Gospel Say, What?: The Right Environment

 March 11 2024

Mark 4:1-20

         In my family, I am the middle child, which probably begins to explain a lot about who I am. I have an older brother, George, and an older sister, Hilary and a younger sister, Becky, and a younger brother, Jeff. I am the only one who stayed in the area, everybody else lives about as far apart as you can get. This past while, I was thinking about my sister Hilary because its about this time of year people start thinking about what they are going to plant in their gardens. Hilary loves to garden the only problem is that she lives in San Francisco. With its cool, wet, weather it is difficult to have much success in growing vegetables. Yet, Hilary keeps trying. That’s why she already has her tomatoes started in her house because she has learned that it takes tomatoes a lot longer to make a crop in the environment that she is living in.

         What is interesting is that Jesus understood the importance of the right environment on the success of seeds to grow and mature. Jesus knew that if you are going to try and grow a crop all sorts of factors can keep seeds from becoming a harvest. Birds can swoop down and eat the seed before it has a chance to grow. Or the soil could have rocks and a hard pan that keeps the roots from developing. Or thorns and weeds can smother the seedlings that have just begun to grow. But, if seeds are planted properly in the right environment, some good, rich, topsoil, then that seed will grow and produce a stalk with a seed head which contains an abundance of seeds and this means a successful harvest. This is all well and good but what can not be forgotten is that, in speaking of planting seeds, Jesus is actually referring to people who hear a word. Just like a seed needs the right environment to grow so too this word that is heard needs the right environment for that word to grow and become a harvest.

         So, if we need the right environment for this word to grow and be effective, we have to ask, just where can we find this place where this word can be transformed in us? This is what we are going to figure out today as we continue in this series of messages for Lent called, Gospel Say, What? The gist of these messages is that Jesus tells us, right at the very beginning of his ministry, that the good news is that he is our king who rules over us with the power of life. This means that faith in the gospel is when we allow Jesus to be our king, a king whose rule will be evident in how we live. Last week, we looked at how Jesus is the king who defeats all the sources of our fear: our sickness, our sin and, of course, Satan; Jesus our king reigns over all of them. His love is always and forever with us, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can ever separate us from this love that our king Jesus has for us. So we at last can rest secure in his love and when we do we find that we can love all people, all the time. This love of God satisfies us so that no longer do we have to demand that the people we love show us some love in return. This is how we move from our birth families to live in God’s one, great, big, happy, family; God and humanity, united forever. This is the will of God, this wondrous unity that we can be a part of because we have a king who defeats every source of fear so that we can live a life filled with love. This, we explained last week, is how we are faithful to the first part of the great commandment, what the people of Israel call the Shema, because it begins with God saying, “Hear, Shema”. As found in Deuteronomy 6, the first part of this prayer that has become a commandment says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” As Paul teaches us, if God is one then he is the God not only of the people of Israel but he is the God of all the nations as well. Therefore, when Jesus is our king, and the source of all our fears is defeated so that love can take its place, we can, at last, fulfill this commandment. While love can not be commanded, it can spring to life in the presence of the king whose power is life.

         When we consider how love can spring to life in those who were once held captive by their fears, I think we can begin to see how this weeks story about seeds needing the right environment seems to be in the same line of thought. If we listen again to Jesus explain the meaning of a farmer planting seeds, what we discover is that he is speaking about the sowing of the word. Just what word is it that Jesus expects us to hear? For those who first heard this story, it is not hard to imagine that they, as people who had said the Shema faithfully all of their life, would have known that this word that is to be heard is the word or prayer which begins with the command to hear. Jesus has just taught his disciples about this one, great, big, happy family God is bringing together, a fulfillment of the first part of the Shema, which goes, “Hear, O, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” So it makes sense that here, in the story of the farmer planting seeds, Jesus is going to address just why it is that this prayer which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might.”, had never really resulted in a life fully given to God as an offering of love.

         If we read the explanation that Jesus gives for this story of the farmer planting seeds in light of this prayer that has become our primary commandment, we first hear how God is the one who sows the word, the word that is to be heard, and that word is love. In this word spoken by God a plea is put forth for those who hear it that we are to love, and love with all that we are and all that we have been given. This word spoken is reminiscent of how creation was spoken into being with a word. The nothingness of chaos is transformed into creative order, all with a word. Perhaps, this word the sower sows is how people, the last bit of chaos bouncing around in the order of creation, are to be at last transformed into a created order called love.

         What is it then that prevents those who hear this word to love from doing so? Well, in the first case, Jesus tells us, that as, “soon as people hear the word, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word.” What is needed to understand the point Jesus is trying to make is to know just how does Satan operate. In the eighth chapter of John, Jesus tells us that Satan, “ … was a murderer from the beginning, and he has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” In the second chapter of the book of Hebrews, we hear how Jesus came to, “…destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through the fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Satan, then, represents the lie that the taking of life is the ultimate power. Yet, this power, far from being a power which liberates, is instead a power which enslaves those who believe in the lie that the taking of life should be their way of life. Are you beginning to understand how such a lie can devour the word spoken by God, the word that calls us to love? Perhaps what should drive this point home for us is the teaching of Jesus found in the fifth chapter of Matthew where Jesus tells us, “You have heard it said to those of old, ‘You shalt not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment’. But I say to you everyone who is angry with his brothers and sisters is liable to judgment”. You see, when we allow Satan to have an audience and believe that the power of death is the ultimate power, then the door is opened up to all kinds of behavior which comes and destroys the order of love that God created us to order our lives by. The danger of anger is that it tears apart what God is working to bring together, this one, great, big, happy, family. Is it becoming clearer how vitally important it is for us to, as Paul puts it in the forth chapter of Ephesians, to never let the sun go down on our anger and give no opportunity to the devil?

