Hadley Kifner
“Scattered Seeds”
June 16, 2024
Mark 4: 26-34
Preparation for the reading:
For several weeks now, the sermons preached on Sunday mornings from this pulpit have focused on Scriptures from the book of Acts. As we have learned, the Book of Acts is the 5th book in the New Testament and is written by Luke as a sequel to his Gospel. It is a narrative history that describes the work and formation of the early church, highlighting especially the works of Paul and the apostle Peter as they traveled extensively spreading the Gospel message. The book of Acts can be split into two parts; the first part dealing with the home church and its mission, and the last part concentrating on foreign missions. It begins with the Ascension of Jesus and goes on through Paul’s jail time in Rome, which opens his ministry to the church at Rome. This morning, we move away from Acts and dip into the Gospel of Mark. (Mark, by the way, traveled with Paul on many of his missions.)
In our move from the book of Acts to the gospel of Mark, we go from hearing about how the early church got started and began to spread, to wondering about how the early church was to live faithfully as followers of Christ.
Before we read the Scripture together from Mark, I want to set the stage. At the beginning of chapter 4, Jesus had been teaching, and such a large crowd had gathered, that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and taught from there while the people listened from the shore. After the teaching session ended, the crowd dispersed, yet the disciples lingered behind with questions. They were curious, recognizing that they didn’t fully understand what Jesus had been saying and sought clarification. It would be like a group of the most promising students coming up to the professor after a large lecture class had ended. They approach their mentor, pulling out pens and paper and say, “Tell us more. We want the real nitty gritty, all of the details…” So, this is where we began.
Please join me in a prayer for illumination:
Lord, open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today. Amen.
Hear now the Word of God from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 4, verses 26-34:
He 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 the Word of God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
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The kingdom of God is as if….
The kingdom of God is like…
The disciples were asking for specific son how to live as God’s people –
and Jesus responds with metaphor and simile, comparing the kingdom of God to a mustard seed bush.
I imagine the disciples were perplexed.
They were eager, wanting to apply themselves:
they had aims and hopes and intentions;
They, like us, want the details about what to do and when, and how, and for how long, and from where and with whom…
They want to unlock the mystery of the kingdom of God because they want to serve well and love fully and participate in the transformation of a people.
And Jesus tells them a story about a mustard seed bush.
Almost like a beginning swimmer who wants to train to be an Olympian and asks her coach, “How do I train?” and her coach replies, “Just put on your swimsuit, get in the water, and see what happens…”
It is not enough information to know, really, what to do at all, with any level of confidence, is it?
(pause) I cannot think about seeds or soil or tending to God’s kingdom without thinking about Wendell Berry.
Have you ever read any of his work?
Wendell Berry is not a theologian – or he does not identify as such. Over the years, he has called himself an “agrarian, a pacifist, and a Christian—albeit of an eccentric kind.” For decades, Berry has written poetry and essays from a small cabin on farmland in Henry County Kentucky that has been stewarded by his family for generations. His sanctuary is the field and the creek. His hymn is birdsong and thunder. His creed is that the human potential to thrive and heal the world is directly proportional to our care and nurture of creation.
Berry has written against all forms of violence and destruction—of land, communities, and human beings—and argued that the modern way of American life is so disconnected from the earth that we have forgotten who we are and from where we come. This, he says, keeps us from having any wisdom about in which direction we should move forward.
Wendell Berry’s writing is grounded in the notion that one’s work – be it farmer or poet or politician or child of God – ought to be rooted in and responsive to one’s place.
In the context of the parable from Mark, then, I take Berry’s words to mean that if disciples then and now want to be about the work of the kingdom of God, then we must place focused attention on our particular setting.
If we are situated in the setting of a broken world, one in need of relief from the glaring heat of injustice and violence and greed, one where all neighbors are not loved, where air and land and sea are polluted, where relationships are defined more by politics than peace, then our work is to be about making things whole with a shade of gentleness and nurture and welcome and peace and humility.
In the parable, “Jesus is calling us to a very different way of being with ourselves, with one another, with the divine, by asking us to recognize that spiritual growth and closeness with God arises as naturally as seeds growing.” That is to say, we must do our part with sincerity and eagerness, and then, with trust that something will indeed grow in God’s time, wait for the mystery to unfold.
As Wendell Berry confesses, there is liberation in knowing when and how to let go, to exist in hope and stillness, and long and yet remain.
And so it is with the kingdom of God.
It is from a tiny, unassuming, not-necessarily-very-impressive seed from which the kingdom of God grows. A kingdom that starts underneath soil and over time grows into something sturdy enough that it offers home and refuge and welcome for all who arrive.
