Seed Planting

On the surface, Jesus’ parables were about things his listeners knew. Someone plants some seeds, they grow, he comes back and harvests. This tiny seed produces an abundant, strong, tall and bushy plant. But, when we try to understand Jesus’ meaning when he said the Kingdom of God is like planting, growing, and harvesting…it is harder to know what Jesus meant and what it means for us today.

The parable of the mustard seed is the better known of the two parables Mark records in our reading this morning. The Kingdom of God is like a tiny mustard seed that when grown becomes the largest of all shrubs. The plant Jesus is talking about here is a weed that can grow up to six feet tall, and completely take over a field. The growth and spread of the Kingdom of God is like the growth and spread of a weed. It is abundant and cannot be controlled or subdued.

The first of the two parables in today’s reading is only found in Mark, the oldest of our Gospels, and is not as well-known. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is as if a person should throw or toss seed upon the ground…not plant, not scatter in an organized way…throw seed down. And then goes home to bed. The seed will sprout and grow, and the person who dropped it doesn’t know how that works. It is the work of the earth. But when it is ripe, and fruitful, the person harvests.”

What does this mean? Maybe it means that the Kingdom of God is a seed that we must let go of…we can’t hold onto it or store it up. Like a seed has to be planted, or its capacity, it’s purpose, is lost. The Good News of God’s love for you and me isn’t something we grasp hold of and keep for ourselves. The Kingdom of God is tossing that love haphazardly, indiscriminately, randomly.

Or, maybe it means, we will never realize the seeds we have planted. Dr. Dawn Wilhelm tells about a German soldier during World War II who came down with typhoid fever on the Russian front and was hospitalized. A Russian Mennonite woman who worked at the hospital befriended him. “At great personal risk, she forged a change in [his] transport papers, ensuring his safe passage home. Years later the man moved to the United States and became wealthy. Without family members or a religious community…, he remembered the nurse who had helped him years before and looked for a Mennonite congregation in the phone directory. Visiting with the pastor he asked, “What would your congregation do if you had access to two million dollars? In the months that followed, a committee was established to oversee the stewardship of the man’s resources through the development of a Service and Education Fund that encourages voluntary service overseas and in the United States, builds homes for Habitat for Humanity, sponsors numerous disaster relief projects, donates money for antiwar efforts, establishes grants for youth attending Christian colleges in exchange for one year of voluntary service, and [more].” The Mennonite nurse did not realize the seeds she was planting. You and I will never know where and when and what seeds we have tossed upon fertile ground.

And we will never understand how they grow. We don’t understand what happens in there in the dark. We know about fertile soil. We know about water and sunlight. But, we don’t know what happens below the surface of the ground as the seed germinates, the seed coat is shed, and the cotyledon leaves, those first two mirror image leaves, sprout. We may as well be asleep while this is happening. This is not our work. Jesus says that “of itself the earth produces,” and the word he uses is the word from which we get the word “automatic.” The work of the Holy Spirit happens, and we can’t see it. We don’t know how faith sprouts. We can’t design a plan or create a model for growing the Kingdom of God. While we sleep, God’s kingdom germinates and grows.

Scholars have struggled with why Jesus would say that the farmer doesn’t understand how the seed grows and sleeps while it germinates. Jesus isn’t saying that farmers don’t know the value of planting at the right time and watering and fertilizing and tending their crops. Jesus is saying that the germination of God’s Kingdom doesn’t depend on us. That seed is breaking out of its seed coat and breaking through the soil. The growth of the Kingdom of God is certain.

Our job is to sow the seed. The sprouting and growing is not up to us. How big the harvest is isn’t up to us…we will harvest it – communities of love, joy, and peace, and patience, relationships based on kindness, compassion, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The Kingdom of God starts small and lowly, like a mustard seed that grows into a large invasive bush. Ezekiel prophesied that God would bring low the high tree and make high the low tree. There’s not much lower than an invasive weed that will quickly take over your whole field and grow bushy and tall. Yet, there, in its branches the birds of the air come. A common translation of the verb for what the birds do has echoed Ezekiel’s prophecy saying that the birds of the air make their nests there in the branches. The verb, though, simply means dwell or settle or rest. There, in the branches of the Kingdom of God, the birds of the air find a place to settle and rest. The Kingdom of God does not grow for its own sake alone, but for the sake of those who may come and take refuge in its branches.

This morning as you leave, I am going to give you a mustard seed. Where will you toss it? Where will you plant seeds of God’s Kingdom – seeds of love and justice? Will you trust that even as you sleep, that seed is growing day and night and night and day? Will you gather the harvest or life abundant in joyful, loving, peaceful community? It starts small, with lowly people like you and me. And God’s Kingdom grows strong and spreads wide, not for its own sake, but for the sake of those who seek a place to rest and settle. May we always be planting seeds and our prayer always be: God, grow your Kingdom here.