Morning Prayer: Rich Lubbers Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *My Shepherd, You Supply My Need* Witness of Scripture: Mark 4: 26-34 Anthem *Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing* Howard Don Small. Julianne Annesley & Michelyn McKnight, flutes; Tyler Van Zuiden, bassoon; Chancel Choir Sermon *The Growing Season* David Spain
Recorded on June 16, 2024
There is not much of a plot here. A Sower planted seed and it grew—the earth is hospitable for growth, and we see a sprout, a stalk, a blossom, a full grain. Any questions? We planted caladium bulbs in our back yard several weeks back. At first nothing and we wondered will anything come up…but then a sprout, a stalk, an unfurled leaf, a fully opened leaf. We don’t know exactly how all that happens—how that dried and dead looking bulb buried in the soil now adds color to the yard. And yet, it feels like what is supposed to happen.Perhaps its simplicity, and the mystery, is the news—dare we say good news, even the best of news?
A mustard seed gets thrown on the ground—whether it is the smallest of all seeds that produces the greatest of all shrubs could be debated; but the image is powerful as Jesus talks about God’s reign and life in God’s realm. The kingdom of God may not be something that over-whelms people on first appearance. Jesus’ parable was not about a giant sequoia hundreds of feet tall; instead, he likened the realm of God to a modest shrub. But in its modesty, it is still enough to provide safety, sanctuary, solace—enough for the birds of the air to nest and rest. Whereas life tends to live on the grand scale and the flashy presentation, Jesus’ parable reminds us God works to transform not transfix; God stirs hope not heroics; God seeks to inspire not indoctrinate. Jesus suggests that faith is more about growing into rather than getting a hold of.
We tend not to notice growth as it happens God’s kind of way. Maybe parents draw a line on the wall, marking the height of a child from one birthday to the next—'Wow she grew a lot this year, wow her growth is steady from year to year but look at how different it has been this year.’ Sometimes something happens and we notice growth. During a recent storm, a branch broke off and fell in the back yard. ‘Did you look in the back yard? How tall is that branch, my gosh it is half a branch halfway up the tree…remember when that tree could be framed entirely within the back window…amazing how much it has grown!’ We get insulated from the Creator’s design for life until something slows us down, or something happens—you take a vacation or you are recovering from being ill and you have a moment to watch the rhythms of life or the pace of healing.It’s never fast enough to suit our time schedules, but we notice what we might have missed. Growth happens…it is in God’s good design for life.
We remember Mark is the shortest of the four gospels, and in that brevity has fewer parables than Matthew and Luke; nor does Mark have long stories like John’s gospel.In fact, when it comes to parables, Mark only records Jesus telling a couple of other parables beside the ones told in the 4th chapter. So, these parables are worth hearing, as Jesus gives a picture of what it is like to live the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven. “Tell us Jesus about how this reign of God that you say is at hand, that you say you are inaugurating, tell us how it is different from the reign of Caesar, from the power of the Roman Empire?” It is a straightforward question, a legitimate question. The crowds to whom Jesus had been preaching, and his disciples are curious. All these years later, we are rather curious as well.
Jesus, as we know, was not inclined to give bullet point, formulaic answers. As often as not, he would respond to the questions asked of him with his own set of questions. Or, as happened here, Jesus tells a story—the kind of story that stirs up wonder and possibility rather than closes down and defines. If we want a story with a moral at the end, go sit at Aesop’s feet; if we want a sense of all that God intends for life to be, go sit at Jesus’ feet.
Jesus, tell us about this reign of God. “Well, okay, it’s like this. A farmer goes out and throws seed on the ground, and the farmer gets up every morning and goes to bed every night, and the seed sprouts and grows and the farmer has no idea how that happens.” “Well, okay thank you Jesus…we will get back to you about your being hired for the tenured position at the local agricultural school.” Now, Mark says after Jesus told this parable and the next one about the mustard seed become a shrub, he got with the disciples to explain everything in private to them. But Mark forgot to tell us what that explanation was. Based on the fact that Mark says the disciples kept misunderstanding Jesus, who knows if his explanation was helpful to them. But we get to wonder about what Jesus meant, and that’s the way it is with parables—they invite us to fill out what might happen next.
