But the Lord Looks on the Heart

In our passages today, we are invited to think about the mystery of being
chosen and then flourishing in God's Realm.  In both of our passages, the
unexpected happens.  Where we would expect huge magnificent cedars to
represent God's Realm, instead, small seeds are sown in a parable about
God's Kingdom.  When everyone would have expected Jesse's eldest son to be
anointed as King of Israel, instead his youngest son, David, who they even
had to fetch while he was keeping the sheep, is chosen!  How strange.  If
the smallest seed and the youngest son are chosen by God, do you suppose
even we have a place at God's table?

Will you join me in prayer?  "The smallest and the youngest among us cry out
for you, God of eternity.  How can it be that you, who are immense beyond
our imagination, choose those of us who are the smallest?  And you, who are
old beyond measure, why do you choose the young ones to be in your Kingdom?
We stand in awe of your grace and love, God of the ages, and we dare to
dream about being with you in your Kingdom.  Amen."

It was just standard practice among the Jews of antiquity.  According to
Deuteronomy chapter 21, the eldest son got a double portion, and was blessed
to be the one who inherited the father's land and possessions.  So when
Jesse lines up his sons for Samuel to anoint one of them to be King, why,
Jesse's chest must have swelled with pride as he brought his eldest boy
before the prophet.  But, then, strangely, Samuel rejects the eldest, and
then, one by one, Jesse's face falls in shock.  Not my eldest, not the next,
or next or next or next?  And then, Jesse is asked if there are any more
sons, and his youngest son is summoned from herding and he is chosen.  Jesse
is flabbergasted.  What the heck is going on?  God chose David?  Our runt
and smelly sheepherder?  What has the world come to?

And when we look at the remainder of David's life, from the time of that
anointing on, we ask ourselves what on earth God was doing by choosing this
David fellow.  I mean, he may have been a good fella, but every once in a
while, David threw a corker into the works.  Murder to gain a wife.
Adultery before that.  Dancing naked before the crowds in ecstasy.  Why,
descent folks everywhere just had a fit.

But there is a line in our passage that re-orients everything from human
thinking to divine thinking.  God knew David's heart.  And through Samuel,
God chose David.  And the rest, as they say, is muddled human history.  God
knew the miracle that was growing within David's heart.  God also fully knew
David's foibles and shortcomings and mistakes and stumblings.  And God still
chose David.  God chose the inside David, even knowing the outside David
would sometimes be a bit rough around the edges.  And if David could make
some huge mistakes and still be loved by God, then I guess there is hope for
you and me.  None of us are good enough to be chosen by God.  Period.  God
knows this, and chooses us anyway.

Now just to be clear, even though David was the best ruler ever, he would
have never been elected into office in the modern US.  We are fixated on
outward appearances and power and money.  David would have been impeached
and sent to prison by our legal system.  And yet, God knew David's heart was
fixed on loving the Lord his God with all of his heart and all of his mind
and all of his soul.  David was the best King in Israel's history, and God
rewarded David's love of God with the Davidic Covenant, promising that the
kings of Israel will always come from David's line.  God was impressed with
David.  David's dad, Jesse, hid David in the field.  But God plucked David
up anyway, and watered his spirit.  And David was loved beyond measure by
God.

Then, in our passage in Mark, we are presented with two parables about the
Kingdom of God.  First, note that both parables show the Kingdom as present
right now among us in simple, growing wondrous and mysterious things;
flourishing seeds.  Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like two very familiar
things that are completely shrouded in mystery.  First, Jesus says the
Kingdom is like a growing seed.  Then he reflects how the growth process of
the seed is a complete mystery, but it moves consistently toward the
harvest.  Even today, the germination and growth of a seed into a sprout and
then into a fruitful seeding plant is a mystery.  Yes, we know scientific
snippets of things like DNA and genes and such, but how the process moves
step by step in astonishingly simple beautiful ways of everlasting abundance
is just, well, completely unimaginable.  If we truly understood exactly what
is going on in a sprouting seed, much less in our entire world of growing
abundance, we would be overwhelmed in awe and wonder and shear bewilderment.
And then, the infinitely complex growth of a human embryo growing into child
is too complex to even imagine, much less comprehend.  Jesus says, with this
first parable, the Kingdom of God is like an unbelievable astonishing
bewildering amazing incredible ongoing everyday miracle.  The Kingdom of God
is unthinkably amazing!  But it happens around us and through us and the
harvest appears without us having any idea how it happened.  One day seeds
are planted into the ground, and the next thing you know, wheat.  Amazing
everyday miracles.  And Jesus says, that's the Kingdom of God!

