Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 Gardens of
righteousness and praise
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord
is on me, because the Lord has
anointed me to preach good news to
the poor. He has sent me to bind
up the broken-hearted, to proclaim
freedom for the captives and
release from darkness for the
prisoners, to proclaim the year of
the Lord's favor and the day of
vengeance of our God, to comfort
all who mourn, and provide for
those who grieve in Zion--to
bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of
gladness instead of mourning, and
a garment of praise instead of a
spirit of despair. They will be
called oaks of righteousness, a
planting of the Lord for the
display of his splendor. . . .
For I, the Lord, love justice; I
hate robbery and iniquity. In my
faithfulness I will reward them
and make an everlasting covenant
with them. Their descendants will
be known among the nations and
their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
that they are a people the Lord
has blessed.
I delight greatly in the Lord; my
soul rejoices in my God. For he
has clothed me with garments of
salvation and arrayed me in a robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom
adorns his head like a priest, and
as a bride adorns herself with her
jewels. For as the soil makes the
young plant come up and a garden
causes seeds to grow, so the
Sovereign Lord will make
righteousness and praise spring up
before all nations.
Matthew 13:31, 32 The parable of
the mustard seed
He told them another parable: "The
kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed that someone took and
planted in his field. Though it is
the smallest of all the seeds, yet
when it grows it is the largest of
garden plants and becomes a tree,
so that the birds of the air come
and perch in its branches."
Heaven and Hell #475-77 Our life
stays with us after death
We present our whole person in our
works and deeds. Our motives and
thoughts, or the love and faith
that are our inner parts, are not
complete until they are embodied
in the deeds and works that are
our outer parts. These latter are
in fact the outmost forms in which
the former find definition; and
without such definitions they are
like undifferentiated things that
do not yet have any real
presence--things that are
therefore not yet in us.
To think and intend without acting
when we can is like a flame sealed
in a jar and stifled, or it is
like seed sown in the sand that
does not grow, but dies along with
its power to reproduce. Thinking
and intending and doing, though,
is like a flame that sheds its
light and warmth all around, or
like seed sown in the soil, which
grows into a tree or a flower, and
becomes something. . . .
We may gather from this what the
life is that stays with us after
death. It is actually our love and
our consequent faith, not only in
theory but in act as well. So it
is our deeds or works, because
these contain within themselves
our whole love and faith.
There is a dominant love that
remains with each of us after
death and never changes to
eternity. We all have many loves,
but they all go back to our
dominant love and form a single
whole with it.
The kingdom of heaven is like a
mustard seed that someone took and
planted in his field. Though it is
the smallest of all the seeds, yet
when it grows it is the largest of
garden plants and becomes a tree,
so that the birds of the air come
and perch in its branches.
(Matthew 13:31, 32)
As many of you know, I grew up in
a family of ten, along with seven
brothers and sisters and, of
course, my parents. One of the
practical ramifications of this
was that with ten people sitting
around the dinner table, it made a
big difference--to us, anyway--who
got served first and who got
served last. In fact, by the time
the last person was served, if the
first person was a fast eater, he
or she might already be coming
back for seconds.
Because of this, we had several
schemes for determining the order
in which we would be served. The
most common were "biggest to
littlest" (or oldest to youngest)
and "littlest to biggest" (or
youngest to oldest). Of course,
for those who were in the middle,
neither one of these was all that
great; so sometimes there would be
lobbying for "middlest to
outsidest." But for me, being
number six, I usually figured that
"littlest to biggest" was the
quickest route to getting my
supper--so that was the one I'd
generally root for. This should
explain how I got such a funny
sermon title out of the parable of
the mustard seed.
Like all children who reach full
adulthood, each one of us little
Woofendens did grow up to be big
Woofendens, and now there are a
whole bunch more little Woofendens
running around--some of whom
aren't little anymore themselves.
And so the cycle of life goes on.
The human seeds planted by my
parents--and their parents and
grandparents before them--keep on
growing and producing more human
seeds. Add all of the families of
the world together, and we can see
why this earth and its human
population is called "the seedbed
of heaven." But I'm getting ahead
of myself!
