Seed Power: SALT's Lectionary Commentary for Third Week after Pentecost

Third Week after Pentecost (Year B): Mark 4:26-34 and Ezekiel 17:22-24

Big Picture:

1) This is the second of seven weeks in a row walking through seven chronologically selected passages in Mark. Together, these seven passages paint a portrait of the early phase of Jesus’ public ministry.

2) The Gospel of Mark begins with Jesus declaring that “the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:14-15) — and Mark‘s fourth chapter is an opening collection of Jesus’ parables describing what this “kingdom” or “reign” or “realm” is all about. This week’s reading is the last two parables from this opening collection.

3) Why parables? As Mark tells it, Jesus teaches this way precisely because parables are enigmatic and mysterious, incomprehensible to “those outside,” and yet with “secrets” Jesus shares with his disciples (Mark 4:10-12; compare 4:34). The effect of this arrangement is to draw people in (including us, as readers/hearers!): from afar, these stories seem cryptic, but as we approach them for a closer look, their treasures come into view. Just as stained glass windows are dull and lifeless when viewed from the steet, but vibrantly alive with color when viewed from inside the sanctuary, Jesus’ parables are contemplative spaces, evocative puzzles, riddles that beckon us closer — closer to Jesus, that is — to hear the “secrets” they simultaneously suggest and conceal.

4) In the passage from Ezekiel, God promises a coming exaltation of Israel - and the prophet uses imagery later echoed in Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed: a small thing (a “sprig”) that grows into something grand (a “noble cedar”) in which birds nest “in the shade of its branches” (Ezekiel 17:22-23).

Scripture:

1) Jesus has just told a series of parables, including “The Parable of the Sower” — a teaching that seems to suggest that the type of “ground” (with each type representing a type of person) determines whether or not seeds of “the word” will grow (Mark 4:1-20). Hearing this parable and its explanation, a disciple might very well conclude, OK, got it: my job is to be an excellent person, better than the others, the “good soil” that accepts the word and bears fruit. But now Jesus tells them another parable, “The Parable of the Growing Seed,” a kind of cautionary companion designed to help guard against the temptation to pride that arises whenever we attempt to become “good soil” by our own excellent efforts.

2) This time around, a sower again scatters seed, but now the emphasis is on the fact that growth itself comes not from human effort, but organically and “automatically” (the NRSV translates the Greek automate as “of itself” (Mark 4:28)). The reign of God, Jesus says, is like that. We may scatter seeds, but the growth comes from God, while we “sleep and rise night and day” (Mark 4:27).

3) And then comes the final entry in this opening collection of parables, “The Parable of the Mustard Seed.” It’s an image packed with poetic hyperbole: there are smaller seeds than mustard, and the mature plant is hardly a “bush” or “shrub” with “large branches” fit for bird nests (Mark 4:31-32). But the hyperbole itself is part of the point: Jesus is pushing us to question what’s possible, to imagine bigger, bolder, more beautiful things. And in any case, the gist of his message is clear: echoing Ezekiel’s image of a “tiny sprig” becoming a “noble cedar” filled with birds (itself an image of God’s miraculous, creative deliverance of Israel), Jesus proclaims that the realm of God may be compared to an exceedingly tiny, apparently insignificant thing becoming, by God’s grace, something grand and hospitable.

4) But there’s also a twinkle in Jesus’ eye here, a gleam of mischief. In the ancient Near East, most farmers would have considered mustard to be an invasive weed. In fact, because it spreads quickly by sending out shoots underground, it can take over a garden or a field; accordingly, farmers would typically avoid it or root it out, never mind intentionally sow it. This is no “noble cedar.” The kingdom of God, Jesus subversively suggests, may very well upset the ordered, conventional status quo. It spreads swiftly, invisibly, often underground. It’s more wild than “noble,” more undomesticated weed than domesticated crop, and more helpful to birds than to kings (see, for example, 1 Kings 6:9-10).

Takeaways:

1) A parable is a kind of gymnasium, a means for us to stretch and strengthen our hearts and minds and imaginations. Parables beckon, inviting us in; they resist quick and easy understanding; they say, in effect, Slow down. Come closer, and listen. Let me tell you a secret…

2) Jesus’ overarching message is that the “kingdom,” the “reign,” the “realm” of God has come near — near enough that we can reach out and touch it. It’s not somewhere else; it’s here. It’s not later; it’s now. OK - but what does it look and sound and feel like? How will we know it when we see it? What’s it like? To answer these questions, Jesus turns to parables, as if to say, Well, it’s quite different than the “kingdom,” the “reign,” the “realm” we’re all used to, so I can’t just give you a straightforward description. I have to use poetry: figurative, acrobatic language, evocative minature stories, extended similes (“The kingdom of God is like…”) — all in order to stretch your thinking and feeling beyond their typical limits…

3) First, Jesus says, the reign of God grows on its own, like the miracle of a seed growing in the earth. We scatter seed — that’s our role. The seeds grow, however, whether within us or outside us, by God’s grace alone. For any of us who are overburdened with worry about the future, or who stress over the adequacy (or inadequacy) of our own efforts, this comes as consoling, reassuring good news.

4) And second, Jesus says, the realm of God grows from a tiny, even infinitesimal start to a wild, widespread, thriving, beautiful finish. Remember the ancient prophet, Ezekiel? That “tiny sprig” that grows into a “noble cedar”? The reign of God is like that, a little thing made noble and grand, where birds come to nest in it shade — but you know what, it’s also like mustard, that humble plant, that speck of a seed that can swallow a field, or take over a garden. Think of it: a tiny dot to begin with, and then all that green and yellow, those underground shoots popping up here, there, and everywhere — imagine an astounding profusion, even a shrub with large branches (imagine that!), so the birds may come and nest — yes, not to nest in a “noble cedar,” but rather right here, in this lowly, wily, undaunted weed! Yes! The kingdom of God is like that…