Mark 4:26-34 | Faith — Mystery and Miracle | Sexagesima Sunday – February 4 2024
By Pastor Clifford Reinhardt
Part A: Warm-up
1. Canada’s pioneer farmers had to do a lot of work before they could actually sow seed: clear the forest or bush, pick roots and rocks, plough, harrow. They brought with them the wisdom of wherever they came from. Not all of that worked well on the prairies: loss of moisture, topsoil blown away, etc.
2. They had to plant windbreaks comprising rows of caraganas and change their ways of preparing the soil, so as to minimize moisture loss.
3. But now many of those windbreaks are being bulldozed, because of modern technology and strategies: zero tillage — don’t break the soil’s surface.
4. Here’s what’s involved in sowing the crop on the Canadian prairies today:
• Huge tractors and highly mechanized implements are equipped with GPS to guide them down the immense fields so as to maximize the work done for every litre of fuel consumed, and to minimize the loss of moisture.
• Much of the seed is now genetically modified. While we may protest this manipulation of nature (actually, in my view it’s simply an acceleration of the age-old practice of breeding better crop-seed), its purpose is to produce a crop that is better able to withstand the chemicals used to control weeds, whose use in turn promotes greater crop-yields for the amount of fuel consumed by the machinery.
• In short, modern farm practices have benefitted by science and technology.
5. And yet, in the end, the harvest still depends upon seed, the soil, and the sun and the rain! God help us!
Part B: Pulpit
For as long as anyone can remember, my ancestors were farmers. They worked hard, tilling the soil, sowing the crops, and feeding their livestock. They supported themselves on the strength of the marvellous processes empowering the natural world.
My generation is the first that is not intimately connected to the land. When I was about 10 years old, I remember my uncles asking me whether I would become a farmer. I promptly answered, No. I’m not sure why I was so quick and adamant with my reply. But as a consequence, as far as this particular branch of the Reinhardt and Bauschke family trees is concerned, farm life is a matter of personal reverie rather than personal vocation. It’s something that I remember rather than what I do.
I’m certainly not up-to-date on modern farming practices. But I have learned something about farming practices in the Ancient Near East. Farming comes up often in the Bible. So, in order to understand what Jesus is saying to his disciples, we have to learn something about farming practices.
While it’s fair to say that in Biblical times farming technology was not as complex and sophisticated as it is now, farming back then was by no means primitive. There may not have been large, highly mechanized implements; nor chemicals for fertilizer and weed control; nor GPS and the technology that uses it to optimize mechanized farm work. But in ancient times people gathered and passed on farming-lore and wisdom over many generations, just like farmers today. They knew how to farm. They were keenly aware of their role in the production of life-sustaining crops.
Farmers had to clear their fields of brush and stones, which they then used to build fences to keep animals out. Then they ploughed the land. They used oxen if they had them, or they pulled the ploughs themselves. They did whatever they needed to do in order to break open the soil so that they could embed the seed.
Farmers in ancient times had specific strategies for different crops. You can read about that in the Psalms and the prophets. Because the information that is given there is in poetic form, it’s not technically precise. But it certainly is clear that ancient farmers were just as aware as modern farmers of all that goes into farming.
And so I find Jesus’ parable about the man and the seed surprising. Jesus 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 – 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.”
In this tale, the farmer has almost no work-relationship whatsoever with the crop. He does not do anything to prepare the soil. He does not even sow the seed; rather, he just scatters it on the ground. And then he doesn’t cover it so that it won’t be blown away by the wind or get eaten by birds.
Doesn’t he know anything at all about farming?! Doesn’t he know how?!
Farmers ancient and modern cannot afford to farm the way this man does. It’s just not prudent. There’s too much at stake. Such a farmer would not survive in ancient Palestine, nor in our western prairie provinces, nor in the rich farmland of the Fraser Valley. Such a farmer wouldn’t survive anywhere.
