Automatic Growth -- FPC sermon excerpt
Next to food and drink, our most basic human need is story. Yes, that’s right: Story.
That’s what the novelist Reynolds Price says, and I think Jesus would agree with him.
Jesus used stories called parables throughout his ministry — he used them to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the people who crowded around him, aching for insight and inspiration. He used parables to illustrate the coming of the kingdom of God.
In Mark 4, Jesus tells two stories about growth — the parable of the growing seed and the parable of the mustard seed — and in both cases he gives God the credit for the development of the seeds into fully grown plants. This insight runs counter to our American work ethic, which tends to link growth to hard work. In today’s economy, we fear job loss through downsizing, mergers, or competition, so our natural inclination is to put in longer hours and more intense effort.
But Jesus has another idea. In the parable of the growing seed, “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” (Mark 4:26-27).
With a sense of humor, Jesus reminds the disciples that God is waiting to grow what they sow, and God “is so capable that all they need to do after they throw the gospel on the ground is to go to bed!” It is as if Jesus is saying “Stop calculating, stop worrying about design and strategy, stop trying to crunch results,” writes biblical scholar Richard Deibert. “Scatter what you have and hit the sack.”
Clearly, human effort is not the key to the successful growth of the kingdom of God. But we humans do have a role to play, by acting in faith and holding on to a vision of what God is doing in the world. In the parable of the growing seed, it is significant that the farmer gets out of bed and puts effort into scattering seed on the ground — he has faith that good seeds in good soil will bear fruit, and he embraces a vision of what the field will look like once it is full of stalks, with “the full grain in the head” (v. 28). The farmer trusts that God will give the growth, until the time for the harvest comes.
As we celebrate our annual Service of Confirmation at Fairfax Presbyterian Church, it seems to me that the teachers and mentors of our confirmands have acted a lot like the farmer in this parable. They have been faithful to members of the confirmation class, meeting frequently with them. They have scattered good seeds, sharing God’s Word and their personal insights into the Christian faith. They have trusted that God will cause growth in the lives of these confirmands, and will bear good fruit.
A mustard seed of faith has been planted in each member of our confirmation class. That’s not a bad thing, because the second of Jesus' parables teaches us that mustard seeds grow into the largest of all shrubs. This happens not because of human effort, but because that is God’s intention for mustard seeds. The human role in this process is simply sowing the seeds upon the ground (v. 31), a process that is defined in the parable of the sower as sowing “the word” — sowing the Word of God (v. 14).
“Taken together, the parables teach that it is not the work of the disciples to create the kingdom,” writes Robert Stephen Reid; “theirs is only to act on what they have been told to do.” It is the work of God’s Word to create the kingdom.
These parables illustrate the growth of the kingdom of God, but they illuminate important aspects of our personal spiritual growth as well. For us to develop a fully formed Christian faith, it is important for us to focus less on human striving, and more on faith and vision.
To drive this point home, Jesus emphasizes the autonomy of the growing process — Richard Deibert points out that in verse 28, Jesus describes the process as effortless, “the earth produces of itself,” he says, actually using the Greek word automatos, from which we get our English word “automatic.” In striking contrast to our American work ethic, Jesus makes the point that it is while we sleep — absolutely independent of us — that the seed of God’s kingdom germinates and grows to maturity.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, growth is automatic. What an amazing insight this is, especially in a world in which we feel like we need to work hard in order to get anything worth having. But Jesus isn’t encouraging us to loaf around. He isn’t saying that we are not involved in the process at all. No, this automatic growth leaves us with the challenge of developing our faith and our vision, in particular the visualization of good growth and good harvests.
That’s what the novelist Reynolds Price says, and I think Jesus would agree with him.
Jesus used stories called parables throughout his ministry — he used them to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the people who crowded around him, aching for insight and inspiration. He used parables to illustrate the coming of the kingdom of God.
In Mark 4, Jesus tells two stories about growth — the parable of the growing seed and the parable of the mustard seed — and in both cases he gives God the credit for the development of the seeds into fully grown plants. This insight runs counter to our American work ethic, which tends to link growth to hard work. In today’s economy, we fear job loss through downsizing, mergers, or competition, so our natural inclination is to put in longer hours and more intense effort.
But Jesus has another idea. In the parable of the growing seed, “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” (Mark 4:26-27).
With a sense of humor, Jesus reminds the disciples that God is waiting to grow what they sow, and God “is so capable that all they need to do after they throw the gospel on the ground is to go to bed!” It is as if Jesus is saying “Stop calculating, stop worrying about design and strategy, stop trying to crunch results,” writes biblical scholar Richard Deibert. “Scatter what you have and hit the sack.”
Clearly, human effort is not the key to the successful growth of the kingdom of God. But we humans do have a role to play, by acting in faith and holding on to a vision of what God is doing in the world. In the parable of the growing seed, it is significant that the farmer gets out of bed and puts effort into scattering seed on the ground — he has faith that good seeds in good soil will bear fruit, and he embraces a vision of what the field will look like once it is full of stalks, with “the full grain in the head” (v. 28). The farmer trusts that God will give the growth, until the time for the harvest comes.
As we celebrate our annual Service of Confirmation at Fairfax Presbyterian Church, it seems to me that the teachers and mentors of our confirmands have acted a lot like the farmer in this parable. They have been faithful to members of the confirmation class, meeting frequently with them. They have scattered good seeds, sharing God’s Word and their personal insights into the Christian faith. They have trusted that God will cause growth in the lives of these confirmands, and will bear good fruit.
A mustard seed of faith has been planted in each member of our confirmation class. That’s not a bad thing, because the second of Jesus' parables teaches us that mustard seeds grow into the largest of all shrubs. This happens not because of human effort, but because that is God’s intention for mustard seeds. The human role in this process is simply sowing the seeds upon the ground (v. 31), a process that is defined in the parable of the sower as sowing “the word” — sowing the Word of God (v. 14).
“Taken together, the parables teach that it is not the work of the disciples to create the kingdom,” writes Robert Stephen Reid; “theirs is only to act on what they have been told to do.” It is the work of God’s Word to create the kingdom.
These parables illustrate the growth of the kingdom of God, but they illuminate important aspects of our personal spiritual growth as well. For us to develop a fully formed Christian faith, it is important for us to focus less on human striving, and more on faith and vision.
To drive this point home, Jesus emphasizes the autonomy of the growing process — Richard Deibert points out that in verse 28, Jesus describes the process as effortless, “the earth produces of itself,” he says, actually using the Greek word automatos, from which we get our English word “automatic.” In striking contrast to our American work ethic, Jesus makes the point that it is while we sleep — absolutely independent of us — that the seed of God’s kingdom germinates and grows to maturity.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, growth is automatic. What an amazing insight this is, especially in a world in which we feel like we need to work hard in order to get anything worth having. But Jesus isn’t encouraging us to loaf around. He isn’t saying that we are not involved in the process at all. No, this automatic growth leaves us with the challenge of developing our faith and our vision, in particular the visualization of good growth and good harvests.
posted by Henry Brinton | 12:13 PM
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