Scripture: Mark 4:26-34
In this Sunday’s message, Melissa wove together the parables of the sower scattering seed and of the mustard seed growing with the tremendously destructive dispensationalist theology made popular by Hal Lindsey. Dispensationalism is a reading of scripture that is the basis of Christian Zionism, a violent anti-Semitic, literalist misuse of scripture. It is also the underpinning, for many US policies and attitudes towards the modern state of Israel.
Unlike the coercive theology that runs through Christian Zionism, we see in today’s passage that the kingdom of God is a mystery, one of the Gospel of Mark’s favorite words. It’s not a mystery in the sense that we don’t understand it or can’t comprehend it. It’s a mystery in our lack of ability to bring it to pass. The lies of Christian Zionism are manifold, but the most central is this, that we can control history. That we can manipulate God’s action that we can spur on a desired future through geopolitical maneuvering. And once you’re there. Once you start down this path, you have lost the Jesus plot altogether.
This is an occasion for us to look at the ways we may also think God needs our help to make history turn out right. What are the ways that we insist that particular political ends, no matter how destructive or violent, may be necessary? What are the ways that we say compromise and capitulation is simply part of the calculus of the greater good? Because there’s just no room for that here. And in the seed parables we discover that we live out of control. That is part of the mystery.
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