A Sermon preached at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 16/6/19
Listen to this sermon here: https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/why-this-church-the-metaphor-of-the-mustard-seed
Ezekiel 31.1-13
In the eleventh year, in the third month, on
the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 Mortal, say to Pharaoh king of
Egypt and to his hordes: Whom are you like in your greatness? 3 Consider Assyria, a cedar of
Lebanon, with fair branches and forest shade, and of great height, its top
among the clouds. 4 The waters nourished it, the deep
made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place it was planted,
sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field. 5 So it towered high above all the
trees of the field; its boughs grew large and its branches long, from abundant
water in its shoots. 6 All the birds of the air made
their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the animals of the field gave
birth to their young; and in its shade all great nations lived. 7 It was beautiful in its
greatness, in the length of its branches; for its roots went down to abundant
water. 8 The cedars in the garden of God
could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; the plane trees were as
nothing compared with its branches; no tree in the garden of God was like it in
beauty. 9 I made it beautiful with its mass
of branches, the envy of all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God. 10 Therefore thus says the Lord
GOD: Because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart
was proud of its height, 11 I gave it into the hand of the
prince of the nations; he has dealt with it as its wickedness deserves. I have
cast it out. 12 Foreigners from the most
terrible of the nations have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in
all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs lie broken in all the
watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth went away from its
shade and left it. 13 On its fallen trunk settle all
the birds of the air, and among its boughs lodge all the wild animals.
Psalm 104.12, 16-17
12
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing
among the branches. 16 The trees of the LORD are
watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their
nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees.
Matthew 13.31-32
He put before them another
parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took
and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but
when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the
birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."
The date is 587BC, and the siege of Jerusalem at the hands
of the Babylonians
has been
underway for a year.[1]
The Egyptian Pharaoh Hophra had come to the aid of the
Jewish city,
and the
invading Babylonian army had temporarily withdrawn.
The people of Jerusalem, seeing the Babylonian army pulling
back,
would
surely have given thanks to God for the Pharaoh’s intervention.
But the prophet Ezekiel is not so easily swayed
by the
to-and-fro of political events.
He knows that the Pharaoh of Egypt is as much an enemy to
the people of God
as the King
of the Babylonians.
He knows that all empires that set themselves above the
kingdom of God
are under
judgment and will ultimately fall;
and in his condemnation of such empires
Ezekiel
intriguingly includes Jerusalem itself,
which
he says will in time have to face the consequences
of
its own political ambitions.
So even as Pharaoh and the Egyptian army marched over the
hill
to scatter
the besieging Babylonians,
Ezekiel turns the full force of his prophetic powers against
the Pharaoh.
Egypt, he says, is like a tall, impressive, graceful,
stately
Lebanese Cedar tree,
towering over the other trees,
flourishing
and nourished by the waters of the Nile.
Like other empires before and since
it saw
itself as a benevolent force in the world,
offering hospitality and protection to other, lesser
nations:
which they
would be wise to accept,
if they
knew what was good for them!
It had all started with Assyria a couple of centuries before,
Assyria was
the first great Middle Eastern Empire,
and it had
sacked and conquered Northern Israel 130 years earlier.
But Assyria had eventually collapsed in upon itself
and as
Assyria grew weaker, the Babylonian Empire had grown stronger.
Like the modern empires of Britain, Russia, and North
America,
the
Assyrian Empire would once have seemed indispensable and unassailable.
It had thought so itself, and that was why, said Ezekiel, it
had fallen
– or
rather, been felled!
It had thought it could reach up into the heaven above
with its
towering trunk and sturdy branches,
like the ancient mythological tree that stood at the centre
of the world
linking
earth and heaven.
But Assyria had been felled,
and cast
into the world below, the world of death,
and what the Assyrians had already learned the hard way,
Ezekiel
proclaimed to both Egypt and Babylon.
If Israel trusts Egypt, says Ezekiel,
it is
trusting itself to a tree rotten at the roots and about to fall.
Ezekiel can see that the temptation to seek security
in the
sheltering branches of Egypt is a dangerous one.
Babylon felled Assyria, Babylon will fell Egypt,
and then in
time Babylon will itself fall.
Ezekiel’s insight is that no empire can tower over the world
forever,
they will
always fall,
because dominating ambition always sows the seeds of its own
demise.
Leaders of empires who think their mighty deeds of conquest
in the world
can march
them to the gates of heaven
are always
doomed to disappointment.
All empires fall.
Ezekiel wants Israel of old to hear this and learn a
powerful lesson,
which is
that the Kingdom of God
will
never be established on the earth
by
the glorious political and military progression of the people of God.
