The Image of God
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For June 13, 2021:
The Image of God
by Bethany Peerbolte
Psalm 20
In the Scripture
This psalm is a general blessing for God’s people to feel truly connected and supported by God. The psalmist wished for God to hear distress and remember all the offerings previously given. They hope God will send help and protection in an hour of need. The blessing is an affirmation of the partnership and covenant God has with humanity. God has promised to protect and bless and the people bring joyful offerings. When things get tough the people can cry out to God and be ready for help to be on the way.
The second half of this psalm is the assurance God’s people can rest on. They can be sure God gives victory to the anointed and sends the victorious power to aid the people. The foolishness of those to rely on their earthly equipment is pointed out. When it comes time to fight some say chariots will win the day or the ones with the best horses, but God’s people know it is only God who can give the victory.
The word “nazkir” in verse seven is translated several ways across English translations. Some will say those who “trust” their chariots while others say “boast of” and still others use “take pride in” when translating this word. These translations cast a quite different understanding around what is happening. It could be that some put all their trust in their equipment to win the battles. This may be foolish because without a strong team and skill set the equipment is a pile of metal. “Nazkir” could be referencing how some people boast about their ability and team and forget to give God credit for the partnership. It could also be referring to a false sense of pride people can feel in the things they surround themselves with and lose sight of God.
All these translations say something slightly different, and none of them line up with its root word which is “zakar” — in English “remember.” Remember feels like an entirely different world of meaning compared to pride or trust. We associate remembering with sacraments most often in the church. The are gentle reminders of big moments in our tradition. Rituals remind us of something bigger than ourselves and in that way finding a space to trust and take pride in those rituals takes our remembrances to a deeper place.
Remembering is largely what this psalm is asking us to do. It also asks God to remember as well. It asks God to remember the offerings that have been given and the promises that have been made by God. Remember, God, you are the one who promised to protect us and hear us when we cry out. Remember, we have given offerings of thanks and joy for your faithfulness in the past and we will do so again if we are rescued now. In asking God to remember, the psalmist also reminds us to give those offerings, to make those petitions, and to remember the times God has been faithful in the past.
Together in remembering we learn to trust each other, us and God, together and become stronger partners through the remembering. The connection becomes so strong that we can take pride in our God who is faithful. We can trust that the partnership is worthy. We can boast in a thing that is tested and sure to win us the victory. Remembering turns to assurance.
In the News
June is Pride month. This time of year celebrates the progress people in the LGBTQIA+ community have made to gain their human rights and celebrate their community and support systems. If it looks like there are a few more letters than you last checked, rest easy, it is still okay to say “LGBTQ” meaning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning. The additional letters “I” stands for intersex and “A” stands for asexual. The “+” has been added for others who use different labels and are still part of the community. Each group has a special striped flag to identify who they are. This article gives a great overview of the most popular and their meaning and history.
Pride was actually started to commemorate the raid of a gay bar in New York and the riots that broke out after the police brutality of the raid. On June 28, 1969 people fought back against the harassment that was becoming commonplace during raids of gay establishments. Anyone who was perceived to be wearing too “feminine” of clothing by the police were abused and arrested. This history has sparked a new debate around this year’s Pride event planning tables. Many are saying police should not be allowed to be at Pride because many departments still terrorize their communities.
The push back comes from the corporations who spend millions of dollars supporting the events. They want police to be present to protect the property and investment they put into the events. Corporations are also not winning a lot of favor within the LGBTQIA+ community. In mid May corporations began launching their Pride collections. Shirts, cups, dog costumes, burrito specials, iced coffee drinks... all suddenly had a very colorful twist about them. Major corporations slap rainbows onto anything they can to win the money of Pride revelers. Unfortunately, most of the collections did not also come with any real support. Very few promised to make donations to LGBTQ charities and many of the collections were downright ugly.
These issues have caused some to decide Pride is no longer a safe space. While the debate about what should be allowed at Pride is long standing, the development of massive corporation takeovers and police presence has killed the joyful energy. Pride is meant to be the place where one feels like one belongs when the world is a space that insists that you do not. With the world pressing in more and more every year, the future of Pride is at risk. Somehow we will need to get back to the essence of what Pride is meant to be.
In the Sermon
The name “PRIDE” can immediately set off the Christian majority. Shouts of it being a deadly sin echo around comment sections. A concept not in the Bible but we are more than happy to let that slide if it demonizes our favorite group of “sinners” to hate. Then on Pride Sunday, no less, we get a psalm lifting up the idea of pride, at least if you read the NRSV, it does. “Our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” If one understands the root of what Pride events are then it is clear that this is what our LGBTQ siblings are doing. They are taking pride in the image of God they have been gifted with.
If you have not left the theology of homosexuality as sin yet I highly recommend The Biblical Case presented by The Reformation Project. The contributors do wonderful exegetical work on all the verses that have been used to create the theology against homosexuality. Kathy Baldock also presents a thorough look at the development of homosexuality throughout history and in the Bible in the YouTube video called “Untangling the Mess.” My quick summary of these resources is that the Bible speaks about sexual behaviors in situations where power is vastly imbalanced and our understanding of homosexuality today is that it can be between two power balanced individuals whose basic nature is to be attracted to the same sex.
This understanding of homosexuality, which is supported by decades of science, takes gender and sexuality and puts them into one’s identity. Identity that is made in God’s image according to scripture. As affirming Christians, we can then look at Pride as a celebration of a section of God’s image that gets pushed to the margins. I can attest that I have never seen a purer expression of the fruits of the Spirit than when I went to my first Pride celebration. God is there, and God’s image is being celebrated.
The part of Pride that is being threatened is the authentic remembering. Just like our psalm encourages us to remember our connection to God and to one another as a community of God, people at Pride need to remember their history. They need to keep telling the stories of Stonewall, where they fought back against oppressive authorities. They need to be free to express themselves without corporations dictating what is fashionable. Pride in its purest sense is Psalm 20 alive and active.
Pride at its core is a time for people to cry out to God about the oppression and pain they have suffered. They have the right to hear God respond with powerful rescue. Our LGBTQIA+ siblings have the right to feel a sense of sanctuary for at least a few hours as they walk around with fellow siblings. They need to remember the sacrifices they have made — as well as the families that refuse to remember them and the self-worth that has been rebuilt from nothing. This is the time to lift the banners, the rainbow banners, the trans banners, the ace banners, and remember who God has made us to be. A month to take pride in the image of God we contain and the freedom to express it into the world.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Uprooting Evil
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 4:26-34
In the Scriptures
Earlier in chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel, before today’s pericope, Jesus said this to his disciples:
To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’ (Mark 4:11-12, NRSV)
In the latter portion of that passage, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10. Why would God and Jesus be intentionally obscure? It is as though Jesus came to sow confusion and discord rather than grace and love. Yet parables are supposed to be simple, memorable stories that illustrate a larger, perhaps moral, truth.
The Greek word παραβολή is the root of the English word “parable.” The latter part of the word, βολή, means “throwing” and the prefix, παρα, means “alongside.” One way to understand the use of parables is to cast them down next to your life and see how you measure up, how your life compares, to the parable. Parables require some investment on the part of those hearing them. Parables, unlike fables, do not have morals or tidy summaries of the tale (or takeaways.) Parables require their readers to connect the dots and Jesus, having picked about the 12 most obtuse men in first century Palestine to be his inner circle, spent a lot of time connecting dots for his disciples. (Remember Willem Dafoe in the “The Last Temptation of Christ,” saying unto his disciples “I’m the farmer!”?)
