Been thinking about how the Kingdom grows lately. These thoughts have mostly come from my readings in Jesus for President and my aggravation with some poison ivy that’s sprouted up in our backyard.  Jesus says that Kingdom growth a lot like a mustard tree.

I hear that Jews were not too fond of mustard trees.  There were actually Jewish laws against them being planted in gardens.  The reason why is that they essentially took over the area, planting and sprouting and generally being a nuisance.  Those stubborn little bushes would pop up and ruin all the plans and purposes the farmer had for the garden.  No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stop those tiny little seeds from spreading and getting into your garden!

Growing up, I always heard nice sermons about the remarkable power of a mustard seed - tiny as it is, growing into a giant redwood or something.  The only problem is, when you actually look at a mustard tree, its pretty scraggly.  Check out this mustard “tree” below that is busting out of some concrete in Bethany:

This insidious viral plant spreads like wildfire and is under no one’s control.  It breaks all kinds of rules about how plants are supposed to behave.  And what’s more - the fowl are supposed to take refuge in its branches!  This is not the cedars of Lebanon that Israel hoped the Kingdom of God would produce.  This looks more like a renegade sleeper cell just waiting to spread its potent seeds of destruction all over your lawn - and attract and house the worst kind of flying beasts - the kind that poop all over your car and hang out with the wrong crowd.

If we think about the Kingdom of God as Jesus taught about it, what might change in how we live as followers of Christ?  It might mean we see growth as slow and insignificant - rather than splashy and impressive.  It might mean that we are not just on earth to be “nice” to everyone and everything, but rather to help upend and nonviolently overthrow the prevailing systems that dominate and oppress humanity and creation.  Maybe it means we spread like a disease, or a terrorist group, or a clan of starfish. (an earlier post on that here).

The neat thing about mustard seeds is how potent they are!  But you have to crush them up for them to be of any use.  The Anabaptists used to talk about how everything on earth finds its purpose through suffering.  The delicious lettuce you eat in your salad started as a seed in the ground, and grew slowly to produce a head.  It was picked, shipped, and carried to your dinner table, where you rip it apart, cut it into pieces, and then grind at it down till it is no more.  And yet, if you hadn’t done that, the lettuce’s purpose in life would have been in vain.  What if the Christian’s purpose is not so much different from that lettuce, or that mustard seed?  What if Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was not just a one-time event for our esoteric sins, but actually provided an avenue and a model for us to experience our greatest purpose in life?

Jesus moves beyond mustard to talk about yeast mixed into dough, weeds mixed in with wheat, good and junky fish of all kinds mixed up in a net…all stuff that is a recognizable annoyance in the lives of his audience. It’s interesting that Jesus waits till the end (of time) to call out what is the weed and what is the wheat.

To the some, the mustard-tree Kingdom looks like a weed - to Christ, to the world, and to the marginalized, it is the bread of heaven!

I am back to reading the life of the Messiah Jesus. It is so full of rich, political overtones. I am so thankful to be reading this text now in an election year, as I’m considering the major shifts this country and world are undergoing. I am ready to expand my imagination on who Jesus was in his day, and who he is in this day. He was called “Lord” when Cesar was “Lord,” but today in this country might Jesus be known as the “Commander in Chief”? He certainly seems to cause chaos and fears of revolution even on the cusp of his birth. Herod the Great, the Roman’s puppet King for the area, was troubled, as was the whole city of Jerusalem, when the wise men of Persia came to Herod to see and worship his newest son and next king of the Jews. The only problem was, Herod had not just had a child; which confused and troubled everyone present. I can imagine Herod thinking, “Who is this so-called King? Where is he? If he is allowed to live, he will be a threat to me and my dynasty.”

Joseph and Mary smuggle Jesus out of town just before the infanticide of a terrified Herod. After crossing bandit and desert country, they arrive as refugees in Egypt, and stay there until Herod’s rule is past. The writer Matthew eloquently connects this with the fulfilled prophecy, “Out of Egypt, I will call my son.”

“Come out,” is used all over the Bible as a rallying cry to Israelites who draw back on the imagery of the Exodus. In Jesus’ life and times in Egypt, and his leaving, he is participating in the largest mythos of the Israelite people. Only Jesus turns their common narrative on its head. Now the oppressive regime is not in Egypt, but in the Holy Land of Bethlehem. The very city of David of which Jesus is a descendant and rightful heir to the throne, is now calling for his blood. Israel, co-opted with the Roman Empire under Herod, has become the evil Egypt in the fullest sense. Jesus’ Promised Land is in exile - living in Egypt as a refugee. Jesus’ return to Israel several years later brings him back as a special ops agent of God. Still a young child, Jesus returns to the flock of Israel as the Anointed One, prepared to reinterpret their history as the people of God on his own terms, and prepared to address the “Egypt” of Rome under which all Israelites were afflicted. He brought a message that was not “spiritualized” “privatized” or “apolitical.”

Jesus was not interested in violently overthrowing the pervasive Roman regime as were so many contemporary zealots and revolutionaries of his day. Nor was he going to, like the Essenes, retreat to the hinterlands and set up a new society completely “off the grid.” His plan was to be subordinate to and then creatively subvert the laws, and paradigms of Roman authority, Jewish Priestly authority, and even his own diverse followers. He came proclaiming another Kingdom that was intriguing, much like Martin Luther King’s dream, it was so real and yet seemed so far from the current reality. It would take trust in this crazy Jesus to follow him out of the Matrix and into a new world where there was “enough for everyone’s need by not enough for everyone’s greed.”