The parable of the mustard seed is
a parable of the smallest becoming
the largest. Though mustard seeds
were not literally the smallest
seeds that the people of ancient
Palestine were aware of, they were
one of the smallest of the seeds
that people commonly planted for
their use--and the mustard seed
had become proverbial for its
smallness. And further, though the
variety of mustard Jesus was
probably referring to (black
mustard), when planted in the
garden, will usually grow only
about three or four feet high,
when it has enough water,
sunlight, and soil, it can and
does grow to be ten or even
fifteen feet high--which
approaches the size of many of the
common trees that grow in that
part of the world. But unlike
trees, the mustard plant, which is
an annual, does this in a single
season. In other words, given the
right conditions, it is a
phenomenally fast-growing plant.
All of this--not to mention the
hot and pungent flavor of the
seeds themselves--made the mustard
seed an ideal image for Jesus to
use in showing how the initial
seeds of spiritual love and
understanding that are sown in us
grow up into lives of
"righteousness and praise" to use
Isaiah's words.
If we look at the world around us,
spiritual truth and love do,
indeed, seem like "the smallest of
all seeds." What are most people
engaged in most of the time? From
the look of it, most people are
engaged most of the time in making
money and pursuing enjoyment,
pleasure, or power. We have built
up vast economic and governmental
systems that are geared almost
entirely to providing for our
material well-being, and asserting
our economic and political power
as far as it will extend. In the
face of that huge machine, what
hope do truth, spirit, and love
for God and the neighbor have?
They seem almost to be swallowed
up in the human hubbub--tiny,
insignificant seeds that almost
disappear because their presence
and influence is so slight in our
ordinary, worldly consciousness.
And yet, those tiny, insignificant
looking seeds have a quality about
them that causes us to "plant them
in the field" of our minds. When
the pursuits and pleasures of this
world begin to lose their savor,
we are attracted to the heat and
pungency of spiritual ideas that
challenge everything our
materialistic mind takes for
granted, and promise a very
different life than the one that
has already begun to grow old and
stale for us. We plant those seeds
of spiritual possibility in our
minds and hearts, and wait to see
what will come of them.
It's important to notice that this
parable of the mustard seed is one
of the early ones in the Lord's
series of parables on the kingdom
of heaven. Even when the mustard
plant has grown, it does not
represent our full, mature state
of spiritual development, but
rather the time when spiritual
life first begins to spring up and
grow in us. These first few
parables deal with seeds and
plants growing. Later they move on
to themes of treasure and wealth.
And the latest in the series deal
with human beings--first workers
in the vineyard, and then people
attending weddings. And we will
see as we move along in our series
on parables of the kingdom of
heaven that this progression moves
us through the stages of our
spiritual growth to full spiritual
maturity, in which we participate
in "the wedding supper of the
Lamb" (Revelation 19:19).
So as I said, here in the parable
of the mustard seed, we are
dealing with the earlier stages of
our spiritual growth. And this
brings us to another, more
personal reason why the mustard
seed is called "the smallest of
the seeds." When we first begin on
our spiritual journey, we are
fresh from our previous lives
where the main focus of our lives
was our own comfort and
possessions, and those of our
families. Our habit is still to
think of ourselves first, and
others after we've gotten enough
for ourselves.
Because of this, when those first
seeds of new spiritual truth and
life are sown in us, we tend to be
focused on what we are going to
get out of this new, spiritual
life, and how things are going to
be better for us. We also tend to
think that our new spiritual
understanding makes us pretty darn
good--and certainly much better
than all those selfish,
materialistic, unenlightened
people milling around out there.
In other words, there is still a
lot of ourselves and a desire for
our own advantage in the
beginnings of our spiritual life.
We are still a long way from being
angels of love and light. And the
goodness and truth in us is still
very small.
But it's a start. And having some
spiritual life--even if it's a
rather smug and self-satisfied
spiritual life--is better than
having no spiritual life at all.
We all have to start somewhere;
and we start from where we were
before. So even though we may
recognize, in our clearer moments,
that we are still messed up,
selfish so-and-so's, we should
still go ahead and plant those
spiritual seeds in our minds and
hearts, and let them grow.
Perhaps an example might help to
see all of this more clearly.
Consider a young (or not so young)
married couple who are having a
rough time of their marriage. They
seem to argue and fight more than
they support and love one another.
Things are looking bad, and
divorce crosses their minds more
and more often. Each one of them
is thinking, "Why should I stay in
this marriage? I'm not getting the
love and affection that I'm
supposed to get out of marriage.
Mostly I just get a lot of grief.
