Pentecost 2

Sermon by guest Preacher Rakesh Peter Dass

Dear friends,
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
My wife, Sharon, and I are delighted to be here.
Thank you for the invitation to preach and to spend this time with you.
Sharon and I look forward to meeting you after service!
A special thanks to Pastor Anderson and Prof. Thiemann for organizing this visit.

Today I want to draw our attention to a single theme – how God speaks through bizarre and wacky things. In today’s readings, there are codes, gestures, concepts that are full with meaning, don’t really mean what they say, and completely confuse a casual observer. It’s like a baseball fan watching a cricket game for the first time. Of course, a lot of the game is missed if the outward gestures and the commentary confuses rather than informs. If we cannot see through them, we may not know what is going on. Every gesture and term has a history and layers of meaning that needs discovering to enjoy the full flavor of the game. Today’s texts also ask us to look deeper to enjoy the full flavor of the texts, to make meaning out of the strange and wacky because that is how the game is being played.

Of course, what I say comes from who I am and today’s sermon has its roots in a personal story from my early days that I will share at the end of the sermon. But before that, let’s turn to our readings for today.

The book of Ezekiel is filled with things that seem wacky and bizarre, and Ezekiel, along with Daniel, is probably one of the few prophets who has a lot to share through visions and symbols. For example in the first chapters of Ezekiel, God asks the prophet to eat a honey-sweet scroll, shave his hair and beard, and divide it into three parts. God then asks him to burn one part, hit another with a sword and, and scatter the rest. Similarly, in the passage we read today the prophet speaks of a twig planted on a lofty mountain that grows into a tree that shelters all kinds of beasts and birds. Eat a scroll, hit your shaved hair – a tree that is large enough to shelter all kinds of birds and beasts? We know this is symbolic and not literal language because God explains the visions to Ezekiel. Once we know that Ezekiel speaks of Judah’s destruction and restoration we are able to make sense of things.

We find that the scroll represents God’s promise and shaving hair a sign of loss. We find that the division of the hair foretells that when Jerusalem is destroyed some will die in flames, others will suffer under the sword, and yet others will be scattered into exile. When the prophet speaks of the mighty cedar tree, we are able to see that he speaks of hope and restoration because cedar trees symbolize Judah’s kings, that a messiah will restore Judah to her glory in God. In a way we are able to understand Ezekiel only if we are able to grasp the meanings behind the strange imagery. A cedar tree is of course a tree but it also means a king and Ezekiel uses the tree to say something else. A different game is going on.

Now, Paul was also concerned with the fact that the Corinthians were focused on outward signs – and in doing so were forgetting the gospel. The church in Corinth was getting bogged down in a concern for bodily practices, things like were the apostles ecstatic in public, were they powerful, could they do miracles, and so on. Paul is speaking of those who have been telling the Corinthians that an apostle’s status matters, that one’s actions and appearance matters, that they should live by sight and not just by faith.
In response to this, Paul reminds the Corinthians that to live according to the body is to live away from Christ. He reminds them of their new existence in Christ. He asks them to focus on the gospel rather than outward appearances. This means seeing not “from a human viewpoint,” as verse 15 says. This is both a reminder to live in newness and to remember the gospel above all else. I do not think Paul is against visible expressions of faith like social work or public displays of ecstasy like those we usually see in Pentecostal churches. Rather, it seems to me that Paul is asking his readers to see everything, whether outward or inward, through the faith of their new life in Christ.

Finally, we turn to Mark’s passage and immediately return to the world of symbols and parables we found in Ezekiel.

In the parable of the unattended seed – the reign of God is as if someone sows a seed and forgets about it and it grows into a great harvest. Three things can be said here. First, God’s reign is compared to the sower and not the seed, as in the parable of the mustard seed. Second, Jesus makes a wacky claim, and third Jesus was certainly no farmer! There is one seed (sporon) but the result is a qerismov or harvest, which no farmer would confuse with a stalk of grain produced by a single seed. How can a seed produce a harvest? Not only is Jesus clueless about proportional results, he also seems to think farming can be done from a Lazyboy chair! You plant you forget and then viola a harvest is ready. Who plants and forgets? Especially in Jesus’ time – before Miracle Grow seeds and those water-releasing aqua globes advertised on TV all the time! We can be sure that Jesus was certainly no farmer; it’s good he stuck with being a carpenter as a career!
But when we look deeper, we find that Jesus may not be saying what it seems like he’s saying. Recall the parable begins with the sower and that between sowing and harvesting, all the man does is “sleep and rise night and day.” The unattended growth of the seed may suggest that the kingdom’s growth is inevitable, that even in the absence of human effort, God’s kingdom is growing and bearing harvest. Given that the sower sleeps through the growth, this passage also seems to suggest that the kingdom arrives mysteriously. Finally, like in the parable of the mustard seed, a small beginning leads to great things. “Great oaks from little acorns grow,” as the saying goes.

