We have plunged in Mark's story about Jesus. So let's recap:
14 After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee and told the good news that comes from God.
15 He said, "The time has come! God's kingdom will soon be here. Turn back to God and believe the good news!"
Then, he tells lots of stories to illustrate what's happening - the farmer and the seeds, the light in the house and then this story about seed growing secretly.
"Do you get it?" he is saying." This is happening."
The story of the kingdom has two messages - one is a welcome and the other is a warning.
The welcome is for everyone who has been aching for something better - the people who get to hear the word NO a lot. Women, lepers, dodgy people, prostitutes, children, the disgruntled with God. Things will get better, they are told. They heard him gladly and why not.
But the people who wanted the Romans kicked out, the Gentiles excluded, the dodgy people dealt with and the religious establishment running the show got a warning. It won't be happening like that, guys. It will be a slow burner, non violent, revolutionary but gentle. Everything is changing around you but without melodrama.
Wherever Jesus moves in, things change for the better.
Jesus said to them," If you have ears, pay attention"
The story of seed growing quietly, growing secretly is a story about a story. The story is about the kingdom, the big change that Jesus is bringing.
Stories shape our lives. If you like a good read and can handle a heavy book resting on your chest in bed I recommend "The Seven Basic Plots" by Christopher Booker. It's a wonderful book about the key story lines which shape us.
This is a poem about a little girl who encountered a story that her parents were rather dismayed about. It's called "At Smithville Methodist Church" by Stephen Dunn
"It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week,
| but when she came home
| with the "Jesus Saves" button, we knew what art
| was up, what ancient craft.
| She liked her little friends. She liked the songs
| they sang when they weren't twisting and folding paper into dolls.
| What could be so bad?
|
Jesus had been a good man, and putting faith in good men was what
| we had to do to stay this side of cynicism, that other sadness.
| OK, we said, One week. But when she came home
| singing "Jesus loves me,
| the Bible tells me so," it was time to talk.
| Could we say Jesus
| doesn't love you? Could I tell her the Bible
| is a great book certain people use
| to make you feel bad? We sent her back without a word.
| It had been so long since we believed, so long
| since we needed Jesus
| as our nemesis and friend,
| that we thought he was sufficiently dead,
| that our children would think of him like Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson.
| Soon it became clear to us: you can't teach disbelief to a child,
| only wonderful stories, and we hadn't a story nearly as good.
| On parents' night there were the Arts & Crafts
| all spread out like appetizers.
| Then we took our seats in the church
| and the children sang a song about the Ark,
| and Hallelujah and one in which they had to jump up and down for Jesus.
| I can't remember ever feeling so uncertain
| about what's comic, what's serious.
| Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes.
You can't say to your child
| "Evolution loves you." The story stinks of extinction and nothing
| exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have
| a wonderful story for my child
| and she was beaming. All the way home in the car
| she sang the songs,
| occasionally standing up for Jesus.
| There was nothing to do
| but drive, ride it out, sing along
| in silence. |
They didn't have a better story to tell her.
Then, there was that competition a couple of years ago where we were asked to vote for our favourite book and the top story was Lord of the Rings. I've read it at least six times. I read it a lot in my twenties when I was feeling challenged to get out of my comfort zone and go to university. I needed a story about facing fear, hopeless odds (I couldn't get a grant) finding courage and good companions, getting there in the end. I loved Sam's story. I think Sam is the real hero because Sam has the biggest journey. It is the longest internal journey and the least egocentric journey. All he wanted to do was to keep his promise to look after Frodo. The stories we read habitually reflect our emotional needs. I wonder what books you read a lot? What stories shape your living?
I have a friend called Sehrab who works for a large charity in Birmingham. He looks as though his family come from east of Turkey somewhere but he has a nice English accent and a degree in law from Birmingham. He was in a group I was teaching about values. I asked where his values came from and Sehrab got a mystical look on his face and said, "I live my life before the face of just and merciful God". I thought, "He's either a Christian Calvinist or a devout Muslim". Either way he was living out of a big story.
President Barak Obama is trying to tell us a new story about America. He is constructing a narrative about a strong, righteous, non bellicose nation that wants to live in peace and justice with its neighbours. It's a story we want to listen to.
