Genesis 13; Mark 4: 21 – end
Saturday is usually my day off, and my garden is where I most like to spend it. It’s a quiet kingdom where I can ponder on my own or become completely absorbed in some gardening task. Most Saturday mornings at the moment, as long as it isn’t raining, I go out there fairly soon after I’ve got up and survey the havoc that’s been caused by a week of sunshine, rain and growth. At this time of year it’s astonishing how fast everything grows and how quickly the different plants bloom and die.
As I was pulling up dead forget-me-nots yesterday I was also reflecting on how miraculous it seems that they seed themselves so easily and turn up in in drifts of blue around the garden every year without my doing very much at all to encourage them. In our reading this evening from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus uses two pictures about growing plants to talk about the kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God has always seemed to me to be a concept which is hard to pin down. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we pray “thy kingdom come”, asking that God’s rule would come on earth. Then to end our prayer we say “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory” acknowledging that God already reigns, already has the ultimate power. This kingdom, it seems is both ‘not yet’ and at the same time something which already belongs to God. So I thought we would look at the horticultural images in these verses. What do they have to tell us about the kingdom of God?
First, the parable of the growing seed. This tells us that the kingdom of God is rather like my forget-me-not seeds. Someone scatters seed on the ground, as I do, of course, more or less accidentally when I’m weeding – but that’s the end of the work. The seed sprouts and grows by itself without any help, finally producing a full head of grain when it is ready for harvest. The work is hidden and the work is God’s. Our part is only to plant the seed. We can’t make it grow or control what happens. We don’t need to do any more and we cannot expect to understand how the growth happens. Ultimately it’s God who is in control, however much we may like to think we have it all sorted into objectives in our Mission Action Plan.
This hidden growth reflects one of the themes of Mark’s Gospel; that of secrecy. The disciples, and those on the receiving end of Jesus’ healing miracles are often told to keep quiet and not to tell about what has happened. There is a time for secrecy and there will be a time for declaring openly the message about Jesus and the kingdom of God. But for now Jesus speaks in parables which some understand and some do not, and which he explains in full only to his disciples.
For now, we too often experience the kingdom of God as secret, hidden, something perhaps fleetingly grasped. And yet, Jesus says there will come a time, perhaps at the end of the world, when it will be obvious to all.
Our second horticultural picture is the mustard seed. One of the smallest seeds, and yet one which grows into a many-branched shrub. This suggests two things to me – Mustard seeds are annuals; they have to be replanted from seed every year. So the kingdom of God needs constant re-sowing. It isn’t any good thinking that we are a big thriving church and that we can now just sit back and rest on our laurels, expecting that growth will continue. We have to keep on preparing the ground, keep on planting the seeds. And we need to work out what that means we have to do now, which won’t be the same as we did twenty years ago – or even last year. We can never become complacent. Secondly, with a mustard seed in mind what may look small to begin with can have very significant results. Think of that small band of disciples, and the milli ons who call themselves Christians now.
Jesus gives us these pictures of the kingdom in order to encourage us. The kingdom is real, it is among us, and yet at the same time still to come; growth is happening just as surely as our gardens grow. Our part is to keep on faithfully sowing the seed, doing what God has called us to do, as our Queen has so wonderfully done. And then to trust God for the growth. And now and again we may be granted moments when we suddenly catch a glimpse of the Kingdom. And know that this is all that really matters.
I’d like to close by reading a well-known poem by R S Thomas, which encapsulates this for me.
The Bright Field – R S Thomas
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
Amen