What good is that?" And so the
relationship grows more and more
strained and cold.
This is a situation that seriously
needs some spiritual input. Now
let's consider that for this
couple, the "mustard seed" they
plant in their field is the idea
from the church that marriage is
meant to be a spiritual and
eternal union. Now, they could
just say to themselves, "Well, I
picked the wrong person; maybe
I'll try someone else." But they
do still have some affection for
each other, and they did, after
all, have enough love for each
other to get married. So they
decide they need to work on this
marriage and overcome their
difficulties.
Still, a lot of the incentive for
doing this is often expressed in
the thought I just mentioned: "I'm
supposed to get love and affection
out of marriage." In other words,
marriage is supposed to make me
feel good! I suspect that for most
couples who have not progressed
very far emotionally and
spiritually in their marriage, the
thought of what I'm going to get
out of the marriage is the major
driving force pressing them
forward to see if they can get
their relationship fixed. If I
have a better relationship, I'll
have a more enjoyable life.
That is the mustard seed. Getting
a more enjoyable life for
ourselves is not a very noble or
spiritual motive. In fact, by
itself, it's a fairly selfish
motive. True marriage love is not
about getting pleasure for
ourselves, but about giving love
and happiness to our partner.
Still, we have to start somewhere.
And likely as not, in this example
of marriage it will be the
spiritually tiny, but hot and
pungent (in our hearts) mustard
seed of wanting a better, more
enjoyable, and more affectionate
relationship for ourselves that
gets us moving. In fact, with this
goal in mind, we may vigorously
pursue ways to improve our
relationship with our partner. So
that mustard seed grows fast and
big as it causes us to work on our
relationship. In the process, we
make things better not only for
ourselves, but also for our
partner, our children (if we have
them), and everyone else among our
family and friends.
More importantly, as we work on
our relationship from what may be
less than noble and altruistic
motives, we begin to learn that
relationships are not about
getting pleasure for ourselves,
but about giving love and
happiness to our partner and our
children. And then we can begin
moving on to the next stages, not
only of our relationship, but of
our spiritual life.
This, I hope, gives a clearer
picture of how those early mustard
seeds of not yet mature spiritual
life first spring up and become an
active force in our lives.
What does all of this have to do
with heaven?
Of course, every time we grow in
new ways in our understanding, our
emotions, and our spirits, we are
entering more fully into the
kingdom of heaven even while we
are here on earth. So in that
general sense, this parable is all
about our place in the kingdom of
heaven.
Yet our reading from Heaven and
Hell, and the whole chapter in
which it appears, give more
urgency to the question of just
what seeds we will plant in our
fields. Swedenborg writes, "There
is a dominant love that remains
with each one of us after death,
and never changes to eternity."
Last week we spoke of a "final
harvest" that comes when our life
here on earth has ended, and we
enter the spiritual world. There,
our true inner nature will come
out--however well we may have
hidden it from sight here on
earth--and we will become exactly
what we are like in our heart of
hearts and in our inner mind.
The process of sorting out that I
mentioned last week involves
discovering and disclosing what
our "dominant love" is. It
involves opening up our heart of
hearts, and bringing our whole
life--from our innermost thoughts
and feelings right into our words
and actions--into harmony with
whatever it is that we love most
of all.
Do we love ourselves most of all,
and consider others to be no
better than servants to our will?
Then we will become devils of
hell, continually struggling for
dominance over others who are
equally intent on dominating and
subjugating us. Do we love money,
possessions, and physical pleasure
most of all? Then we will become
satans of hell, always grasping
for others goods and possessions,
and stealing them when we can--and
suffering a similar fate at their
hands.
Or do we love the Lord and our
fellow human beings most of all?
If so, we will become angels of
heaven, at a higher or lower level
depending on the depth and
strength of our love. We will
spend eternity in the joy of love
and service, in community with
people who get just as much
pleasure out of loving and serving
us as we do out of serving them.
As we consider the parable of the
mustard seed, we do well to
consider just what kinds of seeds
we are planting in our lives here
on earth. Whatever seeds we sow in
the fields of our minds and
hearts, those are the seeds that
will grow up into the largest of
garden plants, and finally become
trees firmly rooted in our lives.
Let us resolve to plant good seeds
of love, kindness, and
understanding, so that we may
become angels of love and light.
Amen.
Music: On A Distant Shore
© Bruce De Boer - Used with
Permission
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