Scripture Text: Mark 4: 26-34 (Proper 6B)
26He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”30He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet 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.”33With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
It seems that Jesus was big on botanical images, doesn’t it? But they work. You plant seeds, you feed and care for them, and they grow into a plant, right? But I think there’s something else. Plants don’t grow because we make them grow. Plants grow because that’s what plants do. We can’t hurry them. We can’t control them. We can’t predict when they will bloom. Oh, we can shape them and prune them and help them along but they’re pretty much going to do what they’re meant to do. Regardless of how much we plan and how much we do, we cannot make our plant grow. We are not called to plan when the harvest will happen or when it will end. They sprout, they grow, they produce fruit, and they die. They’re part of that cycle of life. They’re part of us. It doesn’t mean that we have nothing to do with it, though. We are the scatterers and the gatherers. We are the planters and the harvesters.
Next, Jesus once again uses that familiar little mustard seed. We’ve read that many times before. It’s tiny, really nothing more than a spec. Now often when we read of this beloved mustard seed, so many of us imagine this tiny seed that grows into this big beautiful tree. (I don’t know. Was there a Sunday School picture that depicted that?) You’ve heard that image. People like to use it to depict what even a tiny bit of faith can do. But I’m not so sure that’s what it was meant to say. Because, see, that tiny mustard seed does not, no matter how hard it tries, no matter what we do to help it, grow into a majestic redwood. It grows into a bush (or if it’s REALLY persistent, a sort of bushy, squatty tree), a very ordinary bush with an ordinary harvest that will end up in our spice rack or as a spread on our sandwich. There’s nothing really surprising about the outcome. It’s what is supposed to happen. It’s what God has promised.
So, interestingly enough, Jesus used something incredibly ordinary to illustrate his point. But even run-of-the-mill ordinary things can be extraordinary. A couple of months ago, I bought some egg rolls. But when I got ready to eat them, I realized I had no Chinese mustard. How can you eat egg rolls without Chinese mustard? (Well, I can’t) So, I thought, well how hard can that be to make? All it takes is a little dry mustard, a little rice vinegar, and some ice water. Easy, right? Well, yes, if you want to create something that will clean out your sinuses for the next decade! Just for the record, mustard, small though it might be, packs quite a dramatic punch!
So, what, really, is Jesus trying to teach us with this string of parables? It sort of sounds like the disciples were getting the teacher’s notes and the rest of us were just on our own. No, I think Jesus just wanted us to look at things differently. I think Jesus wanted us to have faith in the faith that God had in us. Faith is a gift. God supplants the seeds of faith into our lives—ALL of our lives. And they begin to grow. But, lest we think that faith can be charted into some perfectly-increasing line graph through our life, we need to remember that there is no prescribed pathway for our faith. “Measuring faith” is not up to us. God gives us whatever we need.
So, if someone tells you that “you don’t have enough faith” or that “you just need to have more faith”, have faith in the faith that God has in you. Each of us has been given the faith that we need to be who God calls us to be. Sometimes it will, indeed, feel like your faith could move mountains. And sometimes it just doesn’t seem to fit into who you are. Sometimes it seems empty and elusive. Sometimes it seems like you’ve lost it. (St. John of the Cross penned it as the “dark night of the soul” in his well-known 16th century poem) Perhaps those times in your life are times when your faith lays in winter fallow, regenerating, re-seeding, preparing for the new growth to come. To be honest, if everyone was constantly moving mountains, the world’s topography would be totally confusing. Sometimes, it takes faith to get out of bed. On those days, that’s enough. Sometimes the silence of faith is more powerful than the loud, mountain-moving chorus.
The truth is, most of our life is lived between the times of planting and the times of harvest. Most of our life is spent waiting on fruit, waiting on completion, waiting on something that we might never see in this life (I think Moses could tell us a thing or two about that. Sometimes the promised land is not ours to enter). But those fallow times are never wasted. They, too, are part of the life cycle. In fact, it is those times of fallow, those times of waiting when our faith is what gets us through. Have faith in the faith that God has in you. The harvest is coming. Maybe you’ll see it; maybe you won’t. But your faith is part of what brings it into being—no matter how small you think the seed might be. So, whatever you do, however small it seems, just keep scattering seed and have faith in the faith that God has in you.
Faith isn’t an argument, a catechism, a philosophical proof. It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to see. As the Bible says: Taste and see. (Sara Miles)
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Dancing to God 