315 Being A Tangerine Church

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Being A Tangerine Church” originally shared on June 12, 2024. It was the 315^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   There are lots of kinds of mandarin oranges. Tangerines are one of them. Be a tangerine church. Today, we’ll find out why.

   Have you ever wondered why “mandarin oranges” are called that? Apparently, nobody knows for sure, but it’s said that the commercial variety of the fruit came from China in the early 1890’s.  In Sweden and in Germany they were called “Chinese Apples”, and in France, “manderine”.

   “Mandarin” was an English reference for Chinese officials. Counselors in the Chinese imperial courts wore bright orange robes that resembled the oranges. So, the fruits were called mandarin oranges.

   Have you ever eaten a mandarin orange?

   You can buy just the segments in a can.

   Or you can buy the whole fruit. If you have done that recently, you most likely bought Mandarin oranges in their commercial varieties, “Cuties” or “Halo” or “Clementines”.

   These varieties are sweet and easy to peel, but they are grown to contain no seeds.

   Tangerines are another type of mandarin orange, but I don’t see them in markets much anymore. Maybe it’s because they are more difficult to peel, and their flavor is more tart than sweet. But they are also more likely to have seeds. They are inconvenient, but they have what makes more tangerine trees.

   It’s like being the church. In a tangerine church, more may be asked of you to get to the substance of why you are there. And in the end, the Christian life you live may not be as sweet as you had imagined it. But it will be real. It will contain the inconvenient seeds that are the means for growth. Those seeds are what makes more Christians. The result is that the seeds that are planted bear new life. They grow into trees that in turn bear more new life, and on and on.

   This is the theme of the two parables (a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning) in the section of the Gospel of Mark that is being read in churches all over the world this coming Sunday, Mark 4:26-34.

   Jesus begins with a parable about planting, in Mark 4:26-29,

²⁶ He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

   In Jesus’ day, farmers wouldn’t dig furrows for the seed and then cover them with earth, they would carry a large pouch full of seeds at their hip, grab a handful, and then throw them across their midsection onto the ground as they walked forward onto the surface of a field. They cast the seed broadly. That’s where the English word “broadcasting” comes from.

   The kingdom of God is like that. Someone goes out and sows the seeds of hope in Jesus Christ. Some of them grow and become mature Christians.

   And someday, God will return to gather all Christians. The harvest will have come.

   The second story is about what happens when a seed is planted, in Mark 4:30-34,

³⁰ He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

   We are Christians because of the faith that God gives us. The Kingdom of God, God’s Reign in us and in all Creation, may not look like much in the beginning, but it grows when it is tended. It grows into something big.

   Seeds are necessary for growth in the Kingdom of God. They are the good news of Jesus Christ, and we are called to share them. They contain the promise of life and hope for the future. They are placed on the earth, and they seem to decompose, but then the life they are meant to be emerges. They grow into people who are mature Christians. Seeds look different from what they will be, but they will be what they will be.

   When our son was in 7^th grade he wrote a paper called “Why Chinese People Use Chopsticks”. He had become curious when our family ate at Chinese restaurants. He found that it was because Confucious said that civilized people don’t use weapons, like knives, at the dinner table.

   Billions of people use chopsticks every day, but they take a little getting used to if you weren’t raised with them. Many Westerners have a hard time with them.

   I saw a video online a couple of weeks ago that demonstrated how to overcome this problem.

   It showed a pair of chopsticks, like the kind that come wrapped in paper. The wood was pulled apart to make two chopsticks.

   Then the video advised taking a plastic straw, like you get in restaurants, cutting off about 4 inches, and putting the square-ish ends of the chopsticks in each end of the piece of the plastic straw that you cut off.

   Then you bend the straw with the chopsticks until the chopstick points come together and you find that you have made a hinge that does the work of opening the points that you have closed to let you eat food. Easy-peasy!

   But you have also lost something. You have lost a shared experience of eating, put more plastic waste in the environment, and lost some maneuverability for what is now mechanical. And it doesn’t work very well, and what if you don’t have a straw, or wooden chopsticks?.