The two parables in today’s reading are commonly misunderstood, in my opinion. Both compare “the kingdom of God” to something else. In the first parable the kingdom of God is to be compared to a field in which someone broadcast seed. Without any effort from the one who tossed the seed, the earth produces grain. My takeaway from this parable is that the kingdom of God is not something anyone has worked for, but something we are all dependent on. The kingdom of God is also not a place, but a process, “first the blade and then the ear….”
A lot of parish ministry is planting seeds. On rare occasions someone will contact their pastor from years ago and remind her of an insight from a sermon or class that they have carried with them for years. The words from years before have taken root and grown into a thought that continues to guide someone’s walk of faith, helping someone grow, even though the preacher/teacher “does not know how.”
In the second parable it is a mustard seed that is compared to the kingdom of God. Jesus is no botanist; he exaggerates when he says the mustard seed is “the smallest of all seeds on the earth;” the honor goes to the orchid seed, 1/300 of an inch. (Thanks, Google.) It is not the mustard plant, which Jesus again mistakenly calls “the greatest of all shrubs.” (Because “greatest” may imply largest or best, it’s not clear what shrub is indeed the greatest. A quick Google search does not show the mustard plant appearing in anyone’s Top 10 list of great shrubs. I’m partial to lilacs, which score pretty high on many lists.) It is not the mustard plant, but the mustard seed, that Jesus compares to the kingdom of God. Perhaps, again, the point is that the kingdom of God is a process, not a place or destination.
In both parables the kingdom of God is presented as ordinary, pedestrian. Could it be near us and we simply do not recognize it?
In the News
Tulsa, Oklahoma marked the centennial of its race massacre on May 31. This comes a year after the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic put racism and its effect on public health into the spotlight. Amid the talk of “Cancel Culture” another buzzword has emerged: “Critical Race Theory.” Some states have outlawed the teaching of Critical Race Theory, even though the legislation that has been passed shows little understanding of CRT.
In Oklahoma, where the state department of education has received no complaints about CRT, the legislature banned it. “The law prohibits educators from teaching concepts that could cause students to feel uncomfortable or responsible for actions their race or sex committed in the past.” No record of critical race theory in Oklahoma schools, official says. The state that is marking the centennial of the massacre prohibits the teaching of concepts that could cause students to feel uncomfortable!
Consider the impact of the Tulsa Massacre, one of many similar massacres in the first decades of the 20th century in the United States: 35 city blocks leveled, up to 300 killed, hundreds more injured. The prosperous neighborhood known as Black Wall Street disappeared in about 12 hours. Wealth, in the form of businesses and homes, that African-Americans had gained through hard work, disappeared and was thus not passed on to subsequent generations. One reason why economic disparity is so intractable is that throughout American history it has been easier for white people to accumulate wealth and pass it on to their children. The cost of the Tulsa Massacre had much more lasting effects than the destruction of property and wealth, it kept the wealth of Black Wall Street from reaching the next generation. Nehemiah Frank, the editor-in-chief of The Black Wall Street Times, says, “Generational wealth — that’s a powerful thing that you get to pass on from one generation to the next. And if it’s disrupted, the generations that follow the disruption are the ones that suffer.”
Suppose racism is a seed. A seed that has been replanted so long it simply grows on its own, without anyone tending it. Perhaps one could also consider generational wealth as a plant that, in the case of the Tulsa Massacre, was uprooted, burned in the fire and never produced fruit for future generations. What conditions would need to be present — to continue the analogies — to uproot racism and replant generational wealth? How could this happen in a society where the people who control the legislature and public schools continue to deny the on-going damage done by systemic racism? In Oklahoma teachers are forbidden to teach any race-related topic that could make students feel uncomfortable. Let’s be clear about that, they’re forbidden to teach facts that might make white students uncomfortable. The reality of White Supremacy and the damage it does to students of color already makes non-majority students much more than uncomfortable. Can American history be taught without mentioning uncomfortable facts? What would a unit on World War II look like without mentioning the D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, rockets falling on London, the flattening of Dresden and Coventry or the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Perhaps we could whitewash the Civil War, rename it “Our recent unpleasantness” and describe it as a struggle for states’ rights. Wait. We did that. We continue to reap the harvest of the seed of “the noble cause,” and the veneration of men who fought a bloody, traitorous war for the right of some people to own other people. Bad idea.
In the Sermon
I grew up in downstate Illinois and went to college in the Chicago area. My first roommate in college grew up in suburban San Francisco. Our first fall term we hardly got off campus, but I took my roommate home for Thanksgiving.
When I was a child the State of Illinois had a tourism campaign whose slogan was “Just outside Chicago, there’s a place called Illinois.” A little south of Bolingbrook, as we left Chicago’s gravitational field, we entered that place called “Illinois.” It was about 150 miles of corn fields broken up only by the occasional soy bean field and creek, which we pronounce “crick,” that we traversed before arriving at my home. My roommate was in something like awe of Illinois’ vast, corn-filled, featureless flatness.
We went to church on Thanksgiving morning as the turkey cooked at home. Of course we sang “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” When we got to the part in the second stanza that goes “First the blade, and then the ear/Then the full corn shall appear,” he thought Peorians were part of an agrarian cult out of a Stephen King novel. (“Children of the Corn,” it was made into a movie, which grew into something of a franchise, though most of the films were released straight to video.)
Even city kids like me in downstate Illinois knew about post-emergent broadleaf herbicides that promised “cleaner beans and bigger yields;” we heard the ads on the local TV news every spring. The culture of agriculture surrounded us.
Our culture continues to reap a harvest of racism. We see it in unequal access to health care, which led to dramatically higher death rates from Covid-19 among people of color. How can we uproot racism? What can we transplant in its place? We cannot be naïve as the farmer was in Jesus’ first parable. We cannot pretend that we don’t know how racism grows. Do we have the courage to uproot it as it grows in our comfortable, middle class, mainline congregations? And if we don’t, who will?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Mark 4:26-34
Inadvertent Watermelons
Indiana produces some of the best, most delicious melons in the entire United States and, when I was growing up there, we often had watermelon for desert or a late evening snack.
My mother had one watermelon rule, however, and that was that it had to be eaten outside on the picnic table where the detritus of the feast could be washed away with a garden hose. One year she put in a small rose garden near the picnic table and all the watermelon seeds were washed unto the well-cultivated, well-fertilized, well-mulched rose bed.
The following year we enjoyed watermelons that grew in the rose bed. Delighted at that outcome, we continued to always throw the seeds there and, for the five years that we lived at that location, we never had to buy a watermelon.
Which was fine as watermelons we grew ourselves somehow always tasted a little better than the ones we purchased.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
KnockOut Roses Resurrected
The north end of our new church parsonage was baren and unadorned. Being the north end of the house I suspected that the cold winds and lack of sunlight at that location prevented most plants from growing, there. Being an avid gardener and amateur landscaper, however, I decided to try to get something to grow there.
The obvious answer was to plant shad loving plants along that end of the house but that felt to me like giving up. That year, 2000, a new kind of rose called the KnockOut Rose was introduced to the market.
Today, the KnockOut is the most popular breed of rose in America with about 90 million currently growing all over the country. It was created by William Radler in his basement, just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where, for fifteen years, he labored alone, patiently nurturing thousands of seedlings under grow lights until the desired result was achieved. Since being introduced 90 million ‘KnockOut’ roses have since been planted across the country.