Jesus was a revolutionary. He brought a message that spoke to the political issues of the day, and offered an alternative. To some it seemed foolish, to many it seemed dangerous. But to a few it seemed like the only chance at a life of complete peace from all the tumult of high gas prices, outsourced slavery, broken families, a war with no end, abortion, and the crisis of immigration.

The events surrounding his birth set him on a course to become an “enemy of the state” before he could even walk. His life, and his death was a statement against the path of empires and corporations - the bottom line and the bloodshed of desperately grabbing at power and fighting to hold on to it. Jesus’ message wasn’t, and isn’t, a message relegated to the “self-help” or “religion” section of the bookstore. It impacts every aspect of our lives.

An inspiring “money drop” on Wall Street from some inspiring brothers and sisters in Christ.

What if another world is possible???

From the Irresistible Revolution:

“Too often we do what makes sense to us and ask God to bless it.  In the Beatitudes, God tells us what God blesses - the poor, the peacemakers, the hungry, those who mourn, those who show mercy - so we should not ask God’s blessing on a declaration that we will have no mercy on evildoers.  We know all to well that we have a God who shows mercy on evildoers, for if he didn’t we’d all be in big trouble, and for that this evildoer is very glad.  Rather than do what makes sense to us and ask God’s blessing, we’d do better to surround ourselves with those whom God promises to bless, and then we need not ask God’s blessing.  It’s just what God does.”

He’s talking to America when he says, “we should not ask God’s blessing on a declaration that we will show no mercy to evildoers.”  How many times have you seen God’s name associated with the political agendas of this nation?  Or of this world?  “God bless America!”  “God bless this nation!”  Did you know that people in Iraq look at what those in our government leading the war in Iraq and call them “Christian extremists”?  I’m thankful thaht so far they haven’t written all of the Christian faith off over such insanity! Whatever happened to Christians following a Prince of Peace?

Maybe the answer to this nationalistic religion which breeds violence of the foreigner (whether Muslim or Christian) is learning to begin following the Way of Christ.  His teachings on God’s propensity to blessing the poor, the peacemakers, the hungry, etc. is closer than we think to a simple yet profound strategy for world peace.  When we stop following our own “God-blessed” propositions and begin getting to know those whom God has already blessed (see the above list), we begin to discover the mighty ways of God’s Kingdom.

See, American Christians can be so turned around that they read books like the Prayer of Jabez and conclude that God wants to bless them with tons of money and success.  I don’t think Wilknson (the author) necessarily saw how people were going to take his book.  It just tells me that we think that we know better than Jesus does what God should bless.  “It shoure ain’t the poor, cuz that’s what I am now, and I don’t feel blessed!”

Feeling poor?  Down and out?  You are not far from the Kingdom of God.  Feeling distant from God?  Head downtown, look down the alleys; you might find him there.  Head to Iraq as a peacemaker (not a peacekeeper, Clint Eastwood!).  Give away your lunch to someone who hasn’t seen one in days, comfort someone grieving…you’ll find that God and his blessing is not far from any one of us.
Next to the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Does she sound American anymore?

Today is a day of remembrance. It is easy to try to push past the hard memories to focus on the superficiality of the day’s urgent to-do’s, but there is something much deeper to reflect on in the human psyche today. What happened 5 years ago this morning was a nation-wide shift in focus and paradigm. Now violence and acts of war no longer happened “out there” but the local reality of terror was made tangible for every American.

Our lives become busy so quickly. We hardly pause for a second to consider the circumstances of our fellow countrymen who died because they chose to go to work that day, and others who died saving them. So quickly we return to “business as usual”, when just a few short years ago we were utterly abhorred at the terrorist’s horrific offense.

I was a freshman at ACU at the time. I was sitting in Speech Class, and I had just given a persuasive speech about the necessities of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich WITHOUT getting PB in the jelly or jelly in the PB (that’s an important tip to remember if you ever want to have friends invite you over for a snack ever again). Our teacher had left the room during one of the speeches, and was gone for several minutes after the student had taken his seat. With a terrified, halting voice, our teacher reported that a commercial airplane had just hit one of the twin towers in New York City, and that many people had died. He admitted that he knew nothing more, and then dismissed our class.

Of course, we all left in a hurry, looking at each other with curious expressions on our faces. I got back to my dorm, and turned on the TV just in time to watch an airplane crash into the second tower. I thought there must have been some sort of mistake – I saw the plane go into the tower, but the other tower was burning and crashing to the ground!?! What was going on here? Then it dawned on me, as it did for every American that morning: this is no accident.

Many months and years have passed since that morning. But I will never forget the attitude of the nation, and even the world, as the day’s events unfolded. Fear, anger, and rumors spiraled like a whirlwind in my own heart, as well as in the hearts of our campus, and our nation. It was a crisis for an entire people, who for a time began to turn their hearts again toward God. What might have happened if there had been wide scale repentance on America’s part? Would it have made a difference in our world and war in Iraq today? Does God still work that way?

Where were YOU when you heard the news 5 years ago? Where was God?