June 18, 2006

Mark 4:26-32

“Kingdom of God”

Rev. Melissa D. Ramos

In the Scripture passage that we’re about to read together, Jesus gives two parables about the Kingdom of God. Jesus has stepped away from the big crowds that have been following him. Jesus steps away from all the attention, the hangers-on, the hubbub of activity, and Jesus invites his disciples to meet with him, and to listen to what he has to say to them.

Jesus has done the same thing with us today. God has called us away from the ringing phone, the tv, the laundry that needs doing, away from the bustle and the busyness of life. God has called us here to worship, to be re-grounded in our faith. And now in this time that we call “the sermon”, Jesus has gathered us, assembled us as his disciples, and Jesus has something to say to us today, just as he did when the disciples first heard the words.

Jesus invites us, just as he invited the first disciples. He says, “Come closer. I have a secret to share with you. I want to tell you something exciting. I want to tell you something about the Kingdom of God.”

Let’s listen. Let’s focus our thoughts on the Word of God that comes to us today from the Gospel of Mark.

Read Mark 4:26-32

Again, Jesus gives us two parables about the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses agricultural images in the parables to illustrate this concept, this idea of the “kingdom of God.” But what is the kingdom of God? What is Jesus talking about?

“Kingdom” isn’t a word we use very often anymore. It makes us think of medieval times – of kings and queens and castles. But if you’ve been to school at all it makes you also think about serfs and peasants and oppression of the poor, and that’s not a very positive image. So what would Jesus have meant when he said it, and what does it mean to us today?

A little Old Testament history gives us some helpful background. Israel became a real, bona fide nation, a kingdom under the leadership of King David. King David united the different tribes of the Hebrew peoples who had come out of exile in Egypt and settled in Canaan, the promised land. King David was a man of character, man of principle, and the Scriptures call him “a man after God’s own heart.” David led the people of Israel in worship and in living his life for God.

David was the kind of man we so desperately need in our society even today. A man who will do what is right, a man of godly character who leads others in faith and principle. Today we celebrate those men – fathers and grandfathers and brothers – men who have loved us and taught us what is right and who follow God in the same way that David did.

Under King David, Israel was at the height of its glory as a kingdom, and the true pinnacle of nationhood came when David’s son Solomon became king after him and built the temple in Jerusalem. Israel was at that time, wealthy, peaceful, and relatively happy. But things went sour when Solomon was persuaded by his many, many foreign wives to worship false gods and abandon Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had brought the people out of slavery.

The people of Israel began to follow the leadership of Solomon, and they too, began to worship false gods, and even set up altars to pagan gods in the temple of God in Jerusalem. After Solomon passed away, Israel had one lousy king after another over a period of hundreds of years. These kings were evil and corrupt and violent – they disregarded the poor, widows, the sick and orphans, and injustice and depravity were the order of the day.

And so, the story of the Old Testament says that God’s wrath came upon Israel. They had been a kingdom that was chosen by God, blessed by God, in order that they would be a light to the nations, and they had become a mockery of God’s Name. They were corrupt, and God sent them into exile.

Around 500 BC Israel was attacked and defeated by two nations. First by Assyria, then by Babylon. The kingdom of Israel became scattered as the people were taken away mostly to Babylon but also to other parts of the ancient near east. The people of Israel spent 70 years repenting for their corruption, and then they were set free to return to Israel by the emperor of Babylon. They rebuilt the walls of the city and the temple, but still Israel was an occupied territory. The people were not sovereign, they did not have their own government, and they had no king to lead them.

Israel still longed for a king, a man of principle, a man of character who followed God and who would lead the people in justice and wisdom, who would represent God.

So when Jesus brings the disciples in a quiet place all by themselves and tells them about the Kingdom of God, their ears perk up. They lean in and listen because this is what Israel had been waiting for, the Kingdom to be restored to Israel.

But Jesus’ ministry wasn’t exactly what the Jewish people had in mind when they prayed for a king. The Israelites wanted someone and something spectacular, an overnight revolution to overthrow Rome, a lightning bolt to come down and strike the governor, a flashy military leader skilled in battle.

But the kind of Kingdom Jesus preaches is a different deal. Jesus teaches the disciples about the Kingdom of God, and instead of flashy, sensational images, Jesus uses ordinary ones from everyday life. He says the Kingdom of God is like scattering seeds on the ground – the farmer sleeps and rises meanwhile the seed grows on its own, hidden and unseen under the ground. Or, Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed – the smallest, tiniest of seeds, but which becomes the greatest of shrubs with big, leafy branches where the birds of the air can make their nests.

It’s clear that this Kingdom Jesus tells us about is not an earthly kingdom. The Kingdom of God is not Israel, it’s not even the United States, and it’s not a particular political system or ideology. This is a kingdom in which God reigns as sovereign King and Ruler. There is no system of checks and balances because there is no corruption or danger in God as Ruler; God is perfectly just and right. The Kingdom of God is a kingdom with no hunger, no poverty, no sickness, no death, and no loneliness.

The Kingdom of God preached by Jesus and begun in Jesus as Christ is a kingdom that seems hidden, and that works under the surface of ordinary life. Both parables Jesus gives are about seeds. And so it’s natural to ask “what is the seed that’s being planted?” We want to know what the seed represents.

From earlier in the same chapter of Mark, it’s clear that the seed in both parables is the Word of God. So the idea of planting and cultivating is an image for the communication of the Word of God to those who don’t yet believe, to those who don’t yet have a knowledge of Jesus’ saving grace.

