Mark 4: 26-32

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST |  JUNE 13, 2021 | A Sermon Based on Mark 4: 26-32 (RCL) | by David Zersen |

He 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;²yet 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.

SURPRISING PLANTS, THOSE CHRISTIANS

In the absence of Masterpiece Theatre’s detective stories like Vera or Endeavour, a traveling preacher’s parables in the first century were among the best shows in town. Jesus of Nazareth gathered people along Galilee’s shores or in hollows created by hills so that his voice could be projected. The crowds were fascinated because his parables had punch. Sometimes, admittedly, the hearers weren’t sure what the point was. However, at times, we’re told, the Pharisees knew that the point was directed against them. Usually the parables picked up on the surroundings– fields of wheat, vineyards, fig trees or representatives of society. Today, the lectionary uses two parables, both of them about seeds. Both parables intend to challenge us to reflect on how seeds are like the community in which God gathers his people. Let’s listen in.

The point we want to focus on is that which draws together the two issues being contrasted—and this is true in every parable, as my great teacher, Joachim Jeremias, used to say. We are going to look for the point of comparison between the Kingdom of God or the community in which God’s spirit holds sway on the one hand and either the wheat seed or the mustard seed on the other. To put it in a challenging way, “How is a seed like the community in which God’s spirit rules?”

There are a number of things that are happening as is also true in another parable in which seed is described, how it falls on a path or among thorns or on stony ground. However, all that is irrelevant. Likewise, in these two parables, that the seed produces a stalk or a head or grain is really not important. Additionally, we needn’t bother with the fact that a mustard seed can become a large shrub with branches in which birds can nest  Those are just details and figures of speech  that perk up our ears in the hope that we can guess where the storyteller is taking us. The point of comparison in these parables is that no matter what else happens, growth takes places. Lest you ever find yourself disillusioned about something, the parable encourages, know this: When it comes to the community in which God’s spirit dwells on earth, growth inevitably takes place!

What does that mean for us? At times I enjoy reading an online article describing what happened to child movie stars many years later. That’s, of course, a backword look and many of us prefer the forward perspective. For example, what will become of our children and grandchildren as they grow up? Here we are today at Bethany Lutheran Church where members have gathered for decades to worship and reflect as children are baptized, confirmed and married. With the mobility in our society, not as many remain here as they did years ago. However, the question won’t go away: What happens when a seed is planted, when the future is uncertain, when a destiny is unclear? Today Jesus seems to be saying to us, “If you want to stand with me, be an optimist! Seeds grow, wheat is harvested, birds make nests where before there was little. Where God is at the center of a community, the future can surprise us.”

A contemporary example comes to mind. Some years ago in a sermon I wrote for an online website called Sermons from Goettingen, I referred positively to some things that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, names known to all of us, had done. Reading the sermon, someone complained to me that I shouldn’t have used them as positive examples since both were agnostics. I responded that Warren Buffet was a seed who was brought up as a Presbyterian and Bill Gates was a seed who was brought up a Congregationalist. Where they were now in their personal growth was not for me to judge. In all of our lives, we are probably not where we ought to be. We are people in progress. We are seeds still growing, perhaps at the point of the blade or the head, but not yet the grain. Jesus tells all of us who by baptism have become members of God’s kingdom, of his community of believers that the best is yet to come. Tomorrow, we may be more confident than today that we are not at a dead end in our lives, but that to the degree that we participate in God’s spirit-filled community, we are moving toward a harvest that can be thirty fold, sixty fold or a hundred fold. In other words, if we focus on what God wants to bring forth in us, even we can be surprised at the results.

Let’s begin by thinking about growth we’ve seen this year. We can probably identify a number of people in Washington, in our office, in our circle of acquaintances or even among those who are members here at Bethany who have some growing to do. But let’s start with ourselves. What could I, for example, focus on that would make people who are close to me know that growth is taking place? What could happen that would help them know that I’m not who I was last year or even last month? In the community where God is central, growth is always taking place. Are we, however, experiencing it personally?

The important thing for us to grasp as followers of Jesus is that our leader was not just a preacher who tried to get us all to think differently? He was a leader who wanted to show us that growth had little to do with height and width, but everything to do with relationships, with being for one another in such a way that all together finally grow up to his full stature.  Jesus was so committed to this possibility that it led him all the way to the cross!

Have you thought of it that way? Reflect with me on this. Jesus wanted to be the man for others, the one who changed us from self-centred individuals into a community of mutually-supportive friends. However, deep within all of us is that individualist streak, that fatal flaw, that insists on being “me first”.  Many were so annoyed that Jesus kept pressing them to grow in this direction of selflessness that they simply had enough. “Is there no room for me, for my rights, for my privileges, for my authority” they wondered? Jesus let them run with that self-centred flaw and discover how far it could take them. How far did it take them? It took them to the cross where they killed him. They said to themselves and others, “That takes care of that. That’s the end of the matter.” But when Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” he had something else in mind. This hostility, this anger that leads to suppression, destruction and the death of others— it doesn’t ever have to happen again. That kind of living is finished!

Now think of things that anger you, that make you want to fight, that encourage you to reach for something dangerously destructive. It seems to be happening in our country all the time. And then think of Jesus who for the joy set before him, the author of Hebrews tells us, “endured the cross, despising the shame.” In the community of God’s own people, Jesus today reminds us that the lifestyle that leads to dead ends doesn’t ever have to happen again.

Is that an insight that is happening to you today? That growth doesn’t end with childhood, but continues throughout your life?  When we discover that such an insight is a possibility for us, that moment is the new beginning that gives us hope. One of my favourite songs is Marc Kohn’s “Walking in Memphis.” He describes an arrival in the land of the Delta Blues in the middle of the pouring rain. He’s depressed and lonely. But as he walks Beale Street, senses the ghost of Elvis, smells the catfish on the table and the Gospel in the air, he hears Rev Green preaching that he’s in the right place for those who don’t have a prayer. Then at Club Hollywood, Muriel is playing the piano and she asks if he’ll do a little number. He sings with all his might and at the end she says, “Are you a Christian child”? And filled with the spirit he says, “Ma’am, I am tonight!”

Perhaps it will be that way for you and me. There are times when we lose our way and we are far from the community where God’s spirit rules in power. And yet there comes a day or a night when the kind word of a friend or a lesson read at Bethany on Sunday morning put Gospel in the air and we remember who we’ve been called to be. We remember to listen to the heart of the baptized child still beating within us. And when someone like Muriel asks if we’re a Christian child, we shout “you better believe it” with all our might.

Those moments of rediscovery or refocus in our lives are called “growth” and they are wonderful for us to experience and for others to see.

Either way, whether for us to experience or for others to witness, one can’t help hearing it said, “Surprising plants, those Christians”.

You have Jesus’ word for it in the parables you’ve heard today.

The Rev.David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS

President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas

djzersen@gmail.com