Mark 4:26-34
“Seeds, Sleep and Shade”
June 10, 2012 - Second Sunday after Pentecost

         The kingdom of God is like zucchini. That’s what Jesus was saying. If you’ve ever grown zucchini or even been a casual acquaintance of a zucchini grower, you will understand what I mean. Plant just a few seeds in early summer and within a couple months and without almost any effort you will be knee deep in a green vegetable that will haunt your nightmares on into the fall.

         Even the most pathetic excuse for a garden can grow an overwhelming crop of zucchini. Toss out the seeds, turn your back, and when you turn around you won’t see nice, 6 inch green tubes like you find in the produce section. No, the ground will littered with green monstrosities of dirigible proportions. Then you will spend the next couple weeks trying to foist those pneumatic vegetables off on your friends, who will have learned to duck around the corner when they see you approaching with your bulging paper bag in hand.

         Which all makes zucchini an extremely satisfying and easy plant to grow. It rewards the most inept gardener. It makes the novice look like a master of the soil. If all else fails, there will still be a harvest. If every other plant dies, the zucchini vine will spread out its branches and fill up your backyard. Which is why it’s like God’s kingdom.

         At the beginning of Mark 4 Jesus told a parable that might have led us to believe that God’s kingdom depends very much on our effort and skill at spiritual gardening. He talked about the Word being sown like seed on various sorts of soil and warned how the spiritual equivalent of rocky ground, hungry birds and thorny weeds could spoil or destroy the crop.

         The parable of the sower could make it sound like we all need to be extraordinarily diligent in our efforts if God is to be able to produce anything good in us. We need to chase away the birds of temptation that threaten the seeds, be constantly tilling the ground of our souls so that the Word sinks in, be carefully weeding out all our cares about things like jobs or money. It’s only with the most intense cultivation that we’ll be able to see God’s kingdom arrive among us.

         That impression that the kingdom of God depends on our constant care and labor is why Mark felt it important to include a small parable all the other Gospel writers left out. As a story, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s scarcely more than a brief observation on the natural order of the world. But the little “parable of the growing seed” may be just what some of us need to hear in order to understand and grasp how profound is the gift and grace of the kingdom.

         In verses 26 and 27, Jesus basically just remarks that a farmer plants seed and then goes to bed. What happens then is not up to the farmer. Time passes, night and day, and the seed just grows, all on its own, “he does not know how.” The whole process is mysterious, independent of the gardener, of the farmer.

         Verse 28 actually begins with the Greek word automatē, from which we get the word “automatic.” The earth “automatically” produces the stalk, then the tight buds or heads, then finally fully developed heads with grain in them. The crop grows by itself, produced by the power God has created in nature and placed in the earth. But then in verse 29, the gardener is able to go out and reap that harvest which came up while he slept half the time it was growing.

         Now, don’t get distracted by thinking this parable in too much detail. Of course gardeners and farmers work hard. Of course they have to plow the ground, and irrigate, and fend off weeds and animals. Of course the production of a decent crop of anything, except maybe zucchini, is hardly automatic. There’s lots of work involved. But Jesus’ point is that the actual growth, the production of the grain or vegetables or flowers is still a mystery. It happens while we sleep, while we rest, while we do other things.

         So that’s how we are to see our efforts for the kingdom of God, our spiritual work for the Lord. Whatever we do is not what finally produces a result. It’s the mysterious power of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, which grows God’s crop while we are resting and doing other things.

         This is true of whatever spiritual work you care to think about, whether it’s prayer, evangelism, teaching Sunday School or trying to raise your own children to believe in Jesus. You can work as hard as you like, but the results come from God, not from you and me. And, the results will come. God’s kingdom will grow in this world. It’s just that we can’t force it to happen. We must wait for what God has promised.

         Jesus spoke this parable to a small handful of followers who lived in a tiny occupied country at the edge of a Roman empire which knew nothing about God. They couldn’t have imagined how Jesus’ words would come true. In about three hundred years the capital of the empire would become the central city for the faith being planted in them that day. In a few hundred years more, that faith would start to cover the earth.

         You and I can’t imagine what God is doing now even as we listen to this parable and think about our own efforts for the kingdom. Week after week we pray for people who are sick and for people who need to know the love and grace of Jesus. Night and day go by and it feels like nothing happens. But then every once in awhile we hear reports, like that one of those we prayed for is in remission. Or like a couple weeks ago, that one of them has accepted Christ as Savior.

         Please hear this parable for the work of God that is dear to your heart. Hear it for that son or daughter for whom you pray but who doesn’t seem to change. Hear it for that little ministry of Bible teaching or prayer or service to those in need when there seems to be no visible result. Your group remains tiny; those you help are still homeless or poor. But God is at work. The seeds of the kingdom are growing. When the time is ripe, the harvest will come.

