June 13, 2021
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Ezekiel 17:22-24; Mark 4:26-34[1]
What does it take for a seed to grow? Ask any gardener, or
farmer, and I’m sure they can tell you. You can probably ask any preschooler
too. My kids have brought home more than one plastic cup filled with dirt and
seeds. Soil, water, and sunlight. That’s about it.
Jesus liked to tell stories using images that would be
familiar to pretty much anyone who would listen. The kingdom of God is like… a
seed planted in the soil, a traveler on the road, a vineyard. The kingdom of
God is like those little helicopter maple seeds all over my backyard. No, wait,
that’s one of my parables. Never mind.
If you think about it, what a seed really needs most is
time. Sure, we can prepare the soil, water it, and ensure that there is
adequate sunlight. But we have to let it grow. And most of what we do for the seed
is dependent on things out of our control. The sun may not shine today, or the
rain may stop for a week. The soil may be too acidic, and the insects or
neighborhood rabbits may eat the new growth. If the seed is going to grow, it
is out of our hands.
In the parable, the one who scattered the seed on the ground
doesn’t really do anything to make it grow. In fact, in the parable, the
planter sleeps and rises, and the seed sprouts and grows. The planter doesn’t
seem to do much at all. It is the spark of life within the seed itself that
grows.
This patient waiting doesn’t fit within our busy world of
fast food, on demand entertainment, and instant internet access. Hard work is
how you get ahead, not sitting around waiting for something to happen. If you
want it done, you have to do it yourself. Staying busy makes sense to us humans.
It is our normal way life. We can achieve all sorts of great things through
hard work: good grades, better gadgets, healthier bodies, neatly trimmed lawns,
and so on. These things don’t happen on their own. We have to work for them.
But that is not the way everything works, and that is what Jesus is trying to
tell us.
Jesus upends the expectations of the world and seeks God in
a way of life that is radically different than what we’re used to. We want to fuss
over the seed, weed around it, measure the water content of the soil, spray it
with Miracle Grow, move it around to get more sun. Jesus tells us to rest, be
patient, and trust that all will be well. The seed has been planted, now it is
no longer up to you. Let God do the work of making the seed grow. Come back
around when the grain is ripe, and you’ll see.
Now, there is another question in this imagery. What does it
take for a soul to grow? Through these parables, Jesus is trying to tell us that
spiritual growth and intimacy with God can only come with patience and trust,
the way a seed grows. God already loves us and love is the power that makes us
grow. It might take some time, though.
I believe that seeds are time-capsules of divine power. A
seed can be dormant, lying in the ground, or stored carefully away for a long
time. A gardener once wrote, “A seed... has withdrawn from the stream of time.
Often tiny, hard, dry, closed off from the world, to all appearances ‘dead,’
seeds carry the life of a plant through the death of winter.”[2]
It is dead, and then comes to life. Where have I heard that before? A seed has
a life all its own, beyond our feeble attempts to control it. Planted too
early, a
seed will wait, knowing by its own nature when to germinate. By trying to
control it too much, by overwatering, too many chemicals, or too much poking
and prodding, we do more damage than good.
Within the seed is the story of life lived in God. The divine spark is
planted within us, and it will grow within us, we know not how, all on its own.
We can stop from time to time notice how it grows within us. We can even
recognize its growth in others. But no amount of anxiety or coaxing can make it
grow any faster or better. God is the one who will make the kingdom come, and
it will be in God’s good time. Do you remember John Denver’s song, “Rocky
Mountain High”? “Talk to God and listen to the casual reply.” Patient faith is
the faith that grows.
Each seed has a story, a history that can only be
interpreted with patience. What will this one become? Who first cultivated this
plant, harvesting the good seed and discarding the bad, nurturing beneficial
traits through careful husbandry? Did this seed grow wild here, or was it
brought by the Spaniards, English colonists, or German settlers, and passed on
with care? Will it grow to be a big shrub, a tall cedar, or maybe a Giant
Sequoia? The story of the seed will only be truly revealed in the harvest.
We’ll just have to wait.
The seeds of faith are sown each week as we gather, and
every time we connect with one another. They may fall into a fallow field, or “on
the mountain height of Israel” (Ez 17:23). We just plant the seeds. We sleep
and rise. Thankfully, it is up to God to nurture the growth of souls.
If patience is the message of the first parable, then
expectation is the message of the second. The mustard plant, common in the ancient
near east, grew and spread quickly. A lot like the Creeping Charlie growing in
my backyard, but I didn’t plant that! Mustard was not something you wanted in
your garden. Pliny, the ancient Roman scientist wrote, “when it has once been
sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it.”[3]
From one small seed you could expect that in a couple of seasons you’ll have a
mustard garden, and not much else.
It is almost a joke, the way that Jesus uses the mustard
seed as a metaphor for the kingdom of God. If you’re going to use a plant
metaphor, why not the Cedar? The great cedars of Lebanon were the most imposing
tree in the ancient near east. Now that’s a powerful symbol for God’s kingdom,
a great big tree! In the Ezekiel text, it is a sprig of the cedar that God
plants on the mountain. But the cedar could also be seen as a symbol of pride,
and God brings low the high tree, and makes high the low tree. And even a shrub
can make shade for the birds.
If your expectation of the kingdom is of a place grand and
glorious, set aside for the high and mighty, then you would expect a cedar
tree. But Jesus gives us the mustard seed, something proverbially small, and
promises the kingdom of God. Maybe it is our expectations that are off. Maybe
the kingdom isn’t meant for the high and mighty. Maybe the kingdom is meant for
what is seen as insignificant, a refuge for the outcast, the sinner, the
lonely, and the lost.
What we can do, really all we can do, is to plant the seeds.
We plant the seeds of faith and wait to see how they will grow. Some will
sprout and yield a bountiful harvest. Some will grow like mountains. Some will
grow like a mustard shrub. Only time will tell. I hope that the kingdom grows
like the mustard seed. It might not be as grand and glorious, but it will
spread, and there will be room for all of us to nest in the shade.
[1] The
scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard
Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of
the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2]
John Burns, Stella Natura Biodynamic
Planting Calendar, 2013.
[3]
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XIX, paragraph LIV. Reference: https://www.loebclassics.com/.
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