And then there are the Beach Boys. It is an interesting fact that before they released their first pioneering album Pet Sounds, with all that close harmony, and songs about surfing and girls and boys and endless summers there was no such thing as California. There was a state called California, of course, but what they sang didn't exist except in their own minds but they made people want it so badly they brought it into existence. They were the dreamers who sold the dream which others made a reality. They sang a story into reality.
You see how important stories are. What story is shaping your life? The story that should shape our lives is the story that a seed is growing secretly and growing night and day and it's a mystery but the kingdom that gets here from another place is taking root in this world. At this point in time one in three of this world's populace in some way owns Jesus as the story that is shaping their lives. What about you?
This is where I'm going to get theological with you. There are five things you need to know about the kingdom that Jesus is bringing so you won't misunderstand what is happening.
1. The kingdom is not the church - the church can be, when it is humble and obedient, the key point of entry of the kingdom of Jesus from another place into this world. Jesus is claiming all human life, all activities, all politics, all art and music as part of His kingdom in which power is expressed not over people but for people.
2. The kingdom creates the church - when Jesus is reigning and bringing the Spirit of transformation, He creates communities of faith and resistance which offer praise, offer welcome, receive forgiveness and create new centres of humanity. The kingdom is God reigning in new ways through Jesus. But not just in church.
3. The church witnesses to the kingdom - the principle activity of the church is to witness, not to itself but the fact that Jesus is beginning to reign. We might say, "You've seen nothing yet. We have only just got going". There are faiths much older than Christianity." What are the signs of His reigning?" Despite the horrors and bloodshed, there is Bach and Mozart, there is a collective conscience, there is an outpouring of giving when a tsunami happens, there are streets in this town like Meadow Rd where people care for each other, help each other, depend on each other. There is the capacity to respond to the idealism of a Barak Obama. The church is a community of hope and faith, not fear and retreat. The Jesus who reigns is coming to us from our creaturely future where there is no pain, suffering or injustice - which is why every blessing, every move towards justice and mercy, the hungry fed, the naked clothed, feels as though as there should be more to come. There is. This is just the beginning.
4. The church is the instrument of the kingdom - the church might be called the voice of the kingdom which challenges the Empire. It has been, to its shame, the instrument and voice of the Empire, the world of commerce and war and greed. The church has blessed genocide, condoned torture, turned its face away from the refugee. It has often been anti-Semitic, racialist and ethnically arrogant. It has also stood up to apartheid, claimed this lovely earth as a gift to be treasured not exploited, spoken out for justice and freedom and human dignity. It has spoken the truth to power and been persecuted, ridiculed and ignored. It gives of its children generously to care and serve and teach all over the world. We may be in a parish but we are certainly not parochial
5. The church is the custodian of the kingdom - it is our calling to tell this story, serve this purpose, live this message. We guard the sacred flame, tend the passion, make the difference.
I would put it this way. I am a counsellor by training and calling. When I ran a counselling agency in Bristol and when I meet with my private clients here in Malvern I was not and am not serving myself. Meeting human distress with skilled care is a function of the kingdom that is coming from another place. When I come with you to this rail to receive bread and wine, either as a simple member of this community or as a priest, I come as a member of Christ's church - baptised, committed, confessing and forgiven. My worship in this place equips me to serve and see Him in all the other places of human life.
The great question, I think, is not "What would Jesus do?" But rather "What is Jesus doing?"
It is no secret. He is transforming people, He is lifting up the poor and destitute, He is teaching us to care. Frequently, the rich are left looking stupid because after all the money grabbing, we now know from our surveys that the rich are often not happy, that actually winning the lottery can be a recipe for misery, family breakup and addiction. Fancy gaining the world but losing your soul. Or like Fred the Shred apparently spending all that lolly dodging the world's press and hiding out in obscure parts of Turkey.
What do you think is happening? What is the story we are living? Are we Christians doing our best to manage a profound decline? Putting a brave face on it? Or are we being fine tuned by God to stop serving the purpose of the Empire and be the entry point of the kingdom of Jesus into this society. So He might reign, so He, through us, might feed the hungry, clothe the naked, free the prisoner.
I want to close with these words of Margaret Mead, the pioneering anthropologist
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Or as Jesus said,
"If you have ears, pay attention"
Tim Marks
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