Mark 4:26-34, from Proper 6 (11)
I used to feel differently about dandelions.
These days, as chief keeper of the family lawn, I typically look at a dandelion just long enough to aim a stream of herbicide at it. But when I was a kid, a dandelion was a thing of wonder, especially if its blossoms had matured into tuft-topped stems that I could pluck and blow on, imagining the seeds to be regiments of tiny paratroopers as they scattered in the breeze.
Replace “mustard” with “dandelion” in Mark 4:26-34, and you might get a better sense of how those listening to Jesus probably heard what he said. Because even though Jesus called mustard “the greatest of all shrubs,” mustard in first-century Palestine was undeniably a weed. Like dandelion, mustard had both culinary and medicinal uses. But also like dandelion, its most obvious characteristic was that it grew abundantly, without cultivation, and just about everywhere, including where it wasn’t especially welcome. And that’s the characteristic that made mustard an ideal topic for the riddle Jesus was telling about the Kingdom of God.
An aside: Jesus’ parables truly were riddles most of the time. Christians sometimes talk about how Jesus used parables to help explain things in terms the simple, agrarian folk of his place and time would more easily understand. But this somewhat snooty view ignores that fact that Jesus’ parables often confused even his disciples, necessitating frequent post-sermon remedial sessions during which Jesus would walk his disciples back through the parable, explaining what meant what and who represented whom. We tend to go at parables as if they were coconuts that will crack open and yield a quick snack if we whack the shell in just the right places with just the right amount of force. But parables more closely resemble onions – multilayered, releasing new potency each time you peel off one layer to expose another. Like an onion, a parable can be irritating, even tear-inducing, but well worth the trouble, if you stick with it.
Mark implies here that Jesus’ parable likening of the Kingdom of heaven to a common weed patch left the crowd stumped yet again (vv. 33-34). Small wonder. In the prevailing understanding of kingdoms, founding, defending and expanding a kingdom takes sweat, blood and treasure. Jesus’ listeners certainly knew as much. They had lost their kingdom to Rome, they desperately wanted to get it back, and they indicated on more than a few occasions that they expected Jesus to roll up his sleeves and help them do exactly that.
So it must have been about as enjoyable as a mouthful of raw onion to hear Jesus talk instead about a kingdom that, despite the obvious presence of an occupying army, was already everywhere, flourishing without anyone’s help and apparently offering nothing of practical value beyond a shelter for birds. But what alternative did Jesus have? Give it to them straight? “Look, everyone. They’re going to arrest and execute me soon. Three days later, I’ll be alive again. Some of you will see me. Most of you will just hear rumors. Then I’ll be gone, but my Spirit will be with you. The Romans will stay in power. You’ll rebel, but it won’t work. They’ll sack the temple, level Jerusalem, starve your last holdouts into mass suicide at Masada, and drive you out of Israel. But don’t worry about any of that, because the balance of something more fundamental than political or economic power will have shifted in your favor. Sin’s curse will have been undone, and you along with the rest of humanity will have been unconditionally redeemed and reclaimed by God.”
I’m pretty sure anything along those lines would have fallen even flatter than his kingdom-and-weeds analogy. I’m pretty sure it still would today, with so many Christians conflating faith and politics and rendering to Caesar not only what is Caesar’s but also what is God’s and even making Caesar their god in place of God. The seedy, weedy grace of a mustard-patch kingdom makes sense only if you’re done with trying to build, defend and expand the conventional kind.
I don’t know whether you’re done yet, but I am. Or, to be more honest, I’m ready to be done. I haven’t surrendered all of my kingdoms to God’s, but I’ve gotten as far as realizing all of mine are doomed. That’s a start. Paul explained to us, and Luther reminded us, that one joins God’s kingdom not by being or becoming good enough, but by faith alone. Nobody can make mustard grow, but anyone can let it grow. In fact, it will grow in spite of anything anyone does or doesn’t do.
I hope this blog opens up some fresh ground for a nice, bushy mustard patch. I hope the stuff gets completely out if control and goes everywhere, including places I presently consider it unwelcome.
