With what can we compare?

Mark 4:26-34

With what can we compare the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is like a seed that has been scattered over soil. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is like a parable that is told in public and explained in private. The kingdom of God is a mystery and a future hope and a present reality. With what can we compare it?

The images and parables of Jesus that we hear today are part of a longer list of parables and sermons Our Lord used to teach the crowds about his mission, and how he explained to the disciples what their purpose in life would become after his death, resurrection, and ascension. Just prior to our passage today, Jesus told the familiar parable of the sower, in which the word is spread like seeds across various environments which either allow for or inhibit its ability to take root and grow. Unlike many parables, Jesus offers a detailed explanation of this parable to his disciples and to us, naming the seed to be the word and identifying the real world circumstances represented by each of the places the seeds might land. After this, Jesus utters the famous parable of the bushel basket, from whence came many beloved songs and poems and works of art about shining our light and the light of God into a world dimmed by fear and strife. And finally, to round out his sermon series, Jesus shares with us the images we heard this morning, images of growth and mystery and abundance. Each parable is in itself a sermon, and the entire set of parables create a rich tapestry for our imaginations to take in and elaborate on. Even still, we are left with questions and mysteries and unknowns. What is this sermon, if it isn’t an answer?

The evangelist Mark tells us that Jesus did this often, speaking the word to the crowds in many such parables as they were able to hear it. As they were able to hear it. That phrase is a key, if we are willing to swallow our pride and sit with it. Jesus spoke to the crowds, speaks to us, as we are able to hear it. He explained everything in private to his disciples, which we are sometimes privy to in the Gospels, but we are still left with more images than explanations by a large number. We are not the ones who received the private explanations from Jesus. This takes a fair amount of humility to absorb. The disciples got the tutorials, and they still misunderstood and misspoke again and again and again. We don’t have those detailed explanations. We are the crowds, preached to in ways that are intended to speak to us and be heard by us. We just have the parables, and the faith that the person who told them loves us very much. With that faith, even if it is only the size of a mustard seed some days, I invite you to join me in revisiting this old old story.

Jesus said, “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. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”

He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet 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.”

Like many preachers, Jesus preaches here by hearkening back to a previous teaching, the sowing of the Word on both rocky and rich soils. This time, the kingdom is not the soil, nor is it necessarily the seed. This time, the kingdom is the process itself. Notice that the sower does not claim responsibility for what happens to the seeds within the soil. They sleep, and wake, and do not interfere with the miracle taking place as the seed sprouts and begins to grow. The growth occurs without them, or maybe even in spite of them, as many a farmer and gardener who has dealt with volunteer vegetables in the flower bed will know. The earth produces of itself, Jesus tells us. Each step in the process is natural, automatic, and we can only watch for the tender shoots to break forth and reach for the sun. It is only when the fruit of the earth is ripe that the sower returns to action, for the harvest has come. It is only then that the growth process requires intervention to continue. The process IS the parable.

And again in the mustard seed, something small and unassuming is given over to the processes of growth and change to become something impactful and abundant. The mustard plant, really more of a shrub than a mighty tree, plays its part not in its vastness but in its expansive inclusiveness, not in its height but in its many branches which offer safety and shade. Here is a plant not celebrated for the fruit it produces, or the height it reaches, but the sanctuary it offers to the transitory creatures of the air. The protected spaces between branches are the heart of the parable.

These parables of the kingdom are shared with us, not to succinctly answer the burning questions of the end times or to give the exact location of heaven. The King of Heaven is speaking to us in images of his own kingdom, so that we might see his heart a little clearer. With great affection come these parables, because Jesus is not talking to us about a particular place. He’s hoping to open our eyes to see him, to see the way he loves us and meet our yearning for the place he has prepared for us. With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? With Jesus, God incarnate, the creator and fulfilment of that kingdom where there is no death but life eternal. The kingdom of God is as the life and love of Christ. In baptism we are seeds sown in good soil, to be nourished and changed and made to burst forth into the light of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit working within us every day of our lives, often without our knowing how. In the Body of Christ we find rest for our weary wings, nestled in the cool shade of our sanctuary and supported by the intricate web of our common life in faith. In the parables are reflections of the face of God, offered up to us we are able to see it. In the parables are echoes of the voice of love that breathed us into being, as we are able to hear it.  In the preaching and teaching of Jesus we hear of a world made right, a glimpse of the kingdom that is already fulfilled and not yet complete. Let anyone with eyes to see, with ears to hear, with hearts to love, listen.