And then, to add a little flourish, Jesus continues with the next little
parable of the mustard seed.  Now the mustard plant is certainly not the
greatest plant or the largest plant, or even the most desirable plant.  In
California, wild mustard grows along the irrigation ditches as a noxious
weed.  The same was true in ancient Israel, where mustard grew everywhere as
a weed, also.  So Jesus, in his amazing irony, says the Kingdom of God is
like a weed, folks.  Maybe you don't want it, or ask for it, or expect it,
but God's Kingdom appears as the smallest innocuous seed, and grows into big
bushes that shield flocks of birds-representing God's people.  A little
mustard weed seed goes a long way.

So that's the Kingdom of God, Jesus?  A hapless weed that nobody really
wants?  Why not beautiful lush figs, Jesus?  Or productive important wheat,
or barley?  Or some wonderful good plant that produces beautiful flowers or
luscious fruit.  With all the plants of God's world that Jesus could have
chosen, the mustard seed and plant are the worst choice if you are talking
about beauty or goodness.  Why, that weed?  That's like the Kingdom of God?
You're crazy Jesus-why that's just plain laughable.

Or, is Jesus taking about something else, something different than the
outward seed and mustard plant?  Is Jesus saying the Kingdom is deeper than
the specific details, more grand than what is in outward plain view?  Maybe
something inward, like the miracle in David's heart in our first parable?
What might this inward characteristic be?  What on earth is Jesus talking
about?  God's incredible amazing beautiful infinite Realm is like a small
hard lifeless mustard seed?  But what potential is inside that seed, my
friends?

Now, before we launch into this discussion, let's remember these are
parables.  Parables are like theology in this congregation.  There is no one
meaning, no one answer, no one specific right or wrong interpretation.  What
there is, instead, is wondering, and asking, seeking, discussing, probing,
pondering, and thinking outside the box.  Thinking outside the normal
possibilities.  Thinking about how some everyday thing could possibly
describe something as amazing as the Kingdom of God.

So when I get stuck like this, I wonder about the parable up-side-down.  If
the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, let's imagine the seed as each of
us.  Each one of us is a mustard seed.  Not the biggest or fanciest seed and
plant in the world, nor the best.  But every single one of us contains an
astonishing miracle of opportunity of growth and possibility inside of us.
That little shepherd boy David, the runt of the litter?  He was a mustard
seed.  The last, the smallest, a great big not-even-in-the house with his
other brothers nobody.  But God saw into David's heart.  God knew the seed
of love and compassion and wonderment and spectacular worship of God that
was in David's heart.  God chose that mustard seed, the one named David, to
be the royal line of God's Kingdom forever.  Little runt mustard seed
murderer adulterer David.

So God chooses me, and you.  We all are parabolic mustard seeds.
Mistake-making stumbling floundering mustard seeds.  Smallish, hard, blah
us.  Just small mustard seeds masquerading as human beings.  But the miracle
of God's Kingdom sits within each of us, just waiting, like it did in David.
Small hard little nobody seeds of hope and love.  Waiting for God's wondrous
watering of spirit, tended by God's loving sun, and weeded by the blessings
and patience of the Spirit as we open our hearts and grow into God's
love....

Because, inside of you, no matter who you are, and no matter where you are
in God's garden, there is a miracle of a mustard seed of God's Realm pulsing
within you as the Lord looks on your heart.  From a bland nothing seed, to a
human being with a relationship with God filled with grace and love and
wonder.  So when you squeeze out some mustard onto a hot dog for Father's
Day, say a little prayer of thanks that little mustard seeds from weeds can
somehow, in the miracle of God's love, be turned into something zesty and
crazy yellow and good.  Just like you, because God looks on our inward
hearts, and not on our outward appearances.  Bloom into what God dreams you
to be, because the Kingdom of God is like a small mustard seed within you.
You contain the smallest of all the seeds of the spirit, yet, when your
spirit is sown into God's garden of love, it becomes the greatest of all of
God's glorious fruits, and all of the lost of the earth make nests in the
shade of your love.  We are each of us, all of us, living parables of the
mustard seed.  Happy Fathers Day, and oh, pass the miraculous mustard,
please.  Amen.