Steven Schroeder

Like a Weed

Artist Statement: This piece (with the parable of the mustard seed in mind) is part of a project that began almost forty years ago as a translation of the parables in the Gospel of Luke. As I played with the parables, I came to see them as lyric poems (or lyric fragments) embedded in the foundation narrative we know as Luke-Acts – explosive poetry institutionally contained, but never fully contained. I came to see them as openings through which we could catch a glimpse of a peasant poet who spent a few years with a few friends trying to practice what the prophet Micah preached: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. What happens in that circle of friends, it seems to me, is “the Jesus movement.”

It is tempting to measure the success of a movement by the number of followers it gathers. But as I return to the project again, I find myself focusing on the celebration of the small that is so much a feature of the parables. When crowds inexplicably gathered around the small circle, Jesus took to a boat to go where it would be difficult for a crowd to follow. And when he wanted to speak of a big thing like the presence of God, he turned to little things like weeds and errant seeds. I am intrigued by the explosive power of locating God there – in that individual, as Kierkegaard might say – in nobody and nothing important, which, it seems to me, means there is no place that God is not. Every step we step we step on holy ground, and that gives us reason to turn and say (as another gospel – Mark – does over and over again). Look. Just look.

Bio: Steven Schroeder is a poet and visual artist who lives and works in Chicago. More at stevenschroeder.org.
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