Open to God's Greenness: A Homily for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, June 19, 2024,  Readings for this Sunday (Proper 11B):  1 Samuel 15:34-16:13; Psalm 20; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 (11-13), 14-17; Mark 4:26-34 

^26[ [Jesus] also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how (Mk 4: 26-27)

Long ago, in a former life, I used to teach first year English Literature.   When we got to the poetry section of the course, I was always interested by the ideas and preconceptions about poetry that the students brought to the course.  Many of them came with the idea that poems had were essentially puzzles to be solved so that the reader could unlock the hidden meaning.   Instead, I would encourage them to just enjoy the poem, to hear what the poet had to say in their own words, the way we enjoy a painting or a piece of music.

I would suggest that the same thing is true of Jesus’ parables, like the two we hear from Mark’s gospel.  There’s a perception that the parables are homespun stories about everyday situations that would have been familiar to Jesus’ listeners, and yet that they are also riddles that need to be solved.  This perception is reinforced by Jesus himself, who when he says things like “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” (Mk 4.9), which suggests that we have to work hard and listen carefully if we are to get the message.

Likewise in today’s gospel, when Jesus tell parables to the crowds, but “explained everything in private to his disciples” (Mk 4:33-34), we get the sense that the parables merely hint at some truths that are only made apparent to Jesus’ inner circle.   So, seeing that we weren’t there to hear that private explanation, what if we try simply taking the parables at face value, as if they were poems or songs?   

Let’s start by noting that Jesus begins most parables with some variation of the phrase, “the kingdom of God is like …”.   Jesus is telling us something about the kingdom of God, but what is it?   Is it a place that we can go to?  If so, Jesus never gives us directions to get there.  Is it political?   If so, as I said last Sunday, the kingdom of God does not look like earthly kingdom.   

So maybe we should set aside this question of “what is the kingdom of God” and follow the word “like” to see what the kingdom of God is being compared to.

In both our parables today, the word “like” leads us to seeds and plants, but there’s very little said about us.   As I said in my little children’s video posted online, the first parable about the seed should not be taken as gardening advice, because the guy in the parable is terrible gardener.   He throws the seeds hither and yon, and then has a nap.  He’s totally passive.   Likewise, in the second parable, the mustard plant is self-seeding.  There’s no humans involved.

So maybe the first thing we can say is that the kingdom of God grows of its own accord.   The Greek word Mark uses is automatatē, the seed grows by itself, without human help (I'm grateful to C. Clifton Black for this observation in his Working Preacher commentary).    Also, there is something mysterious about it, as the sower in the parable “does not know how” the seed grows.   It’s a mystery, but it’s a good mystery, because the seed grows to be harvested.

So who is the harvester with the sickle?  Again, we aren’t told.  In other parables and sayings, the reaper is associated with divine judgement, but here we can’t say that for sure.   All we can say is that the seed grows into grain to be harvested and to sustain life.   Likewise the mustard seed in the second parable provides shelter for the birds.  

So based on all this, even while we admit that the kingdom of God is a mysterious thing, we can say two things about it.   First, we can say that the kingdom of God is God’s doing, it comes about because of God’s initiative, not ours.   Second, we can say that the images of harvest and shelter tell us that the kingdom of God is benefit and blessing.  I hope this comes as a relief to you, because it’s very tempting to think that we have to do something to make the kingdom of God happen.  This is an especial temptation to those of us in the church business, where it’s easy to think that we have to be busy doing things too make the kingdom of God happen.

But what if it’s simpler than that?   What if it’s simply up to us to trust that the kingdom of God will happen because God wants to make it happen?  What if it simply comes down to us believing in God’s goodness and in God’s desire to share that goodness with us?   What if it’s simply about us daring to believe that God is actually present and active in our lives, and in our church?  

Let me finish by saying that trusting in God’s doing stuff is not a prescription for passivity or even for apathy. Christian spirituality has always been about listening to God and about opening ourselves to what God wants to do in us.    This is where the plant imagery in the parables is helpful, because our the goal of the Christian life is spiritual growth, a response of God’s reaching out to us in the same way that plants respond to the sun.

So said the German abbess, Hildegard von Bingen, a  medieval saint of the 11th century fondly remembered for her musical, theological, and botanical wisdom.   Hildegard had a wonderful concept of viriditas, a Latin word meaning “greenness”.   She believed that God created all things with what she called God’s “green finger”, that all of the earth was imbued with God’s creative energy.  Hildegard taught that the healthy soul opened itself to God’s greenness  in the way that plants open themselves to the sun’s energy.

Think about the language in today’s gospel, of how the seed goes from stalk to head and then to grain, and think of how that might describe the spiritual life that we all want, from disblief or indifference to doubt to faith, tranquility, assurance and peace.   Don’t we all want that growth in our hearts and souls?

In one of her famous and mystical passages, Hildegard offers a vision of the soul fully grown and ripe with God’s energy.

Good people, Most royal greening verdancy, Rooted in the sun,
You shine with radiant light, in this circle of earthly existence.
You shine so finely, it surpasses understanding.
God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.

Dear saints, I can’t explain these words, any more than I can explain a parable or explain any other divine mystery.  But why explain it, when we can open ourselves to the love and energy of God?   Perhaps for today, its enough for us to leave this place, willing to be open to that divine green energy of God, and trusting that we are encircled in the “arms of the mystery of God”.  What could be more wonderful, more desirable?