Seeds!

I am back on the lectionary...for now.  Here is the Mark passage link...http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=111752647

The kingdom of God is a phrase I never really paid much attention to until seminary.  In fact I took a class titled Jesus and the Kingdom of God.  Our professor Vic showed us some great things.  Two I will always remember.  The first is that the kingdom is not a place.  Instead the kingdom is God's authority or rule.   Second the rule is God's.  It belongs to God not us.  Therefore, how can we build the kingdom?  The answer is we can't.  God can, does and will. 

In the first parable we see this point made very well.  The kingdom of God is as if a man went and scattered some seed.  He sleeps and rises and sure enough the seed sprouts, grows and bears fruit.  It had nothing to do with that man.  We can't make a seed grow once its in the ground.  Farmers spray pesticides and fertilizers and such.  Gardeners prepare the soil, tilling it and adding what it needs.  Both water it if they can.  But whether it comes up is beyond us.  Unfortunately in our part of the country farmers are all too well aware of this.  I heard someone say today, "This is our third seeding and it still is not coming up."  We have had too much rain.  It is raining right now.  So what is our responsibility in the God and human relationship?  Would Jesus say just sit back and let the kingdom grow?  Would he say don't worry about reading the scriptures because God will grow you as God grows you?  Is ours the role of passive spectator? 

The second parable talks about the mustard seed.  The mustard seed?  I think that is the question people hearing this would ask.  Why a mustard seed?  Its a weed.  It is not a great tree.  Why not one of those great cedar trees of Lebanon?  Maybe its ordinary.  Maybe its not the highest pedigree.  Maybe its small, common and unassuming, but in it lays the capability to grow into a something big where the birds of the air might rest?   The kingdom emerges out of nothing spectacular and that which the world understands as powerful.  It happens in the most unlikely place and through the most unlikely people and through the most unlikely manner. 

We today look to the great big movements.  We look and compare ourselves to the mega church folks.  We lift up the most "successful" pastors (you know who they are).  We are tempted to borrow their strategies, programs and stuff.  I wonder, and would even say am certain that is the wrong road.  What in your church is a mustard seed or plant?  Maybe there in the ordinary, unspectacular place is where the kingdom of God is emerging.