   Learning to use chopsticks requires some effort, but what you gain is so much more.

   Living the Christian life requires sacrifice, but what you gain is so much more.

   It’s sometimes like being a parent.

   This coming Sunday is Father’s Day. I just mention that as a community service. Don’t forget. Though it’s not as big a deal as Mother’s Day (I don’t know why. 😊), it’s an important relationship.

   It seems appropriate that two stories about seeds should appear on Father’s Day. 😊

   But for some of us, Father’s Day will be a painful day. Some of us grew-up without a father present, but had people who served as fathers and sometimes that was their mothers. Some had fathers who were not so loving. Some of us wanted to be fathers but couldn’t. Some of us no longer have their fathers and miss them.

   All those feelings about Father’s Day are an expression of a deeply important relationship.

   Father’s Day is about one of the primary relationships in human life. Having a father active in a child’s life makes a huge difference in the person they become.

   I had conflicts with my dad when I was a kid. I think that we all do as we grow up. But I loved my father and he loved me, and we both said it and we knew it.

   Paul writes, in his letter to the church at Ephesus, in Ephesians 6:2-4,

² “Honor your father and mother”—this is the first commandment with a promise: ³ “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”

⁴ And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

   Paul is quoting from the 10 commandments, in Exodus 20:12,

¹² Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

   Have you ever looked closely at traditional art showing Moses with the 10 commandments? You might have noticed something odd.

   God gave the 10 commandments on two stone tablets, but the commandments are not always represented with five on each tablet.

   Instead, you’ll often see the numbers 1-3 on the tablet to the left, and the numbers 4-10 on the tablet to the right.

   Why? Because the first three commandments have to do with our relationship with God, and the remaining seven have to do with our relationships with one another.

   And The Fourth Commandment, the very first commandment in that second group is:

   “Honor your father and your mother.”

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, describes the meaning of this commandment in this way, “We are to fear (note: respect) and love God, so that we neither despise nor anger our parents and others in authority, but instead honor, serve, obey, love, and respect them.”

   I read an article about the “99 Ranch Market” supermarket chain in the Los Angeles Times the other day.   “99” sounds like “jiǔjiǔ”, a word for “longevity” in Mandarin Chinese, and “Ranch” is meant to suggest “freshness”. It was started by Roger Chen, an immigrant from Taiwan, in 1984 as a single grocery store in Westminster focused on culturally Chinese people.

   Today, there are 58 supermarkets in 11 states, and it is growing, and it is now a pan-Asian supermarket. It is now run by Mr. Chen’s son and daughter, Jonson Chen and Alice Chen.

   Like their father, they continue to grow the business by focusing on the business and avoiding distractions.

   The Church, likewise, grows by focusing on what it is, the Body of Christ, and avoiding distractions. That is who we are, the Body of Christ. The world wants everything from us except who we are.

   Many churches are like “Cuties” or “Halos” or clementine mandarin oranges. Churches can easily focus on what pleases people, not on what pleases God. They expect very little of their members or of those who want to become members. They are sweet, but they have no seeds. That becomes part of who they are, and they pass on their disinterest in sharing their faith from generation to generation. No seeds mean no growth.

   Sticking our heads up makes us stand out. Sharing our faith often draws the attention of those who defy God. The normal experience of the Church throughout history has been persecution. It is normal for Christians in many parts of the world to be persecuted for their faith. It’s costly, and guess what, Christians there are strong. And their churches are growing.

   In fact, the places in this world where Churches are growing is where it is hard to be a Christian and not just because it creates a strong sense of identity, but because it is organic for Christians to do so.

   The good soil in which we grow is the reality of the existence of God. Christians grow because what they believe and teach is true.

   It is only in the places where people have forgotten the reality of their faith, or when they have found it difficult for them, like in the Western world, that it is not growing.

   Among all the kinds of mandarin oranges, be the one with seeds. Be like the tangerine. It may be harder to peel the fruit, and the outcome may be tart rather than sweet, but it brings joy now and eternal life in the world to come. Eternal longevity! In the end you will bear much fruit.  And it will grow into a mighty Church.