+ 4th Sunday after Pentecost – June 16th, 2024 +
Series B: Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:1-17; Mark 4:26-34
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
J.R.R. Tolkien, the famous author of the Lord of the Rings once wrote that, “’The wheels of the world’, are often turned not by the Lords and Governors…but by the seemingly unknown and weak.”
Not only is this often the case in good stories and in history. It’s also true in the great true story of salvation in the Scriptures. Time and again, God delights in using people, places, and things that appear to us as small or insignificant. People who are unknown and weak to carry out his great and gracious work of saving us, building his church, and giving his gifts.
With dirt and a rib bone God formed Adam, then built Eve. From barren Sarah and old man Abraham, God gave a son, Isaac. God called fearful Moses to lead his people. God took a shepherd boy and made David king. God called Israel…not because they were so great in number or so mighty in strength, but because he loved his people through whom he would bring the Messiah, Jesus.
And not surprisingly, Jesus, God in the flesh, has the same habit of taking what is weak, unknown, lowly, and insignificant to our eyes, and using these things to work his great and gracious work of salvation. Jesus is born in Bethlehem to an unwed Virgin Mary. In a feeding trough. Then the unknown rabbi from the Podunk town of Nazareth, in seemingly unimportant Galilee, called fishermen and a tax collector among others, to be his disciples. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, the lowly, the least, the outcast, the sinner…you and me…not in some glorious feet of strength as a gladiator in a Roman arena, but put to death as a criminal on a Roman cross.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world.”
To the outward eyes none of this looks significant…and yet it is. God does some of his best work in hidden, gracious, humble ways. God delights to accomplish his saving work in what this sinful, fallen world sees as lowly, small, and insignificant.
Insignificant looking things like the mustard seed in Jesus’ parable today in Mark 4.
“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth,
You have to love Jesus’ down-to-earth storytelling in the parables. He takes something small and insignificant – the mustard seed – thought by many in his day to be the smallest seed. What’s God’s kingdom like? What does Jesus’ good and gracious rule and reign resemble? Not a giant mango seed. Not the seedlings of the cedars of Lebanon. Not an acorn from a mighty oak. No. A minute, tiny, insignificant looking mustard seed.
Once again, this is how God loves to work time and time again: in the hidden, the lowly, weak, ordinary, and insignificant looking things of this world. Foolish patriarchs. Faithless Israel. Unfaithful kings. Backwater towns. Poor fishermen. Human flesh and blood. A cruel, wooden cross.
He brings you his holy gifts of grace and forgiveness the same way. With tap water and his word, he pours out his Holy Spirit, faith, and new life. With letters, words, and sentences he writes and declares his promises to us. Through fellow sinners he gives the forgiveness of sins. With a quarter size piece of bread and a sip of wine Jesus brings you his holy body and blood.
Water, words, bread and wine – might not look too significant, but here in these gifts Jesus is with us and for us, ruling and reigning. Jesus the King comes to us in his Kingdom.
Even God’s gift of faith created and sustained in you by his word – might not look like all that much. Most days, if we’re honest, if feels about the size of a mustard seed.
Why does God work this way? So that we don’t do what we’re always tempted to do, take comfort in our own efforts, strength, importance, or significance. So that if we boast, we boast in the grace of God who delights in taking insignificant things and working salvation for us. So that we see that our hope and help and life and all things, rests in his hands, not ours.
God delights in using what we think is lowly and insignificant, to do his great and gracious saving work. Things like words, water, bread and wine. Things like mustard seeds, that look small and unimpressive…
And…yet, Jesus says, when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
The way Jesus describes this mustard seed paints quite the picture. What is Jesus telling us or teaching us? Is this parable about his word? About him? About his church? About his great and gracious work for you in his dying and rising? Yes. All of the above.
Jesus, the master Gardener, delights in take something insignificant and turning into the source of salvation for you. He did it in his birth in Bethlehem. He did it in his teaching and preaching. He did it in his death on the cross for you. Like a seed he was buried in the ground for three days. And then sprouted, rose again from the dead on the third day. New life. New creation. Fruit of forgiveness for you.
From the tree of his cross, the branches of his mercy and grace and goodness spread throughout time and history to us, here today. This church is a treehouse, or a birdhouse built by the Crucified carpenter for us to live and rest as he plants his holy word in our ears, hearts, and minds.
Like birds of the air our Lord gathers us into his house where we nest around his altar. Feed on the fruit of his cross and resurrection. Find holy rest in the shade of His tree. Where we sing his praises with the birds at dawn. And where we, branches of Christ the Vine, also extend our limbs with holy love and compassion to others in need. In pain. In sorrow.
If ever you look at your faith and life in Christ and think – as the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh want us to think – I’m so weak, lowly, least, lost, small, and insignificant. Take heart and be of good cheer. Your God delights in taking what is small and weak and insignificant, and showering his great and gracious work upon you in Jesus. In Jesus crucified and risen you are never insignificant. Your significance and salvation, your hope and help is in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now and always.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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