Great UnExpectations

Sermon on Mark 4:26-29

Today is the last sermon where we will be focusing on verses that are exclusive to Mark. This coming Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – is the beginning of Lent, and in line with our liturgical calendar, we will be looking mainly at the Passion narrative portions found in Mark. There will still be one or two Mark-exclusive verses here and there, but they are comparatively insignificant and will not be the main focus unlike the sermons thus far. In today’s passage, we have something quite special – it is the only parable that can only be found in Mark. If we look at the context, this parable is among a series of parables related to the kingdom of God. There is the familiar parable of the sower, the parable of the lamp and then found after our passage today, the parable of the mustard seed. These parables are all repeated in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew put the parables of the sower and the mustard seed into a long list of parables in Matthew 13, and relocated the parable of the lamp to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Luke kept the parables of the sower and the lamp in Luke 8, but relocated the parable of the mustard seed to Luke 13. In both cases, today’s parable went missing. Why?

This is my theory. In Mark, today’s parable is coupled with the parable of the mustard seed.

Mark 4: 30 Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. 32 Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”

Both parables are about a seed that is growing. The growing seed symbolizes the growth of the kingdom of God from a small and insignificant beginning. And at the end of the parable, when the time is right, it would be judgment time. The grown seed is ready to be harvested. Birds from everywhere will come to rest at the big mustard tree. These are both metaphorical descriptions of end times, where the kingdom of God is established, and the will of God is completed. From this comparison, we can see that these two parables have very similar messages, using very similar farming metaphors. However, perhaps because of the similarity, the parable of the grown seed may have been subsumed over time into the more familiar and dramatic parable of the mustard seed. Just like today, if we did not specially highlight this parable, I think most readers will not even notice it. And so in the case for Matthew and Luke, they might have thought that the loss of this parable was relatively inconsequential as long as the parable of the mustard seed was preserved. Instead, perhaps influenced by another source [1] , they paired up the parable of the mustard seed with the parable of the yeast.

Matthew 13: 33 “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” (Also found in Luke 13:20-21)

In this way, the imagination for the growth of the kingdom of God is expanded from a farming analogy to a baking analogy. Such a stretch of imagination comes in useful for an audience in modern Singapore. We seldom do gardening, especially of large plants, but many ladies today like baking. So now, when you watch your cake or bread rise, you can contemplate about the dramatic expansion of God’s kingdom. In the editorial sense, Matthew and Luke’s presentation are stronger than Mark's because the message is now further strengthened with an analogy other than farming.

There is another possibility as to why today’s parable has been dropped. And that has to do with the portrayal of the farmer. In today’s parable, it states “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”. It appears that the growth of the seed has nothing to do with the farmer. He is involved in the seeding and the harvesting. But in between, as the seed is growing, he is just sleeping and getting up. Now, let me be clear, I have nothing against sleeping. I happen to think that it is a very meaningful activity. As they say in Chinese: resting is to prepare for a longer journey (休息是为了走更长的路). But every time I’m engaged in such meaningful work, my wife thinks I’m lazy and I sleep too much. My kids are deployed to harass me from my slumber back into the housework camp. Not only is the farmer portrayed as bumming around “night and day”, he is also clueless about the growth of the seed. We are told that “the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how”. I don’t think that we expect farmers to be professors in botany. But it is quite a scary thought that those who plant the seed of the kingdom of God do not know how it actually grows. We can imagine the scenario where the seed is planted, and the farmer checks on it now and then. “Is it time for harvest? Hmmm, it seems not yet. No idea why as well. Okay, back to sleep.” If this farmer is your gardener, you might fire him. (At the very least, you would expect him to turn up in front of your executive committee for questioning, before firing him.)

From this reasoning, you can see why this parable remained Mark-exclusive. The core message about the growth of the kingdom of God is already better expressed by the parable of the mustard seed. If you need a companion parable, the parable of the yeast which uses a different metaphor is a worthier sidekick. Furthermore, this parable is embedded with the subsidiary message about a lazy and ignorant farmer. It is probably better to eliminate the farmer to keep the focus on the growth of the seed itself.

