Pentecost 3, 2021 | Mark 4:26-34 | First Lutheran, Houston | Pastor Evan McClanahan |

I want to tell you the problem with predicting the future: we don’t know the future. And even more to the point, God works in unexpected ways, which is why we walk by faith and not by sight. So often we are discouraged because we do not see the progress we want to see or things do not go “according to plan.” We do not see a step-by-step linear development or change, and we think, “Nothing is happening! There is no progress!”

But just because you cannot see how things are progressing, and just because you do not know what is happening does not mean that God is not building or advancing his kingdom. It really is a virtue for Christians to trust that God is advancing his kingdom in ways that we cannot possibly know. It’s just that sometimes, the fruit of that advancement is not seen for years – if even in our lifetime – and it may be the result of something like suffering that actually advances the kingdom.

Think of something as simple as a child growing. Day-to-day, you do not notice their growth. But all of a sudden, it is time to buy them new jeans because the pair you just bought is three inches too short. When did that happen? You can’t put your finger on it. You just know that you went to sleep and when you woke up, they were taller.

Or think of a favorite band or business or trend. They often begin small. You probably think you are the only person who is in on it. But somehow, that band or trend or style or product bursts onto the scene and “all of a sudden,” they’re everywhere. Now everyone is wearing those shoes, listening to that band, eating at that restaurant. How did that happen? Well, it happened not in a linear progression or any kind of easily repeatable series of events.

The Kingdom of God works the same way. We think God has abandoned us, that He is up to exactly nothing. Then, all of a sudden, a bigger picture of reality dawns on us. Think of, for example, the huge and seemingly sudden explosion of Christianity in the Southern Hemisphere. Our Ethiopian friends will tell you that missionaries began their work in the late 1800s. And slowly and steadily, the Oromo people were converted with the help of one man in particular, Onesimus Nesib, who translated the Bible into the Oromo language. Today, there are more Lutherans in Ethiopia than there are in America.

That work began with just one man, one little inconsequential mustard seed. And yet the Ethiopian Lutheran Church is now one of the largest Lutheran churches – or is it shrub? – in the world. All kinds of birds are making their nests in its shade.

Or consider the collapse of empires. Each one looked un dissolvable, unbreakable, and yet they fell, and in many cases, God’s Kingdom thrived soon thereafter. Indeed, in many cases, they fell because of the incompatibility with the lies of the empire and the truth of God’s Kingdom. (Truth always wins in the end because this is God’s world and the laws of logic are undefeated.)

Consider the Roman Empire. While there is a lot to criticize about the legalization of Christianity and the way Christians treated pagans in the fourth century, the fact is that the dissolution of the Roman Empire would have been impossible to imagine a hundred years before. How did it happen? It wasn’t overnight…it only seemed that way. It collapsed from within as it rejected the moral teachings of the Church and the Church continued to spread in dramatic fashion in those early centuries. In the wake of the fall of Rome, the Church was there to pick up the pieces. Again, I do not defend every action of the early Church. And yet, a once-invincible empire was reduced to the “dustbin of history” and Christianity emerged in its wake. None of those who faithfully sewed the seeds of faith for three centuries before could have even imagined that.

Jumping far into the future, the Soviet Union looked invincible for decades. Remember the success of Sputnik? But internally, it was crumbling…until the day it’s inherent contradictions and immoralities could no longer survive. And in many places, Romania especially, Christians began to defend their pastors from the gulags and their courage spread to the point that thousands of people demanded the head of the wicked Ceaușescus. Maybe you have seen the footage of the gathering crowd in December of 1989, a crowd which would soon lead to the only successful revolution against the Soviet regime.

While not politically correct to say, I don’t know why it would be controversial to point out that the West’s most significant political enemy, the Chinese Communist Party, seems to be on the march. They are obviously hostile to Christianity and, in fact, all religion. They have made the practice of religion illegal, placed Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, and are literally re-writing the Bible in a way that blasphemes our Lord. And as an empire with over a billion people, a massive military, and economic might all over the world, we might wonder how that empire will ever fall.

Well, it just might be, as hard as this is to imagine, that if God wills an empire to fall, he is planting seeds all through that culture, seeds that we are completely unaware of, seeds that, while we are sleeping will grow overnight and become a force so powerful that said empire will no longer be able to stand. I suppose we could just say, “Well, God isn’t particularly concerned with nations or worldviews and we shouldn’t be, either.” Well, I disagree, and really the point is that God’s Kingdom is advancing even in the most unsuspecting of places.

And what is true for nations is true for people, too. Of course, it is our desire that all would turn to Christ and trust him with their salvation. And yet, almost every conversion story begins small. Something is said, some small act of charity is offered, some argument made that turns the tide and changes the mind of an unbeliever. We don’t know what mustard seed it is, but we should absolutely be bold in offering such seeds even in the midst of seemingly useless situations.

What Jesus is saying in this parable is that what seems small and hopeless and useless to us are exactly what God uses to advance His kingdom. While we are looking for the magic bullet, the linear path to increased popularity, God is off to the side working on His own thing His own way.

So as Christians who believe this parable to be true, we should at the very least have trust in God that even though we don’t see what we want to see – an expanding Kingdom – that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. And we should also have the discipline to drown out the noise of the world. Conventional thinking, much of our media, much of the entertainment cabal, much of the academy, even, I am sad to say, much of what is said in the popular church…we must utilize discipline to ignore groupthink and look for signs of what God is doing beyond the obvious.

Our call is to hang tight and press on. Never give an inch. Trust that even when all seems lost, when what we do seems small, a mustard seed may very well be sprouting soon. And it will happen when we aren’t looking, in unconventional ways that will shock – shock I tell you! – all of the leading lights of this world. And God will have the last laugh. And hopefully, we will be grinning, too, at peace with God’s unforeseen and unexpected providence. Amen.