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Mark 4:26-34
Back in the beginning of Mark’s gospel, these are the first words we
hear from Jesus, himself.
The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent
and believe in the good news.
And the rest of the gospel tells us what this means, tells us what
this kingdom is like.
In the fourth chapter we get the first lessons about the kingdom
of God. And the lessons are given – naturally – in the form of parables.
The word parable actually means “thrown alongside.” Jesus
scattered these parables alongside our lives, inviting us to see where they
might connect with our own paths. A parable doesn’t give us the answers; it
invites us to think…and wonder.
Some people love parables, but not everyone does. The downside of
parables is that they make you, the listener, do a lot of the work. There is no
spoon-feeding here. Parables require us to think and engage our imaginations,
to stay open to ambiguity. To listen…to look. A parable never nails down the
answer, but instead opens up a lot more questions.
In this series we are asking questions about living as disciples
of Jesus in this world; Particularly what we can learn from Mark about
discipleship. A life of discipleship, it turns out, is a life of engaging in
the questions and the wondering. And the parables of Jesus provide us with
endless fodder for questioning and wondering.
It is not an accident. It is not simply because Jesus liked
telling stories. It is quite deliberate that he chose to teach in this way.
The first parable in this set, the one we did not read, is one you
may be familiar with – the parable of the sower and the seeds.
A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the
path and the birds ate it. some seeds fell on rocky ground, where it sprang up
quickly, but then died quickly because it did not have good roots. Other seeds
fell on thorns and the thorns grew up around it and choked it. But other seed
fell on good soil, where it grew and increased and brought forth great yields.
He ended this story saying, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen.”
They may well have listened, but not understood. To some it may
have been as clear as mud, but for many the parable will draw them in and
invite them to tease the threads apart, to explore the many possible meanings.
And that is, most certainly, by design. The work of a disciple is
to be an active participant in the discovery of truth.
Jesus takes a group of disciples aside for further, more in-depth
discussion, and he says to them a peculiar sounding thing: that for those who
are on the outside everything comes in parables, so they may look but not
perceive, listen but not understand. And, in a sense, the purpose of this
ambiguity is to avoid mis-understanding
among people who are just not yet ready to hear, not yet able to understand.
Because it is clear that the intention is to reveal the truth as
far and wide as possible. Jesus says to his followers, nothing is hidden except
to be disclosed; nothing is secret except to come to light.
In its time.
Let anyone with ears to hear listen.
And he gives them a little more to listen to.
The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the
ground and then go about his life. Somehow the seed will grow, the earth will
produce, the harvest will come.
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, the smallest of the
seeds. But when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs.
Still a shrub. But a great one.
And so it went on. In many parables he spoke the word of God to
them, as they were able to hear it.
As they were able to hear it.
And there was a lot they were not yet able to hear.
In the early centuries of the church, there was a process for
guiding new converts to Christianity, a process of preparing them for baptism.
During the season of Lent they were guided into the spiritual disciplines of
the church. On Easter Sunday they were baptized – a ritual that was and still
is considered the entrance into the church.
There is one ancient baptism pool I have seen pictures of that is in the shape of a cross. The baptismal candidate would step down into the pool on one side, move toward the center of the cross, where they would be completely immersed, and then continue moving toward the other side where they would step out of the pool. This was a symbolic journey from one end to the other, from the old life to the new life - through the cross.
And even though there was much preparation for the baptism, the
heavy lifting only began afterwards. It was only after they descended into the
waters of death and ascended into new life that they were considered ready to
learn the hard stuff. Now they could be taught all the elements of belief.
Why did it need to happen in this order? Essentially it is because faith is about more than just words. It is about hearing and also seeing - with the eyes in our heads and also the eyes of our hearts.
The parables Jesus tells in this chapter are all about the mystery
of growth. There is nothing much that the sower does except scatter the seeds.
There is nothing you can do to make the mustard seed big and strong. This is
work that happens in secret, you might say; underground, in the dark.
But the growth is revealed in its time, as is the kingdom of God.
There is so much we cannot see until we are ready to see. So much
we cannot really hear until we are ready to hear. And so Jesus spoke in
parables – to give little glints of the kingdom; to ignite our curiosity, our
wonder; to keep turning these things over and over.
And then, sometime later…perhaps after the arrest and the crucifixion,
his death and resurrection…those first disciples began to talk amongst
themselves. They puzzled through these things. Do you remember that time he
said the kingdom of God is like scattering seed on the ground? Do you remember
the time he said the kingdom was like a mustard seed?
And in the remembering together, they begin to piece it together.
They begin to see different and new facets in all these things. Now they have
ears to hear, eyes to see all that was once hidden. Now they’re ready to do the
heavy lifting.
The secret which is revealed is that the real heavy lifting is
done by God. The heavy lifting for us is to trust in that, to accept and
embrace that.
Martin Luther, the great church reformer of the 16th
century, understood his part in the work of God’s kingdom. In speaking about
his ground-shifting work of reforming the church, he once said, “I taught, I
preached, I wrote God’s word – otherwise, I did nothing. And while I slept, or
drank my little glass of Wittenberg beer, the gospel ran its course. I did
nothing. The Word did everything.”
As disciples of Christ, we must know what our work is.
But just as importantly we must know that the growth, the yield, the harvest
belongs to God. The parables of Jesus teach us that this kingdom work is a
mystery – one that we are invited to participate in.
There is still much that we cannot
see. As the Apostle Paul writes, we walk by faith and not by sight. But to be
immersed in Christ, to begin to look through the eyes of new life, we may see,
as Paul says, that “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new!”
May you have ears to hear and listen.
May you have eyes to see and comprehend.
May you journey on this mysterious path of discipleship.
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