         This lie that death is the ultimate power not only affects our heart, destroying the love which is supposed to be springing up in us, but this lie also destroys our relationship with God and our relationship with each other. When we believe in this lie then we never come to know the truth, that God is our source of life. If you believe that death is the ultimate power then it is death not life that will call the shots in your life. You might start out serving God, finding great joy in the presence of your joyful Master but if, as you serve him, you are asked to suffer or offer your very life to be obedient to the Master, you will yield to the lie. What will be revealed for all to see is that it really is not God who you listen to but instead you are taking orders from the one whose power is the very power of death. You will go from being joyous before the Master to losing face before all who watch your actions. The word Jesus uses for those who step back and lose faith when persecution or tribulation comes is, “scandal”. Life becomes a scandal when it allows itself to be controlled by death.

         This allowing the lie of Satan to infect our lives also leads to a total breakdown of peace not just our lives personally but our life together with each other. We enter into a vicious cycle of unrest when, in our being controlled by the power of death, we in our distorted belief, decide that the best way to be at ease about the future is for us to take what we have been given, what is called our might in Hebrew thought, and we make our stuff our treasure. In doing so, all we have done is to take this anxiety of our future and replaced it with anxiety of losing our treasure. Instead of taking what God has given to us to give life to those in our great, big, happy family, to ease the anxiety of others in need, we have instead just choked the very life out of our existence through our anxiety over our treasure.

         Are you beginning to see how very destructive a lie can be? This lie that the taking of life is the ultimate power may not make us murderers but it may be the way we justify our anger toward someone. This lie will also take the honor we find in offering our life to God and replace it with shame as we withdraw from serving God fully because of the fear of death. The peace and rest found in the giving of what we are given, this knowing ourselves as life givers, this is lost when this lie that ultimate power is taking life finds its home in us. Instead of being peacemakers we become agents of anxiety. We gather up treasures on earth to somehow become less anxious about tomorrow but then we become anxious about whether something will destroy our treasure today. The ones who we could have helped be less anxious about tomorrow by providing what they need for life today, now find themselves without any hope.

         The good news is that life no longer has to be like this because Jesus our king has come and he invites us to come to him and change our minds. Jesus has come and he counters this lie that the ultimate power is the taking of life with the greater truth that ultimate power is found in the giving of life. Lest we forget this truth, Jesus goes on to tell us that he himself is truth. This one who came pronouncing himself as the king, this one is the one who is the truth that ultimate power does not lie in death but is found in the one who rules in the power of life. Jesus, as our king, lives out this power of life in our relationship with him. This power is found when we know that Jesus interceded for us. To intercede simply means to place oneself between another person and someone or something else, to act as a go between. An image of what this might look like is found in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, where God, speaking to Abraham, tells him, “Fear not, Abraham, I am your shield…” Here, God is promising to come between, to intercede, to cover Abraham with his very self. Can you understand why God instructed Abraham to not be afraid? Why would Abraham be afraid if God promised to place himself between Abraham and whatever threatened to harm him? It is not hard to understand that Abraham, later in this chapter responds to this promise of God with a promise of his own, a promise to believe God and because Abraham believed in him, God counted him as one of his own. This promise of our king to cover us, to lay down his life to protect us, this is why we hold on to the truth, giving no room in our life for some nonsense lie.

         The right environment that our king Jesus gives to us is a life that is covered by his life. This is why Paul insists in the third chapter of Colossians that we are to seek the things which are above, not the things that are on earth. For we have died and our life is covered by our king Jesus who is one with God.” In John’s gospel, Jesus is portrayed as the Good Shepherd because he is the one who is willing to lay down his life for those in his care, his sheep. Jesus, in the fifteenth chapter of John tells us, “Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus, our king, lays down his life, covering us, and here in this greater love we are kept safe from the great lie so that our hearts set free from fear can at last believe. The good news is that our king has arrived and through his power of life, this laying down of his life for us, we now have the perfect environment for us to love God with all of our heart, all of our life and all of our might. In our experience of this greater love, our hearts believe in the truth that life really is the greater power. In this faith, we find our life is secure beneath the life of Jesus which covers us so when trials and persecutions come we do not waver in our service of our Master. And in the security found beneath the shield of God, we understand that what he has given to us is the means by which we can give as our King has first given to us. The might that we find in our resources is the power we use to take our life and guard over the lives around us. Jesus says this is when he calls us friends, when we go and love others with the same, great, love that he first loved us. And in this right environment of deep, rich, topsoil, there comes a harvest of life that death has no power over. Jesus knew the truth that this life ordered by love would one day be seen popping up like flowers in springtime in little gatherings, of thirty, sixty or a hundred people, those who are his friends, his church.To the glory of God. Amen