Planting Seeds

Jesus said, “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.”

Mark 4:26

The Gospel assigned for this Sunday reminds us that we may not always be aware of what God is doing in our lives, and that even when we think we know how things are supposed to be, God is working in ways we don’t understand or even perceive. It’s easy for us to forget this as we worry and fret over what is going on around us, in this already/not yet realm of God.

Jesus tells a parable about planting and nurturing seeds, and we see that we don’t know what God is up to, nor can we always predict the outcome. Even if we are farmers, we do not have all the answers, and we cannot control all the variables of the weather. When we believe that we are the sole authority on something it can create great pressure in our lives, and conflict in our relationships with others. We are reminded that everything is not up to us, whether we are raising children, deciding on the best way to solve a problem, or just waiting for our tomatoes to ripen.

We live in a world where success has become all about control, about managing outcomes. We make lists of best practices and goals, and we expect that if we simply check off each item on the list, we will achieve the desired outcome. And when things do not go as hoped or planned, we become anxious and fearful. We think that if we only exert a bit more control, we can straighten things out.

So, what is it, exactly, that Jesus is trying to teach us through these parables about seeds? Perhaps it is that when all we can see is failure, injustice, and inaction, God’s purposes are still being worked out; God is still present. We profess this very thing in our creed when we say, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

Sometimes, the hardest thing is to put the seed in the ground and wait. And that’s especially hard in a world where people are afraid of losing control. No matter what tasks we are working on in our lives, in the life of our church, or in the growth of God’s dream, faith requires that we trust that God is in control. Many times it doesn’t look like anything is happening, or it looks like terrible things are happening. But deep in the soil, even in the humus of life, God is growing something, nurturing a tiny seed. As the seed grows it gently nudges itself between the clods of dirt in our lives, loosening up our assumptions and certainties. Seeds are a good image for a mysterious reality where growth often happens without our knowledge. 

We want success, we want things to go as planned, and we want to control the outcomes. God works in a very different way. The parables teach us that the outcome of our work is not in our hands but in God’s. Just as fields need to lie fallow for the health of the crops, God provides us sabbath rest. Author and pastor Wayne Muller writes, “there are forces larger than we that take care of the universe, and while our efforts are important, necessary, and useful, they are not (nor are we) indispensable. The galaxy will somehow manage without us…the deep wisdom embedded in creation will take care of things for awhile.”