The Mustard Seed and The New Creation

The Mustard Seed and the New Creation

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

June 17, 2018

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away;

see, everything has become new!  2 Corinthians 5.17

Preaching Texts

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, & 14-17

We are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord– for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

The Gospel

Mark 4:26-34

Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

 Sermon

For those of you who have been confirmed, I am not sure what you all remember about your confirmation. For me I remember a burning sensation on my forehead.  That was not because of some mystical experience like the saints of the middle ages.  It was because the bishop, after he laid hands on our heads to confirm us, he marked our foreheads with cassia oil which is a derivative of cinnamon – and burns upon application to the skin.  So if you think this is not a bold move – contrast that to this – when we anoint babies, children and adults at their baptism, or for healing, we mark them with a chrism (oil) which is a lovely combinations of olive oil and balsam.  But the bishop on the occasion of my confirmation used cassia oil at our confirmation because he wanted us to know that the life of following Christ is not always easy.  And he told us is not always easy because being a Christian requires living a life that is radically oriented toward love – love for ourselves, love for our neighbor, love for the stranger and foreigner, love for our friends, and love for our enemies, love for all creatures, and love for the creation.  And every choice we make we are called to make that choice in the direction of love. As our presiding bishop says, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.

But we all know love is hard.  It makes us grow and stretch in capacities that we could never expect – we think we are loving to our full capacity, until a child comes into our life, or a puppy, or a needy neighbor, or an ailing friend – and we find quite by surprise that we grow and grow throughout our lives in our capacity to love. It is the kind of exponential love that is described in the parable we heard this morning of the mustard seed and the great shrub that it becomes, so huge that provides care and respite for the birds who make their nests in its branches.  God calls us to grow beyond our imaginings in our capacity to love.

In our New Testament lesson for today Paul tells us, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation” – God is always working on us to become a new creation. Every day is a choice to choose to be an old creature or a new creature.  We become that new creature when we breathe love and new life into our lives, into the lives of others.  We fail to be the new creature when we revert to old ways of being that are no longer relevant or helpful.  Like if I continued to parent my 17 and 20 year old children as if they were 4 and 7.  Loving this way is challenging and sometimes painful – but the good news is it is life giving, as the bishop reminded us confirmands 35 years ago.

But here’s the thing that the bishop did not tell us. Cassia has more properties other than inflicting pain. Cassia also has an emotional benefit: it is said to encourage a person’s sense of self, and to bring forth inner strength, and courage. It may be helpful to support a person’s confidence, and to foster an ability to “put themselves out there”, or try new things as they feel self-assured in their ability and worth.[1]

So it is with God.

We will not be asked to love so much that there is nothing left of ourselves – we are called to love, and to breathe new life into our world, so that we too may be a new creation.  I invite you to pray and to notice who is in your life this week who needs your love?  What is God calling forth in you for new growth so that you may be alive in Christ?

[1] http://www.sustainablebabysteps.com