mustard seed that yearns to take root in us, and to stretch and lift us up. The mustard seed transfigures the curse of the ground and our kinship to it.
All of creation has been groaning, and the parable of the mustard seed points out that God’s redemption is not just for us, but for all of creation.
The soil, which was also subject to futility, is as transformed by the roots of the mustard seed as the skyline above is transformed by the branches of the tree. God is doing a new thing, taking root, growing, extending, mending, opening the branches for all creation to find rest.
You may remember that Bette Midler song, “From a Distance”, it won a Grammy. The song talks about how “from a distance, the world looks blue and green, and snow capped mountains white…and from a distance there is harmony, and no guns or bombs or disease…and God is watching us from a distance.” I remembering trying to sing this in the car until the day it dawned on me that the lyrics were so stupid.
And this parable tells us so. God is not watching us from a distance…God is not some pie in the sky God, that looks down and glosses over suffering, and stays at a distance from the reality of our lives.
This God is the God who comes to earth to be among us…who reduces himself to the scant, insignificant life of a poor carpenter…who enters into the dirt and mud, pain and suffering…and who gently, but persistently cracks open new life.
If you were to pick a handful of dirt and soil, the mustard seed is so small, you probably can’t even distinguish it. It’s hidden, out of sight, and hard to find even if you are looking. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t there...the mustard seed awaits, concealed and invisible, until the time is ripe to unleash its mighty re-birth.
In the same way, our inability to see doesn’t affect God’s ability to be. And God is always for us. Ours is an underground and mysterious faith…it involves patient waiting and hoping…for the God of mud and messes to breathe new life into the places where we struggle to see signs of hope. The mysteries of mud, messy as it is, and the gift of the itty bitty mustard kernel, won’t let us down. The earth-shattering, life-transforming love of God is a love that will not stay buried.
There is no place so dirty or muddy or wrecked that the roots of God’s grace cannot reach. There is no place so dry or hardened or cold that won’t soften and live and produce new growth. God is growing new and beautiful things out of the dirt of our lives. And our faith isn’t only underground and mysterious, it is also vibrant and green, visible and growing… God Space is rooted in the dirt, but generates and nourishes a kingdom that reaches out and extends its branches and shares itself with the world.
So if you’re in a place where you know regret and shame, confusion and sadness…or if you are in a place of patient waiting through a long winter…I’m here to say: stay tuned. You might not be able to see it, but the mustard seed is there…nestled in your life in the dirt, waiting to hatch and grow…maybe already cracking open a newness that you can’t yet see.
The soil is churning. The seed is turning. We may not understand how the kingdom of God will come to life in us, but by God’s unconditional love, with all of its mystery, reveals that new life is ready to burst. The unconditional love of God scatters and shatters the dirt as it enfolds and upholds the branches. All of creation has been groaning. The ground is being transformed. So are you.