Maybe you have heard about a theory that scientists have called the butterfly effect. It’s just a theory, but here is how it came into being. You’re going to have to use your imagination here, so pay attention. Let’s take something really complicated like what causes weather. And let’s say there are two situations where the weather conditions are identical, but in one situation a hurricane comes into being from these weather conditions and becomes a powerful storm, and in the second situation it turns out there’s no hurricane, even though there could have been, the conditions were the same. So, what scientists theorize is there is something that happened that affected things in that first case that made the hurricane come together, but, maybe it was something so small that it could never be found, maybe, so goes the theory, maybe it was something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings halfway around the world, that was the factor that somehow caused a chain of events that started the hurricane.
Now when you hear this theory, I imagine that your reaction might be the same as mine, which is, what a complete crock. I mean, really. You don’t have to have very much common sense to see that a butterfly could be a foot away from you flapping all it wants, and it might be nice, but it’s not affecting anything. It’s a nice theory to talk about in a bar, but please, we think, let’s move on to a theory that looks much more like the way things actually work.
So with that reaction in our minds, now let’s turn to today’s parables from Jesus, and I think the parables have something in common with the butterfly. Because our reaction to many of Jesus’s parables is exactly the same, which is that we say, that’s a great and touching story and I get the point he is trying to make, but no, that’s not really the way things work. The kingdom of heaven in this world, he says, is like a tiny seed. It’s a seed that is so strong, that even if there are weeds everywhere overwhelming it, and you don’t see anything growing, don’t worry about the weeds, leave them there. That seed will be so strong, there will be huge plants in the end, everything is going to work out.
Great story. But I suspect we don’t believe it. Because mostly what we see in this world is that the weeds are pretty powerful. We know that weeds can choke off the plant you want. We know that you can’t just plant a seed and it’ll grow. We would like to think that a small gesture, a hint of a new kingdom like a little seed is the most powerful thing in the world, and yet look around, this is a world where evil seems to win too much of the time, where the people with the most money and the most clout pretty much get what they want. Little seeds of goodness make for a great image, but where are the signs that those seeds are doing what they are supposed to do?
One temptation when we feel that way, and we’re all tempted to, one temptation that Jesus points out to us here in the gospel is that when confronted with weeds, with things we see as wrong, with people we think are choking off what God wants, our instinct is to focus on them, and think that the problem is deciding what a weed is and rooting them out. It can be very satisfying to decide we’re the ones who are meant to do that, it gives us plenty to do and be angry about. But it turns out that figuring out what’s a weed and what isn’t, in the end, is God’s job. Our job is the seed, the undertaking of love or courage or just simple generosity that looks like it might not grow into anything. Our job is the embrace of someone who fails again and again, it’s the money given to a person on the street who looks like a losing investment, it’s the hospitality offered to one refugee among millions, it’s the welcome given to someone that other churches don’t seem to want, the job given to someone who can’t get a break, the one letter written in support of people who don’t have a voice. All these things to try to make the world more just and generous, they can seem like the equivalent of a seed that will be overwhelmed by the size of what it is up against, it doesn’t seem like any one of them is going to turn the world around. But it turns out we’re not here to turn the world around. We are about building a new world in the midst of the old one.
Because, here’s the point, these parables about the seeds Jesus tells are about what he calls “the kingdom of heaven.” When we hear the words “the kingdom of heaven” in the gospel, we almost always hear it wrong. It does not mean this is how things will work in heaven, at some other place and time when everything is perfection and people are somehow better people, acting heavenly. The kingdom of heaven is the way we can live in the world now, it is a kingdom we can choose to live in and build for others, but with entirely different rules in place about what is important and what isn’t, what is powerful and what isn’t. In this kingdom the usual everyday rules aren’t the real rules. The kingdom of heaven is where the poor count more than the powerful, where you have to give things away as fast as you get them, where love guides what we decide about everything That kingdom isn’t built by tearing anything down, by pulling out weeds, or any kind of self-righteous anger. It’s all planting, and believing in the work. It is believing that a little yeast turns flour into quantities of bread, and that every seed ends up as a tree.
So this is a parable that is hard to believe in, but if you do believe in it, it’s pretty explicit about how to live in response to it. It’s about showing patience, having hope, believing in grace, and not sitting back because the odds are too much against the good you might be inspired by God to do. It turns out that the butterfly might really be powerful, that love is never wasted, and despite the way things look, the seeds planted for the kingdom always win.