This week in worship we had our friend Dr. Karyn Wiesman preach. I love Karyn to death. Not only has she been a friend of Cheri’s since they were both in the conference youth group, she’s been a part of the dreamers and prayers that created the Village, she is a great friend and a fantastic story teller. Mind you, that’s her job, she is a professor who teaches other ministers to preach. So, she is a story teller’s coach. In fact, she is Cheri’s coach, so if you love Cheri’s messages, give Karyn a little nod of credit.. She really can tell a fantastic story in a pulpit or over a meal. But the one problem with having Karyn as a guest minister is that she NEVER speaks from a manuscript. She rarely does an outline for anyone else (she did bless me with one so as to make this possible). Don’t get me wrong, she has a very organized, thought out tale to tell. But she really pushes folks like me who have to blog that story properly. Hopefully, this will do it justice. Now, that the lawyer disclaimer is done, let’s get to why you clicked over to read, our message this week.
Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 13, tells a series of five parables. Parables are stories in the language of the culture of the time. The purpose of parables is teaching. They are not allegories, they are called Koans. They are aphorisms to tease you out of one way of thinking/believing and into seeing the world or living in the world in a new way. Jesus loved to use these stories. And at the time, they made perfect sense to the culture. For example, you may have heard the one about not putting new wine in old wineskins. If you’re like me, you surely scratched your head and said “WHAT?”. That does not speak to me. What in the world is Jesus talking about? But, imagine instead, Jesus said you can’t put new software in old computers. Now, the idea that sometimes a new way of doing things is exactly what’s needed. That’s a parable for today.
Most people have heard of Jesus’ famous Mustard seed parable. It’s one of these parables. The kingdom of God is like . . . It is part of the series of stories he told to explode the popular view of the kingdom. Jesus was counter cultural. He ate with the wrong people. He hung out with the wrong people. He loved to inflict and irritate the religious right and self righteous of the time. And that’s what Chapter 13 of Matthew was about. Totally exploding the myth of the Messiah and what he was going to be. The Messiah was supposed to be a high and mighty king, a great military leader. He was not supposed to be a nobody from Judea, born in a barn, hanging out on the first night with the smelly, nobody shepherds. Yuck.
The Mustard Seed is the most incredible seed is how the story goes. It goes from being the smallest seed to the mighty tree. Except for one thing, he’s messing with them. The mustard seed is not the smallest seed. The tree is not a beautiful tree that grows up housing birds. This is total BS. Yes, Karyn used that term BS in church. None of the stories made any sense. Jesus was trying to mess with these folks. Change their view. And they knew it.. They were farmers. They knew the truth about mustard seeds & trees.
Ever hear of the Kudzu? It’s also called the “Vine that ate the South”. It’s not native to the South though. In 1876, there was a Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Countries brought their wares from around the world. The Japanese brought them to the US, talking about how they used it for ground cover. A group of farmers of goats and sheep thought it was a great idea to bring it down there. The problem is the animals hated it and Kudzu ate the South. They grew everywhere. It literally spread like wildfire around the South and we even have it in our backyard. It is eating the backyard.
Why tell you about Kudzu? Because the Mustard Seed was the Kudzu of Palestine. It’s terrible. You would never in your right mind plant a mustard seed. So, the kingdom of God is going to be like a destructive plant, you can’t get rid of it, and will eat the world if you let it? No, but the people of the time thought it was what was going to happen. We would all be the good people, we would take over the world. Jesus was laughing when he told this. He knew what the kingdom was going to be and it was not going to be a bunch of perfect people, who all believe alike, look alike, worship alike, etc. No, he was showing them the ridiculousness of their belief. But they didn’t get it. Ever been to a church where they gave you a mustard seed? Run if they do.
The Kindom of God, yes, that’s not a typo. We are kin. This is not a hierarchy. We are not all alike. That’s why Karyn fell in love with the vision of the Village. The Village is a family where we don’t all look alike, think alike, work alike, even believe alike. We don’t have to pass a test to be a member of this church family. You see, we don’t get to decide who’s in and who’s out. We are a family of God. God gets to choose. And believe me, God never chose those the world thought God would. When God needed a great savior for the people of God when they were in Egypt, God chose Moses, a stutterer, whose mother had to abandon him as a child. When God chose a mighty king of Israel, God didn’t choose the oldest, strongest, mightiest warrior in the family God was considering. God chose the runt of the litter, a guy by the name of David. It goes on like that over and over again. When Joshua and his army needed an ally, God gave them Rahab, a woman (gasp) and a member of the “oldest profession” (you may gasp again if you want).
When God became part of the human family as Jesus, well, the trend kept going. Look in the Bible at the linage Jesus came from. Yes, David’s in there. But so is Rahab. Yes, Jesus human blood line includes her (faint if you must). And look at who Jesus picked to hang out with. Was it the shinny, happy, white, rich people? If you answer yes, go back and do a little more reading. Yes, Jesus hung out with the chosen people, the Jews, but he also hung with the outsiders. The lowliest of the lowliest of society. That’s who God chose as kin, everyone, even those who society said NO to.
We are all the Kindom of God. Those folks who exclude others, they don’t get it yet. They will. But for now, we’ve found it at the Village. We have a group of folks that reflect what God really is looking for in a family. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got rich, white, straight, professional men, I’m one of them. But we’ve got rich, black straight professional women. We’ve got people who could not finish high school and folks with several graduate degrees. We’ve got folks who’ve got lots of money, and others who need a few bucks to get through the next day. We’ve got folks who would be welcomed in any church and we’ve got folks who have been literally run out of the church on a rail.
Karyn told us the story of Kudzu Jesus. A couple of years ago, an image of what looked like Jesus appeared on a pole outside a local restaurant in the south. If you stare at it long enough, you see it. It looks like Jesus on the cross. But, Karyn is tickled beyond all measure by the buzz. Folks would come from around the country and shared it on the internet. And anything that brings Jesus to others is great. But, here’s the start of the problem, it’s not even Kudzu. It’s another vine. So Kudzu Jesus isn’t even Kudzu. When she looks for the kindom of God on Earth, she doesn’t go to see Kudzu Jesus. She looks for places like the Village. And she feels so blessed to be a part of helping dream and pray to create our Kindom. And she ended worship today asking if we could do our best to spread the kindom of God like the kudzu we are.
We’re not the only place where this love can be found spreading around the world. But if you’re near the corner of Monroe & Central in Toledo some Sunday, come check us out. Soon, we’ll have spread to Maumee, and then, well, we’re going to keep spreading, there’s no stopping that.
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