This morning at Advent Lutheran Church (ELCA) we kicked off a summer sermon series: Stories That Shape Us: How Jesus’ Parables Transform the Way We See God, Ourselves, and the World.
Sermon
My message, ““Start Small” is based on Matthew 13:31-35.
You can read the manuscript. (Video isn’t available for this service due to technical difficulties.)
Excerpt
To begin this series, I figured we should start small. And according to today’s Gospel lesson you can’t get any smaller than the smallest seed – the mustard seed.[1]
This is wild! And it’s a sure sign that God’s kingdom looks nothing like earthly kingdoms or nation states or empires. When I think about the Roman Empire I think about all of the ways it went big to demonstrate its power. This pattern isn’t unique to the Romans; it has been repeated by empire after empire across the centuries and continues today in our modern American Empire.
Empire shows off. Empire talks big. Empire stockpiles military arsenal. Empire rules with might. And empire reserves the right to demand much of its citizens and even more of its noncitizens.
So, Jesus is throwing us a curveball right away. He tells us that his empire looks different. It is like a tiny seed. It is small and inconsequential. It easily goes unnoticed. Its initial growth will happen out of sight, underground.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed – a plant that will grow and grow and, if not stopped, will spread uncontrollably. First century listeners would have heard mustard like modern listeners hear the word “weeds.” When we plant a garden, the last thing we want is for our garden to be overcome by weeds. If a weed appears and then becomes a few weeds soon it will be out of control and your harvest will be ruined.
But that’s not all. In today’s very short reading, we also hear Jesus sharing that his kingdom is like yeast that a woman worked into some flour until she managed to get it throughout the dough. Siblings in Christ, I’m not a chef but am capable of performing basic math. Think about your pantry at home. How many of you have 60 pounds or more of flour at the ready for your next baking project? This woman was working on a massive recipe!
[1] Mustard isn’t the smallest seed of that time or any time. This hyperbolic language is employed to support the teaching of the parable.