Kingdom Seeds (Mark 4: 26-34) 6/17/12

          My wife Cindy loves to plant. Every spring, she starts her exodus back and forth to Lowe’s and the Farm Fresh Market and various other stops to gather annuals and perennials for planting. I used to get after her about buying annuals because they don’t come back the next year. She finally made me understand that different flowers bloom at different times. She wants to have colors decorating our landscape as much of the year as possible and that takes annuals as well as perennials. So we have our share of azaleas and dogwoods and crepe myrtles and camellias and gardenias and hydrangeas and lilies to go with the pansies and snapdragons. We used to plant vegetables, but somewhere along the way the vegetables gave way to flowers. Cindy is a “plant it all and see what happens” sort of gardener. Being a much more dull personality than my wife, I thought you just plant one or two groups of things in a flower bed. That is not the way my wife plants. She wants things blooming all year long, splashing color as they come up in their season. She mixes the annuals in the beds for extra pizzazz. Every year, something different seems to be coming up in her flower beds. Funny thing about all those different flowers. They seem to live together just fine. Each comes up when it’s ready, stays for awhile and then makes room for the next show. But that’s another sermon.

          In the gospel of Mark, we are told a number of parables. The parable of the secretly growing seed is found only in Mark’s gospel. It is a short but powerful lesson about the kingdom of God, immediately followed by the parable of the mustard seed—another parable about God’s kingdom. Between the two, Jesus gives us a glimpse of some of the characteristics of the kingdom of heaven.

          Jesus says that a man scatters seeds on the ground. Without doing more, the earth by itself produces a harvest. The man does not know how it happens, but it happens. The man can contribute to that harvest by preparing the ground, by tilling the soil, by cultivation and watering and weeding. All these things will help the harvest, but the harvest will come regardless. Indeed, if the man does not scatter the seeds, perhaps the birds will do it for him. The seeds will be scattered and the harvest will come, for such is the nature of the kingdom of God. It is not created by man. It is not under the power of man. It is under the power of God. Man’s most clear duty is to be patient and wait for the harvest that God will bring.

          Perhaps you have heard the story of the kernels of wheat lying on the threshing floor. The farmer comes to them and offers them the chance to be planted. He tells them that they will be planted in the cold ground and covered from the sun, that they will have to die, but that if they do this, they will be reborn into many, many grains of wheat. The first kernel says to the other: “It is quiet and warm here in the barn. I am safe here. I think I would like to stay where I can be quiet and warm and safe.” The other kernel decides to take the farmer’s offer. He volunteers to be planted in a new field that has just been cleared. The kernel that stayed behind was warm and dry, but without any companionship. His life never changed. The kernel that volunteered to be planted was slipped into the cold ground and covered up. It was cold and lonely for awhile. He felt himself slipping away and he indeed died just as the farmer had promised. But soon, a new shoot poked its way through the soil. As the seasons passed, the whole field was populated by beautiful wheat crops that fed the people of the village. All those crops had descended from that one small volunteer kernel.

          The kingdom of heaven is like that kernel of wheat. God allows us to help with the planting and cultivation. He wants us to help, but understand, the kingdom is coming whether we help or not. The growth of something new often involves sacrifice. But is it really sacrifice to help harvest those whom we love, who God himself committed to be the harvest? Who will you be? Will you stay in the barn, safe and warm and left out of the cycle of life? Or will you take your chances for God?

          In the time of Jesus, a mustard seed was regarded as the example of the smallest seed to yield the biggest fruit. A mustard seed is about the size of a pinhead, and yet a mature mustard plant may reach a height of twelve feet and look more like a tree than a plant. It fact, it reaches such heights that birds nest in it and gather upon it to harvest the very seeds that gave it life. From the smallest, most unlikely of seeds comes the largest plant.

So it is with the kingdom of God. From the smallest gesture comes the greatest good. Two thousand years ago, the kingdom of God was re-introduced to God’s people by God himself in the form of a man names Jesus. He gathered a small band of followers to himself and instructed them and taught them the love he had in his heart for all God’s people. The Holy Spirit completed their revelation at Pentecost and the world was transformed by the message of the gospel.  It too began as nothing more than a mustard seed scattered on hard ground. But look at what happened. Today, the shade from that tree of Christianity covers our planet. While many have yet to hear or understand the power of that message, many others have heard and responded. The harvest continues for our God who continues to sow and save. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We are the seeds of the kingdom of heaven. From a little can grow so, so much more!

I have another little story about my flower growing wife. We used to buy geraniums every spring. People tell me that geraniums are good for one season. We have geraniums that are five years old and blooming up a storm! Every fall when they are spent, Cindy cuts them back and puts them in the dark in an outbuilding. They have little sun and no artificial heat all winter. She waters them a little about once a month. In the spring, they begin to germinate. She pulls them out and they come out of hibernation and back into full flower. I think sometimes God works that way with us. It may seem like he has moved away from us when we face trials and temptations. It may seem that we have been separated from the light of his presence and thrown out into the cold to wither and die. Don’t believe it! Our God never separates himself from us. We separate ourselves from him! We may indeed be out in the cold and away from the light, but the kingdom is as close as our petition to belong to him. Bring the prayer and watch as God answers.

We live in a time which idolizes the power of science. It is called the Post-Religious Age. If it cannot be rationally explained and quantified, then it must not be real. This great age of information and its lightning dissemination of data fails to take into account the order of the Creator—the absolute truths upon which our entire existence is built. Among those are the revelations that we are created beings. Mankind did not make itself or spring from some chemical aberration. We are creatures carefully formed by our Creator God. Among the lessons that Mark’s gospel brings us are those of power—the power of God in all his glory to create from nothing, to shape the biggest from the smallest, to bring about the most unlikely of results to demonstrate his Godliness.

These parables also bring us the lesson of patience—the patience that comes from our trust that God is in charge; that God will bring about all the change we need if we will but allow him to work in our lives and in the lives of our brothers and sisters.

God’s power can bring perfection in our hearts that can only come from God. It is a perfection wrought over time, carved out of the patience of lives made obedient to him. The kingdom of God is coming and it is here. You can replace those cold and damp and dark spots in your life with the peace that comes from turning over your life to him. When you have those feelings, you are already a step into the kingdom. It is a foretaste of the divine. Let go, be patient and watch those kingdom seeds at work.