The parable of the mustard seed emphasizes the smallness of the seed. It looks unimpressive. The seed seems like something unimportant, something that could just be discarded and we’d never even miss it. Like a mustard seed, it appears as something fragile, something easily lost. But the parable tells us not to be deceived by appearances, by the way that things look.

Jesus is saying this about the Christian message of salvation. Maybe it doesn’t look impressive. A God who dies on the cross doesn’t seem powerful or influential. There are so many people who get up, go about their work, the tasks of the day, and they don’t really think much about God, definitely not about Jesus, and they seem to get along just fine.

Over the last 30 or 40 years, American society has effectively discarded the Christian message as irrelevant and unimportant. Faith in the Christian God seems passé, maybe too square, too outdated, or maybe too restrictive. And so many have opted for something else, or nothing else. And they’re getting by okay, aren’t they? Or are they?

The parable tells us not to be deceived by appearances. How many of our co-workers, our neighbors down the street, our family members are leading lives of quiet despair with no comfort in their anxieties, no peace but what is in their bank accounts, no sense of meaning or purpose in life? How many are struggling through a divorce, a death or illness of a loved one, or a terrible depression?

Jesus calls us to be a people of the Word of God, to have eyes of faith to see beyond appearances. In this parable Jesus calls us to remember that we are the ones who are empowered by God’s Spirit to scatter the seeds.

And the parable says that there is power in the seed. There is power in the Word of God. The first parable says, “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, and 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.”

The seed has a life of its own, a power that doesn’t come from the planter. Once that power is released, a full growth, a transformation takes place in the bed of soil. The seed grows on its own, hidden beneath the surface and produces a growth far beyond what could have been imagined.

How many around in these neighborhoods, in our places of work, in our schools, even people we meet on the plane or in the supermarket -- how many desperately need a seed of life, a word of hope and peace in Jesus Christ?

There are many ways that we are already scattering the seed of life at Covenant. When our volunteers serve at the Lord’s Diner, when our youth deliver Meals on Wheels, and build a wheelchair ramp for a disabled person, when our work teams travel to the Gulf Coast, when we worship together as a community – in all these things we are pointing to the Christ who saves, who brings hope for transformation.

As Presbyterians, we’re pretty good at acts of service, but sometimes we’re not so good at using words to point to Christ. We struggle more with making a verbal witness to those around us who need Christ.

The parables of Jesus tell us that there is a life-giving, life-transforming power in the Word of God, and people around us need it. The Word of God is powerful, amazing stuff, and we lead such a life of poverty without it. The Word of God is so powerful, so strong, so pulsating with life that we are compelled to share it, to scatter the seed.

The Kingdom of God in these parables of Jesus, the kingdom has an outward movement, a growth all of its own, a potency that can’t be contained. Jesus says that although the seed seems small it becomes the biggest tree in the park. Jesus is telling us not to underestimate the gospel, not to underestimate the power of God to bring about growth, to bring hope, to bring change in a way we could never have foreseen.

Scattering the seed, sharing the hope of Christ, it’s not an easy thing to do. We get antsy, maybe uncomfortable just thinking about it. We think to ourselves, “How can I possibly share my faith with someone? “ It’s too scary, and what if I say the wrong thing?

We think to ourselves, “They’re not really interested in God, or in faith. Or maybe the message seems so foolish, or maybe this person seems fine in life without the church.

But when we struggle with these questions, when we struggle with doubts of our own capabilities, doubts about how our words would be received, we’re looking at the mustard seed and thinking, “it’s just too small. Nobody is going to want this. I am going to just screw up.”

But Jesus tells us that there is power in the seed, in Christ, in our words that share faith. The power is not in us who scatter the seed. We’re not responsible for how the message is received or not received. The Scripture says that after the seed is scattered, night and day, the seed grows and sprouts, and the one who scatters doesn’t even know how.

We are sometimes so surprised at the response we get to sharing the hope of Christ. Sometimes we don’t get a positive response, and that’s okay, too. But sometimes we’re surprised when we do. I had a housemate years ago who wasn’t a Christian. She was raised in the Catholic Church, but she didn’t attend anymore, and she wasn’t sure what she believed anymore. She did believe in God, but maybe not in Jesus. We lived together, so I shared with her about my church, who God was to me, and I invited her to Christian music events and that kind of thing. I didn’t really see much result.

After I had moved away and was in seminary we were still in touch, still friends. One day she called me, and she was stressed-out and overwhelmed by life. I didn’t really know what to tell her, I didn’t have any magic words to make it all better. But I asked her if I could pray with her on the phone right then. We had never prayed together before, and I was so surprised when she said “okay.” So I prayed for her and by the time we got to the “Amen,” she was weeping. I know that she felt God’s Presence -- and it wasn’t because I said the right thing. It’s because there is so much power in the Word of God when we share it, when we share the hope of Christ.

Jesu says, “It… is the smallest of all 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.”

All of us here, we enjoy the large branches, the shelter of our tree of faith. We have been given the Word of God in Jesus Christ – and so our lives are blessed and transformed, and we enjoy the benefits of Christ. We are reconciled to God and belong to God, and yet this Word of hope and peace is not meant only for us to enjoy. The seed is meant to be scattered, the banches are meant to shelter others besides ourselves.

As we leave the church today and go about our Sunday and the rest of our week, Jesus is leaving the building too. Jesus did his ministry among outcasts and sinners as well as in the synagogues. And Jesus calls us and says, “follow me” and be scatterers of the seed.

So wherever you go today and this week, whoever you are with, remember that you are there for a reason. God has a purpose and a plan for you whenever you get there. You are the light of the world, you are the lamp in the darkness and the city on the hill. Remember that you are not alone, for Christ goes with you, and you are called to scatter the seed.