Beautiful Mess.

Great to be with everyone at KAMP's tonight. Wonderful to meet so many first timers. Look forward to connecting with you more in the future. Thanks Cole McCord for leading us beautifully in worship tonight.

I'm headed to Colorado Springs this week to assist at New Life Church's (www.NewLifeChurch.org) Desperation Youth Conference (www.DesperationOnline.org). I'll be blogging a bit while I'm away...so let's get those comments rollin'.

This marks week number four in "This Beautiful Mess".

The Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 13)

Mark 4:30Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. 32Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

Many seem to be hoping that the kingdom of God will come in triumphal greatness, expanding God’s territory and taking over the world with glory and power – shock and awing the masses if you will. But that’s the very temptation Jesus faced in the desert, the temptation to do spectacular things like fling himself from the temple or turn stones into bread, to shock the masses with his miracles or awe them with his power. And yet he resists.

The church has faced the same temptation. You and I have faced the same temptation. To pursue the American dream version of the kingdom of God. We like big. God seems to be into small. We like spectacular. God likes humble. We focus on what can be seen. God cares about what is unseen.

Mother Teresa offers us that brilliant glimpse of hope that lies in little things. “We can do not great things, only small things with great love. It is not how much you do but how much love you put into doing it.”

It is easy to fall in love with great things. Bigger is better in this earthly kingdom. We live in a world that wants things larger and larger. We want to super size our fries, sodas, SUV’s, and church buildings. I think the kingdom of God as bubbling up from the bottom rather than trickling down from the top.

The pervasive myth is that as we grow larger we can do more good. As congregations grow in terms of staff and property, their giving to causes outside of operating expenses decreases dramatically, especially money given directly to the poor. I just read a recent study that showed that rich are significantly less generous (proportionately) than poor people, and that large congregations give proportionately far less to people in poverty than do small ones.

You may have heard plenty of cute sermons about the mustard seed parable, talking how God takes little seeds and makes big trees out of them, but I think there’s much more than that going on here.

MUSTARD SEED REVOLUTION

Jesus tells his listeners that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which grows like a wild bush - a wild vine that takes over an area. Rather unassumingly, it can blanket entire mountainsides, smother trees, and crack cement. It’s like those wild weeds that grow out of abandoned places.

The mustard seed’s growth would have been familiar to 1st century Jews and its symbolic meaning unmistakably clear. It may have even been growing in the wild around them as Jesus spoke.

Jews valued order and had very strict rules about how to keep a tidy garden, and one of the secrets was to keep out mustard. It was notorious for invading the well-trimmed veggies and other plants and for quickly taking over the entire garden. Jewish law forbade planting mustard in the garden.

When those 1st century peasants heard Jesus’ images, they would have giggle, or maybe they would have told him to hush before he got killed. Here he is using this infamous plant to describe God’s kingdom subtly taking over the world.

Plenty of people had lofty expectations of the kingdom coming in spectacular triumph and were familiar with the well-known “cedars of Lebanon” imagery from the prophets, who described the kingdom as the greatest of all the trees, not unlike a giant redwood. The cedars of Lebanon imagery would have brought some enthusiastic amens from the crowd.

Jesus ridiculed this triumphal expectation. After all, even mature mustard plants stand only a few feet high.

The Jesus revolution is not a frontal attack on the empires of this world. It is a subtle contagion, spreading one little life, one little house at a time.

Mustard Seed – in the days of the Roman empire (330 BC) it was a sign of power. Darius, King of the Persians, invaded Europe and was met by Alexander the Great. Darius sent Alexander a bag of sesame seeds as a taunt, indicating the multitudes of soldiers he had. Alexander sent back a bag of mustard seed with the message, “You may be many, but we are powerful. We can handle you.”

So there goes Jesus turning power on its head again. His power was not in crushing but in being crushed, triumphing over the empire’s sword with his cross. Mustard must be crushed, ground, broken in order for its power to be released.

John 12:24 says, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Mustard was also known for healing; it was rubbed on the chest to help with breathing, sort of like Vicks vapor rub.

Verse 32 says, “the birds come and perch in its branches.” These birds that he speaks of are fowls – not a reference to the mighty eagles that dwelt in the cedars but the detestable birds. Farmers did not want fowls in their gardens. That’s why they put up scarecrows.

The kingdom of God is a Mustard Seed Revolution. The evidence is small, but it’s everywhere.

At first we see it only in glimpses; a mustard seed revolution is a kind gesture, giving to others in need, saying no to personal gain because it may cost us our soul, pursuing a relationship with people that Jesus wants to love.

Are we there yet? Don’t miss the kingdom. The evidence may be small, but it’s everywhere. You may be looking for a Christian empire, but Jesus says his Kingdom looks an awful lot like a seed.

We push the kingdom away because we’re not sure we like the small packaging. We don’t have a few neighbors over for dinner because it seems like no big deal. Or what about a few college students taking a camp stove taken down to a park to feed some homeless people every week and three years later it's still going.

We want to see God at work, but often times we don’t want to go to the places he is at work.
Growth does not happen in a sterile environment.

We hang out in the dentist office wondering where god is, god’s teeth are fine.

“What’s your calling?” – we have lived in churches and Christian circles fixated and obsessed with the future…These things that we will one day do. We sit around talking about dreams and destinies.

Many people want to start a revolution. But not very many want to be a part of a revolution.
Because a revolution is already underway. And the leader of the revolution is not you, it’s Jesus.
The world is already being changed.

3 POINTS OF ACTION (the book I mentioned is Butterfly In Brazil by Glenn Packiam http://www.glennpackiam.com/)

1. Learn to do small things well – See Nehemiah Chapter 2

We are fixated on the fantastic. How you spend a dollar is how you’ll spend a thousand dollars. How you treat one person is how you’ll treat a thousand dollars. How you spend one hours is how you’ll spend ten.

We don’t do small things well because we don’t see the big picture – we see churches not THE CHURCH

2. Act where you are – See Nehemiah Chapter 3

Mark 5:18As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. 19Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." 20So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis[c]how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.

Where you are is where I want you to act. We don’t even consider that lasting change begins right where we stand. We assume that the place of significance is someplace else. Around the bend. When I turn. God is not in the spectacular. He is in the ordinary. He is in the margins.

3. Stay on the scene - See Nehemiah Chapter 6

As long as you are there, there is no church-forsaken or forgotten place.

A supernova can briefly outshine the galaxy that it’s in…it would take a sun 10billion years to outshine and put off more energy than a supernova…a supernova burns out in weeks or months…the supernova does not sustain any life…has plenty of power and sizzle…what it doesn’t have is stay…plenty of radiance…not enough permanence…the sun sustains life…mark time by the sun…life finds it’s cadence it’s rhythm of the sun, not the supernova.

The secret to stay is to believe that what your hands have found to do is a great work. Great must be redefined.

We believe the Church is God’s chosen vehicle for creating change. Change happens locally. It happens when people act where they are with what they have. Change happens gradually. It occurs when people do a series of little things well over a long period of time.