"Seeds of the Kingdom"

Preached June 17, 2012, at Rennie Memorial Presbyterian Church in Amelia, VA.


Texts: Ezekiel 17:22-24
          Mark 4:26-34

I was talking the other day about different agricultural practices with a friend who grew up in a family of North Carolina farmers. As someone who has always lived in the city, it's not been until recently that I have begun to reflect on where my food comes from.

In fact, I have a distinct memory from grade school, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, when my class was doing a unit on plants. To add a more hands-on element to our study, we planted cucumber seeds in little Dixie cups full of dirt, placed them in the window, watered them regularly, and watched them grow. After a few weeks, we took them home, and my dad helped me plant my little cucumber seedling in the back yard. I took diligent care of the plant, and lo and behold, it grew a couple cucumbers! I remember how amazed I was that this tiny little seed I'd cared for had grown into a cucumber. Sure, I understood conceptually that seeds grow into plants, but this transformation had taken place before my very eyes. Somehow that seed in a Dixie cup had grown and transformed into food for our family.

My friend found this quite funny, of course, and I imagine many of you can understand why. There I was - a girl from the city who has forgotten how to dig around in the dirt.

As I've been meditating on our Gospel lesson this morning, however, I've started to return to that childlike wonder. There is something miraculous about the power of a seed. It's small, nondescript, seemingly insignificant. And yet it has the potential for life locked inside. When you stop to consider it, it really is mind-boggling. Who could tell, when looking at a tiny seed, that it will grow into a large and beautiful plant? When you start to really reflect on it, the agricultural process is an unsung miracle. In the two parables we heard this morning, Jesus tells us that in some way, the very Kingdom of God is just like that tiny seed.

Before exploring the parable itself, it's important that we first take a moment to reflect on what Jesus means by "the Kingdom of God" in this parable, for throughout the Gospels, it is the cornerstone of Jesus' preaching. Mark's Gospel does not begin with a picture of the sweet baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger as do Matthew or Luke, nor does he engage in sweeping poetic pondering on Jesus as God's Word made flesh, as does John in his Gospel. For Mark, that's not the main point. In his Gospel, we meet Jesus as a man from Nazareth who is baptized by John, is tempted in the wilderness, and then inaugurates his ministry with these words, "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news!"

So what is this Kingdom of God that has come near, that is such good news, that is like a seed, like a mustard seed? Many of us, when we hear the phrase "Kingdom of God" will automatically think of Heaven, of a place where God lives and where we will go when we die. That seems logical, sure; we've heard God referred to as the King of Heaven, after all. But I don't think that's what Jesus is talking about here. When Jesus teaches about life after death, he calls it the Resurrection, or the Resurrection of the Dead. No, if I understand the text, what Jesus means when he says the "Kingdom of God," is God's rule right here on this very earth! That's what we pray for when we pray the Lord's Prayer, isn't it? "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus begins his ministry, then, by proclaiming that the Kingdom of God has come near. God is beginning to rule on earth. And just a few chapters later, in our reading for today, Jesus describes this Kingdom using two seeds.

I would imagine that most of us are more familiar with the second parable, the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Matthew and Luke tell this story as well. The mustard seed is the smallest of the seeds, and yet when planted in the earth, it becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth branches that provide shade and a dwelling place for all the birds of the air. It's a wonderful parable, well loved by the Church, for it tells the story of God creating something so great and beautiful out of something so small and seemingly insignificant as a mustard seed. In fact, it tells us that is exactly how God's Kingdom is going to work.

 It's a good parable, a fine parable, but I am more intrigued by the first parable, often called the Parable of the Growing Seed, or the Parable of the Seed Growing of Itself. This parable is only found in Mark's Gospel -- it's less well known. It tells the story of a farmer that plants a seed, goes about his daily business while the seed sprouts and grows, and when the grain is ripe, he harvests it. That, Jesus says, is what the Kingdom is like. I'm glad this parable is here because it's so basic, so ordinary. It points to the presence of God's grace and God's Kingdom in the midst of normal, mundane, everyday life. Farmer sows, seed grows, farmer harvests -- and God's presence is there every step of the way. 

Moreover, there is a great mystery involved in this all. "The seed sprouts and grows," Jesus says, "but the farmer does not know how." He sows the seed with great faith, trusting that the earth will produce and that this seed will become grain for the harvest. And I imagine he looks at this fruit of the earth with great wonder as he cuts it down with his sickle, perhaps not that unlike my childhood awe at the growth of a cucumber. The seed sprouts and grows, but he does not know how.

Well, you could say, maybe that farmer just needs a dose of modern science, a lesson in botany or agriculture, perhaps, and then he'll understand how the seed grows. Certainly we've discovered a lot since Jesus' time about the mystery and miracle of growth and life, but I ask you today - does that make it any less of a miracle? Does that make it any less the astonishing handiwork of God? Even if we presumably know what the farmer did not, I think we can still look with gratitude and wonder at the mystery and miracle of a seed sprouting. And what's more, Jesus tells us that in that mystery, we see the Kingdom of God.

