Mark 4:26-34
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - 17 June 2018
Vicar Nathanael Jensen
I’d like you to picture a kingdom. For me, that picture includes a giant castle on a hill overlooking a vast land far beyond view full of homes and multitudes of armies, some of whom are staying to defend, while others go to conquer more land. Perhaps your picture shares a few of those features. In our lesson for today, Jesus gives us a picture to help teach us what “the kingdom of God,” is like, but the illustration which Jesus uses is neither vast nor enormous nor obviously powerful. He uses the picture of a seed. The seed looks so small and insignificant, but the power is there. It’s just hidden to begin with. So too with the kingdom of God. The power is most certainly there. It’s just invisible and hidden to begin with. And like a seed, God’s kingdom grows.
The topic of the kingdom of God is one that Jesus spoke about often. While we may hear that phrase and immediately think of heaven, Jesus uses the phrase to describe his ruling activity right now – in the hearts of believers and in the expansion of his kingdom by bringing more and more lost souls to faith. It’s something rather abstract, so Jesus uses parables to explain it so we understand. Those parables are concrete little stories or illustrations which help us to understand how God rules and operates his kingdom.
Our lesson includes two parables. In the first, Jesus said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
Just taking a look at the parable itself without considering its meaning, it’s simple. Jesus is simply describing something that you understand even if you’re like me and you’ve never gardened or even grown a chia pet. The seed gets planted and grows on its own. The man doesn’t make it grow. Even if this man is a lifelong farmer or the leading agricultural scientist and can explain the whole process of what’s going on with germination and everything, there’s only so far he can go in explaining how it all actually happens. It ultimately goes back to the way God established the vegetation and seed-bearing plants on day three of creation. But it’s certainly not the man’s power. He’s off doing his own thing, sleeping and getting up, going about his own business here and there, and yet there the seed is in the ground growing and growing and growing, until the harvest time comes and it’s ready to be taken. That’s just the way it is and always has been. The seed just grows on its own.
The difficulty comes in when we make the comparison to how the kingdom of God works – not a difficulty in understanding what Jesus is saying, but a difficulty in accepting and believing it. Just like a seed, God’s kingdom grows by its own power. Yes, men and women are involved in scattering the seed, the Word of God. But they, we, don’t do anything to actually make it grow. Neither the one who speaks the Word nor the one who hears the Word has any power within him or within her to cause a change in heart and to make God’s kingdom grow.
And our sinful nature just hates that! If I don’t have the power in God’s kingdom, then I don’t want to be there. If I can’t enter God’s kingdom myself, then I don’t want to enter at all. If there’s no room for my ego and pride, that’s not a spacious enough kingdom for me.
And that’s something we struggle with even as believers in God’s kingdom, as our sinful nature still tries to make it all depend on me. How quickly we can turn such a God-pleasing thing like scattering the seed of the gospel into something that’s all about us, as we try to be more innovative and replace or attempt to enhance the gospel’s power and results with our own creativity. Or when God grants growth to a congregation, and we were privileged to help scatter some of the seed, we can be fooled into thinking that it was our power and our abilities that have changed or strengthened hearts. We start putting trust in ourselves to make God’s kingdom grow, but anytime the trust and glory isn’t being given to God, it’s not God’s kingdom growing, but our sinful nature’s hold on us. It becomes clear that the only power we have on our own is to remain dead and drive ourselves further and further away from God’s kingdom both now and forever.
But the truth of this parable which infuriates our sinful nature is also what gives us hope and peace. Like a seed, God’s kingdom grows on its own, by its own power. The Greek word translated, “all by itself” is automate. It’s where our word “automatic” comes from. It just happens. We’re completely passive in everything that’s going on. As the Word of God was shared with us and as we share it with others, it is the power of God alone which is in and works through the Word itself that causes that seed to sprout and grow, not us. From the power of Jesus on the cross to win our forgiveness to the power of the Holy Spirit in our heart to bring us to faith in him, it’s all God’s power. It’s all God’s work. It is God’s own ruling activity that expands his kingdom by giving hearts true life and the continued growth of strengthening the faith of those already in his kingdom. And it all ends in a harvest, when God will gather in all throughout his whole kingdom.
