Seeds of Hope

Fire Poppies

Five years ago, a seed was planted– in me.  I began to believe I could grow a garden of California natives.  My next door neighbor Tomaz had planted a successful native garden a few years before, and he was willing to help. The homeowners association gave me permission to reclaim my front yard, and it must have been a God thing because for months I was waking up early so I would have enough time to create my garden.  I worked hard, and I loved it.  And my garden grew!  

Homeowners Associations hate native plants; they are not furniture.  Most native plants, if watered like a lawn, will die.  So designers have given up on them.  Large natives are not transplantable. You have to start small.  Many natives go summer dormant; they look dead. And some natives sit in the place they were planted for three years before they finally decide to start growing. There are desert plants from around the world that are less trouble.  Unless you want to turn your irrigation off all summer. Then you need California natives.

A garden is a collaboration between nature and humans.  The Kindom of God is a collaboration between God and humans.  As the garden grows, we do not control it.  So the Kingdom goes: we cannot make it happen, we can only be good gardeners.

A garden that is not made of furniture is ever-changing: it has seasons of growth and flourishing, and seasons of dormancy and loss.  The Kingdom of God?  It too is ever changing, springing up like the first Pentecost now and then, cut down in other seasons, some times just about invisible, like a tiny seed.

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

May 20, 2018, Pentecost Sunday

Hope from Seeds and Weeds

Rom. 8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?  25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Mark 4:26   He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,  27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

            30   He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?  31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;  32 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.”

            33   With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;  34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

We live in a culture of instant gratification.  Somebody mentions a name I’m not familiar with, and I google it on my phone.  I want an obscure out of print book, I order it from Amazon.  Unfortunately, the things that really matter take time; they require patience.

The suggested reading for this Sunday is the story of the first Pentecost.  By tradition we call this the birthday of the Church.  In this story, the Holy Spirit appeared to the apostles as tongues of flame.  Miracles happened very publicly, and three thousand people were baptized that one day. 

At that time, they expected Jesus back any day to set the world right, establish the Kingdom of God on earth once and for all. Instant gratification, and enduring perfection.  But it didn’t work out like that. 

Apparently God didn’t work that way.  A dear friend, who is a skeptic, pointed out to me one time: where is that Kingdom of God?  Look at the mess the world is in.  Look at all the ways churches have been ineffective or just wrong.  Why should I believe in the power of your God?

I suspect people were asking the same questions when Mark wrote his gospel. Jerusalem was under siege.  Where was the Kingdom of God? Mark offers parables about seeds and weeds.  Because the things that matter take time; they require patience.  They require learning and experimentation, and we do not control them.  They have seasons of flourishing, and seasons where we can only hope they’ll reappear.  But we can learn to nurture the seeds of the Kingdom just as we can learn to nurture gardens. 

I live in Irvine, the land of Homeowners Associations.  A homeowners association allowed me to have a front yard garden that required no work on my part.  The designers of the garden chose from a palette of plants that survive almost any condition. They act more like furniture than living things.  And instant gratification: who wants to move into a housing development with baby trees in it?  Why wait, when semi trucks and forklifts deliver full grown trees in 60-inch boxes. Sometimes the planters and the delivery people don’t coordinate their schedules; I drive by each day and and watch the full grown tree dying.  Oh well, deliver another one, and then deliver two tons of dead potted palm to the dump.

I like having that green furniture all around my condo complex. And I have known for a long time that if I was required to grow my own garden for food, I’d starve. I have not been willing to show up, to be patient, to accept failures, and really learn how to grow food in my backyard.

But a few things have grown persistently. Sweet peas, which some of you have been enjoying this spring: I planted them once, and for the last twenty years they have been volunteering amid the roses; all they require is time…to die on the vine and make the garden look unacceptable to Irvine sensibilities, so that they can reseed.

Five years ago, a seed was planted– in me.  I began to believe I could grow a garden of California natives.  My next door neighbor Tomaz had planted a successful native garden a few years before, and he was willing to help. The homeowners association gave me permission to reclaim my front yard, and it must have been a God thing because for months I was waking up early so I would have enough time to create my garden.  I worked hard, and I loved it.  And my garden grew! 

HOA’s hate native plants; they are not furniture.  Most native plants, if watered like a lawn, will die.  So designers have given up on them.  Large natives are not transplantable. You have to start small.  Many natives go summer dormant; they look dead. And some natives sit in the place they were planted for three years before they finally decide to start growing. There are desert plants from around the world that are less trouble.  Unless you want to turn your irrigation off all summer. Then you need California natives.

In typical Southern California willfulness, we have demanded of nature the unsustainable: lawns without weeds, tropical blooms 12 months a year. Nature obliges, at a cost. The Roundup and pesticides you are most likely to be exposed to are not in the grocery store but on your lawn, and your neighbor’s.  And roughly half of our suburban water goes on our yards. 

I wanted to respect the earth, but that’s not why I planted the garden. I wanted relationship.  I wanted a little slice of the Bay Area coastal hills that fed my soul when I was a teenager.  In order to create that, I had to plant, and learn, and experiment, and wait.  I am still learning.  And there is a three foot Catalina Cherry in my backyard that has grown six inches since I planted it four years ago.  I’m learning patience.

A garden is a collaboration between nature and humans.  The Kingdom of God is a collaboration between God and humans.  As the garden grows, we do not control it.  So the Kingdom goes: we cannot make it happen, we can only be good gardeners.

A garden that is not made of furniture is ever-changing: it has seasons of growth and flourishing, and seasons of dormancy and loss.  The Kingdom of God?  It too is ever changing, springing up like the first Pentecost now and then, cut down in other seasons, some times just about invisible, like a tiny seed.