But wait. Let’s not be too hasty to dismiss this parable. What if the farmer is the focus of the parable, and not the seed? In that case, this parable would then be the perfect companion to the parable of the mustard seed, since one would be about the farmer and the other about the plant. But why is the farmer then portrayed as one who only “sleeps or gets up” and “does not know how” the seed grows? Why isn’t the farmer who seeded the kingdom of God described as a person who works and toils on the field? Or described as a person who knowledgeably charts and measures the growth of the plant? Asking these questions brings us to the insight of this parable. When Jesus said that this farmer “sleeps or gets up”, it doesn't mean he is lazy, but rather he is merely going about his everyday routine of life. When Jesus said that this farmer “does not know how”, it doesn't mean he is stupid, but rather that the farmer is not the cause of the growth. But that form of ignorance is no big deal, because the Jews considered the growth of plants to be the wondrous work of God. Observe how Paul described the growth of the Church with a similar metaphor.

1 Corinthians 3: 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

So Paul and Apollos merely went about their everyday farming routine, planting and watering. But they were very clear, that only God makes things grow. In Jesus’ words, Paul and Apollos knew that Church grows, but they too “do not know how” it grows. That is the wondrous work of God alone. Yet today’s message is a difficult one, because it is so counter-cultural. In this day and age, we are so adverse to uncertainties and timeouts that we are aggressively controlling every facet of our lives. This applies to the church as well. We want to control church growth. If I got a dime for every time I hear a “our church is not growing because of this or that” statement, I would be a very rich man. I can sympathize with such sentiments. We look at the megachurches today, and we wonder what they are doing right that we are doing wrong. We celebrate success, we idolize prosperity, so these churches become ideal churches for us. And I must admit that some of these church leaders are not helping in this regard. I seldom hear from them Paul-like words like “I merely water and plant, but only God makes things grow.” Instead, there are those who market their success formula like it is a special fertilizer. A word of warning to those eager followers of megachurches: if you go around collecting special fertilizers, you might just end up with somebody’s dung on your hands.

Today's parable tells us that the kingdom of God will grow regardless of the farmer. It plainly states that there will be a time of seeding and a time of final harvesting. In the meantime, we should be careful about speculations on its growth because it is the work of God. My fear is that worldly values run deep within us. We might equate growth with numerical size, with abundance of resources, or even with fame and fortune. But looking through church history might make us think twice. There was a time where Christianity was the dominant religion throughout Europe. But power corrupted the leaders and wealth cheapened its followers. It became a religion of convenience and unfortunately also a religion of pride and hubris. Jesus shunned the crowds and rejected Satan's promise of free power. It was because he understood that what he wanted and what others wanted out of him could be very different. Churches and Christian movements rise and fall, just like the ancient empires and the modern superpowers. I guess only God knows which is true growth. You might think that Christianity has come a long way from its humble beginning in backward Palestine. But who knows, perhaps in the grand scheme of things, this plant would have barely grown in the past two thousand years compared with what is to come.

The church is not a company, it is not accountable to shareholders. Instead of obsessing over the “do not know how” of growth, perhaps we should focus on what we do know. I surveyed the New Testament on the topic of Church growth. Guess what I discovered? Numerical growth was only mentioned 2 times, both in Acts where Luke the historian was describing the expansion of the church. (Acts 2: 41,47; 5:14) Both times, people were described as “added” by God, and after the church expanded beyond Jerusalem, numerical growth was not mentioned explicitly again. Outside of Acts, in all the letters of the apostles, numerical growth was never a concern. Instead, we find lots of these verses:

Romans 1: 8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
1 Corinthians 1: 4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge
2 Corinthians 10: 15 Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our sphere of activity among you will greatly expand
Ephesians 4: 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Colossians 1: 6 In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God
1 Thessalonians 1: 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere.
2 Thessalonians 1: 3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.
2 Peter 3: 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The results of the survey are clear. If there is a church which is praiseworthy and a model for the rest, it is because of the growth of their faith. Not only faith, as both Paul and Peter prayed for growth in knowledge and in love. Letter after letter, from one church to another, this was the growth they truly cared about. Why then is there a modern obsession with numerical growth? I believe it is related to us equating evangelism with soul-saving. We are like salespeople convincing people to believe in Jesus so that they can go heaven. With a mentality like that, no wonder we are setting numerical KPIs, since it is the more the merrier. However, the gospel is not about soul-saving but life-redeeming. Soul-saving is easy since it is only concerned with conversion. But life-redeeming is difficult because it is concerned with transformation. Soul-saving is a successful sales pitch, but life redeeming is a life-long process of giving time, offering love and sacrifice. So from today onwards, let's relook at the life of Jesus. His life was simple and mundane. It was a constant exercise of faith and love. We do not know when and how the growth of the kingdom of God happens. But I believe this is how true growth begins.

[1] You may interest yourself with an understanding of the Q source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source