This week's Lectionary text includes the passage in Mark 4 where Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a seed.

God, we know that your kingdom, your kin-dom, the Community of Heaven
Is like a seed -
It’s potential unknowable;
The smallness of the seed
Defying the magnitude of its becoming:
Bursting with life.

We don’t always know the end result
Just by looking at the seed.
Infinitesimal, full of potential, the seed is the start,
The prime of possibility.

The smallest of seeds
Can become the tallest of trees
Bearing fruit and shade,
Nourishing creatures,
Fractalizing, reproducing, and expanding,
Continuing out infinitely.

How should we understand big things?
By looking closely at small things.
How should we understand God’s Community?
By looking at its seeds among us.

This is what we want to be part of:
This ever-growing
     Ever-including
     Ever-sharing
     Ever-nourishing
     Ever-creative
     Ever-expanding, ever-life-giving communion.

May the seed find good soil in us. Amen

The Lectionary passages for Proper 5 (Year B) contain the story of the time Jesus' family thought he had gone crazy. His ideas and practices were so far outside of their comfort zone that they thought he'd gone nuts. The text says: “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind" (Mark 3:21).

This is what I love about him. Unexpected, unconventional, challenger of expectations and assumption; dumping old paradigms for what's sane and respectable and inventing new ones made out of entirely different stuff.

Christ, you arrived on earth with a lot of harebrained ideas.
People thought you were crazy
For your unconventional brand of kindness,
For breaking rules,
For making unexplainable miracles happen,
For re-interpreting scripture,
For rejecting violent means ,
For consorting with sinners,
For re-defining family (1);
For giving unexpected advice:
     Like, love your enemies
     Be humble
     Pray for those who persecute you
     Don’t judge
     Consider the poor
     Make peace.

You baffled everybody you met, from the time you were a child.
You’re still astounding us now.

It’s this same unpredictable grace,
This dazzling mercy,
This lively Love
This upside-down agenda,
That captures our imaginations many years after you last walked the earth in flesh.
We are captivated by you.

Look, here are our hearts:
Put your own heart in us.
Look, here are our minds:
Awaken them.
Look, here are our hands:
Show us the work to do.
Look, here are our voices:
Teach us to speak mercy.

You, crazy old Jesus! You ineffable Force of Love:
You’re the one we want to follow.

Amen

1) Mark 3:35