Seeds of the Kingdom
Jesus tells these parables immediately after the parables of the sower and the parable of the weeds, stories of farming with puzzling meanings beginning with “A sower who scatters seeds on different types of soil – the hard-packed dirt on the path, the shallow silt on the rock face, some was sown among thorns and got choked out, and finally some fell on good soil.” What we have control over is the soil of our hearts as we receive the Word of God as seeds scattered in our lives. Then Jesus tells the crowd there by the sea that the fields of our lives are not without weeds, though. There are weeds in every group – even in church, even in our families, even in our own hearts – but we are not to yank them up and throw them out. We are to let them be because their roots are intertwined with the good wheat, and until the harvest it can be hard to distinguish what is good wheat and what is poisonous weed. So, leave the judgement to judgement day. God will do the sorting and the weeds will be thrown into a fire and completely consumed – not even ash will remain. Nothing bitter or poisonous or harmful will remain. While the good harvest of wheat will be gathered into God’s barn.
Then he tells them a couplet of parables. The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast. Two stories of small things being put in the right place for growing and taking off, winding up huge and then, in turn, providing for others. First, mustard seed. Jesus uses hyperbole, exaggerating that it is the smallest seed that grows into the largest garden plant…in fact, so large it’s a tree. It’s not the smallest seed. Not the smallest we know now – not the smallest Jesus knew then. And mustard bushes are not the largest plant in the garden and they don’t ever grow so large that they would be considered a tree. Jesus is using smallest and largest to make a point. He makes the same point with the yeast. He doesn’t tell us how little yeast is mixed in, but it’s usually sold in little packages – the largest I think I’ve seen is a 4 oz. jar – I did find online a 32 oz. bag available – in the 1st Century, they didn’t go to the store and buy yeast, though. They kept a little bit of the bread dough as a starter and folded it into the new batch the next day. It doesn’t take much yeast. Jesus does tell us how much flour – 3 measures – 60 pounds of flour – enough to make about 414 loaves of loaf bread. So we have a tiny start and a huge finish. What caused it, though? A man took and sowed the seeds in his field. A woman took and hid the yeast in her flour. An action had to be taken. The seeds and the yeast had to be placed in the right environment to start growing. Once they started, nothing could stop them, but they had to folded into the soil and the flour for them to start growing.
United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon served as Dean of the Chapel at Duke for 20 years. He tells the story of a seed that he didn’t even know he planted. One day when he was speaking at another college, a student came up to him and asked the question every minister I know fears. “Remember me?” Bishop Willimon says, “I looked at him, but could not place him.” He was clearly disappointed, “I’m Rob.” AGH. It clicked.
“Rob! Of course. I remember you. Now look at you, all grown up and here in college.” I remembered that he was in a church I served about a decade before. His mother was going through a difficult divorce. Rob and his brother were known in the church as unruly, poorly behaved little boys. On more than one occasion, I had to signal to an usher to break up a scuffle between the two of them in the middle the service.
“I’m a student here at this college. Premed.”
(“I might have seen you at a different sort of institution,” I thought to myself.)
“I’m here because of you, doing what I’m doing because of your guidance,” he went on.
With a laugh, Bishop Willimon wondered at his influence, “Really? Wow. You were a lively little boy. Maybe you were listening to my sermons when I thought you were just misbehaving in church!”
To which Rob quickly humbled him, “I don’t remember any of your sermons.”… “No, the thing that you did for me is you always knew my name. The best part of church was communion when you would put the piece of bread in my hand and call my name. I never got over that. That’s how I knew that God had a special assignment for me.”
“Just knowing a name? That’s it? That explains the course of life? If that’s true, that’s miraculous. I didn’t do that,” says Will Willimon. God did.
That’s the way of the Kingdom. A tiny seed that is sown can become a tree with branches strong enough to support a bird’s nest full of hatchlings. A bit of yeast that is hidden in flour can become enough bread to satisfy hundreds. Honoring a child’s worth by calling them by name can offer the dignity that switches the track of their lives.
Everyday miracles. God at work. Planting seeds in soil. Mixing yeast in flour. Adding a name to the communion bread. Taking what is common and transforming it into something life-sustaining. Branches for nests. Bread for hungry. A doctor for the sick.
The kingdom of God, like cultivating plants and rising bread and preparing for medical school requires patience. Kingdom growth is slow. It is often unseen. And you may never know that the person you supported desperately needed a place to call home, to feel supported enough, to feel at home enough, to be themselves. You may never know the hunger you satisfied or the life you changed. You certainly will never know all of the ways God uses you, but you can know that the Kingdom often grows through ordinary acts of faithfulness.
Each year we provide school supplies for children experiencing homelessness who are temporarily living in Room in the Inn’s Family Inn while their adults work through a program of learning life skills and gaining financial planning skills and learning job skills and getting and saving money and creating a plan for childcare and finally getting keys to their own place and then Room in the Inn continues to support and nurture their family as they move toward stability. This year there are 33 children who are school aged for whom Farmington is providing school uniforms and supplies. It’s seed planting. They will never know where that box of shirts and pants came from, or those Crayola markers or the scissors, but they will know that they are walking into school with the Lysol wipes and box of Kleenex that is on their supply list, that they have all that they need to learn, and that they have new clothes for school that fit, just like the other kids in their class. Those are seeds. That is yeast.
Luke records that one day, when the Pharisees were questioning Jesus they asked when the kingdom of God would come, and he replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.
The Kingdom of God is planted like a seed – it is kneaded in like yeast – and it is growing in you and through you – bigger than you could ever imagine and more than you will ever know – not just in size, but in provision, not just for you but for others…and for any…and eventually for all. Thanks be to God. Amen.
– Will Willimon, Stories by Willimon, Abingdon, 2020