Scripture texts: Ezekiel 17:22-24, 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, Mark 4:26-34
Mystery. In literary circles, that’s a pretty common word; it describes a whole genre of literature. It’s the police procedural, it’s the detective story. It’s a story of a crime and the story of unraveling who did it and why. Many readers enjoy mysteries. They are stories that make you think, that challenge your perceptions. The best mystery writers often reveal the solution of the mystery pretty early on in the story, but in ways so subtle many readers miss it, and it’s often fun to sort of go back through the pages and see, oh, I missed that. It’s so obvious now.
There’s another realm of thought where the word “mystery” is used that is not quite so commonplace. It is in the realm of religion, the realm of faith, and here it is used differently. Where mystery in a story is something to be solved, mystery in faith is something that is unknown and largely unknowable. You cannot unravel these mysteries. The deeper you get, the more clouded sometimes things become. Time and again, we encounter questions about the deeper things of life for which the right and only answer is “I do not know.”
We humans are an inquisitive lot. We were given intellect by our creator, curiosity, and we have set to work across the generations to understand why things are the way they are. And we’ve been very successful at it. The whole realm of science is a monument to our ability to tease out the unknowns of the world around us. How did life happen? We know that now. How does gravity work? We know that now. How big is the universe? We know that now. How do black holes work? Ok, we’re still working on that one.
Obviously, we haven’t learned everything, but we’ve learned enough that unknowns bother us. And faith is all about unknowns. Who is God? Well, we know some things. We know what he’s told us about himself in the Scriptures and through his Son, Jesus. But there’s a whole lot we don’t know and really can’t know. And that bugs us. “I don’t know” is usually an unacceptable answer. (Try using it on a teacher or professor sometime. You won’t get very far.) Yet, it’s often the best we have.
Today’s Scripture lessons are all about mystery. They are all about things that we do not know and really cannot know. Ezekiel tells of a mystery. In a wonderful poetic fashion, he teases a beautiful image of a world yet to be. It’s essentially the old covenant retold. All the world coming together on the mountaintop. Justice will reign. There will be sufficiency for all.
And yet, that’s a far cry from the world in which we live. There’s an internet meme going around. It shows Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner on one side and a man in a USMC uniform on the other. It says that everyone wants to talk about how “brave Bruce Jenner is for transitioning from man to woman. He’s not brave. This soldier is brave.”
Not the exact meme that I describe, but there certainly plenty of these echoing these particular sentiments out there.
I saw that and I sort of shook my head. No, that’s not how it works. Both are brave. Both are courageous. Not in the same way and obviously not in the same contexts. I can’t imagine the kind of valor it would take to be on the battlefield, to be in that environment. Nor can I imagine the kind of courage it takes to completely transform one’s identity from male to female in a world that is often violently hostile to alternative sexuality. It’s a both/and, not an either/or. One does not diminish the other. They are not in competition with one another.
But we want them to be. It’s this same stupid tribalism that I spent last week’s sermon excoriating. My people are better than your people. My people are braver than your people. My daddy can beat up your daddy. Yes, there’s the truth of it. It’s juvenile playground bullcrap, but it’s not children that do this. It’s adults, it’s the people running this world. And we're doing everything we can to divide ourselves from one another.
And yet it is God’s vision that we will all be one, one tribe, one family. Gathered together under the sprout of cedar on the mountaintop as the birds in its branches. “I will accomplish this.” God promises. How? I have no idea.
Jesus too speaks to a mystery in our Gospel lesson, two in fact, perhaps the greatest mystery of all: the mystery of faith itself. Why do we believe? Why do I believe? I mean, I could speak to my childhood and coming to church every Sunday. I could speak to my baptism (which as an infant, I couldn’t remember.) But as to why or even how I believe? I just do and I can’t remember when I didn’t. Oh, I have my moments of doubt and questioning; everyone does. But they were never quite enough to make me fall away from what seems like it’s always been.
I can’t speak to your stories, so I shouldn’t expect them to be the same or even similar. But Jesus does drive home the point that there is something unknowable about faith. You toss the seed and suddenly boom, there is a plant. The mustard seed is tiny and yet grows into something many hundred times larger. How do these things happen? We don’t know.
Of course, I could go into biology and whatnot, but that’s imposing a bit too much of our scientific knowledge onto Jesus’ metaphorical language and utterly missing the point of what he’s trying to tell us. Faith is a mystery, and perhaps never more so than when we are dealing with the faith of others as opposed to our own.
Evangelism is one of those “dirty words” in many mainline churches; not just because we find the idea of talking to people about faith intimidating, but also because we think we are responsible for the whole nine yards. We’ve got to convert these people, but that’s not our job. We are the sower who scatters the seed. Whether the seed grows or not is outside our control.
That lack of control can be frightening when we’re talking about someone we love dearly. I have many friends who are not Christian; They are atheist, agnostic, Taoist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Neo-Pagan, you name it. Will they ever believe in Christ? I don’t know. There’s that phrase again. All I can do is plant seeds.
In 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about “walking by faith, and not by sight” and this is precisely what he means by that. We have these immense promises from God, promises of faith and salvation won through Christ and his cross. We have a promise of a new world of peace and tranquility, unity and love. We have a promise that we will be a part of that world for all eternity. Will others? I don’t know. But faith is about trust and if he’s done all this for me and for you, why would he not for them?
That’s how this works. I don’t know what God will do. But I believe and I trust that these promises are firm. That faith will spread and that idyllic world of unity and justice will come to pass. We has said it and while I cannot see it, I trust that it will come. Amen.
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