Mark 4:26-34
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; yet 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.
This is a familiar story, one of several where Jesus uses the smallness of the mustard seed to illustrate his point. In one place he says “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” In another that same mustard-seed-sized faith could move a mountain.
Jesus used agricultural references a lot, because in his time and place these were references that everyone who heard him would understand. We here today get the general idea from today’s illustration, but it is somewhat puzzling for those of us who live in the western U.S. where mustard is either grown for its greens and harvested early or else is a field weed, growing wild and spindly - certainly nothing that would support a bird’s nest.
If you look you can find all kinds of scholarly speculations and expositions about the variety of mustard plants of the near east which still don’t make it any clearer for us Californians. Let’s hear the way The Message tells this story - it’s not a literal translation this time but it is one that makes sense of the story for western listeners:
Jesus used agricultural references a lot, because in his time and place these were references that everyone who heard him would understand. We here today get the general idea from today’s illustration, but it is somewhat puzzling for those of us who live in the western U.S. where mustard is either grown for its greens and harvested early or else is a field weed, growing wild and spindly - certainly nothing that would support a bird’s nest.
If you look you can find all kinds of scholarly speculations and expositions about the variety of mustard plants of the near east which still don’t make it any clearer for us Californians. Let’s hear the way The Message tells this story - it’s not a literal translation this time but it is one that makes sense of the story for western listeners:
“How can we picture God’s kingdom? What kind of story can we use? It’s like a pine nut. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge pine tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.”
Now, told this way, the story makes sense to us - we live surrounded by pine trees – and we eat pinoles - told this way, the story gives us visual pictures to hold in our minds. This familiar little pine nut gives us this familiar huge tree. We get it. Living where they were, I suspect Jesus’ first listeners would not have gotten his message with this particular kind of illustration. Mustard made much more sense to them.
The point being that Jesus wasn’t talking about the holiness of mustard - he was talking about small things growing, in time, into much bigger things – things we can compare to a seed becoming a tree.
This is one of those stories I’ve heard all my life and assumed I understood the meaning of, and so I never really gave it that much thought. When I’ve preached on it before, I assume I’ve said the standard things, but this time I saw it differently (it’s amazing how that happens when you read and re-read the scripture stories).
This time I looked at Jesus’ actions among us through the light of this parable and realized that everything the gospels tell us that Jesus did was a relatively small action - generally one-on-one actions with a single person. Even when he fed the 5000, he didn’t cause a banquet to suddenly appear – instead he took a mere 2 loaves of bread and a couple of dried fish and broke them up and said, “here - pass this out” – and somehow everyone was fed.
He did not ever -- so far as we know -- announce a mass healing of all blind beggars - instead, he touched the eyes of one man and gave him sight, and we are still talking about it today. One crippled young man picked up his mat and walked home; one young deceased girl, being prepared for burial, was told to get up – and did; one dearly loved friend, already buried, was called back out of his tomb.
Probably the single most visually spectacular thing Jesus ever did – that we know of – was the transfiguration on the mountain top - and that was before a severely limited audience - just 3 of his disciples. When he was betrayed in the garden and some of his followers sought to defend him he told them to put up their weapons saying, “do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he would at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” He clearly understood that he had the power to do things on a large scale, but he chose instead to model small actions for us – presumably hoping that we could understand that, while we may be incapable of the big ta-da moments, we can do the little things, we can take baby steps. And our baby steps, just like a little pine seed or mustard seed, can one day grow into something much bigger, and reach and touch many people.
We simply don’t know how far the ripples from our actions may extend. They may affect only one person or they may, in some way, reach out to touch many others. Yesterday we handed out lunches here in town. Obviously this touched those who were there and got something to eat right then. We had about eight lunches left over and a couple of the older men who were there took the leftovers and told us they liked to take the extras to give to others they smet during the day who hadn’t been at the distribution site. It genuinely seemed to give one gentleman particularly a special joy in being given the wherewithal to help someone else down the line as we were helping him. He told us a story of a family he had met the previous week and the job on the children’s faces as they dove into the simple pb & j sandwiches.
We enjoyed our time together here, with our guests, making the lunches. We laugh a lot when we do this work. Gary and I enjoyed handing them out and interacting with the folks on the receiving end. They enjoyed full stomachs, and at least one enjoyed the opportunity to pass the blessing on.
Did we change the world? Probably not, but we were allowed to create some joy and some peace in this world for a short time. Baby steps, indeed, but baby steps are where every journey begins. We are small - but God is the trail-guide here. Who knows how far the ripples from our actions may one day travel.
In the words of Anne Frank, "Everyone has inside of [them] a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"
We have no way of knowing how big those seeds may one day grow. We just keep on planting them.
The point being that Jesus wasn’t talking about the holiness of mustard - he was talking about small things growing, in time, into much bigger things – things we can compare to a seed becoming a tree.
This is one of those stories I’ve heard all my life and assumed I understood the meaning of, and so I never really gave it that much thought. When I’ve preached on it before, I assume I’ve said the standard things, but this time I saw it differently (it’s amazing how that happens when you read and re-read the scripture stories).
This time I looked at Jesus’ actions among us through the light of this parable and realized that everything the gospels tell us that Jesus did was a relatively small action - generally one-on-one actions with a single person. Even when he fed the 5000, he didn’t cause a banquet to suddenly appear – instead he took a mere 2 loaves of bread and a couple of dried fish and broke them up and said, “here - pass this out” – and somehow everyone was fed.
He did not ever -- so far as we know -- announce a mass healing of all blind beggars - instead, he touched the eyes of one man and gave him sight, and we are still talking about it today. One crippled young man picked up his mat and walked home; one young deceased girl, being prepared for burial, was told to get up – and did; one dearly loved friend, already buried, was called back out of his tomb.
Probably the single most visually spectacular thing Jesus ever did – that we know of – was the transfiguration on the mountain top - and that was before a severely limited audience - just 3 of his disciples. When he was betrayed in the garden and some of his followers sought to defend him he told them to put up their weapons saying, “do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he would at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” He clearly understood that he had the power to do things on a large scale, but he chose instead to model small actions for us – presumably hoping that we could understand that, while we may be incapable of the big ta-da moments, we can do the little things, we can take baby steps. And our baby steps, just like a little pine seed or mustard seed, can one day grow into something much bigger, and reach and touch many people.
We simply don’t know how far the ripples from our actions may extend. They may affect only one person or they may, in some way, reach out to touch many others. Yesterday we handed out lunches here in town. Obviously this touched those who were there and got something to eat right then. We had about eight lunches left over and a couple of the older men who were there took the leftovers and told us they liked to take the extras to give to others they smet during the day who hadn’t been at the distribution site. It genuinely seemed to give one gentleman particularly a special joy in being given the wherewithal to help someone else down the line as we were helping him. He told us a story of a family he had met the previous week and the job on the children’s faces as they dove into the simple pb & j sandwiches.
We enjoyed our time together here, with our guests, making the lunches. We laugh a lot when we do this work. Gary and I enjoyed handing them out and interacting with the folks on the receiving end. They enjoyed full stomachs, and at least one enjoyed the opportunity to pass the blessing on.
Did we change the world? Probably not, but we were allowed to create some joy and some peace in this world for a short time. Baby steps, indeed, but baby steps are where every journey begins. We are small - but God is the trail-guide here. Who knows how far the ripples from our actions may one day travel.
In the words of Anne Frank, "Everyone has inside of [them] a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"
We have no way of knowing how big those seeds may one day grow. We just keep on planting them.
RSS Feed