Five things make them so successful: disease resistance (no black spot or powdery mildew), drought tolerance, cold tolerance, self-cleaning (no dead heading required), and continuous bloom.
Anyway, that spring, I bought four of them and planted them along the north end of the house. For some reason, they didn’t do well. They just sort of withered and failed to thrive. So, the following spring I chopped them out of the ground and planted some fast growing tomatoes that didn’t require much sunlight in their place.
One day when I was weeding my tomato plants I discovered that a few of the things I thought were weeds were, in fact, roses. The tiny root pieces that had been left after I dug the plants up, were actually spouting new plants. Any plant that wants that desperately to live should be given a chance, I said. So I let them grow among my tomatoes.
Today, 2021, those DropOut roses are 3-4 feet tall and still thriving at the north end of that house.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Mustard Plants — Fun Facts
* * * * * *
From team member Mary Austin:
1 Samuel 15:34--16:13
Choosing a Leader
By now, God and Samuel have an understanding, and Samuel listens attentively to God’s instructions about choosing a new king. The sons of Jesse are each rejected in turn, until David appears. The text only notes for us that “he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.” God must see more in David than his good looks, and yet we don’t get to hear what God’s reasons are.
In our own lives, we humans are spectacularly bad at choosing good leaders. Authors Jeffrey Cohn and Jay Moran say that good leaders have seven attributes. Perhaps God and Samuel saw all of those in David.
First on the list is integrity. (This falls apart for David after a while, as it does for many leaders.) “Integrity is the fundamental leadership attribute….Integrity is the fundamental attribute that keeps everything else secure.” Also on the list are empathy, vision, and the ability to lead through conflict. “Leadership means being on the front line of those conflicts. It means facing conflicts, mediating and shaping them, sometimes at the risk of great personal cost or freedom.” Passion is also key. A passionate leader “attracts followers and acts as catalysts for the formation of highly motivated teams.”
Plus, a deep connection to God, and to God’s plans.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Planting Seeds
When one thinks of the power of planting seeds, the name of Wangari Maathai comes instantly to mind. Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,” and Maathai lived that truth fully. “The late Wangari Maathai was a biologist, environmentalist, and the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She was born under British colonial occupation and schooled by Catholic missionaries. But when she looked back on her childhood near the end of her life, she realized her family’s Kikuyu culture had imparted her with an intuitive sense of environmental balance. Maathai was steadfast in her determination to fight for the twin issues of conservation and human rights — and planting trees was a symbol of defiance.”
Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which has contributed to the planting of over 52 million trees. She began by planting a few trees, starting with seven in the city of Nairobi. The seven grew to more and more. Trees are simple, and yet they hold the soil, and contribute to clean water, and offer protection from the elements.
She also recalled, in an interview, the spiritual seeds that were planted in her life in her early education., observing, “if I had, perhaps, not gone to school in a Catholic school, in a school that was run, managed, by sisters, by nuns — at a time when missionaries were really very serious about values — they were very concerned about values and especially the value of service — I think I would probably have turned out to be a different kind of a person. Because for me, as I said earlier, sometimes people don’t have to tell you, “This is what you need to believe in, and this is the value you need to embrace.” You just observe. And when people ask me, “Who are the people who inspired you?” — these are some of the people who actually inspired me, these nuns, that these, at the time, beautiful women, young women — and I remember thinking, now, why did they leave their country to come here? Why didn’t they get married and have families? And, of course, the answer was because they wanted to serve Jesus.”
Seeds — both physical and spiritual — are planted and grow, by God’s grace.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Don’ Stop Planting
In “A Commencement Address Too Honest to Have Been Delivered In Person,” David Brooks addresses the graduating class and tells them to use the pandemic to plant seeds they can use for the rest of their lives. “Don’t worry about where the job you take puts you on any status hierarchy. Our society’s career status hierarchy is in the midst of changing anyway. Instead, try to do something that people will ask you about for the rest of your life. What was it like to work on a fishing boat off of Maine? What was it like to teach at a nursery school for the children of Mexican farmworkers? You’re graduating into an extremely uncertain time. You might as well get a master’s degree in handling uncertainty. If you use the next two years as a random hiatus, you may not wind up richer, but you’ll wind up more interesting.”
He adds that spiritual and mental seed planting is a lifetime’s work. “The biggest way most colleges fail is this: They don’t plant the intellectual and moral seeds students are going to need later, when they get hit by the vicissitudes of life.” He tells the students, “my worry is that, especially now that you’re out of college, you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff. The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit — the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.”
To flourish, we need to keep planting the seeds that will draw us into the future.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Mustard Seeds of Determination
Poet Marilyn Nelson says that the mustard seeds of her family’s story have grown into a flourishing plant that nurtures her when she needs it. Jesus says, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God…It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet 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.”
Nelson recalls, “I came up for early tenure in an almost exclusively white, male English department when my son was about fifteen months old. I was unhappily married, new to the community, and had few friends. Though I had published a book of poems with a major university press, and had poems in several major press anthologies of younger American poets, I had to fight for my life because my colleagues considered poetry inferior to literary criticism. I spent several years writing poems at three a.m. because I had to do class preparations first. I went to the ER several times with heart palpitations caused by stress. Meanwhile, my mother was disappearing into Alzheimer’s disease…I kept thinking if they could live through what they lived through, I can live through a tenure decision. Piece of cake.”
The seeds of purpose and determination are planted by the people in our lives, and wait, ready to be harvested when we most need them.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Going beyond the “spoon test”
Samuel has grown old, and his sons have become an embarrassment. Israel is convinced it needs a new leader, and even God has signed off on the plan. So Samuel goes about the task of searching for Israel’s king — but the initial response is far from encouraging.
Samuel’s search is grounded in discerning God’s leadership, which might be instructive to churches engaged in leadership searches. Some churches employ a version of the spoon test — i.e., hold a spoon under someone’s nose to see if they are breathing. Others make the mistake of thinking a handsome, young man (you read correctly) with a wife and 2.4 children will answer their woes.
For denominations that engage in the call system (as opposed to appointments of pastors), the search process can seem interminably long. Leaders get bogged down, anxious, or overwhelmed. Like Samuel, they may be tempted to choose a leader who is not exactly the person God has in mind.
Vanderbloemen, a Christian leadership search firm, suggests that pastoral search committees often make costly mistakes in conducting pastoral searches. “There’s no such thing as a perfect pastor,” their website advises. “Because we can’t hire Jesus, our pastoral candidates are going to be stronger in some areas over others. It’s important for you pastoral search committee to be on the same page about which characteristics are most important in your next pastor.”
Churches often make similar mistakes in recruiting volunteers. As the Lewis Center for Church Leadership points out, there’s a big difference between recruiting and inviting. “With inviting, our focus should be on the individual. How has God uniquely gifted them? Where are they on the serving pathway? Recruiting focuses on finding someone to fill a job, and inviting focuses on the gifts of the individual. Most people feel great when someone truly notices how they are gifted.”
Sometimes it starts with asking the question Samuel asked Jesse. “Don’t you have anyone else?”
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Mare of the Gospel
Jesus offers two parables about seeds to illustrate the surprising and mysterious nature of the kingdom of God, which sprouts and grows in ways we do not fully understand. In the first, Jesus shares a story about a farmer’s rather haphazard seed planting techniques; in the second, he offers the image of the largeness of God’s kingdom exploding from the tiniest of seeds. Both parables have the feeling and flavor of a whodunnit mystery tale: who caused this? How did it take place?
