A sermon preached at the Chapel of the Apostles in Sewanee, Tennessee, on Mark 4:26-29, the parable of the seed that grows secretly. A video of this sermon can be found here.
The Kingdom of God is like a sleepy farmer, who scatters seed, and then rests until harvest time. A sleepy farmer, who after sowing the seed, takes it easy, who lets things take their natural course and grow. The farmer does not know, or seem to care, how the growth happens.
Parables are strange. This one approaches the absurd. In first-century Judea, 80-90% of the population was engaged in agricultural labor. This was hard work. Working the ground was not a passive endeavor. Nor was it productive work. Can you imagine the listeners of Jesus, the farmers in the crowd with calloused hands and skin like leather? Can you hear them scoff? If only working the land were that easy, Jesus. If only.
Maybe we can hear the absurdity better if we change the characters. What if the Kingdom of God is like an apathetic activist, who makes some pamphlets that say, “Moms Demand Action.” She distributes them, and goes on with life. Soon, she is called to Capitol Hill to help write universal background check laws.
Absurd. We know that’s not how things happen. If only it were that easy, Jesus. If only.
Jesus is painting a picture of how God’s grace works in our lives. Somewhere along the way, God plants something and it takes root. It sprouts up. We notice it, but maybe we’re not quite sure what to make of it. So we sit on it. We wait it out until the time is right.
That sounds like the discernment process to me. Maybe it matches your experience?
I can point to the moment I noticed the sprout. I was in St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, receiving Holy Communion. I felt a rush as I looked down at that morsel of bread. A sprout of something pierced through the marble flooring of my heart, sending cracks through the cathedral I had built to myself, through the well-laid plans I had for my life. I did not know it at that moment, but a seed had been sown years before, a seed that had taken root and had at last sprouted, a seed that would grow into a call to the sacramental life of the Church.
When was your very reality ruptured by a small shoot of grace sprouting in your heart?
But after that, then what? Maybe we can learn something from those scoffing farmers in the crowd. The character of the sleepy farmer is an example of hyperbole, a way Jesus can emphasize the primacy of the work of God. This is important—God always takes the initiative; grace comes first, and God gives the growth. But we should not think that Jesus is lifting up the sleepy farmer as our exemplar. We are not called to passivity and sleep. The farmers knew working the land required hard work, that it required their all.
No, we are not called to passivity. We are not called to sleep. We are called to respond to the grace of God already at work in our lives. That’s what discernment is. It’s waking up, stopping to take a good look at that small sprout, and wondering, what in the world is going on here? When did this show up? What is it? And we do this over and over and over again.
Storied Grace 