I am spending this week volunteering at Boy Scout camp – a day camp that is outside from 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM.  Let me tell you what I have come to appreciate beyond measure….shade!  Oh glorious shade!  Sweet respite from the Texas heat, however slight that respite might be in the late afternoon. I noticed when I found shade after being the sun, I would always produce a deep sigh.  A deep sense of relief.

In our Gospel this weekend, we have Mark’s version of the Parable of the Mustard Seed. This parable is also included in Matthew and Luke’s gospels, as well as the Gospel of Thomas that is not in our canon. Clearly, we can see that the memory of this parable told by Jesus is prominent in the memories of the early church. This parable is told to teach the new followers about what the Kingdom of God is like. Now Matthew and Luke include many parables about the Kingdom of God, but Mark does not have as many. So, when Mark does choose to give us one, we know it is important! Though Mark’s is the most abbreviated Gospel, he actually gives us more details than the other Gospels in this parable.

Because this parable is available to us in all of these places and, therefore maybe very well known to us, it might be difficult to reflect anew on it. But Mark gives us some wonderful details to think about. First of all, the sower did sow the mustard seed, so it was intentional for it to grow. It was the smallest of seeds but grew into the largest of plants!  And the heights it reached were not just gratuitous, but it was the very large branches that provided both shade and a dwelling for the birds in the sky. This so closely parallels the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel where again, a very similar agrarian analogy is used: the cedar shoot from a cedar tree that grows into a majestic tree where “birds of every kind will dwell beneath it, every winged thing in the shade of its boughs.”  The magnanimity of God was not just a show of marvelous creation, but actually the huge plant and tree that grow are to be a dwelling place and a respite of shade for God’s creation. So, if the Kingdom of God is like that seed than it becomes indeed a dwelling place, a home and a place of relief and refreshment.

The creator, the author, the Lord, the giver of life and all things is always at work preparing this kingdom, sustaining this kingdom and offering us a home in this kingdom even as we sleep and rise every day and know not how or why God does it. May we always seek this dwelling, this shade and always remember the giver!