Ezekiel warns Israel that if Jerusalem sets her sights
on becoming
an empire sustained by might,
they may
win the battle but they will lose the war.
Ezekiel knows that the covenant of between God and God’s
people,
established
between God and Abraham,
is to be a covenant of blessing for all nations,
not just
one nation.
And if the people of God lose sight of this,
and start
to build their own holy nation in opposition to the world,
they are making the same mistake as Assyria, Egypt, and
Babylon
because
they are placing themselves in opposition to God’s intent
of a
covenant of blessing for all, not just some.
And yet, if we fast forward six centuries to the time of
Jesus,
we find
Israel setting its sights
firmly on
the hope of political and military restoration.
So when Jesus is proclaimed as the messiah of Israel,
and starts
preaching the inauguration
of the
Kingdom of heaven on the earth,
he is continually heard and interpreted
as calling
for a military revolution
against
the latest of the tall trees to arise,
the
Empire of Rome.
Like Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon before it,
Rome’s
Empire offered to the world
a place for
the nations to find shelter and security.
‘Come, rest in my beneficent branches’,
said the
propaganda of Rome.
The Pax Romana,
the peace of Rome,
was an
offer built upon the military might of the legions,
and
legitimated by the proclamations of divinity heaped upon the emperor.
This was Rome’s gift to the world,
and the
world had better accept it, and pay its taxes,
if
it knew what was good for it.
This was the global situation at the time of Jesus
– a new
tree had arisen to tower over the world,
joining earth to the heavens by the might of its trunk
and the
strength of its branches.
And it was in this context that first century Jewish
messianic expectation
had come to
focus on the hope of a coming Messiah
who would be a new King David,
who would
re-establish the political and military strength of the nation of Israel,
restoring its borders to their ancient boundaries,
overthrowing
the Roman overlords,
and creating a geographically and politically secure land
for the
people to inhabit.
This is the context into which Jesus spoke
his
deceptively simple parable of the mustard seed.
He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like
a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is
the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of
shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in
its branches."
And the first thing to notice here,
is that
Jesus doesn’t describe the Kingdom of heaven as a Cedar of Lebanon.
He describes it as a mustard seed,
which might
one day become a tree.
Despite what many in Israel were hoping for,
the kingdom
Jesus proclaimed was not another empire,
another
Cedar thrusting its way upwards in the forest,
out-growing
and out-competing other empires on its way to the top.
This isn’t some vision of future glories
awaiting
the long-oppressed people of God
who will
finally, one day, get the empire they have always longed for.
Precisely the opposite, in fact.
This is a parable which addresses an implicit question
which must
surely have loomed large in the minds of Jesus’ disciples,
the question of how to understand
the
unimpressive and unexpectedly small nature of the kingdom
that Jesus is proclaiming is already present on the earth,
and which
can already be experienced through
his life and ministry.
The disciples have already heard John the Baptist
proclaiming in the wilderness:
·
Matt. 3.1-2 In those days John the Baptist
appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 "Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
And this refrain was quickly picked up by Jesus, whose first
public words were:
·
Matt. 4.17
From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven has come near."
At the beatitudes, Jesus had promised the Kingdom of heaven
to those
who are poor in Spirit, and to those who are persecuted:
·
Matt. 5.3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
·
Matt. 5.10 Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
He instructed the twelve disciples to go out into the world,
proclaiming
the nearness of the kingdom of heaven:
·
Matt. 10.7 As you go, proclaim the good news,
'The kingdom of heaven has come near.'
And the question that he addresses in this short parable of
the mustard seed,
is how it
could be that what has been happening
in
the ministry of Jesus and his disciples
can
possibly be the establishment of God’s kingdom on the earth…
You can just hear people muttering:
“Wasn’t the
kingdom supposed to be a mighty display of God’s defeat of evil,
and
the removal of the nations afflicting Israel?”
“I mean,
sure, the miracles are nice,
but
where is the rest of the story?
“Where is
the overthrow of Rome?
“The restoration of the monarchy?
“The
re-establishment of the independent nation of God’s people?”
The mustard seed story urges, warns even,
that no-one
should be put off
by what
appears unimpressive,
because that is to judge the kingdom of heaven,
as if it
were just another earthly empire.
The thing about mustard seeds,
is that
they were famous for being really tiny,
but grow into
a large plant with large leaves.
And the point Jesus is making,
is that the
large plant is already, in some way, present within the tiny seed.
There’s a technical term for this in theology,
and it’s
‘realised eschatology’.
It’s a way of thinking about time from God’s perspective
rather than
from a human perspective.
From our point of view, time is linear.
One thing
leads to another,
seeds
become plants, and with the passing of time, trees.
But from heaven’s perspective,
the not-yet
is also now.
