Let It Grow!

4th Sunday after Pentecost

Rev. Steven D. Spencer

 Mark 4:26-29

26 He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain-- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." (NIV)

 Trusting God can be hard work! There was a church council member that I knew, several years ago, who told me that whenever he came home from a council meeting he couldn't sleep well that night.  He wasn't the type of person who got upset at other people or carried a grudge home.  He didn't lie in bed wondering if he had said the right thing.  No, he was just a man of action.  At work he made decisions to solve problems and it was done as quickly as possible.  At church it just didn't work that way.  Often there was very little he could do; perhaps he even felt a little bit helpless and he didn't like that. 

We don't laugh at the thought of a council member who lies sleeplessly in bed, because each of us has been in the same situation.  Perhaps we think about the future of the young people in our congregation or families.  When they are little we can protect them from almost everything.  As they get older the list of the number of things we can't protect them from gets longer and longer.  Before we know it they have moved away from us and out of our homes.

Pastors know how this feels.  People come to a pastor with problems that require those people to make big changes in their thinking and living.  A pastor can listen, try to understand, apply the Word of God, and pray for the person but he cannot make decisions for that person.  It's easy for a pastor to sit up late at night wondering what will happen with that person and feeling somewhat helpless to make an impact on that person's life.

Do you have a close friend or relative who's not a Christian?  If so then you know all about the helpless, somewhat useless feeling I've been talking about this morning.  More than anything else in this world you wish that they would come to faith in Christ. Yet your hands are tied.  You cannot believe for them.

Maybe this strikes too close to home.  Maybe you're intensely aware of things that are not right in your own heart.  You have desires and needs that don't seem to get addressed.  Maybe you yearn to be more significant in your surroundings and to do more meaningful things.  Perhaps you aren't satisfied in your Christian living and can't seem to move ahead.  Maybe you're a bit too worried about your spiritual future?

All this gets more frightening when we dig deep enough to figure out why we feel like this.  At the beginning of the sermon I mentioned that the council member I knew, this man of action, for his whole life had been in charge of running plants all over the world.  When he saw a problem he fixed it quickly.  That works with cars, computers and other things but it doesn't necessarily work when it comes to relationships, spiritual life or a congregation.  The problem is that we get so used to solving "regular" problems we think that we can solve these other problems if we just try hard enough and do the right things.

As parents or grandparents we think, "If I'd only be a better parent, everything will be OK with my child."  As church members we might think, "If only our congregation could have a more dynamic youth group."  "If only the vision and goal setting group can come up with the perfect church organizational structure and a catchy mission statement for our church."  "If only our worship services were more interesting and eventful."  As individuals we might even say to ourselves, if only I were more disciplined about avoiding evil - then things would get better."  The problem with all of these statements is that they just don't work in the long term.  Each of them is based on how much we can do; but our efforts cannot solve these important, complex problems.  When we try to solve spiritual problems with our earthly minds we tend to create more problems than we had or become part of the problem. We are basically helpless in these areas.

Our sermon text is one of Jesus' shortest and clearest parables.  Listen to it again: "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  All by itself the soil produces grain -- first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."  Farming has changed quite a bit in the last 2,000 years. In Jesus' day farmers simply filled a leather pouch with seed and took a walk through the field.  Every few steps the farmer would scatter the seed with a quick toss of his arm.  After he had covered the whole field he would drag a log over the ground to work the seeds into the ground.  Today farmers have tractors with global positioning sensors that work with a satellite and computer system to control the amount of seed, the amount of fertilizer that is placed on any given portion of the field.  Computerized records are kept of the yield of different parts of the field, the chemical make-up of different fields and the best pesticides to use in each area.  But there are a few things about farming that haven't changed.  There is a certain amount of helplessness about it all.  With all the computers, all the satellites and all the high tech machines that farmers use it is still true that if it doesn't rain the crops don't grow.  If there is an extremely early frost then the crops will be ruined.  There's something else that hasn't changed; it's the point that Jesus was making in the parable.  We still don't quite understand how a seed grows, how something that appears so dead can suddenly spring to life.  Wouldn't it be foolish for a farmer to spend all his time after planting season worrying about whether the seeds would grow this year?  It's foolish because seeds have always grown in the past and because he can't do anything about it even if they didn't grow.  He's helpless; the power to grow is in the seed and not in the farmer.

In our parable the Gospel is the seed that is scattered.  Just as we can't understand or control how a seed grows in the ground, we cannot understand or control how the Gospel works in someone's heart.  In fact, we often can't even see that the Gospel is working in someone's heart ... just like we can't see a seed growing under the ground.  You might say, "So what.  What does this have to do with my child who seems to be straying away from the Lord, or with my own life that never seems to become more godly, or with a congregation that wants to grow?"  It has everything to do with all those things!  It means that we want to get the Word of God to as many people as possible.  Yet it means more than that.  It means that we can trust that the Word of God is active and alive and at work even though we don't understand how it works or see that it working at all.  It means that we don't have to put all this pressure on ourselves, and think that our children's spiritual life, our congregation's health or our neighbor's salvation depends on how well we do things.  It means that we can take a close look at the desires we have and apply the Word of God to those desires.  Our Savior can fulfill all our needs. 

It also means that we should keep throwing or sowing the seed of the Word of God into our own life and the lives of those around us, and then trust in promises like this one from God: "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)  Or this promise: "My Word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11) We can trust that God's Word will do the work God has planned.  Martin Luther once commented to his fellow reformer Philip Melanchthon that he didn't reform the church. God used His Word to reform the church.  Certainly Martin Luther worked hard at preaching the Gospel; yet the power for change came from the Gospel, not from him.  He could go to the backyard to visit with his friend over a beer being confident that the Word of God was getting things done.

Does this mean that we are going to sit back and do nothing about our church, our relationships, our inner struggles or our relatives?  Surely not! In fact, the very opposite is true.  The fact that the Word is so powerful will cause us to explain and to teach our young people as vigilantly as possible.  We will want to make sure that our congregation is preaching the Gospel in the clearest possible way.  We will want to be in the Word daily.  Yet as we do all these things we don't have to feel pressure or anxiety.  God's Word is going to do its work, even when we can't see it working or even when things don't turn out exactly as we think they should.

Perhaps you have heard this story; some might even call it a parable.  Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a man who worked for an Arabian prince.  This man's job was to guard a great Bengal tiger that was the pride of the nation.  This great tiger was kept in a huge cage in the palace and only taken out for important state occasions.  The man took his job so seriously that he put his bed just outside the tiger's cage and slept there every night.  One night four men with swords burst into the palace to steal the tiger.  Of course the man couldn't defend the tiger against these four men.  At the last moment he realized what he had to do.  He simply let the tiger out of the cage to attack the four men. 

The Bible is like that tiger; it will do its own work.  Our task as Christians is to let the tiger out of the cage and watch it do its work.  Our task is to share the Gospel; we are sinners deserving death, but Jesus died for us and He has forgiven us. That is the Gospel's work.  Share the Gospel, and let it grow. God is in control, and His Word will have its way, the way of shame for those who don't believe it, but to you who do believe, it works its way of eternal life.  In Jesus name, Amen!

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus now and forevermore, In Jesus name, Amen!