Fans of the critically acclaimed HBO limited series “Mare of Easttown” will understand the marvelous crafting of a good whodunnit. Like the parables, “Mare of Easttown” is a story built around striking characters and mysterious occurrences. Kate Winslet plays a detective in a small township in the Delaware County region outside of Philadelphia. It’s a small town united by high school sports, lifelong friendships and Rolling Rock beer. The show is a compelling look at the things that hold people together despite failures of both small-town institutions and individuals.
Faced with the mysterious disappearance of one teenage girl and the murder of another, viewers are guided through a plot filled with twists and turn. Like the parables, the ending both surprises and challenges, and offers a taste of forgiveness, grace, and redemptive hope.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Seed shortage?
Jesus’ parable offers an image of a farmer whose undisciplined approach to sowing seeds seems rather unorthodox at best and wasteful at worst. But that farmer might have more difficulty if the parable was taking place in 2021.
The pandemic unleashed a seed and plant shortage that has required better planning among farmers and creativity among landscapers. Part of the shortage represents increased demand from home gardeners whose interest in gardening as a pandemic hobby took root last year.
“The surge in demand provided challenges in managing distribution in a timely manner,” said Kiki Hubbard of the Organic Seed Alliance. “Covid concerns led to restrictions in the workplace as well, which meant these enterprises were working with fewer staff to fulfill sales. As the year comes to an end, companies report that sales are still much higher compared to past years, and so now, inventory concerns loom large.”
Last February, Southern Living called the looming plant shortage the “toilet paper crisis of 2021.” It’s not clear when the crisis will bottom out (go ahead and groan). Writer Steve Bender suggested that landscape wholesalers were looking at widespread shortages in both perennials and annuals across the United States.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
One: God answers us in the day of trouble!
All: The name of the God of Jacob protects us
One: May God grant us our heart’s desire, and fulfill all your plans.
All: May we shout for joy over our victory.
One: Some take pride in symbols of power and violence.
All: Our pride is in the name of our God.
OR
One: God called us forth in the beginning of creation.
All: God continues to call us to become God’s likeness.
One: We have been blessed with the wonder of God’s image.
All: We will share that image by our loving acts of kindness.
One: God’s glory is for all of God’s children.
All: We will help others to know of their value to God and to us.
Hymns and Songs:
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203:
Renew: 47
All People That on Earth Do Dwell
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELW: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
Morning Has Broken
UMH: 145
H82: 8
PH: 469
CH: 53
ELW: 556
W&P: 35
STLT: 38
Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart
UMH: 160/161
H82: 556/557
PH: 145/146
AAHH: 537
NNBH: 7
NCH: 55/71
CH: 15
LBW: 553
ELW: 873/874
W&P: 113
AMEC: 8
Ye Servants of God
UMH: 181
H82: 535
PH: 477
NCH: 305
CH: 110
LBW: 252
W&P: 112
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELW: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
Lord, I want to Be a Christian
UMH: 402
PH: 372
AAHH: 463
NNBH: 156
NCH: 454
CH: 589
W&P: 457
AMEC: 282
Renew: 145
I Am Thine, O Lord
UMH: 419
AAHH: 387
NNBH: 202
NCH: 455
CH: 601
W&P: 408
AMEC: 283
Let There Be Light
UMH: 440
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT: 142
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELW: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
For the Gift of Creation
CCB: 67
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who created us in your own image and likeness:
Grant us the wisdom to take pride in who your made us to be
and not in the vain things we have adorned our lives with;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you created us in your own image and likeness. You made us to reflect your own glory. Help us to remember who we are and to not seek glory in the vanity of this world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways we place pride in things that are passing instead of in things eternal.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken the glory with which you created us and we have tried to replace it with the vanity of this world. We take pride in silly things and ignore the wonder of our creation. Forgive us and renew us so that we may rejoice in the glory you have given us. Amen.
One: God takes pride in our creation and pleasure in our appreciation of it. Give God joy as you reflect more fully the glory of your creation.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O God, because you are the creator of all. You have shared your glory with us and we praise you.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken the glory with which you created us and we have tried to replace it with the vanity of this world. We take pride in silly things and ignore the wonder of our creation. Forgive us and renew us so that we may rejoice in the glory you have given us.
We give you thanks for the wonder of our creation and our place in your heart of love. Your gifts to us are abundant and glorious. You have allowed us to glimpse you love in the care we have received from others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and ask that you would allow us to be part of your loving presence to those in need around us. For those who are distant from us we ask that our prayers and our spirits might join with you and bringing healing and wholeness to all your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Did you ever do anything that you were proud of doing? Learning to tie your shoes or learning to ride a bike? Maybe learning your numbers or your ABCs. Maybe you did something helpful for your parents. These are good things to feel good about but we can always be glad that God made us to be God’s own children. We are all made to reflect the love and wonder of God. We can feel good about that and we can help others feel good about themselves, as well.
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CHILDREN'S SERMONS
What The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Like
by Katy Stenta
Mark 4:26-34
Props: Mustard Seed & Measuring Tape
God says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. The mustard seed grows and grows and grows. First it can reach 6 feet, and then it can be 20 feet tall and 20 feet wide. In perfect conditions it can grow to be 30 feet.
(You can measure out 6 feet. You can also measure out 10 feet and imagine double that, and then 30 feet and imagine double that. Compare it to the size of the mustard seed.)
Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that has grown, so that now it is big enough to house the nests of all kinds of birds.
Who do you think the birds are in this story?
God is assuring us that we do not have to worry about there being enough room for us in heaven. God promises us that even though it will need to be big to accommodate everyone, there will be enough room.
Close your eyes and picture you are a bird. You have built a nest in the tree, there is shelter from the hot sun, there are enough bugs and worms to eat in the tree. You are safe. That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you
For making a place for us
Help us
Make room
For others, too.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
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The Immediate Word, June 13, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- The Image of God by Bethany Peerbolte — Pride at its core is a time for people to cry out to God about the oppression and pain they have suffered. They have the right to hear God respond with powerful rescue.
- Second Thoughts: Uprooting Evil by Tom Willadsen — Our culture continues to reap a harvest of racism. How can we uproot it? What can we transplant in its place?
- Sermon illustrations by Dean Feldmeyer, Mary Austin, Chris Keating.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermons: What The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Like by Katy Stenta.
The Image of Godby Bethany Peerbolte
Psalm 20
In the Scripture
This psalm is a general blessing for God’s people to feel truly connected and supported by God. The psalmist wished for God to hear distress and remember all the offerings previously given. They hope God will send help and protection in an hour of need. The blessing is an affirmation of the partnership and covenant God has with humanity. God has promised to protect and bless and the people bring joyful offerings. When things get tough the people can cry out to God and be ready for help to be on the way.
The second half of this psalm is the assurance God’s people can rest on. They can be sure God gives victory to the anointed and sends the victorious power to aid the people. The foolishness of those to rely on their earthly equipment is pointed out. When it comes time to fight some say chariots will win the day or the ones with the best horses, but God’s people know it is only God who can give the victory.