Just beyond our neighborhood on the west side of town, out on ten mile flat, the farmers sowed seed a while back, and this year’s waving wheat crop is beautiful.They sowed that barren, sometimes flooded field, wide open and susceptible to strong winds that can lay down that wheat or destructive hail that can wreak havoc on the sprout, the stalk, the grain. Sowers are people of great hope, of great vision, of great courage. There are a million logical reasons not to put those seeds in the ground…but they do and while they got up in the morning and went to bed at night—first the stalk and then the ear and now the full grain has appeared. It is a marvel…and soon some of that grain will be in the wafers at this Table and in the loaves of bread that feed any and all who are hungry. God is like that, says Jesus; God’s world is like that…the reign of God, the gifts of God are exactly that—gifts given to us. We can’t make it happen, stand out in the field and cajole the grain to rise up from the ground. What God gives to the world, what God plants into the world is life that grows, blossoms, nourishes. That’s the reign of God and what-ever and whoever grows, blooms, and nourishes is living God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven. The reign of God is seed like that, is growth like that, is nourishment like that. Is Jesus suggesting we are invited to be part of God’s way of cultivating life without knowing for sure or having a guarantee that the field will wave beautifully? But go out anyway, spread the seeds, see what happens. In the closing scene of the 1970’s movie Oh, God!, when Jerry Landers played by John Denver, who has been fired from his job, meets one more time with the Almighty played by George Burns, Denver says, “we failed.” Burns says, “what do you mean we failed. You’re Johnny Appleseed, you spread the seed and see what happens.I gave you good seed, the best.”It was a powerful scene. Who knows if the writers had this parable from Mark’s gospel in mind, but it rings true to gospel. Brad Roth said it this way—“God’s presence and rule happens here, now.Jesus’ life and love and communion come among us not in a nebulous, generalized, vast-as-the-sky way but in the grit and ground of this place on earth. The Lord of heaven kicked up the actual dust of Galilee. He’s just kept right on doing that ever since, Galilee to the mustard-seed degree. Which tells us to live in expectation of God near us. You never know when you will scratch the soil and something unexpected will spring up and wrap its tangles around life in the very best way. The gospel still has that power…we live with hope for our place on earth. Nowhere is beyond God’s unique and branching love, no dust impermeable to God’s rooting presence. God made it all and wants it all and never gives up on any little square of earth.” (The Christian Century newsletter, June 16, 2024)
The best teaching moments—professional or otherwise—are the cherished opportunities to plant seeds, to be good Sowers. Almost all of us can point to someone who said something, who planted a seed not knowing how it would grow. Will Willimon tells of someone he knew who spent her life in urban ministry in one of the toughest parts of New York City, for two decades leading courageous and effective ministry to those with greatest need. One day Willimon asked how she got into that kind of work. “When I was 16,” she responded, “I went with my church youth group on a weeklong mission trip to Appalachia. At the end of the week, we had worship and during the service or maybe right after, one of the adult leaders said, “Sharon, you’ve got a lot to give. I bet you will spend the rest of your life in service to the needs of others.” That’s it…this person dedicated her life in a seemingly impossible work on the basis of that offhanded comment. (Pulpit Resource, June 16, 2024, p. 34) God has given us good seed…the best.
The seed in all its mystery is powerful says Jesus. The life of faith is about the growth that happens because seed gets planted. One of the most ignored scriptures—and there are plenty of ignored scriptures—but one of the most ignored, with unfortunate consequences, is what Luke’s gospel said about Jesus—that he grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and humans.It is odd that some religions seem squeamish about the idea of Jesus learning and growing, preferring to emphasize Christ’s all-powerful divinity at the expense of his all-important humanity, as if growing is somehow not divinely ordained. In fact, it is when we stop growing, stop wondering, stop yearning, stop being open—trading in curiosity for certainty, exchanging faith for ideology, sacrificing grace for self-righteousness, supplanting truth lived with compassion for advantage wedded to domination—when that happens we miss this parable and we miss the Christ, who like him, we are made to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and others. Whenever and wherever God is moving, in our own lives and in the life of the neighborhood, life will mysteriously and wondrously grow in grace, grow in mercy, grow in kindness, grow in generosity, grow in hope, grow in healing, grow in peace, grow in beauty, grow in steadfast faithfulness.
How do we hear and respond to these parables Jesus tells, as Mark’s good news has passed on to us? Perhaps we can say at least this much—that when Jesus is asked what the kingdom of God is like, he says, “Well with God, it is always the growing season!”