Preached on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 6B), June 16, 2024, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen.
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Psalm 20
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17
Mark 4:26-34
World’s Smallest Seed, by Jim Janknegt
I am getting older.
This, of course, is literally true of everyone and everything. The youngest dog in my home is nineteen months old — a powerfully fabulous age for a dog, with most of the growing pains and training restraints of puppyhood receding into the past, and many years of frolicking and bugging the older dogs lying blissfully ahead in the future. Yet this energetic yearling is, like you and I, getting older. Even now I can all too easily imagine his gradual senescence, his frailty in the teen years, his grievous death.
From a dog’s perspective, I have not reached my teen years, but I think it’s fair to say I’m almost a canine tween. So I scheduled a routine exam this past week with my new primary doctor, and we went over everything. At one point he casually mentioned that we should review a couple of topics because, he said, “You’re over fifty and you have some issues.”
That’s fair. I am over fifty and I have some issues. I am getting older.
Now, physically I am just fine, and it occurred to me that my companions at St. Paul’s might like to hear this, so that you can relax and know that your rector is fit for duty. I have hypertension but it is controlled well by medication and the good midwestern practice of counting how many times I turn the salt grinder over my green vegetables. (I try to keep it to two turns. Or three.) I do enjoy cake and cookies but I am a teetotaler and I exercise often, arguably too often. My LDLs are not in the green zone but my HDL/LDL ratio is good. My heart has a slight electrical issue but that does not cause any problems, and like both my parents I am unlikely to die of heart disease. Overall, my stern and sensible farmer ancestors would be satisfied that I am a hard worker who takes reasonably good care of himself.
But things sneak up on me, as I get older. I fell on a dog walk last year and the imaging of my hand revealed “scattered bone spurs.” “That means you’re getting older,” a friend said, bracingly. I would not have known about those spurs if I hadn’t had the ER scan my hand, but I do notice other symptoms of aging. For instance, it took a surprisingly long time for the hand to heal. (I still can’t bend it back with ease!)
I can still do most physical movements, but I am gradually getting a little more tentative. Standing from a kneeling position at the confession – which I do so that I can proclaim God’s forgiveness – is still something that comes fairly easily, but I am always aware that I am doing it. It isn’t an unconscious behavior anymore. I do not remember when that shifted.
And so it goes. We age. It happens moment by moment, year by year. We begin to lose one ability privilege or another, learning that every last one of us will eventually lose them all. (This is rightfully humbling.) We discover that a joint is more stiff, or a menu is harder to read, or – and this is the most wondrous part of aging for me to describe – we may notice that we have developed an ability to ride emotional waves with something akin to wisdom. I have gratefully experienced this. When I am enduring a low emotional point in the day – usually around 3:00pm – I do not chant “This too shall pass,” but somehow my body knows, down deep, that, well, this too shall pass.
My great hope is to arrive later in life not with any particular mobility or sensory privilege, but with serenity, with healthy acceptance of all that is, with reverent gratitude for all that has departed, and with quiet contentment about what lies ahead. I might not make it that far: some don’t, because illness, injustice, violence, or accidents get in the way. If that is my future, then that will be sad for me, but I trust I will have companions who care for me, even if that’s just by reading a book while I sleep in my hospital bed.
Now, when Jesus took up the image of the seed in so many of his parables, he was a young man in his late twenties or early thirties, and likely did not have human aging in mind. Most of his first followers were martyred long before they would have reached old age, and life expectancy in the ancient world was far lower. But I hope you can bear with me. The seed parables can teach us something about our own lives, and all their long seasons. And our own lives can teach us something about the faith, and about Jesus.
Recall today’s parables: The seed is sown and it grows in the earth, the sower knows not how. Then the tiny mustard seed explodes into an invasive shrub that shelters a whole host of living creatures. Jesus seems to love the image of the seed! And he follows the seed through its life cycle: it begins as a seed breaking open deep in the soil, then it is a sprout, then a vine, then a sheltering plant, bearing fruit.
When we explore these parables about seeds, we can gain some insights about our life in the dominion of God. In our hearing, the parables about seeds can be an affirmation by Jesus that all seasons of life are holy, all decades of life yield a harvest, and much of what we need – indeed, much of who we are – develops and grows beyond our awareness, we know not how.
Much of who we are develops and grows beyond our awareness, we know not how. And this means we will probably be surprised to discover changes along the way.
As I’ve said, I occasionally blink with surprise in my mid-fifties to discover that I am noticeably older, which of course can be a startling disappointment. But it also can offer certain treasures: I am better able these days to integrate and regulate my passing feelings (at least on a good day); I have a bit more skill at recognizing my own wrongdoing and making amends; I’ve finally learned how to handle my money more responsibly; and best of all, I’m slowly discovering that health and ability are not the same thing, and that health and healing are not the same thing.
Meanwhile, I watch and listen to other people – I watch and listen to you – all along the cycle of human life, from our three-year-old theologian at St. Paul’s who teaches us how to notice and engage the living water in our baptismal font, all the way to someone not far from ninety whose powers of observation and insight are a formidable and wondrous blessing upon this community.
I learn from a tween among us who studied his lines for today’s performance of Mark’s Gospel, and brings creative enthusiasm to every rehearsal; I learn from young parents here who astonish me with their ability to lead immensely complicated family lives; I learn from parishioners in midlife – on both sides of my age – who bravely navigate the treacherous waters of the corporate world, grapple with traumatic changes and disappointments in the academic world, discern their progress toward retirement, and search for deeper meaning in all things.
In all of these human lives, the humans grow and change, they rise and fall, they work and weep and rejoice and rest – I know not how.
I know not how. Oh, how often – so often – I have preached to you that God is the Humble One! I come back to that theme so frequently. But it works; it preaches; it helps. God the Humble One works in, with, and under creation, we know not how. God works along the bones of my injured hand and along your creaking knees; God works at the bedside of our ailing elder; God works on the overstuffed kitchen calendar of a busy family; God works in the quick mind and open heart of a young actor proclaiming the Good News according to Mark. God works in the tedious morning staff meeting at your office.
God works in, with, and under whatever struggles we face today.
And God works perhaps most especially in the desperate and terrible places of the world. God guides the skillful hands of Doctors Without Borders; God strengthens weary diplomats who labor in agony to negotiate a ceasefire; God sustains the hearts and stills the anxieties of frantic refugees, and God stirs our consciences to come to their aid. God does all of these things, we know not how. We often can’t see – and sometimes, we should confess, we occasionally refuse to see – how God does much of anything in this desperate and roiling world. But God the Humble One is here, at work, closer than our own thoughts and feelings.
And we, you and I, we have many tasks, as we discern God’s humble presence and power thrumming quietly throughout this good yet aging world. Jesus puts it this way: When the grain is ripe, at once we go in with our sickle, because the harvest has come.
There is always much to do, but be confident: we are fit to serve, whatever our age or ability, whoever we are, whoever we were. And always, around God’s Table of Thanksgiving, we have each other. So we do not lose heart. Our patron Paul sings this Good News to us: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”