The word “nazkir” in verse seven is translated several ways across English translations. Some will say those who “trust” their chariots while others say “boast of” and still others use “take pride in” when translating this word. These translations cast a quite different understanding around what is happening. It could be that some put all their trust in their equipment to win the battles. This may be foolish because without a strong team and skill set the equipment is a pile of metal. “Nazkir” could be referencing how some people boast about their ability and team and forget to give God credit for the partnership. It could also be referring to a false sense of pride people can feel in the things they surround themselves with and lose sight of God.
All these translations say something slightly different, and none of them line up with its root word which is “zakar” — in English “remember.” Remember feels like an entirely different world of meaning compared to pride or trust. We associate remembering with sacraments most often in the church. The are gentle reminders of big moments in our tradition. Rituals remind us of something bigger than ourselves and in that way finding a space to trust and take pride in those rituals takes our remembrances to a deeper place.
Remembering is largely what this psalm is asking us to do. It also asks God to remember as well. It asks God to remember the offerings that have been given and the promises that have been made by God. Remember, God, you are the one who promised to protect us and hear us when we cry out. Remember, we have given offerings of thanks and joy for your faithfulness in the past and we will do so again if we are rescued now. In asking God to remember, the psalmist also reminds us to give those offerings, to make those petitions, and to remember the times God has been faithful in the past.
Together in remembering we learn to trust each other, us and God, together and become stronger partners through the remembering. The connection becomes so strong that we can take pride in our God who is faithful. We can trust that the partnership is worthy. We can boast in a thing that is tested and sure to win us the victory. Remembering turns to assurance.
In the News
June is Pride month. This time of year celebrates the progress people in the LGBTQIA+ community have made to gain their human rights and celebrate their community and support systems. If it looks like there are a few more letters than you last checked, rest easy, it is still okay to say “LGBTQ” meaning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning. The additional letters “I” stands for intersex and “A” stands for asexual. The “+” has been added for others who use different labels and are still part of the community. Each group has a special striped flag to identify who they are. This article gives a great overview of the most popular and their meaning and history.
Pride was actually started to commemorate the raid of a gay bar in New York and the riots that broke out after the police brutality of the raid. On June 28, 1969 people fought back against the harassment that was becoming commonplace during raids of gay establishments. Anyone who was perceived to be wearing too “feminine” of clothing by the police were abused and arrested. This history has sparked a new debate around this year’s Pride event planning tables. Many are saying police should not be allowed to be at Pride because many departments still terrorize their communities.
The push back comes from the corporations who spend millions of dollars supporting the events. They want police to be present to protect the property and investment they put into the events. Corporations are also not winning a lot of favor within the LGBTQIA+ community. In mid May corporations began launching their Pride collections. Shirts, cups, dog costumes, burrito specials, iced coffee drinks... all suddenly had a very colorful twist about them. Major corporations slap rainbows onto anything they can to win the money of Pride revelers. Unfortunately, most of the collections did not also come with any real support. Very few promised to make donations to LGBTQ charities and many of the collections were downright ugly.
These issues have caused some to decide Pride is no longer a safe space. While the debate about what should be allowed at Pride is long standing, the development of massive corporation takeovers and police presence has killed the joyful energy. Pride is meant to be the place where one feels like one belongs when the world is a space that insists that you do not. With the world pressing in more and more every year, the future of Pride is at risk. Somehow we will need to get back to the essence of what Pride is meant to be.
In the Sermon
The name “PRIDE” can immediately set off the Christian majority. Shouts of it being a deadly sin echo around comment sections. A concept not in the Bible but we are more than happy to let that slide if it demonizes our favorite group of “sinners” to hate. Then on Pride Sunday, no less, we get a psalm lifting up the idea of pride, at least if you read the NRSV, it does. “Our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” If one understands the root of what Pride events are then it is clear that this is what our LGBTQ siblings are doing. They are taking pride in the image of God they have been gifted with.
If you have not left the theology of homosexuality as sin yet I highly recommend The Biblical Case presented by The Reformation Project. The contributors do wonderful exegetical work on all the verses that have been used to create the theology against homosexuality. Kathy Baldock also presents a thorough look at the development of homosexuality throughout history and in the Bible in the YouTube video called “Untangling the Mess.” My quick summary of these resources is that the Bible speaks about sexual behaviors in situations where power is vastly imbalanced and our understanding of homosexuality today is that it can be between two power balanced individuals whose basic nature is to be attracted to the same sex.
This understanding of homosexuality, which is supported by decades of science, takes gender and sexuality and puts them into one’s identity. Identity that is made in God’s image according to scripture. As affirming Christians, we can then look at Pride as a celebration of a section of God’s image that gets pushed to the margins. I can attest that I have never seen a purer expression of the fruits of the Spirit than when I went to my first Pride celebration. God is there, and God’s image is being celebrated.
The part of Pride that is being threatened is the authentic remembering. Just like our psalm encourages us to remember our connection to God and to one another as a community of God, people at Pride need to remember their history. They need to keep telling the stories of Stonewall, where they fought back against oppressive authorities. They need to be free to express themselves without corporations dictating what is fashionable. Pride in its purest sense is Psalm 20 alive and active.
Pride at its core is a time for people to cry out to God about the oppression and pain they have suffered. They have the right to hear God respond with powerful rescue. Our LGBTQIA+ siblings have the right to feel a sense of sanctuary for at least a few hours as they walk around with fellow siblings. They need to remember the sacrifices they have made — as well as the families that refuse to remember them and the self-worth that has been rebuilt from nothing. This is the time to lift the banners, the rainbow banners, the trans banners, the ace banners, and remember who God has made us to be. A month to take pride in the image of God we contain and the freedom to express it into the world.
SECOND THOUGHTSUprooting Evil
by Tom Willadsen
Mark 4:26-34
In the Scriptures
Earlier in chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel, before today’s pericope, Jesus said this to his disciples:
To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’ (Mark 4:11-12, NRSV)
In the latter portion of that passage, Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6:9-10. Why would God and Jesus be intentionally obscure? It is as though Jesus came to sow confusion and discord rather than grace and love. Yet parables are supposed to be simple, memorable stories that illustrate a larger, perhaps moral, truth.
The Greek word παραβολή is the root of the English word “parable.” The latter part of the word, βολή, means “throwing” and the prefix, παρα, means “alongside.” One way to understand the use of parables is to cast them down next to your life and see how you measure up, how your life compares, to the parable. Parables require some investment on the part of those hearing them. Parables, unlike fables, do not have morals or tidy summaries of the tale (or takeaways.) Parables require their readers to connect the dots and Jesus, having picked about the 12 most obtuse men in first century Palestine to be his inner circle, spent a lot of time connecting dots for his disciples. (Remember Willem Dafoe in the “The Last Temptation of Christ,” saying unto his disciples “I’m the farmer!”?)
The two parables in today’s reading are commonly misunderstood, in my opinion. Both compare “the kingdom of God” to something else. In the first parable the kingdom of God is to be compared to a field in which someone broadcast seed. Without any effort from the one who tossed the seed, the earth produces grain. My takeaway from this parable is that the kingdom of God is not something anyone has worked for, but something we are all dependent on. The kingdom of God is also not a place, but a process, “first the blade and then the ear….”
A lot of parish ministry is planting seeds. On rare occasions someone will contact their pastor from years ago and remind her of an insight from a sermon or class that they have carried with them for years. The words from years before have taken root and grown into a thought that continues to guide someone’s walk of faith, helping someone grow, even though the preacher/teacher “does not know how.”
