The Surprise of A New Creation

Robert Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

June 18, 2006

Text: Mark 4:26-34   

When I have read these seed parables in the past, I have usually seen them as exhortations to get out there and sow more seeds of the kingdom. Lately, I have begun to think differently. As important as our seed scattering is, Jesus may have been making a different point: The seeds of the Kingdom of God are being planted already, by God. In Jesus’ live and teaching, his healings, his forgiving of sins, God’s active, gracious, truth-telling presence is already given. The reign of God is in our midst and among us. The Kingdom is not the product of our work, not our invention, not our product, not something with over which we have the franchise. The kingdom grows, “of itself,” (in Greek, the word is close to our word, “automatically.) The kingdom is a gift before it is a summons to action.

Look at the disciples and the other followers, listening to Jesus as he teaches from a boat near the shore. They are a fragile little band, responding to Jesus’ message, leaving all to follow and learn from him. They must have begun to wonder if Jesus’ message is a bit unrealistic. I have had friends who loved to say “let’s face it” when someone would come up with an idea which they deemed unrealistic. That would settle the issue for them: this project won’t float! The Romans were not amused by anyone who would draw such crowds; neither were the religious authorities impressed with his ministries of forgiveness and inclusion. The disciples must have been thinking, “is this kingdom the direction history is headed or not?”

So I believe Jesus told these parables to build up the disciples’ hope. He is saying, Yes, the ground seems hard, and the seeds are tiny, but, trust me, God will bring to fruition that which God is planting. Even when you cannot see great results now, keep on trusting that God is at work. This is God’s project, not yours. It is God’s gift for the love of the world

In elementary school, the teacher would have us plant a bean in a glass jar. With moisture and sunlight, we would watch as the roots would grow and sprout would come up through the soil, breaking its hard crust, stretching upward like a child awaking from a long nap. Do you remember the wonder of it? I think Jesus was inviting us to see the sprouts of the kingdom with the eyes of a child. We are invited to trust in God’s powerful presence even when the dream of a new world, and a new you and me, seems unrealistic.

If the gift of the kingdom, the active working of God, is God’s first gift to us and the world, the second gift is our participation in God’s ongoing work. We might ask, if this is God’s project, then why don’t we just revel in God’s love and abide in his favor? But God’s love is wiser than that. God has created us in the divine image and we are made to be creators, too! So Jesus invites and calls the disciples and others to be open to seeing the sprouts of the kingdom all around us---the hints, rumors, signals of the God’s Jesus-like presence--- and to foster their growth. We look for lives being changed, the repentances which happen, and to rejoice. We look for signs even in the institutions of our world which serve the cause of the kingdom. We can become God’s little helpers.

(God’s will, of course, cannot be neatly identified with any of our projects, programs, parties, churches, or ideologies. There is always a “not yet” written across all of them. But God is at work in our world, in and through our efforts, and often in spite of them, to make our world more just and hope-filled, more merciful and peaceful.)

To be sure, working in God’s employ is not easy and is often laced with suffering and controversy. There is powerful resistance to God’s vision of a transformed world. I can be placed among a group of cynics and I can join right in with the problems, the hopelessness, the craziness of our world. I can get tired of always looking for sprouts when all I see is weeds! The fallen world tries to squeeze us into its own mold. In the various media, we are frequently urged to focus on our selves alone, to join in campaigns of hatred and revenge----many times cleverly disguised as religious causes.

How do we keep our hope alive? How do we believe in the mustard seed, the plantings of the Lord, when so more darkness enshrouds us?

I am helped by remembering that Jesus’ parables were spoken to groups of people, not simply to individuals. To live under the influence of the reign of God, to follow after Jesus and learn from him, we have to be embedded in the body of Christ, gathering in places like this. We gather, sing, pray, listen, argue, discuss, work and play together and we find our hope buoyed up. When my faith is low, you speak the word of hope to me, and vice versa. We, together, “ponder anew what the almighty can do.” We give testimonies about how our lives have been changed by God’s grace. (We also can share our failures and our frustrations and our hurts.) Bear with me: the gathered church is like fertilizer for the tender sprouts that are germinating with us and within our world. When we come together, I am reminded of the old liturgy of the Lord’s Supper: We “feed on him in our hearts, by faith, with thanksgiving.”

Jesus, the risen crucified one, is himself the seed that was planted and raised up. He yet stimulates our imaginations and invites us to work and live on God’s farm God’s field hands. He invites us to be surprised by all that will be produced for a truly strange and wonderful new creation. May it be so with us.