The Province of Ontario’s pesticide ban came into effect this year. The goal was to reduce the number of toxic chemicals which have been shown to damage the environment and human health. There has been one major consequence of this new legislation. We are undergoing a major dandelion infestation. Those beautiful yellow flowers are everywhere. The apartment building on the corner of my street has not cut their grass yet this summer, and the dandelions are as tall as my knee. All the efforts I have made to keep my lawn clear are being threatened by this negligent neighbour. That’s the way it is with dandelions. The wind blows where it will. Some young entrepreneurs have even started a dandelion pulling service. When I look at all of these flowers, I wish I could make some dandelion wine, because I don’t really know of any other use for such a bumper crop. Did you know that dandelions were brought to North America in the 1600’s as a hardy source of salad greens? It was also used as a medicinal herb. So I guess the only other solution is for us to start eating dandelion greens as part of our 100mile diet!

If dandelions were difficult to grow, we’d all want them in our garden, since they are so pretty. Yet no one in their right mind would plant a dandelion in their garden. Dandelions are not the only plant with take-over properties. Pliny the Elder wrote the first gardening handbook around the time of Jesus.  Pliny praises the mustard seed for its pungent taste and fiery effect. The mustard plant is a hardy bush which grows to just over a metre in height. Pliny warns that ‘once it has been sown, it is scarcely possible to get the garden free of it, as the seed germinates as soon as it falls.’ Pliny warns against planting it in your garden, as it will take over.

So why would Jesus compare the Kingdom of God to an obnoxious weed? I think Jesus is using a bit of humour here to make his point. For what gardener in their right mind wants to provide a safe place for birds in their garden? Every gardener I know wants to keep the birds away from the seeds & vegetables. Birds are trouble enough on their own. They don’t need any encouragement to come help themselves.

Jesus is saying the Kingdom of God is like a smelly shrub which has takeover properties. It is something most people only want in small controlled doses, IF you could control it. If you see yourself as the owner of the garden, Jesus is saying to you- Beware! The Kingdom of God is at hand. God wants to take over all the parts of your life, to give new flavour to your life, to share with you a new purpose. If you see yourself as the helpless bird who has nothing, God is inviting you in- this is your chance to survive & thrive.

This is the outrageous image Jesus has of God. Our God wants to take over what we think is ours to do with as we please. God wants to use everything we have, in order to spice up this world.

When God’s Holy Spirit is active- it acts like a dandelion. It blows with the wind where it will. It spreads. It grows in any kind of soil. Its roots go deep into your heart. Once it gets a hold of you, you have to fight to keep it from taking over. Which raises the question of why do we resist the spreading of the seeds of the spirit?

It always amazes me that the petrochemical industry tried for years to kill off the dandelion with no success. They spent millions of dollars to produce chemicals toxic enough to cause cancer and harm living organisms, but they never managed to eradicate the simple dandelion. It is too stubborn. The will to live is too strong. The power of God’s creation is stronger than our most poisonous forms of toxic weed killers.

Sometimes it can feel like our culture is using all of the poisonous weapons at its disposal to wipe Christianity from the face of the earth. It is easy to feel like we are a minority who is under siege. Last weekend  I attended the Annual meeting of Montreal & Ottawa Conference, which is the United Church’s oversight body for this region. At the Conference,  there was a strong feeling of people trying to hang on to the little bit of ground they have left. There was talk of decline and discouragement. They did not feel hopeful. 

This dark pessimism was in stark contrast to the preaching festival I attended in Atlanta three weeks ago. The recession has had a much more noticeable impact on people there, and the American church is feeling the pinch much more than we are. The impact of secular philosophy is just starting to shift the American public’s attitudes towards Christianity in a way that we have already been facing here in Canada for the past two decades. Yet they are optimistic. There is a feeling that God is doing something new in the midst of this rapidly changing world. The message there was that we don’t need to feel like a beleaguered minority. As long as we retain our pungent and spicy point of view, we can be a confident minority, a confident minority which has the power to affect the whole neighbourhood.  The dandelion of faith is still capable of spreading its seeds.

The gift of God’s Holy Spirit is a gift of grace. It is hard to combat secular philosophy on your own. It is difficult to stand against a global economic shift by yourself. It is scary to behold the old ways of looking at the world be swept away by new insights, new experiences, new discoveries. Life is much more complex and diverse than we ever imagined possible. We used to be able to describe the way this world works by breaking it down into its smallest possible building blocks. Such reductionism helped us to decode things like the human genome. It helped us to split the atom. But then we realized there are things smaller than atoms which act more like energy than matter. Describing what is in the human genome does not fully explain all that our DNA can do.

God’s Holy Spirit helps us to find the wisdom we need in order to understand this rich complexity which is the wonderful creation God has made. The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead says “Wisdom is the persistent pursuit of the deeper understanding.” God is not threatened by our going beyond the old simple understandings of how this world works. God invites us to explore, to grow, to spread our wings and fly. God gives us the Holy Spirit to inspire us, to share dreams with us, to invite new possibilities with us.
We often use the past tense to describe God our Heavenly Father who created the world so long ago. We often use the present tense to describe God the Son whose death and resurrection brings us salvation here today.
Yet how often do we use the future tense to describe God the Holy Spirit who calls us to embark on a holy adventure which will transform the world of tomorrow?

A Dandelion Faith. Text: Mark 4:30-32
Preached by Rev. James Murray at Dominion-Chalmers United Church, June 14 2009
 

Just as surely as God has been active in our past, and is present here today, God through the Holy Spirit is laying a foundation for tomorrow. 
We need to be open to that restless spirit which wakes you up in the middle of the night.
We need to listen to those dreams of yours which are still unfulfilled.
We need to reclaim those ideals which you sacrificed for the sake of comfort and success.
What are those seeds of new life which are lying dormant under the weight of your busyness?
The hopeful winds of the Holy Spirit are blowing.
What wondrous things is God’s Holy Spirit trying to reveal to you this day?

Source: John Dominic Crossan “Jesus- A revolutionary biography” Harper Collins 1994
Bruce Epperly “Holy Adventure” Upper Room Books, 2008.