In the second parable it is a mustard seed that is compared to the kingdom of God. Jesus is no botanist; he exaggerates when he says the mustard seed is “the smallest of all seeds on the earth;” the honor goes to the orchid seed, 1/300 of an inch. (Thanks, Google.) It is not the mustard plant, which Jesus again mistakenly calls “the greatest of all shrubs.” (Because “greatest” may imply largest or best, it’s not clear what shrub is indeed the greatest. A quick Google search does not show the mustard plant appearing in anyone’s Top 10 list of great shrubs. I’m partial to lilacs, which score pretty high on many lists.) It is not the mustard plant, but the mustard seed, that Jesus compares to the kingdom of God. Perhaps, again, the point is that the kingdom of God is a process, not a place or destination.
In both parables the kingdom of God is presented as ordinary, pedestrian. Could it be near us and we simply do not recognize it?
In the News
Tulsa, Oklahoma marked the centennial of its race massacre on May 31. This comes a year after the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic put racism and its effect on public health into the spotlight. Amid the talk of “Cancel Culture” another buzzword has emerged: “Critical Race Theory.” Some states have outlawed the teaching of Critical Race Theory, even though the legislation that has been passed shows little understanding of CRT.
In Oklahoma, where the state department of education has received no complaints about CRT, the legislature banned it. “The law prohibits educators from teaching concepts that could cause students to feel uncomfortable or responsible for actions their race or sex committed in the past.” No record of critical race theory in Oklahoma schools, official says. The state that is marking the centennial of the massacre prohibits the teaching of concepts that could cause students to feel uncomfortable!
Consider the impact of the Tulsa Massacre, one of many similar massacres in the first decades of the 20th century in the United States: 35 city blocks leveled, up to 300 killed, hundreds more injured. The prosperous neighborhood known as Black Wall Street disappeared in about 12 hours. Wealth, in the form of businesses and homes, that African-Americans had gained through hard work, disappeared and was thus not passed on to subsequent generations. One reason why economic disparity is so intractable is that throughout American history it has been easier for white people to accumulate wealth and pass it on to their children. The cost of the Tulsa Massacre had much more lasting effects than the destruction of property and wealth, it kept the wealth of Black Wall Street from reaching the next generation. Nehemiah Frank, the editor-in-chief of The Black Wall Street Times, says, “Generational wealth — that’s a powerful thing that you get to pass on from one generation to the next. And if it’s disrupted, the generations that follow the disruption are the ones that suffer.”
Suppose racism is a seed. A seed that has been replanted so long it simply grows on its own, without anyone tending it. Perhaps one could also consider generational wealth as a plant that, in the case of the Tulsa Massacre, was uprooted, burned in the fire and never produced fruit for future generations. What conditions would need to be present — to continue the analogies — to uproot racism and replant generational wealth? How could this happen in a society where the people who control the legislature and public schools continue to deny the on-going damage done by systemic racism? In Oklahoma teachers are forbidden to teach any race-related topic that could make students feel uncomfortable. Let’s be clear about that, they’re forbidden to teach facts that might make white students uncomfortable. The reality of White Supremacy and the damage it does to students of color already makes non-majority students much more than uncomfortable. Can American history be taught without mentioning uncomfortable facts? What would a unit on World War II look like without mentioning the D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, rockets falling on London, the flattening of Dresden and Coventry or the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Perhaps we could whitewash the Civil War, rename it “Our recent unpleasantness” and describe it as a struggle for states’ rights. Wait. We did that. We continue to reap the harvest of the seed of “the noble cause,” and the veneration of men who fought a bloody, traitorous war for the right of some people to own other people. Bad idea.
In the Sermon
I grew up in downstate Illinois and went to college in the Chicago area. My first roommate in college grew up in suburban San Francisco. Our first fall term we hardly got off campus, but I took my roommate home for Thanksgiving.
When I was a child the State of Illinois had a tourism campaign whose slogan was “Just outside Chicago, there’s a place called Illinois.” A little south of Bolingbrook, as we left Chicago’s gravitational field, we entered that place called “Illinois.” It was about 150 miles of corn fields broken up only by the occasional soy bean field and creek, which we pronounce “crick,” that we traversed before arriving at my home. My roommate was in something like awe of Illinois’ vast, corn-filled, featureless flatness.
We went to church on Thanksgiving morning as the turkey cooked at home. Of course we sang “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” When we got to the part in the second stanza that goes “First the blade, and then the ear/Then the full corn shall appear,” he thought Peorians were part of an agrarian cult out of a Stephen King novel. (“Children of the Corn,” it was made into a movie, which grew into something of a franchise, though most of the films were released straight to video.)
Even city kids like me in downstate Illinois knew about post-emergent broadleaf herbicides that promised “cleaner beans and bigger yields;” we heard the ads on the local TV news every spring. The culture of agriculture surrounded us.
Our culture continues to reap a harvest of racism. We see it in unequal access to health care, which led to dramatically higher death rates from Covid-19 among people of color. How can we uproot racism? What can we transplant in its place? We cannot be naïve as the farmer was in Jesus’ first parable. We cannot pretend that we don’t know how racism grows. Do we have the courage to uproot it as it grows in our comfortable, middle class, mainline congregations? And if we don’t, who will?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:Mark 4:26-34
Inadvertent Watermelons
Indiana produces some of the best, most delicious melons in the entire United States and, when I was growing up there, we often had watermelon for desert or a late evening snack.
My mother had one watermelon rule, however, and that was that it had to be eaten outside on the picnic table where the detritus of the feast could be washed away with a garden hose. One year she put in a small rose garden near the picnic table and all the watermelon seeds were washed unto the well-cultivated, well-fertilized, well-mulched rose bed.
The following year we enjoyed watermelons that grew in the rose bed. Delighted at that outcome, we continued to always throw the seeds there and, for the five years that we lived at that location, we never had to buy a watermelon.
Which was fine as watermelons we grew ourselves somehow always tasted a little better than the ones we purchased.
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Mark 4:26-34
KnockOut Roses Resurrected
The north end of our new church parsonage was baren and unadorned. Being the north end of the house I suspected that the cold winds and lack of sunlight at that location prevented most plants from growing, there. Being an avid gardener and amateur landscaper, however, I decided to try to get something to grow there.
The obvious answer was to plant shad loving plants along that end of the house but that felt to me like giving up. That year, 2000, a new kind of rose called the KnockOut Rose was introduced to the market.
Today, the KnockOut is the most popular breed of rose in America with about 90 million currently growing all over the country. It was created by William Radler in his basement, just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where, for fifteen years, he labored alone, patiently nurturing thousands of seedlings under grow lights until the desired result was achieved. Since being introduced 90 million ‘KnockOut’ roses have since been planted across the country.
Five things make them so successful: disease resistance (no black spot or powdery mildew), drought tolerance, cold tolerance, self-cleaning (no dead heading required), and continuous bloom.
Anyway, that spring, I bought four of them and planted them along the north end of the house. For some reason, they didn’t do well. They just sort of withered and failed to thrive. So, the following spring I chopped them out of the ground and planted some fast growing tomatoes that didn’t require much sunlight in their place.
One day when I was weeding my tomato plants I discovered that a few of the things I thought were weeds were, in fact, roses. The tiny root pieces that had been left after I dug the plants up, were actually spouting new plants. Any plant that wants that desperately to live should be given a chance, I said. So I let them grow among my tomatoes.