But look: even though Jesus draws upon the familiar world of farming in order to teach his disciples, this is not about farming. This is about the kingdom of God (or “the reign of God”). Jesus says that the reign of God is as if someone should do as the man did in his little tale.
The key is what Jesus says about the ground and the seed. He says it produces automatë (΄αυτομάτη). That word looks and sounds familiar. It gives us our English word, automatic. The meaning is this: the ground that the seed falls into produces of itself, without any visible external force applied. Something is taking place that is beyond human control. It’s invisible. It’s mystery. That’s what Jesus means when he says the man does not know how the crop is produced from the seed.
But even if the man in the story cannot plumb the depths of that mystery, he is still caught up by it. The man in Jesus’ story is a carefree captive of mystery.
I think the man in Jesus’ little tale is an exemplary model for discipleship in the coming reign of God that Jesus promises. Faithful disciples of Jesus Christ are caught up by mystery. They will scatter Good News … here, there, and everywhere – on good soil, poor soil, among the rocks – and most certainly in the weeds. And then they will trust that God will produce the crop that God desires.
It’s as if the gospel-proclaimed-and-received is like the seed-and-ground that contains within itself all it needs to germinate and eventually produce a crop, automaté. Of course, the seed that falls into the soil has to be fed by sunshine and rain. And so does God’s redeeming word in Jesus Christ; it has to be fed and nourished. But that, too, is God’s business.
Like Martin Luther says in his explanation to the petition in The Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come”— What is this? God’s kingdom comes indeed without our praying for it, but here in this prayer we pray that it will come to us.
Meanwhile, the people scattering the seed just sleep and rise night and day, as any creatures might. That’s because the scatterers of the seed comprehend that where there is mystery, there is also miracle.
That’s what faith is all about … except that we typically get cause and effect confused. We hear it all the time: “In order for a miracle to happen, you need faith.” It sounds good and reasonable, but here’s the problem: if there is no miracle, then what does that say about your faith or mine? Apparently one of us didn’t believe sincerely enough.
You see, it’s actually the other way around! In order for faith to happen, you need a miracle. In order for us to have faith, there has to be divine intervention. God has to break into this old creation and do something utterly new — not necessarily a sensational spectacle, but much more likely the hidden, mysterious action of the Holy Spirit, working through the visible, tangible means of grace connected to the proclaimed word.
Here is the key to faithful discipleship. It starts with mystery. It is fed by mystery. As the Good News of Jesus Christ is “done to us” over and over again, through Word and Sacrament, God transforms us outside-in and inside-out. We practice it by praying it and singing it; and then we live it and tell it. It’s in our hearts and upon our lips. It propels our feet and strengthens our hands.
It’s very straightforward and direct: Jesus Christ has died for all. Because of Jesus, God is already as happy with you and me as God can possibly can be. Let us simply trust that God will accomplish what God wants to accomplish – as mysterious and inscrutable as God may be.
Meanwhile, how about you and me learning how to be the creatures that God has always wanted us to be? I need to learn how to be:
• a good brother to my sisters;
• a loving husband to my wife;
• a nurturing “Pops” to my grandchildren;
• a pleasant and respectful neighbour to the people in my community;
• a builder and sustainer of our church institutions, for the sake of the Gospel and the faith that it produces;
• and a true friend to all.
For the sake of the world that God created and still loves and sustains, I need to know about right relationships, protection of the vulnerable, justice, and responsible stewardship of the earth and its resources. I want to rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn, and take an interest in the people around me. I want to advocate for those who have no voice, and pray for all in need.
I want to be the creature that God has always intended me to be, “sleeping and rising night and day” … and trusting that God will do it all! I want the faith which has at its heart the mystery of God’s righteousness. I want to take God at God’s word, incarnated in Jesus Christ.
May God grant us the Spirit to produce in us that which God desires. May God produce faith through the miracle of mystery. Your kingdom come, O God!