But right now, it can still be frustrating, because sometimes it seems like God’s kingdom isn’t growing. It seems like it’s still that tiny mustard seed—the smallest of all seeds—small and insignificant in comparison to the rest of our family or school or workplace or this city or the rest of the world. That’s where Jesus offers another word of encouragement, in the words of his second parable. “Again he said, ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.’”
Although God’s kingdom may seem small, it is by no means insignificant. It is by no means useless. Packed into that seed is the power and potential to grow, and grow, and grow, and here is Jesus’ promise that it will. That itsy bitsy mustard seed grows into the largest plant in the garden. It could grow many feet tall and be big enough for birds to use for rest, a drastic change from the first impression. God’s kingdom does the same, growing from tiny to tremendous, it continues to expand. Like a seed, God’s kingdom grows.
And when we look at Scripture, and history, and our own experience, the fact that God grows his kingdom from small beginnings should be no surprise. Consider our Savior Jesus in the manger, looking so small and insignificant, and yet hidden from sight there in that infant was the fullness of the deity and true almighty power. Consider our Savior Jesus on the cross, once again looking so small and insignificant, a beaten and bloody thirty-three year old man being crucified as a criminal and bearing the curse of God, and yet there was the power of God to save all people of all time. Then consider our Savior Jesus no longer in the tomb, now alive and glorified, demonstrating his deity and almighty power for our sake, so that we too will live and be glorified.
Consider the disciples. Twelve ordinary and uneducated men, looking so small and insignificant. And yet there’s Pentecost, and three thousand more are added to God’s kingdom. Consider Paul, a former persecutor of Christ who himself was often persecuted. And yet there’s a multitude of new Christians in many cities throughout the Mediterranean world. And so it went on for centuries. Consider Martin Luther, one Roman Catholic monk with a guilt-stricken conscience. And yet there’s thousands in our church which bears his name who continue to put their trust in Christ alone and God’s Word alone.
Consider our congregations here in Reno. From a small group of Christians in 1975 to now hundreds at Shepherd of the Mountains and The Springs and a new mission in Light of the Valleys. Consider your own life, how God took you from much less than a small seed packed with power, rather from an enemy of his dead in sin, and in baptism and through the word made you alive and has continued to cause you to grow in the faith. That’s how God rules his kingdom. Like a seed, God’s kingdom grows.
And all of these are more examples of what Jesus explained in the first parable: It’s all God’s power. It’s all God’s work. He alone brings us into his kingdom through the word. We see how the holy Christian church has grown and expanded over the years and we look forward to the coming harvest when Jesus returns to take us all home to his heavenly kingdom. We see how individual Christians have grown and matured, purely by the power of God and his work through the Word. Like a seed, God’s kingdom grows.
But that still leaves us with the blessed and important privilege of scattering the seed, spreading the gospel that is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Scatter it more and more in your own lives, not taking a summer vacation from being in God’s Word, but letting its power do the work on your own heart. Scatter the seed as you meet up with family and friends, not being worried about saying the perfect thing to convert them or change their hearts, but just speaking the simple truths of God’s Word about the perfection God expects and the great exchange Jesus made in taking our sins and giving us his perfection, trusting that God can make that little seed sprout and grow. Scatter the seed by inviting your neighbors to our Vacation Bible School, where the seed will be scattered over and over again all week long.
And as you keep scattering the seed, be patient and trust God. Just like the seed sprouting underground, we can’t always see the growth God is causing right away. But at the same time, don’t be surprised if you do see results—a stronger faith and new believers. Because after all, God has promised there will be results. His Word works. He has promised that by his power, like a seed, God’s kingdom grows.