Today, 2021, those DropOut roses are 3-4 feet tall and still thriving at the north end of that house.
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Mark 4:26-34
Mustard Plants — Fun Facts
- Mustard is one of the world’s oldest spices and condiments.
- In India and Denmark, it is believed that spreading its seeds around the external sides of the homes keeps away the evil spirits!
- The American mustard consumption rate is the highest in the world!
- The National Mustard Day and the mustard festival, are both celebrated on the first Saturday of August every year!
- The name is derived from the Latin words ‘mustum ardens’, meaning ‘burning wines’, and it is so named due to the unique flavor of the crushed seeds mixed with wine grapes.
- The Mount Horab Mustard Museum in Wisconsin is entirely dedicated to the mustard plant! It stores a collection of 5,000 jars of mustard, brought from 60 countries and 50 states!
- The popular saying, “can’t cut the mustard” means ‘can’t live up to a challenge’! There are no plausible explanations about how this saying originated as mustard plants can be easily sliced! The original saying was, most probably, “can’t cut muster.” In the military, “muster” referred to a gathering of the troops for inspection. Those who failed the inspection couldn’t “cut muster.”
- Mustard was known for its medicinal benefits before the popular culinary uses. Greeks used its paste to cure toothache, boost appetite, and improve blood circulation.
- More than 700 million pounds of mustard are consumed worldwide every year!
- Almost all parts of the plant are usable and the leaves are boiled and eaten as vegetables. They are very easy to grow and do not require much attention; however, basic needs of proper amounts of sunlight and water is a must for the plants.
- This plant loves cold and so it is preferable to plant it in the early parts of spring. The seeds must be planted to ⅓ inches to ½ inches deep, and after they grow a few inches, it is essential to thin them to few inches apart. The thinned leaves can be boiled and eaten.
- According to research, a small seed, only 1 millimeter in radius, generates a bioenergy field of 100- millimeter radius! These energy fields activate biochemical processes of the body and encourage healing processes. Because of the mustard’s seed bioenergy, just like the human energy field, the seeds help to keep us healthy and fit!
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From team member Mary Austin:1 Samuel 15:34--16:13
Choosing a Leader
By now, God and Samuel have an understanding, and Samuel listens attentively to God’s instructions about choosing a new king. The sons of Jesse are each rejected in turn, until David appears. The text only notes for us that “he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, ‘Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.’ Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.” God must see more in David than his good looks, and yet we don’t get to hear what God’s reasons are.
In our own lives, we humans are spectacularly bad at choosing good leaders. Authors Jeffrey Cohn and Jay Moran say that good leaders have seven attributes. Perhaps God and Samuel saw all of those in David.
First on the list is integrity. (This falls apart for David after a while, as it does for many leaders.) “Integrity is the fundamental leadership attribute….Integrity is the fundamental attribute that keeps everything else secure.” Also on the list are empathy, vision, and the ability to lead through conflict. “Leadership means being on the front line of those conflicts. It means facing conflicts, mediating and shaping them, sometimes at the risk of great personal cost or freedom.” Passion is also key. A passionate leader “attracts followers and acts as catalysts for the formation of highly motivated teams.”
Plus, a deep connection to God, and to God’s plans.
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Mark 4:26-34
Planting Seeds
When one thinks of the power of planting seeds, the name of Wangari Maathai comes instantly to mind. Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,” and Maathai lived that truth fully. “The late Wangari Maathai was a biologist, environmentalist, and the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She was born under British colonial occupation and schooled by Catholic missionaries. But when she looked back on her childhood near the end of her life, she realized her family’s Kikuyu culture had imparted her with an intuitive sense of environmental balance. Maathai was steadfast in her determination to fight for the twin issues of conservation and human rights — and planting trees was a symbol of defiance.”
Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which has contributed to the planting of over 52 million trees. She began by planting a few trees, starting with seven in the city of Nairobi. The seven grew to more and more. Trees are simple, and yet they hold the soil, and contribute to clean water, and offer protection from the elements.
She also recalled, in an interview, the spiritual seeds that were planted in her life in her early education., observing, “if I had, perhaps, not gone to school in a Catholic school, in a school that was run, managed, by sisters, by nuns — at a time when missionaries were really very serious about values — they were very concerned about values and especially the value of service — I think I would probably have turned out to be a different kind of a person. Because for me, as I said earlier, sometimes people don’t have to tell you, “This is what you need to believe in, and this is the value you need to embrace.” You just observe. And when people ask me, “Who are the people who inspired you?” — these are some of the people who actually inspired me, these nuns, that these, at the time, beautiful women, young women — and I remember thinking, now, why did they leave their country to come here? Why didn’t they get married and have families? And, of course, the answer was because they wanted to serve Jesus.”
Seeds — both physical and spiritual — are planted and grow, by God’s grace.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Don’ Stop Planting
In “A Commencement Address Too Honest to Have Been Delivered In Person,” David Brooks addresses the graduating class and tells them to use the pandemic to plant seeds they can use for the rest of their lives. “Don’t worry about where the job you take puts you on any status hierarchy. Our society’s career status hierarchy is in the midst of changing anyway. Instead, try to do something that people will ask you about for the rest of your life. What was it like to work on a fishing boat off of Maine? What was it like to teach at a nursery school for the children of Mexican farmworkers? You’re graduating into an extremely uncertain time. You might as well get a master’s degree in handling uncertainty. If you use the next two years as a random hiatus, you may not wind up richer, but you’ll wind up more interesting.”
He adds that spiritual and mental seed planting is a lifetime’s work. “The biggest way most colleges fail is this: They don’t plant the intellectual and moral seeds students are going to need later, when they get hit by the vicissitudes of life.” He tells the students, “my worry is that, especially now that you’re out of college, you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff. The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit — the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.”
To flourish, we need to keep planting the seeds that will draw us into the future.
* * *
Mark 4:26-34
Mustard Seeds of Determination
Poet Marilyn Nelson says that the mustard seeds of her family’s story have grown into a flourishing plant that nurtures her when she needs it. Jesus says, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God…It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet 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.”
Nelson recalls, “I came up for early tenure in an almost exclusively white, male English department when my son was about fifteen months old. I was unhappily married, new to the community, and had few friends. Though I had published a book of poems with a major university press, and had poems in several major press anthologies of younger American poets, I had to fight for my life because my colleagues considered poetry inferior to literary criticism. I spent several years writing poems at three a.m. because I had to do class preparations first. I went to the ER several times with heart palpitations caused by stress. Meanwhile, my mother was disappearing into Alzheimer’s disease…I kept thinking if they could live through what they lived through, I can live through a tenure decision. Piece of cake.”
The seeds of purpose and determination are planted by the people in our lives, and wait, ready to be harvested when we most need them.
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From team member Chris Keating:1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Going beyond the “spoon test”
Samuel has grown old, and his sons have become an embarrassment. Israel is convinced it needs a new leader, and even God has signed off on the plan. So Samuel goes about the task of searching for Israel’s king — but the initial response is far from encouraging.
Samuel’s search is grounded in discerning God’s leadership, which might be instructive to churches engaged in leadership searches. Some churches employ a version of the spoon test — i.e., hold a spoon under someone’s nose to see if they are breathing. Others make the mistake of thinking a handsome, young man (you read correctly) with a wife and 2.4 children will answer their woes.
For denominations that engage in the call system (as opposed to appointments of pastors), the search process can seem interminably long. Leaders get bogged down, anxious, or overwhelmed. Like Samuel, they may be tempted to choose a leader who is not exactly the person God has in mind.
