Mark 4:26-34
[Jesus] also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Instead of passing out mustard seeds to everyone, like I’ve done before – in classes and worship where this parable is concerned – I thought I’d do a little searching online for pictures and images of mustard plants to remind us more of what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s Gospel.
But I will start with a picture of a mustard seed.
They’re small, just like Jesus says they are. Not the smallest seed you and I might ever see, but maybe they were the smallest seeds known to Jesus, and his people, and to the region where he was living back in the day. And I found some pictures of the plants these seeds turn into, too, since that’s much of the point of Jesus’ parables this morning.
And what I found may or may not be as interesting or as surprising to some of you farming, gardening, green-thumbing types as it was to me.
When Jesus talks about this mustard seed becoming something worthy of a nest, I was expecting something more like a tree. But mostly what I found were pictures like this:
… and this:
… and this:
This is why it’s funny that Jesus ever even talked about the mustard seed at all. See, we’re used to hearing agricultural illustrations and farming metaphors in the Bible and from Jesus, but when we hear about trees, we’re used to hearing about something much more substantial. And so were the people listening to Jesus way back when.
Like in the book of Daniel, there’s talk of a tree, “great and strong” whose “top reached to heaven and was visible to the end of the whole earth.” This tree was used to describe a kingdom that ruled all the peoples of the world. In Ezekiel, which we heard this morning, too, and in the Psalms, there’s talk of the “mighty cedar of Lebanon” that symbolized the power of the kingdom of Assyria. And there is talk about “oaks of righteousness,” too. And, of course, there are those images of the “Tree of Life” and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” from way back in Genesis and the Garden of Eden.
So in all of this, I picture trees – big, strong, tall, hefty kinds of trees. Something like this, maybe:
a sizeable sequoia.
…or like this:
a giant redwood you could drive a car through.
or even just this:
a big old oak tree, strong enough to hold your favorite porch swing.
But no. Jesus talks about mustard – the smallest of all seeds that grows up to become something great. But not really the greatest of trees, though. I don’t think he’s talking about a sequoia, or a redwood; a high and lofty cedar or a giant oak of righteousness, either.
In the Gospels of Matthew of Luke, Jesus talks of a tree when he tells the parable of the mustard seed. But this morning – in Mark’s Gospel – he doesn’t go that far. This was a bush (SLIDE 8). A sizeable shrub. A flowering hedge of a thing. And so, just like so much else in God’s way of being in the world, Jesus shows us the kingdom in a way that’s surprising and unexpected and not at all the way the rest of the world might think it should be.
And I think that’s his point when he compares the kingdom of God – and our part in it – with a mustard seed and the bush that it becomes.
We sleep and rise, night and day and the seeds we’ve planted will grow – like they did for the guy in this morning’s first parable – by the grace of God, nothing more and nothing less. We don’t have as much to do with it as we’d like to pretend a lot of the time. And this is good, gracious, liberating news, if you ask me.
We’re just people – lowly, broken, sinful, sizeable shrubs of a people – planting our seeds in the world wherever we live and watching God do with them what God will do, and being amazed more often than not at what God can grow and produce and harvest with whatever worship, learning, and service; whatever forgiveness, grace and joy we’ve been able to scatter around us as we go – measly little bushes though we may be.
And there’s evidence of this everywhere:
Last weekend, in Louisville, the Indiana-Kentucky Synod of the ELCA, elected our first Black Bishop, Pastor Tim Graham, who told us that the very next day following his election, he’d be celebrating something like 24 years of sobriety. The serendipity of that makes me wonder about – and marvel at – all of the seeds of grace he has planted – and that were planted in him – up until to that moment, over the course of those 24 years. And all of the seeds yet to be scattered and bushes and branches yet to grow and bloom because of it.
I hope you saw or heard about Cross of Grace’s presence at our first ever PRIDE parade and celebration downtown last weekend, too. Amanda and Angi did a lot to organize and plan for the day, but simply showing up, simply being there, simply representing a congregation of Christians for the sake of the LGBTQ+ community that has more reason to fear than to welcome us, was the Kingdom of God alive and well in the world. Simply passing out stickers and suckers and “Mom Hugs,” was nothing more and nothing less than the scattering of seeds for those who received them – and in at least one case, I heard – were brought to tears because of it all. And from those seeds, I have to believe that some kind of shelter continues to grow.
And our annual SonRise Vacation Bible School did it again, too, last week … planted more seeds and grew more grace for me and those who joined the fun, I mean. We simply eat and sing and tell stories and share communion and try to come up with – sometimes silly – ways to tell of God’s love. And our friends – with different, limited physical and intellectual abilities – receive it with such faith – to the degree that one of them asked to be baptized at the end of it all. It’s a lot of work for the likes of Sharon and the other leaders, but from those simple seeds of story, song, and silliness, the Kingdom lives and moves and blooms in beautiful ways.
That’s why it’s so amazing that God uses us – shrubs and bushes like you and me – when there seem to be so many bigger, better trees out there in the world. You know what I mean? And, unfortunately, too many of us Christians do know what I mean.
See, I’ve come to know that what keeps too many of us from living out our faith most fully as followers of Jesus, is a lack of esteem and understanding about how qualified or capable or gifted we are to do whatever it is God hopes for us to accomplish.
We tell ourselves and pretend that we don’t know enough… that we aren’t talented enough… that we aren’t sure enough… We aren’t sober enough… We don’t have enough time… We aren’t wealthy enough… We aren’t leaders enough to lead… Or teachers enough to show someone else the way… We have too many questions of our own to even try to offer answers for somebody else…
To ourselves, we’re just “seeds” or “bushes” or “shrubs” too much of the time and we keep ourselves so small in our own eyes that we forget just how worthy we are in the eyes of God.
We keep waiting to become “trees” – mighty enough, strong enough, smart enough, faithful enough, wealthy enough, whatever enough – to do something more, to be something more, to offer something more – we forget that God used a “tree” to accomplish the greatest grace of all time, for the sake of the whole wide world.
If God can turn a mustard seed into a shrub… If God would dare turn a tree into a cross… If God can turn suffering and death into resurrection and new life… What can’t God do with the welcome and hospitality; with the love and forgiveness; with the good news and grace each of us has to scatter, to plant, and to grow in the world wherever we live?
Amen
