A series of sermons on the parables of Jesus

Mark 4:26-29, Lev 25:1-12

The Story

What is God's dealing with us and with our world like? How can we know it? How can we understand it? Does it have anything to do with us?

Last week we talked about a sower who goes out and sows seed on the ground. We followed the fate of the seed and realised that Jesus was really talking about the fate of the word of God in our life. God comes and God keeps on coming - but what kind of response does God find in our life? That was the question last week.

In today's parable the dealings of God with us and with our world - Jesus calls it the "reign of God" - is compared to the story of a man who sows the seed; then he goes home and goes to sleep and wakes up, day after day, and then, "when the grain is ripe", he at once commences the harvest. He does not reflect too much about the fate of the seed that he has sown. It just grows - and it grows by itself. Everyone knows that! And then there is a harvest!

Here are the three elements that make up this story:

. The passivity of the farmer, . the self-activity of the seed, . and the certainty of the harvest.

The passivity of the farmer. After the activity of sowing, the farmer returns to other activities of life: sleeping and waking and talking and eating and working. He has no influence on the growth of the seed, indeed "he knows not how" it grows. We are not even told that with patience and confidence he anticipates and actively waits for the harvest. The coming harvest does not seem to be the motivation for his life. He simply lives in the deep-seated, natural, taken for granted, unreflected confidence that the seed will grow and produce a harvest.

The self-activity of the seed. And then there is the self-activity of the seed. In an "automatic" way - "the earth produces of itself" (v.28) - the seed grows and sprouts. The growth just happens. It is dynamic and then it becomes visible: "first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear" (v. 28). Something happens, but apart from the sowing the farmer has nothing to do with it.

The certainty of the harvest. And then, with the same certainty as the process of sowing and growing takes place, the harvest comes about: "when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come" (v. 29).

Call to Passivity?

On first sight, we seem to be in a different world to last week's parable about the sower and the seed. While we were challenged last week to be honest with ourselves and ask what room we grant to the word of God in our lives, today we seem to be assigned to passivity.

. Don't worry about your life style; everything goes in the realm of faith! . It does not matter how much or how little money you give to God's work; God does not need your money! . You can be a good Christian and show no concern for the unemployed and for youth suicides and for reconciliation with the indigenous people! Just be, it does not matter what you do.

That seems to be the message that we get from a first impression of the parable. Do you remember the ancient hymn?

Rise up, O men of God! have done with lesser things; Give heart and soul and mind and strength To serve the King of Kings.

Our parable seems to suggest the opposite:

Sit down, O men (and women) of God; His kingdom he will bring, You need not do a thing!

One of my Louis Armstrong favourites is: "When it's sleepy time down South": "folks down there live a life of ease,"

when the moon is shining in the fields below; when the wind its blowing through the pine wood trees; when steam boats on the river come and go; it's sleepy time down south.

Life is lying in a hammock on the veranda watching the world go by. But who wrote the Spiritual? Those who can lie in a hammock on the veranda? No, those who have to work in the cotton filed in the summer heat, dreaming of a day of rest!

Jesus and his way

If we see this parable about the self-growing seed as an invitation to do nothing, we have already missed it. Just as we have missed the message of the parables altogether if we think that they are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. Just as we have misunderstood Jesus altogether if we think that he was primarily a teacher of wisdom or a spiritual guru. A teacher of wisdom and a spiritual guru do not get hounded down by the police and opposed by the religious hierarchy.

Actually that is what the world wants religion to be: self-centred, spiritual, other worldly, and passive. You look after heaven, Hitler said to the church, leave the earth to me. You can't run the world with the Sermon on the Mount, Bismarck declared. Spirituality means withdrawal from the world, not involvement in the messiness of life, some people have told us for 2000 years.

My friends this parable about the sleeping farmer, the self-growing seed and the final harvest can only be understood by those who are willing to get to know the one who tells the story - and no one can say that he was removed from life! Indeed, he was in the thick of it. A teacher of wisdom and a guru of spirituality would not have been opposed, captured, tortured and killed within three years of ministry. Both the Romans and the religious establishment in Palestine would have loved a Jesus who went to parties of the Pharisees and speak of God; or who ran workshops on spirituality and counsel withdrawal from the dirty life of politics and economics. But, my friends, we must never forget that Jesus was crucified as a prophet, critical of the temple and other religious institutions, and as an enemy of the state.

So when Jesus speaks about the self growing seed and a sleeping farmer and about the promise of a wonderful harvest, he is not talking about passivity and about cheap grace, which according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been the ruin of the church, but he speaks out of a context of heightened activity in the market place of life.

This parable is for those for whom "God" is not just a word, but a way of life. For those who have been on the edge. For those who have had intimation of a nervous break down and a heart attack and a burn out.

