February 6, 2005 Sermon

Seeds
Mark 4:26-32

C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer, described it as an onion. It has many layers. As you peel each away you discover that the next layer in is somehow larger than the one outside it.

Singer Rich Mullins saw it as a thunderstorm that hits at dawn. Its fierce winds blow sand and grit through the streets. The storm breaks just as the sun rises.

The Apostle Paul, who struggled to be poetic, nevertheless could find the words to call it a force of purity and justice.

Jesus compared it to a large shrub with big branches. Birds come and build their nests in it.

What is “it”? It is the Kingdom of God , and it is a mystery. The Kingdom of God resists description. What is it? Where is it? When is it? We do not know. We have glimpses of the truth about the Kingdom, but we do not comprehend it. Somehow we perceive that we need to know more, always more. Above all, we wish to enter it, to experience it.

But can we live in the Kingdom if we do not understand it? Yes, we can. We can because the Kingdom of God is a gift from Jesus Christ.

Jesus told parables to help his followers understand justice, peace, forgiveness. Parables help us dig into truths that defy analysis. Still, we will now analyze Jesus’ two short parables about seeds and the Kingdom. These deceptively simple stories contain at least three common elements. Seeds get planted. Growth occurs. A large happening closes the story.

First Jesus tells us about a grain farmer tossing seeds across his fields. In those days farmers did not plant with diesel-powered tractors. They just threw the seed out there and hoped for rain. As Jesus puts it, the farmer “sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know how.” Remember, Jesus is not actually speaking about seeds; he’s speaking about the Kingdom of God . He appears to mean that we play some part in planting the Kingdom but we do not know how whatever it is we do, works.

This rings true. We do participate in planting the Kingdom. Nobody who has helped to get this church off the ground can doubt it. Look out that window. See that trailer? Fred Hough used to park that trailer on his gravel driveway. Every Sunday he—or some other guy—would hitch it up and tow it to the school where we worshipped. There, a crew would unload all the stuff we needed to “do” church. Afterwards, we would load it back up and Fred or whoever would tow it back to his driveway.

Pulling that trailer was a way of planting seeds, seeds that matured into pieces of the Kingdom of God . Because those men did that, children heard about Jesus in Sunday School. Because those men did that, this piano appeared to help us sing praises to God. Others planted seeds by sitting through meetings at which we planned our church’s course or running the prayer chain. Dozens of people planted seeds; hundreds of people have tasted the Kingdom of God because they did. Thousands will partake before too long.

And not a one of us truly understands how it all happened. It just did. The Kingdom of God is like seeds. As our church’s biblical theme verses put it, God gives them growth.

So seeds get planted and growth occurs. As a matter of fact, both of Jesus’ little parables about seeds end with a big event. In the parable of the mustard seed its shrub grows so wildly it houses birds. In the case of our church, we have seen numerical growth. Equally importantly, we hear testimonies from one another that spiritual growth is happening. The seeds of the Kingdom of God have matured. Eleven young people who relate to this church will graduate from high school in four short months. God alone knows how their lives will go once they leave our nest. We can, however, take comfort in the knowledge that together we have planted the seeds of the Kingdom in them before they go.

This Kingdom of God thing is a mystery. What is it? Where is it? When is it? We do not know. Still, it is planted and it is growing all about us. I believe that we inhabit a far deeper, far more profound reality than we know. The spiritual part of existence remains (mostly) hidden to us. I further believe that the Kingdom of God incorporates both the hidden, and the known, world. The Kingdom of God is like a seed, but it is also like a bridge that connects us with the deepest places of reality, the places where the peace of Christ blankets all and God’s perfect justice rules.

In order to talk about something as mysterious as the Kingdom of God we have to use stories or images. It is too deep for mere words, too great to be described clinically. So let’s tell another story.

The Kingdom of God is like, well, it’s like the relationship between two sisters, Erica and Jessica Scanlon. Erica is the current Miss New Jersey . Jessica is her sister. She has autism. They and their parents belong to the Presbyterian Church of Pitman, New Jersey , pastored by two seminary acquaintances of mine, Bruce and Carolyn Gillette.

As young teens the two girls decided they wanted to get baptized. Since they had many Baptist friends they requested full immersion, in which the person being baptized goes completely underwater rather than just getting sprinkled (or dry-cleaned, as my dad calls it). Carolyn, the pastor the girls approached, readily agreed. (An aside: the Presbyterian Book of Order permits immersion baptism. I have performed several immersion baptisms since coming here and will gladly do more!)

Unfortunately, the Pitman Church —like most Presbyterian Churches—had no place to do an immersion baptism. So Carolyn Gillette contacted the Baptist preacher down the street, a friend of hers, who readily agreed to a plan. After they finished worship on a given Sunday, the Presbyterians would walk down the street and perform the girls’ baptisms in the Baptist’s tank. But when they got there, they found that virtually all the Baptists had stayed after their service. They wanted to watch how those Presbyterians would perform the sacrament.

As the girls waded out into the middle of the baptismal, Jessica became overwhelmed by the sight of all the people watching her. Since she communicates mostly in sign language she put her hands together and raised them in front of her chest, American Sign Language for “Help!” Carolyn, who “speaks” ASL, knew what Jessica meant, but she also knew it was the ancient posture for baptism. Smiling gently, she lowered Jessica down all the way into the water. A moment later, her sister Erica joined her in baptized membership in the church of Jesus Christ .

During the Miss America pageant Jessica told a reporter, “I am the person I am today because of my sister. I would never have whatever it is that makes me win beauty contests without her.”

So much in this story speaks of the Kingdom of God . You have the beauty of the relationship between these two sisters. You have two churches cooperating in ministry. You have the seeds of faith planted in them both by a good church. You have the wonder of baptism itself, which visibly reminds us of God’s grace. It was an experience of the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God surrounds us. We can experience it. As you go through your life, look for it and receive every opportunity to sample it with gratitude.