And so perhaps we might begin to believe that it is from you and me, our failed attempts to love our neighbors well that justice and mercy take root. It is from us listening to each other and making room for our differences that harmony and mutual respect begin to grow. It is from random, small, invisible acts of trust and hope that a new heaven and new earth can burst forth.
Imagine with me some mustard seeds planted among us:
– a handful of justice-minded people meeting to talk about racial inequities in our community
– a motley crue of middle-aged parents and teenagers, some of who have never used a power tool, loading up a van and traveling to a rural area to paint and plumb
– a home grown summer school held partly in a church and partly outside where children of all ages share in singing, storytelling, crafting, playing, snacking
– twenty-some people stacking canned goods and bags of rice at the local food pantry
– a dozen dudes piled on a boat, afraid of a storm and unable to catch fish
Hilda Patterson knows about planting and tending and harvesting. If you know Hilda Patterson, a beloved member of this church family, then you know her garden. She grows flowers and peppers and herbs and vegetables. And she loves those precious things in her garden. When I talked with her about this text earlier this week, she focused on the part about the seed being sown. She said that after a seed is planted and it begins to grow, it must be nurtured. “It simply cannot just be left alone,” Hilda says. “Mother Nature does her part and yet we have work to do, too: we must water seeds, and allow them sun but not too much, and shade but not too much, and the area around it needs to be weeded, too.” Hilda knows the blessing of working hard and trusting the process and then waiting to see what comes of it all.
So it is with the kingdom of God –
we must attend to what is emerging,
nurture it with care,
humbly live in harmony with it,
and gather the harvest in joy.
Friends, I have been a bit all over the place with this sermon –
Seeds, swimming, food pantries, Wendell Berry…
It is hard to put words on something that is so…important and mysterious as the kingdom of God.
This is where we need to be reminded of our identity. “As children of God, we are stewards of mystery. We dwell gently with it, not so much to search for answers as to be transformed by questions that open into eternity.”
Mark’s account of Jesus is pastoral and this is a hope-filled parable.
The task of our lives is not to figure out the mystery but to trust in it.
“The future of the kingdom of God – then and now and always – depends less on our efforts than on the mysterious and yet trustworthy ways of God.”
And in that trusting, there is a sort of freedom. A freedom from the need to control, and freedom from having to expend our energies proving our points and patching over the holes of seemingly impossible truths. It is a freedom from having to provide a fully coherent narrative and explain away all inconvenient inconsistencies. Trust liberates us to let things be, to take our questions one at a time, to ponder them peacefully, knowing ourselves all the time to be held in a loving and secure embrace of one who, despite not providing all the answers we want or protecting us from all things hard, supplies all our needs and makes things grow. Trust liberates us to live joyfully in the midst of mystery, delighting in the rich possibilities of what might be, what can be, what will be…”
If you are still with me, I thank you, and I want to end by sharing some examples of your holy imagination.
I reached out to a handful of you, and also some family members, seminary colleagues, and even a landscaper who was working in our neighbor’s yard with a question. I asked, “What does the kingdom of God look like to you?” I am grateful that you were willing to wonder with me, and share your thoughts.
Of note, many of you wanted more information before replying: you wanted to know if I was asking about the kingdom of God in heaven, or the kingdom of God on earth. I didn’t have a specific kingdom of God in mind, just any kingdom of God, really. To me, either in heaven or on earth, the kingdom of God is equally mysterious.
Here is what the kingdom of God looks like to some of you:
– The kingdom of God is as if…there was a huge dinner table in the outdoors, cooled with breezes and accompanied with bird song, filled with people you know and love and also people you don’t know and love
– The kingdom of God is like…beautiful, endless opportunities to explore nature (McLean)
– The kingdom of God has no oppression and no racism (Darryl)
– It is a place where diversity is celebrated, all are loved for simply being themselves and not for what they have accomplished (Jessica B.)
– The kingdom of God is not about hierarchy or order but about welcome and connection and understanding: it is about being free (Alvernia)
– It is the best place to be and I want to be there (Becky Dahlke)
– It is full of surprises (Sally Osmer)
– The kingdom of God is as if a world was made out of love and babies and flowers and seasons and oceans (Marsha K)
– It is not a place so much as it is a feeling – an experience of peace where there is room for everyone
– The kingdom of God is as if our best human efforts and God’s divine grace makes magic that changes the whole wide world and all that it is in it
(pause)
On earth as it is in heaven.
May it be so.
Amen.