I remember well the return of a missionary - broken from the frustration and stress and shear hard work. He told his story about the difficulties, the indifference and the laziness, the selfishness, and how it all blew up in his face and caused him to have a nervous breakdown. And then the comment that my neighbour whispered into my ear: he should have trusted in God, then he would not have had a nervous breakdown. I had no reply, but instinctively I knew that the comment was disrespectful and wrong - it came from the hammock on the veranda, not from one who was involved in the messiness of life.

Let me tell you why I find this parable encouraging - indeed central for my Christian journey.

Where is God?

It speaks to the question: where is God? I don't know how things are with you, but most of what I do seems to fly away with the wind. I am busy. I run around and go to meetings and talk to people; I think and write and pray - but I never see a budget sheet that tells me that the profits have increased; I say a prayer for the sick but I have no idea whether that played any role in the process of healing. I pray for peace in East Timor and I demonstrate for freedom in Burma. And then I wonder: where is God in all this?

Then the parable is teased into my memory. The seed has been planted. God has planted it deeply into the soil of humanity. It can never be removed. That is why we call Jesus "God" - never to forget, that God has unconditionally committed himself to us. You just go and do what you need to do.

It is good to know that it does not all depend on me! Understand me right: it is a privilege to be called to be partner with God in his work in the world (1 Cor 3:9). I also think that if we don't fulfil our calling, some things simply will not get done. But we must never forget what the apostle Paul said to the church in Corinth:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Cor. 3:6f.)

As the seed has been sown into the soil and now grows, so our life is held by God's commitment to us and to our world.

Jesus as the ground of faith

Here is a related thought. Our work and commitment is important - but only as a response to what God has done. Could Jesus himself be hidden in this parable? He is God's word, sown into human history. And he is the one who will judge the living and the dead.

We, with our activity, do not bring about the "reign of God". Only God can do that. Indeed God has done it. God's reign is in our midst. It is the ground on which we stand.

For us remains the prayer: Come, Holy Spirit, give us eyes to see what God is doing in the world, so that we may join him; give us ears to hear the cries that God is hearing, so that we may become part of the answer to prayer.

Is it not important for us to know that in Christ, God has laid the foundation that undergirds everything we do; that the Holy Spirit is surrounding us with divine protection and encouragement?

The listener who allows herself to be drawn into the story will identify with the farmer who confidently goes about his everyday affairs. He lives in the certain hope that ultimately God takes care. This should not be used as a divine validation for Christian passiveness and non-involvement. The parable must therefore not be divorced from the context of Jesus' life. Activity and involvement in the issues of life are part of the "sleeping and rising". But we are constantly reminded that the coming of the reign of God does not depend on our success or failure. This realisation creates new inner freedom and sets energy free to work, to live and to pray as we wake to each new day.

Harvest

Where there was a beginning, there will be an end. The seed has been sown. In Jesus Christ, God has started to win the world back to himself. In the presence of Jesus the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the blind see, sins are forgiven, publicans are accepted - the reign of God is dawning.

It is important for us to know who will determine the end; who determines our life before God. The early Church was clear at this point. Through the resurrection, Jesus was exalted to the right hand of God, the seat of God's power and God's justice.

Do we not wonder at times, who is right? The spirit of MacDonald's and Coca Cola who are more successful in their global mission than the church, or the Spirit of Jesus? Who will have the last word in history: Pilate and Caiaphas, or Jesus? Whose vision will be remembered in the being of God when the harvest comes? Francis of Assissi and the peace loving Anabaptists and Ghandi and Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi, or those whom our history books classify as victors and winners?

The seed has been sown. It grows secretly. We need to ask the Spirit to teach us the difference between the power of weakness and the weakness of power. And the Spirit will lead us into the story of Jesus, the man for others, the man with others, the path maker of peace, the lover of non-violence, the Messiah of the poor.

Do your work! But ask the Spirit to let you discover the calm confidence that you can do much, but that you can't bring about the reign of God. All you can do - and that is what you need to do or it won't get done! - is to prepare the way of the Lord.

Invitation

When the story of Jesus the Christ fascinates us we are drawn into an understanding of existence where the ultimate reference point and the undergirding of all reality is God. In the context of that certainty we gain new life, hope, strength to attend to the quest and joys and duties of life. The God who established and brought about his reign with Jesus, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, he holds the future in his hand. The harvest will come as certainly as the seed has been sown. We live in the in between time, between the sowing and the harvest. Let us do what we need to do in the calm confidence that God will grace our work with his promise of growth. By following Jesus in the market place of life the end is already shing into the present!

Rev. Dr. Thorwald Lorenzen
http://www.canbap.org.au/parables.htm