Seeds and Cuttings
The scripture readings in the revised common lectionary for this Sunday include great imagery from the world of garden and tree-tending. Two of the scripture readings are Ezekiel 17:22-24 and Mark 4:26-34.
(Here is a link to Sunday worship. I’ll soon post my sermon text farther below then.)
The gospel reading from Mark includes two parables about the Kingdom of God being like seeds-planted, growing steadily and mysterious, growing into a place for birds, growing till the harvest.
The reading from the Hebrew Bible comes from the prophet Ezekiel, who speaks of God cutting a shoot from a tall tree and planting it. An image of renewal drawn from the everyday practices of ancient plant propagators. It’s not the only reference to propagation by cutting. The Bible references stump shoots, hardwood vine cuttings, slips, as well as grafting, as suitable images of the somewhat imaginable yet wholly gracious work of God.
Since delivering a bunch of trees this spring, I’ve been trying a bit more propagating. Not just planting seeds, but digging trees, and learning more about cuttings. So I was very enthusiastically attuned to the image in Ezekiel.
In the workshop, I’ve begun design work on a ‘plexiglass’ sided mini-greenhouse, a box for plant cuttings. Check back here soon for pictures of the prototype. If you like what you see, and want to play with cuttings, I’d be happy to make one for you.
Tend and befriend. Find a church community where you may be part.
Peace!
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Sermon for The Third Sunday After Pentecost, The Rev. Evan G. Clendenin
Tending and Befriending the Seeds and Cuttings
In order that we may better know and follow God, the scriptures keep turning our attention to certain sorts of things. Everyday things that the many minds and branches in the tree of scripture have noticed and handed on to all of us. The scriptures invite us to turn our attention to bread, yeast and dough, grain plucked from stalks, bread eaten in a hurry, bread served to strangers and messengers. And seeds. Seeds for sowing and eating, seeds that grow into more green plants with seeds in them, that reach from the ground way up into the sky.
A parable like we hear in Mark’s gospel is one vivid instance, and it suggests how God comes to work and be present even here and now, to tend and befriend with humanity amidst the whole creation – like the seed, the plant, the plant that provides a home for birds, the plant, that when it is harvested, gives humans and all kinds of creatures the things we need and enjoy for this life. Someone, a farmer, a gardener, plants the seed, and doesn’t know how it grows. While he rests, dreams, sleeps, it grows-root, stalk, flower, seed. And when the right time arrives, in that present moment of fullness, of ripeness, this someone is ready, sharp sickle in hand, to harvest.
And today we hear another parable, a symbolic story and image that stirs the imagination of our hearts, that turns our attention to the ways God tends and befriends, is at work and present even now. We hear the prophet Ezekiel suggest that God desires to tend and befriend humanity and the creation, like a gardener, who walks around her garden or neighborhood with sharp pruning knife in hand, or clippers in her bag, taking cuttings from the shrubs and the trees, and planting them in special places, where they root and grow into more shrubs and trees. Maybe she plants a cutting from a cedar, or a fir, or a madrone on a little hill outside her window, where the birds will come to perch in a few years, or where she imagines her great great grandchildren might play someday.
Ezekiel says God will take a tender shoot from a tall cedar tree, and plant it on a high mountain, where it will grow. Every kind of bird will be able to live in that tree. God will dry up the green tree, and make green the dry tree. And all the trees of the field, of the forest, will know, will know, all the trees will know that God is.
Ezekiel prophesies of this tender shoot to a people who have been conquered, broken, and sent into exile. The elites were taken against their will to Babylon, the poor and the peasants left with even less in a more disorganized and despairing region. The King has been removed, broken off like a branch, from the throne of Israel. They suffered a terrible fate, and the had also committed wrongs and broken agreements. Perhaps they wonder what will come, what future there is for them. To these people God promises being restored and made new. A green shoot, from the tall cedar, planted on a high mountain. God will do this.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we have come to know, and are in the process of coming to know in new and deeper ways, how Jesus is the green shoot, planted for us. In Jesus we hear of the life we have, the life we share with God by faith, and in the church. In Jesus we become like birds who have a place to nest, children a place to play, trees who let our old selves dry up and our new selves in God grow greener. In Jesus, by the daily gifts of the holy Spirit, the holy breath, the holy atmosphere, we become like trees who know that God is, that God works and is present, that God tends and befriends us.
In these things the scripture shows us, we come to know and follow. We learn that we too are invited to tend and befriend with humankind amidst creation. To learn how, to know we can look to Jesus. We can stand near trees. We can look to gardeners and tree farmers. We can look to christians of old. The venerable Bede-you just heard about him- relates of St Columba that he knew a good place to work and be when he found a holy well-loved grove of oaks on Iona. And of St Aidan that he tended and befriended the people first with gentleness, friendship, so as to lead them gradually, patiently, as they were able to receive the higher and more challenging things they and we do face in the life of faith. We can look to those people who stand out to us for they way that call, write, keep in touch, invite, share wisdom and listen with their heart. And to those who ponder in their hearts where to plant a tree for someone’s great great grandchildren.