June 17 2012
Ezek 17:22-24; 2 Cor 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34
Brookdale

For many years, I understood today’s gospel passage and the other readings as being about the growth of God’s kingdom, or of the church.  The church started out very small—an itinerant Galilean preacher and some fishermen who admired and followed him.  And that is certainly a reasonable way to understand this parable.

But I would like to suggest another way to hear this particular parable.  Perhaps it is the way you have been hearing it all along, but it is rather new to me.

Actually, there are two parables in today’s gospel passage, both about seeds.  In both, a tiny seed is planted.  I have a garden.  I plant seeds in my garden.  And then I sleep and go to work and read, and one day I go out and a new plant has appeared.  A couple of weeks later there is a sturdy little plant, and then suddenly there are tomatoes, or beans, or a flood of zucchini.  I haven’t made the plants grow.  In fact, there is no way I could possibly make the plants grow.  They grow by themselves while I am not paying attention.

It was the same with my children.  You all have probably had the same experience as I did.  If they didn’t want to grow up and do the right thing, there is no way on earth that we could make them do it.  But they do want to do the right thing, and they have grown up, and it seems magical that it all happened beyond our control.  We did our own small part, and the magic happened.  God was directing the growth all along.

The Gospel says that the kingdom of heaven is like the seed in the garden.  The seeds are so small.  You would think the seed of a large tree would be very big, but a tiny acorn can give rise to a huge tree.  One zucchini seed yields more zucchini than you can give away in a whole summer, and the gardener has only a small role in making that happen.

Most of us never have the opportunity to perform grand gestures—to save babies from burning buildings or change the course of history.  We play out our lives on a smaller stage.  Jesus tells us in this gospel passage that our small actions are in fact very important.  It makes a difference whether we plant a seed or not.  The seed can’t grow by itself unless we plant it.

It makes a difference whether we hold the door for someone, sit with somebody who is alone, or speak gently to someone who speaks harshly to us.  These tiny events are the stuff of life.  Jesus tells us that our little actions do count.  They are the seeds of the kingdom, and this day the kingdom is breaking in to our lives.