Telling Your Story         June 18, 2006     The Parable of the Mustard Seed

I learned some things on vacation to Alaska, and heard some good jokes. For instance, I learned that bears can run more than 30 miles an hour. I heard a joke about two hikers in Alaska going into bear country. When they reached the area where the bears lived, one hiker sat down, took off his hiking boots and began to put on his running shoes. The other hiker asked, “Why are you doing that? You can’t out run a bear?” The first hiker said, “I don’t have to outrun a bear. I just have to out run you.”

Jokes are fun, but sometimes they also make a point. I believe that in this morning's gospel lesson, Jesus is telling a joke, and making a point, too. I know that may come as a surprise, but look at this Parable of the Mustard Seed in light of the verses from Ezekiel 17. Ezekiel compares the Kingdom of God to the twig of a cedar tree that God plants. The twig grows up to be a huge tree that all the birds come and build a nest.

Jesus' audience heard these verses from Ezekiel many times. Imagine their surprise when Jesus said, “The kingdom of Go is like a mustard seed, which, when sowed 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 ... er... shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."

Do you see how Jesus even uses some of the same words as Ezekiel, like the birds of the air nesting in its branches? Yet he changed Ezekiel's mighty cedar tree to a scruffy little mustard bush. And this is not the kind of mustard you use as to make the popular condiment I like on hot dogs. This bush is called a mustard bush because when you burn these bushes, the smoke makes you choke, like mustard gas. When Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, that’s a joke with a point, don't you think? And that's only part of the joke, and half the point!

Maybe if Jesus was in Texas, he would say it like this. The kingdom of God is like a mesquite tree that starts small but grows to so that birds can nest in its branches. Then it spreads so that the whole pasture is filled with mesquite trees.

Or, maybe he could tell it like this. The kingdom of God is like dandelion seeds, which, when sown into your lawn, take over all the other grass." Do you get it? Today, the gospel of Jesus has spread to every continent. Even though they would kill him on the tree of the cross, the cross would be spread though out the world. And personally, once the kingdom get’s ahold of us, it spreads to all aspects of life, like mesquite trees in a pasture.

But you have to wonder: why didn't Jesus come right out and say what he meant? Why did he leave behind all these cryptic sayings in parables, loaded with innuendo. Why didn’t he just give us a crisp code of dos and don’ts, and just ell us what we have to do in order to get into the Kingdom of God?

He could have wrote books with a titles like, "How to Be a Good Disciple," or "A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of God" or "Seven Keys to Getting into the Kingdom.” But no. Instead we have this joke, a cross eyed, cryptic, incomplete, awkward, and at times seemingly absurd collection of sayings known as Jesus' parables. Why?

Because “How To... ” books quickly become fossilized, like insects in amber. They are beautiful, but they are dead. Besides, even back in Jesus time, we already had books of laws like Leviticus and Deuteronomy Bible students and theological scholars dare to study. Try remembering the last time you sat down opened your Bible and really enjoyed reading Leviticus or the first few chapters of Numbers. Reading only books of law make God's Word a hard read for anyone.

It takes a good joke, a good story that can never quite be told the same way twice to keep breathing new life into the message of God’s Kingdom. So let this parable breath new life into us, and let us behind the joke to the truth of God’s kingdom, and God’s purpose for us through Jesus Christ.

As the story is designed to sweep us up so that we become part of a new parable the parable of our lives. Taken all together our individual experiences of the kingdom, our personal stories of God's work and witness in our lives end up creating a new gospel that is so good, we just have to share it with others.

The good news of Jesus is written not only in the four canonical gospels in the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Christians have almost 2,000 years' worth of other books that tell the gospel story. St. Augustine told his story about God’s love and reconciliation 1600 years ago. He called is simply, “Confessions.” Marin Luther told the gospel story in many sermons and volumes of books he wrote. Martin Luther King wrote several books about the power of the gospel as he invited people into his dream of a nation that values people of every race and color. All these "gospels" have remained vital parts of the church tradition because of their eternally rechargeable parable power.

Other gospels may not be quite so well known, but they work just as persuasively in our lives. Many of you know that the personal witness in stories making up "The Gospel According to Grandma," or "The Gospel According to Mother Mary," or, "The Gospel According to That Counselor at Camp Whose Name I Can't Even Remember." Those personal stories of the good news of Jesus Christ formed our faith and brought us the message of the Kingdom that Jesus opened in his parables. Those who told us stories that linked their lives to the cross of death and new life of the resurrection are the ones who evangelized us. All of us are in the process of writing our own gospels our own accounts of experiencing the Good News of the coming kingdom in our midst. The stories of lives driven by the love of God are what compelled me to follow Jesus Christ, too.

Take my mother for example. Many of you remember that on Mother’s Day, I told you my mother’s gospel story. It began with a terrible loss. Our family lost my brother when he died at age three to leukemia. When a child dies, it can often tear them apart, and destroy whatever faith in God they once had. But my mother was an exception. The year after he died, she joined a mission church, became very active, and took me with her to Sunday School and worship. She was writing her gospel story. The story of the kingdom where a Mother named Mary also lost her Son, Jesus Christ. But when God raised Jesus from death, the eternal kingdom of God was opened for all who are in him. That’s a great gospel story.

What is interesting to me is that Mom wanted her church to grow and bring in new people, she doesn’t asked me what she could do. She said that the big churches have all the glitter and great programs and music. Our little church just can’t compete with them. I asked he if she ever told her story and what Jesus meant to her after the death of her three year old baby?

You all came to church this Sunday morning. I say. We all have compelling stories. I’ve heard some of them. I say, tell your gospel story, so tell it! You have a compelling story that others need to hear!

What chapter did you add to your gospel this week? Think back a moment. Do any of these titles remind you of this week's additions to your work in progress? The Parable of the Crabby Boss, who suddenly decided not to be so crabby? How about the story of the kids who won't clean up their rooms who actually took some responsibility. How about the family that fought all the time who learned how to love each other by praying together. You have stories like that. Those stories are infectious, like dandelions in the lawn. God out and tell those stories. I know I like hearing them, and others need to hear them, too.

Don't worry if the particular stories you experienced this week didn't seem to have any grand significance, any definitive "gospel" quality to them. It is the job of all of us, as Jesus' disciples, to come together and plug into the parable power running through each other's lives. That happens in our Bible studies. That’s why I want you all to go to a small group. Let others help you plug in your story to the gospel, so that your story becomes a gospel story!

Amen