Fire poppies only grow in California.  They are not subtle.  They are only seen in abundance in areas that have burned a year or two before.  Their seeds wait decades between fires, unseen, but ready to awaken when conditions are right.  They remind me of Pentecost, those magic moments when the Gospel is so public and so compelling that everything is aglow with God’s spirit.  May we see such things in our lifetime! 

Mark never speaks of Pentecost fire blooming.  Nor does he speak of the majestic trees of the forest that were sometimes used by prophets and psalmists to describe earthly kingdoms.  Cedars of Lebanon, the closest thing the Middle East had to Redwoods. No cedars in Mark’s gospel.  Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.  (And just in case somebody explains to you that the bible is inerrant, error free, mustard seeds are small, but not the smallest seeds on earth.)

Mustard seeds produce mustard bushes. Anybody who drives up the 57 freeway north of Brea has seen that brilliant yellow that in wet springs covers the hills. (Not this year.)  I love that brilliant yellow.  Mustard seeds do not produce majestic trees; they produce annuals, bushes that bloom brilliantly for a season and then fade.  Which might be a clue to us about the Kingdom, the kin-dom of God on earth.  Maybe it is less like a majestic tree, and more like a showy annual plant.  It has its season, and then waits again for a chance to bloom.

I love mustard flowers. Imagine my dismay to discover that our local mustard flowers are pernicious invasive plants that take over hillsides and wipe out the natives. California birds do love mustard, not for nesting or for shade but for eating the flowers and seeds.  Maybe mustard is different in the Middle East.  Or maybe the established order, the powers that be, experience the Kingdom of God like a weed: as an invasion and a threat, that doesn’t follow the fire code. Imagine if we really put people the environment before money.  Imagine if we said, “Yes in my backyard,” house people in need of housing.  Imagine if we put as many resources into peace as we do into war.  That could be a threat to the powers that be.

How I garden matters. It matters for the land, and the ocean and the bees and other creatures.  Instant gratification comes at a cost that I am not willing to pay, so I do a lot of hand weeding. Things grow slowly without fertilizer, go dormant with less water, sometimes I lose a plant to pests. 

If we want to collaborate with God to grow the kin-dom, how we do it matters.  If we want to win at any cost, or give up at the first failure, if we’d rather be right than be in relationship, if we use force or fail to respect people… we may grow something, but it won’t be of God.  If we follow Jesus’ teachings, certain strategies and tactics and ways of doing business that are taken for granted in the larger culture will be off limits for us.  We will pay a price for that.   Let us pay that price, because only when our methods are Jesus’ methods, are we participating in be the Kingdom of God.

Growing a garden is not a product, it’s a process.  Maybe the Kingdom of God is also a process, ever sprouting, growing, fading, being destroyed, waiting invisibly, until the conditions are right for it to bloom again.

Maybe we can’t even imagine what the Kingdom of God will look like.  The most delightful part of my native garden is the volunteers; the seeds that spring up that I didn’t plant.  The sweet peas are reliable and I recognize them.  But new native sprouts pop up, and for a while I don’t know what they’ll become.  Californa Sagebrush, the most delicious-smelling plant ever, pops up now and then.  White Sage.  California Fuchsia.  Desert Bluebells.  Beach Primrose, and more.  All of these would be labeled weeds in the furniture garden next door, and removed by the HOA gardeners. 

I can’t force wildflowers to grow on my terms, and we can’t force the Kingdom of God to happen.  But we can collaborate with God, instead of controlling, and see what grows. Hard work, patience, and unpredictable results.  Just the opposite of instant gratification. 

May the Holy Spirit work and among us, growing us in faithfulness and love, in strength and wisdom to follow Jesus.  May seeds of hope surprise and delight you.  May we be patient in seasons when God’s work seems invisible, or under attack.  And may we be witnesses to the power of the Holy Spirit, wind and fire, new life sprouting and growing, in a world still groaning for the birth of God’s reign. Amen.

A Prayer for Mustard Seeds 
Brea Congregational United Church of Christ 
May 20, 2018

Thank you, dear God, for dangerous, peaceful people who have planted mustard seeds in our world.

Thank you for troublemakers and agitators, people who upset the norm, for protesters and marchers, for leaflet printers and speech-makers, for joke-tellers and those who speak truth to power, for people who refuse to sit down, refuse to stand up, people who won’t shut up or be shut out.

Thank you for parents who know better and for children who ask why.

Thank you for teachers who love knowledge and for students who speak bravely and prophetically even in the face of gun violence, for people who won’t take it anymore, who fight back, fight cancer, fight with chants and charts, teach-ins, sit-ins, and kiss-ins.

Thank you for Bill W. and for Nelson M. and for Ruth B.G.

Thank you, dear God, for people who peacefully resist and civilly disobey, people who use their minds and their words instead of guns and bombs.

Thank you for those who work to heal the wounds of Santa Fe and Palestine and Brea.

Thank you for justices who vote for justice, for the justice workers who keep working, and for the indefatigable power of love of all kinds.

Thank you, God, for Jesus Christ and for all prophets who overcome.

And, thank you, Loving One, for planting a seed of all of these things in each of us so that we, too, might lend a hand, a hug, a thought, a tear, to the effort to change the world from a place of fear and domination to a place where children and ice caps are safe, where justice and equal access wins the vote, where there’s enough room for everyone at the dinner table, where people stay at the negotiating table until problems are solved, where good is common and the Common Good prevails. 

In the name of peace,  

Amen 

© 2011, 2018 Michael D. Lewis , All rights reserved.