But there's more! You see, if I understand the text, I think Jesus is pointing through this mystery to something even deeper, even more profound. Look again at the parable with me. The farmer plants the seed, it sprouts and grows, and not only does the farmer not able to comprehend how this happens, but Jesus says the earth produces "of itself." The earth itself is actually the main actor in this parable. Just as the earth nurtures the seed so that it grows and transforms into a plant, so, Jesus tells us, God is nurturing the Kingdom, tending to it in ways we cannot always see and perhaps cannot understand when we do see. It is God's work, God's Kingdom, not ours. Certainly we can participate in God's activity - the farmer plants the seed, waters it, harvests the grain, but ultimately it is God's world, God's Kingdom.

This parable, then, isn't actually about the farmer, or the seed, or even about the Kingdom itself: this parable is about God. About the simple mystery of how God's grace works in the world, bringing things to maturity and fullness of life.

Jesus reminds us in both of these parables about the contrast between what we see and know and what God is actually doing. The farmer understands nothing of botany, does not know why or how the seed sprouts, yet there it is, germinating and growing within the soil. We understand so little about God's Kingdom, at times we may even feel like God is absent, but the Kingdom is there, germinating and growing, right under our very feet.

The farmer does not make the seed grow, only God does that. We cannot finally bring the Kingdom to fruition, only God can do that. In all that we do, we are fully dependent upon God's grace.

I think I understand why Jesus tells such a parable to his followers. Their Lord, their teacher, the man to whom they have sworn allegiance and have risked everything to follow will soon be crucified, dead, and buried. They don't know that resurrection is coming. It will be easy for them to get discouraged, to think the seeds of the Kingdom have been sown in vain.

 I think I understand, too, why Mark records such a parable in his Gospel. When he was writing, the Roman Empire was persecuting the Jews, including those people who had become followers of Jesus. The persecution erupted into a full-fledged war - Jesus' followers were being burned, thrown to the dogs, and crucified. It was easy for them to get discouraged - they had expected Jesus, the King of the Jews, to be a very different kind of king. We heard in our Old Testament lesson this morning a prophecy from Ezekiel where God makes Israel a great and mighty tree to which all the nations of the world will bow down. This is the vision so many had for Jesus - a powerful messiah, a warrior, one who would subdue the earth with power and might! And if that's who Jesus is supposed to be, if that's what God's Kingdom is supposed to be like, why were his followers being persecuted? Why were their efforts to proclaim the Gospel, to live according to the teachings of Jesus, why were they bearing no fruit?

And then they remembered that Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed, like a seed that a farmer planted in the ground but only God could make grow. And they had faith. And they nurtured that seed of the Kingdom with all their hearts and minds and strength. They trusted that God would make the seeds grow.

We in the church today live in a very different situation than the crowds Jesus addressed or the community to which Mark wrote. But I think we, too, understand that feeling of discouragement, of hopelessness, of despairing that the Kingdom will never come. We receive the phone call that someone we loved has been killed in a car accident. We see on the news the face of an innocent child who is starving to death because the brutal regime at war with her nation is cutting off food supplies as a political weapon. We feel a cruel disease at work in our own bodies, robbing us of our strength and vitality. We know a brokenness so contradictory to the God of love that we have encountered in Jesus Christ. We despair that this God is absent, has forgotten us. We fear that the Kingdom will never come, on earth as it is in heaven.

But in the midst of that, we hear Jesus telling us a parable about a man who planted a seed, and it sprouted, and he did not know how. We hear Jesus reminding us about the dazzlingly ordinary way in which God's grace works. And even in our darkest times we experience moments of the Kingdom breaking in, sprouting up from the dry, bruised earth where it so often is hidden from our eyes. A community comes together to cook meals for one of their own after his father has passed away. A school administrator confronts a bullying situation, and a child begins to feel safe and welcomed again at school. We find deep within ourselves the strength to forgive a family member who has hurt us, and we begin to piece that relationship back together.

The brokenness of our world is real, we know, but the mysterious presence of the Kingdom is also real, and we can have faith that those seeds will sprout and grow. As God's people, we are entrusted with the responsibility to cultivate those seeds, to plant some of our own, to reap the harvest in its time. But like the farmer in our parable, we are ever reminded that we cannot do this work alone. In our planting, tilling, and harvesting, we remain fully dependent on the mysterious grace of God. We are called to the dual tasks to work for God's Kingdom and to have faith that God will usher it in. But, as Jesus reminds us in our text today, the Kingdom is breaking through. In the words of a contemporary author [Arundhati Roy], "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, if you listen carefully, you can even hear her breathing." Thanks be to God. Amen.