Vanderbloemen, a Christian leadership search firm, suggests that pastoral search committees often make costly mistakes in conducting pastoral searches. “There’s no such thing as a perfect pastor,” their website advises. “Because we can’t hire Jesus, our pastoral candidates are going to be stronger in some areas over others. It’s important for you pastoral search committee to be on the same page about which characteristics are most important in your next pastor.”
Churches often make similar mistakes in recruiting volunteers. As the Lewis Center for Church Leadership points out, there’s a big difference between recruiting and inviting. “With inviting, our focus should be on the individual. How has God uniquely gifted them? Where are they on the serving pathway? Recruiting focuses on finding someone to fill a job, and inviting focuses on the gifts of the individual. Most people feel great when someone truly notices how they are gifted.”
Sometimes it starts with asking the question Samuel asked Jesse. “Don’t you have anyone else?”
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Mark 4:26-34
Mare of the Gospel
Jesus offers two parables about seeds to illustrate the surprising and mysterious nature of the kingdom of God, which sprouts and grows in ways we do not fully understand. In the first, Jesus shares a story about a farmer’s rather haphazard seed planting techniques; in the second, he offers the image of the largeness of God’s kingdom exploding from the tiniest of seeds. Both parables have the feeling and flavor of a whodunnit mystery tale: who caused this? How did it take place?
Fans of the critically acclaimed HBO limited series “Mare of Easttown” will understand the marvelous crafting of a good whodunnit. Like the parables, “Mare of Easttown” is a story built around striking characters and mysterious occurrences. Kate Winslet plays a detective in a small township in the Delaware County region outside of Philadelphia. It’s a small town united by high school sports, lifelong friendships and Rolling Rock beer. The show is a compelling look at the things that hold people together despite failures of both small-town institutions and individuals.
Faced with the mysterious disappearance of one teenage girl and the murder of another, viewers are guided through a plot filled with twists and turn. Like the parables, the ending both surprises and challenges, and offers a taste of forgiveness, grace, and redemptive hope.
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Mark 4:26-34
Seed shortage?
Jesus’ parable offers an image of a farmer whose undisciplined approach to sowing seeds seems rather unorthodox at best and wasteful at worst. But that farmer might have more difficulty if the parable was taking place in 2021.
The pandemic unleashed a seed and plant shortage that has required better planning among farmers and creativity among landscapers. Part of the shortage represents increased demand from home gardeners whose interest in gardening as a pandemic hobby took root last year.
“The surge in demand provided challenges in managing distribution in a timely manner,” said Kiki Hubbard of the Organic Seed Alliance. “Covid concerns led to restrictions in the workplace as well, which meant these enterprises were working with fewer staff to fulfill sales. As the year comes to an end, companies report that sales are still much higher compared to past years, and so now, inventory concerns loom large.”
Last February, Southern Living called the looming plant shortage the “toilet paper crisis of 2021.” It’s not clear when the crisis will bottom out (go ahead and groan). Writer Steve Bender suggested that landscape wholesalers were looking at widespread shortages in both perennials and annuals across the United States.
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship:
One: God answers us in the day of trouble!
All: The name of the God of Jacob protects us
One: May God grant us our heart’s desire, and fulfill all your plans.
All: May we shout for joy over our victory.
One: Some take pride in symbols of power and violence.
All: Our pride is in the name of our God.
OR
One: God called us forth in the beginning of creation.
All: God continues to call us to become God’s likeness.
One: We have been blessed with the wonder of God’s image.
All: We will share that image by our loving acts of kindness.
One: God’s glory is for all of God’s children.
All: We will help others to know of their value to God and to us.
Hymns and Songs:
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203:
Renew: 47
All People That on Earth Do Dwell
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELW: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
Morning Has Broken
UMH: 145
H82: 8
PH: 469
CH: 53
ELW: 556
W&P: 35
STLT: 38
Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart
UMH: 160/161
H82: 556/557
PH: 145/146
AAHH: 537
NNBH: 7
NCH: 55/71
CH: 15
LBW: 553
ELW: 873/874
W&P: 113
AMEC: 8
Ye Servants of God
UMH: 181
H82: 535
PH: 477
NCH: 305
CH: 110
LBW: 252
W&P: 112
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELW: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
Lord, I want to Be a Christian
UMH: 402
PH: 372
AAHH: 463
NNBH: 156
NCH: 454
CH: 589
W&P: 457
AMEC: 282
Renew: 145
I Am Thine, O Lord
UMH: 419
AAHH: 387
NNBH: 202
NCH: 455
CH: 601
W&P: 408
AMEC: 283
Let There Be Light
UMH: 440
NNBH: 450
NCH: 589
STLT: 142
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELW: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
Walk with Me
CCB: 88
For the Gift of Creation
CCB: 67
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who created us in your own image and likeness:
Grant us the wisdom to take pride in who your made us to be
and not in the vain things we have adorned our lives with;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you created us in your own image and likeness. You made us to reflect your own glory. Help us to remember who we are and to not seek glory in the vanity of this world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways we place pride in things that are passing instead of in things eternal.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken the glory with which you created us and we have tried to replace it with the vanity of this world. We take pride in silly things and ignore the wonder of our creation. Forgive us and renew us so that we may rejoice in the glory you have given us. Amen.
One: God takes pride in our creation and pleasure in our appreciation of it. Give God joy as you reflect more fully the glory of your creation.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory are yours, O God, because you are the creator of all. You have shared your glory with us and we praise you.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have forsaken the glory with which you created us and we have tried to replace it with the vanity of this world. We take pride in silly things and ignore the wonder of our creation. Forgive us and renew us so that we may rejoice in the glory you have given us.
We give you thanks for the wonder of our creation and our place in your heart of love. Your gifts to us are abundant and glorious. You have allowed us to glimpse you love in the care we have received from others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need and ask that you would allow us to be part of your loving presence to those in need around us. For those who are distant from us we ask that our prayers and our spirits might join with you and bringing healing and wholeness to all your children.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Did you ever do anything that you were proud of doing? Learning to tie your shoes or learning to ride a bike? Maybe learning your numbers or your ABCs. Maybe you did something helpful for your parents. These are good things to feel good about but we can always be glad that God made us to be God’s own children. We are all made to reflect the love and wonder of God. We can feel good about that and we can help others feel good about themselves, as well.
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CHILDREN'S SERMONSWhat The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Like
by Katy Stenta
Mark 4:26-34
Props: Mustard Seed & Measuring Tape
God says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed. The mustard seed grows and grows and grows. First it can reach 6 feet, and then it can be 20 feet tall and 20 feet wide. In perfect conditions it can grow to be 30 feet.
(You can measure out 6 feet. You can also measure out 10 feet and imagine double that, and then 30 feet and imagine double that. Compare it to the size of the mustard seed.)
Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that has grown, so that now it is big enough to house the nests of all kinds of birds.
Who do you think the birds are in this story?
God is assuring us that we do not have to worry about there being enough room for us in heaven. God promises us that even though it will need to be big to accommodate everyone, there will be enough room.
Close your eyes and picture you are a bird. You have built a nest in the tree, there is shelter from the hot sun, there are enough bugs and worms to eat in the tree. You are safe. That’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you
For making a place for us
Help us
Make room
For others, too.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
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The Immediate Word, June 13, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
