Sermon — June 16, 2024
The Rev. Greg Johnston
I love the middle of June. For me, it’s the time when the world feels most vibrant, especially on a day when it’s 72 degrees with a light breeze, like today, and the wind is rustling through the leaves. Those leaves blow me away. They’re as green as the altar hangings. Greener, in fact, almost a truer kind of green that makes the sogginess of spring feel like it’s finally paid off. June is a time of transformation and growth. The school year is coming to an end, and summer vacation is beginning, and you can see it in the faces of the children on the street. The days are as long as they’re going to get, and you can hear it in the songs of the birds in the morning. The days are warm and bright, and all around Charlestown, on streets wide and narrow, utility trucks have sprouted up to jackhammer and to dig round the clock.
Even Jesus has joined in the spirit of the season. For his part, he gives us two parables of growth this Sunday, two images from the natural world to help us understand the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like a seed, sown in the ground, he says; and the kingdom of God is like the mustard seed, smallest of all the seeds.
There’s a parade today, so that’s all the cute intro you’ll get. Let’s dig right in.
Actually, first, I should say a word about what these parables are about: the “kingdom of God.” Jesus doesn’t say “God is like a sower, who scatters seed on the ground.” And he doesn’t say that faith is like a mustard seed, which will grow in you—that’s a different parable altogether. (Matthew 17:20, Luke 13:19) These parables aren’t about you, or Jesus, or God, but “the kingdom of God,” and for Jesus, this is almost a technical term. It’s the main thing that Jesus teaches about. He isn’t here to tell us what to do, or even to tell us how to deepen our spiritual lives. He’s here to tell us something about “the kingdom of God.”
This “kingdom” is not a place—it’s more of a situation, or a state of reality. It’s the kingship of God, it’s the idea of God becoming king, and no one else. The people of Israel had been ruled in the past by famous kings, by David and Solomon and all their heirs, but they had gone astray; they were not “good shepherds” of the people. In Jesus’ day, they’d been ruled for hundreds of years by foreign kings, who had no interest in anything but their own power. The prophets had long foretold that there would come a time when God himself would become king, when God would give up on human rulers and come down to shepherd the people. So “the kingdom of God” is a kind of shorthand for what God is doing in this world to bring about God’s vision of justice and peace.
As Jesus begins his ministry, John the Baptist is preaching that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near!” (Mark 1:15) Jesus begins to teach the people what that means. And they’re curious: Will he lead them in a revolutionary war? Will they finally throw the Roman armies out? Will the kingdom of God finally come, with God ruling over the people in splendor and glory? Will there be a parade?
Not exactly.
I want to say three things about these two parables of the kingdom of God:
Thing Number 1: The kingdom grows slowly, on its own schedule, in unobserved and often-unobservable ways. It’s like a seed, sown upon the earth. Day after night, the farmer wakes up, and checks on the seed, and goes to sleep, (4:27) but nothing that the farmer does affects its growth, especially in the days before modern fertilizers and irrigation, when it was all just up to the soil and the rain. The farmer can’t even see the change: the seed sprouts and grows, but it’s down there in the dirt, and it’s not until it sprouts up that the farmer knows it’s growing at all. The earth “produces of itself,” our translation somewhat awkwardly says: Mark says in Greek that the earth bears fruit automátē, “automatically,” and I like that. (4:28) Whatever God’s doing in the world, it’s happening in its own way and on its own time, and we can barely even see it growing, let alone do anything to hurry it along.
And yet—and here’s Thing Number 2—things only happen slowly until they happen all at once. Night turns to day, and day turns to night; the farmer goes to sleep, and rises again, as the seed slowly grows into a plant: the stalk, the head, the grain, then BANG! The sickle comes out. (4:29) There’s nothing for the farmer to do, day after day until field of grain is ripe, and then there’s more work than there’s time, because the harvest has come. It’s like the parable of the leaven, when Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like a little yeast mixed into some flour. The dough rises slowly, for a while, and then when it’s ready, it goes into the oven. God acts in the world through slow, steady preparation—then sudden transformation.
And what a transformation it is. That’s Thing Number 3: When God starts working in the world or in our lives, we can’t begin to imagine what’s coming on the other side. The mustard seed is the smallest of all the seeds—not really, but whatever—but the shrub that grows is big. And this is a testament to the scale of what God can do. But the parable of the mustard seed isn’t just about God making something big from something very, very small. The shrub and the seed aren’t just different in quantity; they’re different in kind.
Who could look at a tiny mustard seed and picture the entire plant? Who could look at an acorn or a little whirligig and imagine the oak or the maple? Take a look at one of those trees outside, towering and green, and try to imagine its whole growth. And then run the process in reverse: If all you had were seeds, would you really be able to imagine those towering trees, with their bright green leaves?
We live in a world of seeds, just beginning to grow. And we can only begin to imagine what they will become. All around us, in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our own lives, the kingdom of God is growing like a seed. Whatever change God is bringing about, it’s going to come slowly, slowly, slowly—then all at once.
You might not notice it right now. The mustard seed, after all, is very small. And if you’re wondering how small, well… I don’t usually go in for gimmicky props in my preaching, but “for everything there is a season.” And all around this church I’ve hidden a dozen mustard seeds. And I’ve left a couple little bowls, on the way out the two doors, for you to take one home.
And your homework is this—It has two parts:
- Keep your eyes open for the mustard seeds of the kingdom that are scattered around this church, and scattered around your life. Keep your eyes open for the actual mustard seeds, or Brian’s going to be very confused. But pay attention, too, to the changes you see in yourself, or in the people around you, and start to ask: Is this a seed of something God is doing? How will I know it’s sprouted and is ready to harvest?
- Take a seed home. And try to keep track of it. And when you lose it, as you inevitably will, remind yourself that this is exactly the point; that the seeds of the kingdom of God are small, and easy to lose track of, but they are nevertheless there.
“For you have made [us] glad by your acts, O Lord,
and [we] shout for joy because of the works of your hands.”
(Psalm 92:4)
Amen.