I used to live out in the country, in rural North Carolina, six miles from any road that was over 2 lanes. The land changed elevation frequently and there were no leaves on the trees in winter. I could see one neighbor’s house. Other things were different too. Opossums, deer, wild turkeys, racoons, coyotes, hawks, owls, groundhogs, squirrels, rabbits, skunks, mice and snakes were all seen in my yard, not to mention, I am pretty sure, I had a run in with a bear. The thing is, when you are out and away and remote from neighbors, you don’t always find dogs on leashes or some farm animals in pens or fences, and that’s where our story starts. We had some neighbors that had three goats that didn’t have a fence, so they pretty much lived in our yard. That really wasn’t a problem, but of course it was kind of unsettling when I was sitting at my computer with my back to the window that opened out onto the front porch. I was just sort of vegging out, leaned back and comfortable with my head a few inches from the glass. Somewhere deep within us, our animal instincts still remain because, despite my distraction with playing a game, something wasn’t right. I got that feeling that animals must get when they somehow sense a predator. I didn’t have fear or foreboding, just that I needed to check my surroundings. Well, I could see the whole room I was in, so I turned to the window and…***. Right there, inches from my face, staring intently at me, was one of the goats. Was I surprised and caught off guard. Well, those goats and chickens in my yard weren’t problems until they were. They began to live on my porch and made it impossible for my own dog to be outside in my own yard. Oh, and they left their calling cards in very inconvenient places. But actually, the real problem came when they wandered up the hill to our next closest neighbor’s yard and ate their prized rose garden. So, things are cute and tolerable until they mess up our garden or disrupt the order of our lives. Guess what the Gospel is about today. Ok, so we get totally stoked*** by the first lesson and the psalm talking about greenery and succulence, palm trees, cedars and fruit-bearing. Sounds awesome. Then we hear a parable from another culture and place in the Gospel. Sounds like a tiny seed and little effort yields a massive tree and we envision singing birds and the smell of summer rain or something like that. In reality that seed is not that small and the mustard “tree” to which the parable is referring is not really massive but is really invasive, stubborn and difficult to control. You don’t sow this type of mustard seed so Jesus is up to something. For an orderly garden you fight against weeds. Also what’s with the birds? Sounds very idyllic and tranquil to us, but if you are trying to grow food you invest in shiny foil pans on sticks and scarecrows to keep the birds away. Let’s bring this parable into the culture of South Florida. With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a like the seeds from a melaleuca tree, ***which, when sown upon the ground, seems like no big deal; yet when it is sown, it grows up it and spreads like crazy and affects everything around it, and it puts forth branches, so that the iguanas, cane toads and pythons have places to live.” Now this parable is constructed to grab our attention, not as scientific or biological fact, so by the way alligators would probably live there too. The melaleuca is invasive and changes the environment drastically by itself while, in the parable, also sheltering all sorts of undesirable and invasive critters. So, there you go. That’s what the Kingdom of God is like. That’s not the version I heard in Sunday School, but my goodness! Think of the ramifications of this parable! ***Think of how hard people work to direct and control their gardens. Think of the pesticides, herbicides, traps and devices, the pruning and snipping, mowing and weeding. We like order. We desire control. We want it a certain way with certain results. But the Kingdom of God? It’s an uncontrollable plant that will keep spreading like crazy offering sanctuary to undesirable wildlife. All in all, it’s going to threaten the aesthetic of our wordly garden and what we have worked so hard to create. Ok, so hold that thought for a moment, and let’s go over to a bird feeder. *** We used to have a little plastic barn on the end of a cord hanging from a tree where we could see it from our kitchen window. It was filled with bird seed. Ok, so evidently here, birds are good. But here’s the thing. Squirrels. I have watched a lot of bird feeders. I’ve watched squirrels do this cool ninja thing where they slide head first down a long, thin metal wire to sit on a bird feeder and eat seeds, jump long distances to avoid the “anti-squirrel” dome or pan to land on feeders that are on poles, and my personal favorite to watch, the squirrel take a running start up the tree, launch itself backwards at the hanging feeder, do a mid flight roll, grab the feeder and cause the feeder to swing up almost horizontal to the ground and ride it back and forth a few times, all the while spilling all sorts of crazy seed on the ground where his or her squirrel friends are waiting, then drop off to the ground to eat in peace as friends. It’s a bird feeder. My garden is to feed me. My porch is for my swing and little table and cushions and plants. *** We partition it off and organize it and decide who’s worthy of what and where stuff belongs, or at least those who have the means to root out the undesirable stuff and control the space do. But that’s not how the Kingdom of God is, and Jesus came to establish that kingdom. The Kingdom of God is not just about the church you attend or the “thoughts and prayers” for those in trouble. It’s about having enough to eat, a place to find sanctuary, a place to rest and feel safe, a place of justice all above some worldly perspective of garden guardians and gatekeepers that define resources as theirs alone because they managed to root all the undesirable stuff and build a wall around it. The kingdom of God is a crazy bush. When it gets that one small seed in, look out,*** your order and control don’t mean squat. That’s why Jesus was crucified, proclaiming stuff that scared and shook people to the core, because we would prefer it, though we profess to not like rules and regulations, for it to be simple and orderly and under our control. Look around us in the world. Does it resemble the Kingdom of God. It’s not supposed to be some far away, gloryland sweet by and by place, It’s supposed to start here. We are supposed to be building it, planting it , sowing those little seeds. We are told that sin, death and evil have been ultimately conquered by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is absolutely true, but we are in an in between time, a time marked by militant patience, that is a time of waiting, but all the time working feverishly to accomplish and build the kingdom. You don’t have to look far to see an example of the in between. Pretty much since the beginning of the written history of this country, human beings were brought to these shores and sold as chattel or slaves. On September 22, 1862 Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. So that declared victory and freedom, but wait, it didn’t become effective until January 1, 1863. So then? No. More and more slaveholders migrated to Texas from eastern states out of the reach of the Union Army, and they brought enslaved people with them. By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. Despite the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, not until the morning of Monday, June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived on the island of Galveston, Texas to enforce the emancipation of its slaves and read the order that informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves were free. Even then, there were still pockets of slavery. Even still, its legacy echoes to this day. But the 19th of June or Juneteenth has been set aside as a day of celebration, a day to celebrate actualized freedom, a jubilee. So we lift up advancements and victories and pause to look deep within our hearts. The victory of God’s Kingdom has been declared, but are we marching to Galveston? Or are we digging up the mustard trees? Are we living with a vigorous ***militant patience? Are we putting up the bird feeders and squirrel feeders and going outside to meet the goat that finds you interesting enough to stare at? It’s not about our comfort and satisfaction with the way the garden looks or protecting what we perceive as our resources. Let’s face it, we are all birds. We are all goats, iguanas, cane toads, and pythons and maybe even dare to dream, one of those crazy squirrels that runs up the tree, soars and in one glorious and spectacular moment knocks the seeds free so that others may be fed and you know what? We are all welcome in God’s Kingdom.
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