The glorious end is already contained fully within the
fragile now.
The end of
all things is encoded in its beginning,
It’s a shame that a scientific understanding of DNA wasn’t available
to Jesus,
because I
have a suspicion it would have suited his purposes nicely here.
I can just imagine him adding another little parable:
The kingdom of heaven is like a strand of
DNA,
so tiny only electron
microscopes can see it,
but it gives shape to all the
glories of nature,
from the eye to the
brain, from the rose to the mighty oak.
The not-yet is also now,
the kingdom
coming is with you today.
You might not see it yet, but it’s there.
Just as the earliest discovery of DNA was done using X-ray
crystallography,
where you
couldn’t see the DNA itself, just its effects,
so the kingdom is too small and insignificant to see,
but you can
trace it’s effects,
and glimpse
it’s power.
The mustard tree is already there,
fully
contained in the tiny mustard seed.
And the Kingdom of heaven is like this.
And if you
know how to look, you can trace it’s effects:
The longed for kingdom has already begun
in the life
and ministry of Jesus and his followers,
it’s there in healings and exorcisms,
in
restorations and acts of mercy,
it’s found
in acts of inclusion and in parables of grace and forgiveness.
All these are signs of the kingdom,
and they
speak in the here-and-now
of the end result which is already contained within them:
they speak
of the truth that the kingdom of heaven
is
for the benefit for all peoples;
that like birds
nesting in the branches of a tree,
so
will all find their home and refuge within the kingdom of heaven;
and that
this is the final fulfilment of the covenant God established with Abraham,
that
his children would be a blessing to all nations.
There is a very real danger to be avoided here,
and we need
to be alert to it.
For much of the last two thousand years,
the parable
of the mustard seed has been interpreted by Western Christianity
as a
legitimation of the glorious progress of the church in the world.
The deals the church has done with institutionalised power,
from
Constantine onwards,
have been understood as the growth of the kingdom of heaven
from the
tiny seed of the parochial ministry of Jesus
to the
mighty tree of the church universal.
The ‘birds of the air’ taking nest in the branches of the
tree,
have become
the gentiles and pagan nations,
welcoming
Christ as their saviour
and joining
themselves to his glorious kingdom.
In short, this parable has become a justification
for
colonialism, Christendom, and missional expansionism.
But, I hope you can see, that such an interpretation,
is a
radical distortion of the character of the kingdom
which Jesus
proclaimed.
The kingdom of heaven is not another Cedar in the forest of
nations,
it is not
another empire, however Holy or Roman.
There is no mandate here for the Christian country,
or the holy
war.
Precisely the opposite, in fact.
To enter into the kingdom of heaven
is to set
aside power, status, wealth, and money.
·
Matt. 18.1-4 At that time the disciples came to
Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2
He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, "Truly I
tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
·
Matt. 19.14 Jesus said, "Let the little
children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the
kingdom of heaven belongs."
·
Matt. 19.23 Then Jesus said to his disciples,
"Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom
of heaven.
To live as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven
is to live
the values of the beatitudes,
it is to learn to see the grace and action of God in the
present,
rather than
to long for a more powerful and glorious future.
The kingdom is with us here-and-now
through
acts of love, forgiveness and justice,
and it teaches us to take the ordinary things of our world
and see
within them the mysteries of heaven,
so that the heavenly perspective informs and infuses
the way we
then live day by day.
I bet Jesus’ followers never looked at a mustard tree,
with birds
in its branches, in the same way again;
because Jesus had opened their eyes
to the fact
that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.
And I wonder how we can learn to see the kingdom of God
in the
ordinary things of our world?
Can we learn to set aside for a moment,
our desire
for success, strength, and power,
and find
the not-yet in the here-and-now?
Can we resist the lure of the Cedar Tree,
and
discover the miracle of the mustard tree?
Can we find eternity
in each
insignificant moment?
Can we learn to associate the familiar things of our world
with the
mysteries of heaven
in such a way that we will live differently
from today
onwards?
So, as we turn towards bread and wine,
ordinary
things of this world
which are
made eternal in Christ,
My invitation to you is to begin to write your own parable,
choosing
something from your world,
and finding in it the mysteries of heaven.
There’s a space on the back of your order of service
for you to
write your parable.
If you want to, please tear it off and put it in the
offertory plate later,
or to give
it to me, or email it to me.
I’ll be coming back to these at our anniversary Sunday in
July
when we
look at the parable of the yeast.
And I’d love for us to hear from each other,
some
parables of the kingdom of heaven.
So, what is the kingdom of heaven like, for you…?
[1]
This sermon draws on the Eerdman’s Commentary on the Bible p.651,
and Snodgrass Parables.
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