Readings: 2 Cor 5:6-10,14-17; Mark 4:26-34 I love the radio. Particularly I love Radio National. No matter what time of the day or night it always has something interesting being talked about, or someone amazing being interviewed. I love the guests that Phillip Adams seems to attract, perhaps because of his clear leftish tendencies, people who seems to care about others, particularly others not so well off.

One person who really made an impression on me was Matt Noffs, the grandson of the legendary Uniting Church minister, Ted Noffs. Ted Noffs founded The Wayside Chapel in 1964 in the heart of Sydney`s red light district of Kings Cross. He established drug referral and rehabilitation centres for the first time there as well as helping the city`s poor and needy. In the decades since Ted`s death his oldest son, Wesley, and now his grandsons, Rupert and Matt, run the `family business`, the Ted Noffs Foundation, forging new ways of reaching out to today`s youth. This includes a street university in Sydney where young people can come and engage in activities needed to grow and develop. While now seen as secular, in that it is not linked to any particular church or religion the foundation has its roots firmly in the Christian gospel of social action and care for the poor and marginalised and reflects the work and faith of its founder.

Ted Noffs used to say: `I am a Christian, I am a Catholic, I am a Protestant, I am a Muslim, I am a Hindu, I am a Jew, I am a Sikh, I am an Agnostic and I am an Atheist. But first and foremost I am a human being and no one in this world is a stranger to me.` His motto, Love yourself and others as they are saw the practical side of religion take centre stage. Over time he developed the `Family of Humanity` a belief that transcended all boundaries of belief, all ideas of barriers of class and socio economic status and put him on a collision course with his own church.

And he suffered terribly. He was charged with heresy not just once but a number of times as well as being accused of harbouring drug addicts and criminals and of being God forbid a non Christian.

Yet I believe Ted Noffs was closer to the message of the parable of the mustard seed and Jesus message than many many people in the church today.

Traditionally the parable of the mustard seed is interpreted as a shift from small to great, that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that will grow into a huge tree eventually, we just to have hope.
But that is an interesting interpretation, and not very parable like. Parables usually change things around, and get us questioning what our usual assumption and expectations are. This parable actually has so much more to say.
Brandon Scott, John Crossan and the Jesus Seminar all suggest the parable is not about small to big. In Hebrew Scriptures, one of the most common ways of describing Empire was to describe it as a tree, and particularly a Cedar tree as in Ezekiel when God promises to restore the Royal House of David.

Crossan also points out that the mustard plant is actually a virulent weed that will take over an entire garden if not controlled. It tends to attract birds within a cultivated area where they are not particularly desired.

So this parable was opening up the imagination of his listeners, the community of Mark already under duress, in a very different way. We are comparing a weed with a tree, not that the weed turns into that tree but that there is contrast between the two. It is subversive, counter cultural to the powers of Rome and of Israel and the powers we deal with today. And it is also uplifting and hopeful. But it`s not about what the kingdom will be like at the end, but how we get there, how it works. How it is achieved.

Jesus was saying the kingdom of God is not like the mighty Cedar tree, the noble symbol of empire and power, but like a pungent weed that takes over everything. It is like the mustard seed, a weed that infiltrates the garden, and a weed that is difficult to kill. It does not achieve its aims as a huge tree overshadowing everything else, but as a persistent and strong plant that grows abundantly and which attracts the birds of the air to nest. The contrast is stark. The parable is challenging us to make a choice. A choice on how we should live.

Ted Noffs felt his primary function was to meet the needs of humanity. When asked by people, where does religion fit into that? He replied, `The very act of healing the drug addict or restoring a child to his mother is in fact the religious function full stop.`

But he also realised the bringing of God`s kingdom of justice, of compassion and of inclusiveness doesn`t happen in the blink of an eye. It happens by infiltrating the system and society, by fighting, tooth and nail, by scrapping and being persistent, and living the dream, even if the dream seems too far away. It is to believe in spite of the evidence and then work like mad to change the evidence. It is to have faith in a universal God, as he would say, `the healing power, the witnessing power, within every human life` and live alongside those who need you, loving and supporting them as best you can.

I think we can safely say Ted Noffs got the message of the mustard seed and made his choice. And the seeds he planted have grown widely and wildly, into a second and third generation of love for others. What about us? What is our choice?