Now, parables certainly help Jesus make his point. But they also create insiders and outsiders – as Mark reminds us in verses 33 and 34. Jesus spoke with many parables and many were able to hear it, but he explained things in private to his disciples. While I am suggesting we look for deeper meaning, I am aware that not everyone may want to do so or be able to do so and there may be cases where some know more than others. Now, knowledge can certainly empower but it can also lead to pride and abuse. What I am suggesting today can be taken to mean that those who look for meaning are somehow better positioned than those who don’t. Interestingly enough, Mark seems to anticipate this danger and writes a gospel in which those in the know are constantly being humbled by the outsiders. Recall that it is a Roman centurion who is one of the last people in Mark’s gospel to witness to Christ. The abuse of knowledge does not survive Mark’s gospel. We see that Jesus is playing a different game in Mark. It is not really about farming but about God’s kingdom.

For Ezekiel, the absurd illuminates and meaning is layered. For Paul, faith is more crucial than plain sight and new eyes are needed to see the wonderful things God is doing. For Mark, parables reveal and God is in control. These authors coax us to keep our senses open to how God may be revealing. They ask us to find God’s communiqué in shaved hair, tiny seeds, and cedar trees. They offer hope and meaning through strange things and wacky claims.

I will conclude with a personal story that has partly inspired this sermon.
When my parents got married some forty years ago, my mother gave my father a ring and my father offered my mother a ring and a mangalsutra. The mangalsutra is a Hindu religious symbol that is a type of “auspicious band” worn as a necklace. The mangalsutra consists usually of a string of black beads and a pendent in the shape of a family deity. It is supposed to invite prosperity and remind the couple of their marital oath in the presence of the fire and other gods.

For a long time I did not know of my mother’s mangalsutra. She wore hers but I saw a necklace. Then during a Hindu friend’s wedding, I saw him offer a similar necklace to his wife. So, I asked by mother, a devout Christian woman, about hers.

Conversations with my mother revealed the sutra’s religious import for her and her seamless merging of a traditionally Hindu practice with her Christian faith. I learnt her family was upper caste landowners before conversion to Christianity. I learnt how centuries old Hindu practices shaped her Christian upbringing and why she agreed to have a sutra. She explained its religious value in her house and her family’s hope that she would wear one too.

For my mother, the sutra’s religious value was in the way it connected her to her roots, her family, and to those in whose presence the marriage oath was taken. For me, the mangalsutra was challenging and unfamiliar. It made me see with new eyes and to struggle with how the God of Christ may be speaking through something that was a multilayered religious symbol.

Of course, it is important to know when not to read too much into something or even worse abuse something for one’s purpose. My work with churches in Asia has taught me to meet others in just and careful ways. When meeting texts that seem wacky, I believe context and care can guide our interpretation. When meeting people or practices that seem bizarre, context and careful listening can enrich our communication.

Today’s texts ask us to look beyond the bizarre, to seek and find meaning in strange things and uncommon ways. They show that God speaks in symbols and codes, in hidden yet revealing ways. Maybe it is a far stretch to compare finding meaning in biblical codes to finding meaning in non-Christian things. This may be so if one is trying to make everything Christian and to poach by ignoring genuine theological differences. However, I believe it is appropriate to be open to God’s revelation around us, to be inspired, to find meaning for ourselves in the texts and practices of people of other faith, to be comfortable with sharing and receiving in interfaith meetings.

It is when we remain open to the many ways in which God can speak to us that we are able to enjoy the full flavor of all that God has to offer, to be inspired and challenged by things that may otherwise remain hidden in plain sight. On that note, I am a cricket fan. But I would love to learn the ins and outs of baseball so that I can also enjoy the full flavor of that game too!

Thanks be to God. Amen.