         This parable speaks to me as pastor of a small congregation. Pastors do have daydreams, you know. We imagine preaching like Billy Graham or Luis Palau in front of crowds of thousands. We picture people flocking to buy the books we’ve written. We dream of being the captain of a flagship church about which everyone in town is talking. Yet for most of us the results of our efforts are smaller. But this parable reminds me that God is the one producing the harvest.

         Nineteen years ago I was getting ready to leave the first church I served and come here. I was feeling discouraged. That congregation had grown a little. They would complete a building addition after I was gone. But things hadn’t turned out as I’d hoped. I hadn’t seen the results I’d expected. But then Rex turned up at my office door.

         Rex had a nice fly rod in his hand and he gave it to me and said, “This is to say thank you.” I said, “For what?” Of all the people in our congregation, I was barely acquainted with Rex. We had only talked once or twice. I couldn’t imagine what I had done for him. But he said, “For my faith. You probably don’t realize it, but I became a Christian listening to you preach the last few years. My life was a mess and your sermons helped me find my way to the Lord.”

         I had had no idea. I planted a few seeds, but while I was sleeping, God was at work in that man. I still have the fishing rod. Every time I catch a fish with it, I try to remember that God is the one who produces the harvest. God is the Lord of the results.

         That’s what the other, more familiar parable here means as well. The kingdom of God is like zucchini. From a small start, it grows bigger than anyone expected. Jesus deliberately chose to make His point not with something like an acorn or palm tree seed. In our Old Testament lesson from Ezekiel, it was a cedar tree, something familiar to us here in Oregon. But Jesus picked up the seed of an herb, mustard, a plant we typically expect to grow into a little bush.

         Yet from that tiny beginning, mustard can grow and grow and put out branches like a tree, so that Mark says it becomes “the greatest of all shrubs.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says that the shrub actually becomes a tree. The lowly herb grows big enough so that birds come and make nests in it.

         In Ezekiel and in Jesus’ parable, part of the point is that God’s kingdom is big enough to include anyone who will come into it. The Old Testament prophet was picturing a time when God’s people would rise above all the other nations of the earth. People from all those different countries would find rest and shade in the branches of the nation God would bring out of His people Israel. Jesus’ parable confirms Ezekiel. The kingdom of God coming Jesus was bringing would be the tree in which the nations rest.

         It’s happened. There is almost no place on earth where the Good News of Jesus Christ has not been heard to at least some degree. There are people from almost every country and language on earth finding a spiritual resting place in the kingdom of God which began in and through Jesus.

         Small beginnings. Our Covenant denomination began with maybe a couple thousand Swedish immigrants who arrived here with almost no money and no English. But they had mustard seed hearts. So from the beginning they sent missionaries to Alaska and to China. Now we have missionaries in twenty different countries. And our “mission” in Congo is presently about twice as large as our presence in North America, which is 170,000 people in 800 churches.

         Small beginnings. Twenty-six years ago approximately fifty people had the faith to put up this church building and believe that God would fill it. Six years ago maybe a hundred people believed the same thing about our new building next door. The results haven’t been exactly what either group expected. But this past winter, a couple hundred homeless men and women found a place to sleep right here in our sanctuary. Each Sunday a gently growing number of folks gather here to praise God and hear about Jesus. A year and a half ago I had stopped giving children’s messages and we stopped offering children’s church. But last Sunday nine children got the chance to hear how God loves them in Jesus.

         The results come from God. His kingdom is like zucchini. In His plan for creation He designed mustard seeds and zucchini plants to grow beyond our wildest expectations. His plan for His kingdom is even wilder, even greater. The seeds of that kingdom are growing all the time because He is at work, even when you and I need to sleep.

         There’s so much we don’t understand. The last two verses of our text talk about how Jesus spoke in parables, as the people “were able to hear it.” The Lord lets us in on the mysteries of His kingdom, as we are able to hear it. We won’t get it all at once. It will often seem like nothing is happening. But eventually, just like verse 34 says Jesus did for those disciples, it will all be explained, all come clear.

         For right now, however it looks to you, however small the results might seem in your own life, in the life of those you love, in your church, don’t be discouraged. The seeds are growing. They are growing in that loved one you’ve been praying for. They are growing in your family. They are growing in your church. They are growing in your community and in your place of work. One day the harvest will come.

         Until then, sleep in peace and in hope. Do your work and then let God do His. His kingdom will come. Then you and I will rest like nesting birds in the shade of its great branches and talk about how God did more than we ever thought and expected.

         Amen.

         Valley Covenant Church
         Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
         Copyright © 2012 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj