Trinity 2
Sermon preached by the Revd Olga Fabrikant-Burke
Ezekiel 17.22-24; Psalm 92.1-4, 12-15; 2 Corinthians 5.6-10,14-17; Mark 4.26-34
May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Annie Dillard, writing in her entrancing collection of reflections
Teaching a Stone to Talk, makes a striking observation:
On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. [1]
There is something deeply ironic that we, Christians, of all the people in the world, are so often determined to tame, manage, and control the living God. We sterilise and disinfect the message entrusted to us so that our polite sensibilities are not offended and our comfort is not disturbed. But then, all of a sudden, we are confronted with moments of clarity, when we cannot help but snap out of our slumber and awaken to the truth, to the awesome power and might, measureless love and grace, as well as unsearchable wisdom and infinite goodness in our midst.
“All the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord.
I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree;
I dry up the green tree
and make the dry tree flourish. I the Lord have spoken;
I will accomplish it.”
“The kingdom of God 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.”
In our readings this morning, we catch a glimpse of that love and power that we so presumptuously try to keep on a leash and put in a cage and a box, as if it were possible.
It is, at once, a terrifying and inspiring image. It is terrifying, because we recognise that our carefully constructed edifices and well-oiled systems might have to be modified, if not razed to the ground, as the living God builds his kingdom, not ours, and as he does so with nothing more than a mustard seed. But it is also an image of hope that pierces the deepest darkness, as we see God at work in the most desperate situations, when all hope seems all but lost.
Ezekiel was a prophet to the exiles in Babylon. He himself was an ex- ile, taken forcibly from Judah and brought to the strange land of Babylon. Imagine the prophet Ezekiel sitting by the rivers of Babylon among the exiles. The exiles had been expelled from their homeland, uprooted, and unceremoniously dumped in a new place. People were murdered in cold blood, families were separated, homes were lost. But not only was the exile a material disaster, so to speak, but it was also imbued with deeply symbolic significance. The exile seemed to herald the end of the national identity and religion of ancient Israel, from which no recovery was ever possible.
It is not simply that the Babylonians blinded and carried in chains the last king of Judah, having slain his sons in his presence. Gruesome as that massacre was, it crucially shattered any hope in God’s promises to David. Did God still care about the Davidic covenant? Not only did Nebuchadnezzar destroy Jerusalem, reducing its seemingly impenetrable city walls to a rubble, but that destruction also called into question God’s professed love for and election of Zion. And as a grand finale, when the Babylonians looted and levelled the temple in Jerusalem, they graphically enacted the hegemony of the victorious Babylonian gods over the silent and powerless God of Israel.
It is into this political, social, and theological confusion and turmoil that Ezekiel delivers his soaring image of salvation. God will plant a new noble cedar tree, he will plant it in safety, on a high mountain—and, it is strongly implied, that mountain is none other than Mount Zion, the very mountain that was thought to have been abandoned forever. What is more, this new cedar tree will be not only for the benefit of Israel. Instead, its flourishing will provide a safe and nurturing place for every kind of bird which will nest in the shade of its branches.
In other words, the expectations and assumptions of the despairing Israelites and the sneering Babylonians alike will be turned upside down. In today’s Gospel, Jesus confounds his audience with even more radical imagery in a similar vein. The Kingdom of God is a disruptive and unsettling force. The work of God is beyond our comprehension; it exceeds anything we dare to think of. It is baffling and shocking.
As June 2021 enters its second half, we all hope that we are about to come to the end of a very trying period in our lives, in our individual lives and in our national life—indeed in the life of the whole world. Perhaps it is not quite the end yet, as the Prime Minister seems likely to announce tomorrow, but regardless, we are undeniably entering a new chapter, when we begin to look ahead, to what comes next, to the daunting task of re-imagining and re-building. Not to compare our ordeal to war and forced migration that Ezekiel and his compatriots experienced. And yet, I suspect that the thoughts and questions running through our minds are not that different from those of the exiles. When will our lives get back to normal, if ever? Where is God in this mess? What does the future hold for the Church? Will our community life ever recover from this? Or are we now in terminal decline, hurtling down the mountain to our destruction? Has God reneged on his promises?
The message from God to Ezekiel is meant for us as much as it was meant for the exiles. As cheesy as it may sound, God has a plan for how to start afresh. His mysterious plan is baffling and shocking. It involves but a handful of young twigs and a lowly mustard seed, and perhaps just a few confirmation candidates. This plan will not be deemed worthy of a notice by the powers that be, although should it come to their attention anyway, they might take the trouble to laugh it out of court. And yet, the promise is that one day that twig will become a lofty and towering cedar, while that mustard seed will become the greatest of all shrubs. God is in the business of turning things upside down. He takes, he sets out, he breaks off, he plants, he brings low, he makes high, he dries up, and he makes flourish. He makes all things new. He will provide shade to the tired birds. He will give strength to the tender young twigs. And he will give life to the dead, and give it abundantly. “I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.” Amen.
[1] Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1982), p. 52.