We are weed - and that’s no joke!
Sermon on Ezekiel 17:22-24 and Mark 4:26-34
Let me tell you a joke: A young couple purchased an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans to turn it into a thriving organic enterprise. The fields were grown over with weeds, the farmhouse was falling apart, and the fences were broken down.
The village vicar stopped by to bless the family’s work, saying, “May you and God work together to make this the farm of your dreams!”
A few months later, the preacher stops by again to call on the young farmers. He couldn’t believe his eyes. The farmhouse was completely rebuilt and in excellent condition, there were plenty of cattle and other livestock happily munching on feed in well-fenced pens, and the fields were filled with crops planted in neat rows. “Amazing!” the preacher says. “Look what God and you have accomplished together!”
“Yes, Vicar,” said the farmer’s wife, “but remember what the farm was like when God was working it alone!”
Everybody loves a good laugh over a good joke, right? And a good joke always holds some truth, hides it between laughter, keeps it a secret to those unable to hear the truth. Which is why fools were known to be the only ones allowed to say the truth out loud around a sovereign without being punished. One could always just claim the truth to be a bad or innocent joke, inwardly knowing that it wasn’t.
And so, jokes have always been a coping mechanism of survival. A funny way to voice one’s concerns and critique. A code language understood by like-minded people, indicating a sense of belonging. It’s a great test. If you can’t laugh at the same jokes with someone, you are probably not on the same page in many regards.
Unsurprisingly, dictatorships often don’t enjoy jokes by their subjects. While the best jokes are being told among the oppressed. Jokes, that to an outsider might sound silly, but to the insider bring tears to their eyes from laughing so hard. From the relief of laughing at what is hardly bearable. Yet, beware of the wrong ears overhear you or the wrong person lays eyes on it. Then you are in trouble. So many have been jailed and killed for innocently provocative jokes. Because to a dictator, no provocation is ever innocent or funny. There are stories out there about how secret agents in the German Democratic Republic fraternized with teenagers, laughing at their stories, encouraging them to tell jokes about the regime – just to jail them on the spot. It happened to uncles of mine who were just lucky enough to be released after some hours of great fear. They never told jokes the same way again in public.
In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us a joke cloaked in a parable. It’s basically a very well-hidden joke. Because parables can be tricky even without a pun intended. They are Jesus’ mysterious way of teaching. Which is kind of the point of it. Parables are enigmatic and mysterious, incomprehensible to “those outside,” but whose “secret” Jesus shares with his disciples.
Why? Jesus wants to draw us in. From afar, these stories seem cryptic, but as we approach them for a closer look, their treasures come into view. Even though, often they remain a little cryptic even for the scholar. I like to think of it as Jesus’ way to make sure that preachers will always have a job and that people don’t stop debating the bible. I mean, who rereads a book that has one simple message from the beginning to the end? I usually stop reading those books halfway through and if the story is interesting enough, I just check if someone has already turned it into a movie. It’s a faster way to find out who loves whom in the end.
Just as a stained-glass window is dull and lifeless when viewed from the street, but vibrantly alive with color when viewed from inside the sanctuary, Jesus’ parables are contemplative spaces, evocative puzzles, riddles that beckon us closer. Closer to Jesus, that is — to hear the “secrets” they simultaneously suggest and conceal.
Ok, so here is the joke of the day by Jesus himself. “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
How hard did you laugh?? Ok, you have to be an insider to understand it. And you all are insiders thanks to the first reading you heard today. The one from Ezekiel. Where Ezekiel talks about how Israel will grow from a small sprig into something grand and majestic like a noble cedar. So big and beautiful that in the shade of its branches birds will nest. It’s the promise and imagery of a splendid future, filled with wealth and joy and power. Cedars were considered the trees of kings, the redwoods of the holy land. From their wood temples and castles were built.
So if you were a proud young Israelite in Jesus' day, you would have known this story, and felt good about its image. Israel is depicted as a mighty cedar tree which grows from a tiny cutting, planted by the Lord. This mighty cedar stands proudly on top of a mountain and its great branches provide shelter for any number of birds. Israel then is seen as strong and dominant and a place of blessing and refuge for all the world. Something to be proud of. Something to make every Israelite feel good about themselves and their nation.
Sounds somehow familiar, doesn’t it? To hope that one day all the efforts, hardship, and work will be redeemed and rewarded. That the promises of land and wealth are awaiting in the future. That one day, others will seek shade and shelter and protection under their branches. It’s a great dream to have, a dream that might keep people going in their struggles, might give them hope to keep trying.
And here, Jesus comes, making fun of it. With the parable of the mustard seed. It’s a joke we usually miss for two reasons. Firstly, it was a controversial joke even at the time; so much so that some of the other recorded version of it change it to eliminate the joke and make it more straightforward. And secondly, it is one of those jokes that is culturally specific so it doesn't translate very easily. It is a bit like you all joking on a Wednesday night at social hour while I try to quickly google what the heck you might be talking about. Of course, then one of you will be gracious enough to explain the joke to me. But a joke that needs explanation is anything but funny.
The story Jesus tells is just similar enough that everyone would have known what story he was playing with. But he has scrambled it. There is a twinkle in Jesus’ eye here, a gleam of mischief.
Instead of being like a cutting from a cedar tree, the Kingdom of God is compared to a mustard seed. A mustard seed, as Jesus and his listeners would have known, is not the smallest of seeds, but more importantly, it doesn't grow into a mighty tree like a cedar. On the contrary, it grows into a shrub. So, when the familiar story demands a mighty tree, Jesus twists it and gives us a shrub that is considered a weed. And his image of the shrub putting out big branches that the birds can nest is deliberately bizarre.
In the ancient Near East, most farmers would have considered mustard to be an invasive weed. In fact, because it spreads quickly by sending out shoots underground, it can take over a garden or a field; accordingly, farmers would typically avoid it or root it out, never mind intentionally sowing it. This is no “noble cedar.” The kingdom of God, Jesus subversively suggests, may very well upset the ordered, conventional status quo. It spreads swiftly, invisibly, often underground. It’s wilder than “noble,” more undomesticated weed than domesticated crop. It’s subversive.
This joking parable stands as something of a jovial warning to those who would follow Jesus. Do not be under the illusion that what you are joining is the biggest tree on the highest mountain. Do not imagine that the world will stand and admire the tree in whose branches you have made your home. Do not imagine to be popular when hanging out with the unhoused or the ill or the immigrants. Do not think that this path is an easy one, leading to fame and honor in the eyes of the world.
On the contrary, what you are joining will mostly be seen as weak and stunted. It will be seen as insignificant alongside the powers and dominions that shape our world and call the shots. And what's more, it will be seen as an undesirable nuisance and a noxious weed. The world and its dominant cultures will rightly see that the culture of God threatens to infest them and displace them. The cultures that are built on greed and consumption, and violence and coercion, will not welcome this threat. They will seek to eradicate it. The culture of God is founded on the life, death, and resurrection of one who was eradicated as a dangerous weed. And so it invites us to see the world through the eyes of the victim of an eradication. To embrace as siblings all those who the dominant cultures would seek to eradicate and rid themselves of. We now see all as those who are loved by God and chosen to be God's beloved servants, and if the world regards us all as weeds, so be it.
The reign of God is like that, a little thing made noble and grand, where birds come to nest in its shade. But what might look grand to us, might just be a weed to the world. Like mustard, that humble plant, that speck of a seed that can swallow a field, or take over a garden. Yes! The kingdom of God is like that… A joke to many, a weed even. An annoyance, reminding the world of God’s love. And, ineradicable. Because we are weed. Even holy weed. Amen.
