Ezekiel 17:22-24
Mark 4:26-34

Thirty-six years ago was the last time I was serious about raising a garden.  It was the spring of 1973.  We lived in Belleview, Kentucky, a rural community in the Ohio River basin just south of Cincinnati.  We lived in the church parsonage just four blocks from the Ohio River.  Behind the house was a large garden area and we had a garden each of the five springs we lived there.  The soil was rich, sandy loom.  It really seemed like all we had to do was cast whatever seeds we wanted in the garden, wait a few weeks, and the harvest was bountiful.  The garden was also a great place to work, because after a few weeks I could begin to see things grow that I had been cultivating. 

There are so many areas in our lives where we are not able to see anything grow as a result of cultivating.  We seldom see the results of the seeds we plant in our ministry.  When we do see positive results from the seeds we have planted, it usually is years later and we didn't even know we had planted those seeds.  Someone makes a comment to you about a statement you made and what an impact it had on her life.  It sounds like something you would say, but for the life of you, you cannot remember making such a statement.  Or, remembering it, you remember it was an off-handed comment, an aside, an afterthought.  Here is this person facing you, eyes sparkling, thanking you for the tremendous contribution you made to her life.  I was reminded of this seed planting last week when the seniors mentioned that what they would remember from being a part of Glenview Community Church were service projects they did and confirmation classes. While teachers were unaware that what they were doing was taking root, we heard testimony last week of some of the fruit that grew from the seeds that were planted.

The parable of the Sower is the watershed of the parables.  It receives star billing in the synoptic Gospels.  It serves as the introduction to the first deliberate collection of Jesus' parables and a disproportionate amount of space is given to it.

By the time Jesus tells this parable, he has been pushed from the synagogues by the religious leaders and expelled from the town squares by threatened political leaders who are insecure because of his popularity.  So, where is he?  He is out in the countryside sitting on a floating pulpit with a large crowd gathered.  And he tells a story.

In a place where the grain fields ran down to the sea, Jesus called their attention to the man on the hillside casting seed as he walked.  Golden seed, rich with life, is broadcast from a pouch by a steady, rhythmic swing of the sower's arm, covering the whole area from which the sower already anticipates a crop. Jesus said that the rule of God is like what that man is doing.  Notice the man is casting seed all along the way as he walks.  Some of the seeds will fall on the pathway you see winding its way up the hillside.  The birds hovering around will swoop down and eat those seeds before they ever get a chance to grow.  Do you see those rocks sticking up out of the ground over there?  Some of the seeds will fall there.  Those seeds will sprout and burst through the sod in no time because the sunshine bouncing off those rocks will warm the dirt around them and rush the germination of those seeds.  The young plant will struggle to put down roots and find no place because of the rock and the same warmth that caused the seeds to germinate so easily will also cause the plants to wither and die from the heat.  Somebody in the crowd comments that with so many rocks maybe all the seeds will fall on rocky soil.
Jesus noted that some of the seeds the man was casting about would fall in the thicket of weeds and thistles on the hillside.  Even though the sower would later plow the soil, the weeds and thistles would grow back faster and choke out the growth of the seeds that had fallen there.  But Jesus noted that some of the seeds were falling on good soil and the good soil would be productive.  Some of the seeds would provide a 30 fold return, some 60 fold, and some even 100 fold.  What encouragement!  A 10 fold return at harvest time was good.  A 7 1/2 return was average.  A 100 fold return was exceptional but not unheard of.  Jesus offered tremendous encouragement as he drew the contrast between small or discouraging beginnings and great or gratifying endings. This parable seems to be a description by Jesus of the way things are.    

75% of the seeds fail to grow.  There are four types of soil and only one of them is productive.  Only one out of four seeds is going to grow.  How disappointing!  The possibility for failure is tremendous.  It can seem overwhelming.

Reality is that 75% of the time ministry is a failure.  If the man sowing seed on the hillside thought only about the seeds that would not germinate, he'd throw up his hands in despair and quit.  If he thought only of the great harvest of 100 fold, he would always be disappointed.  Rather he goes about his chore of sowing seeds with cheerful abandon like God sows love.  The sower knew that his task was to sow the seeds.  He knew that some would never make it and some would grow and be productive.  His task was to sow and he could not always know exactly which seeds would grow and which would not. 

The prospect of tremendous growth occurring 25% of the time overshadows the failure of 75% that fall on unproductive soil.  The sower sows anyway because of the tremendous encouragement of the growth that will take place rather than giving in to despair that 75% won't grow.  The same perspective applies to us.  It is expressed in the poem Anyway. 
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway. (Mother Teresa as taken from The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith)
Jesus' parable is attractively simple on the surface.  Then, it draws us to it and into it.  Have you noticed how we are drawn into the parable as if we are the sowers?  And we are.  But we also are the soils?  Which soil are we?  Which one are you?  Which am I?  Why we're the good soil!  Well, which good soil are we--the soil that produces 30 fold, 60 fold, or 100 fold? 

Actually, we are all the soils at different times and under different circumstances.  We only let part of the Gospel take root in our lives.  Sometimes we are amazingly receptive to the Good News.  It strikes us with such surprise and such freshness that it buries itself deep in our lives and flourishes.  Other times like when it calls for us to be open and inviting of all people, the birds of racism or materialism swoop in and gobble up those seeds as soon as they hit the hardened path of resistance. 
Sometimes we respond quickly and eagerly to some aspect of the Gospel.  But after we get into it, we discover it demands much more than we want to give and we begin to fade away and allow other things to choke out our interest, enthusiasm, and commitment.  Certainly, a major reason the early church hung on to this parable of Jesus was to urge people to stand fast in their commitment.
If we pause only briefly to hear this parable, what we hear is that the seed is the seed and nothing prohibits the seed from being what it is.  Nothing lessens the effective power of the seed.  The love of God like the seed works on its own terms wherever it falls.  Even on the hard path where the birds eat the seed, it will later be deposited in other places insuring its distribution.  In the other places the seed actually does its proper, reproductive work:  it springs up.   The operative power of the seed or the operative power of love is not dependent on circumstantial cooperation.  Antagonism is every bit as much the soil of the love of God as is acceptance. 

The seed eaten by birds is as much seed as the seed that produced a hundredfold.  It is the message alone, and not the interference with it, that finally counts.  The most obvious point in the whole parable is that the fullest enjoyment of the fruitfulness of the message is available only to those who interfere with it least.  Those on the good ground, Jesus says, are those who simply hear the message, accept it, and bear fruit:  some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some a hundredfold.  It's not that they do anything; rather, it's that they don't do things that get in the way of the message.  It's the message of God’s love and grace, and that message alone does all the rest.

Mark follows the parable of the sower with its urge for people to stand fast in their commitment with the parable of the mustard seed to strengthen and encourage people in their relationship with God.  The rule of God is not some far off place or existence in the sweet bye and bye as often has been described.  The rule of God is right here, right now wherever God engages people. To be engaged by God results in people opening themselves to the awareness of God's presence in their lives.  The rule of God has future dimensions just as being born has future dimensions, but the rule of God is not only future oriented. 

God's action in the world and in our lives is like a mustard seed.  It is so small. Too often our tendency is to respond to smallness as insignificant.  But the mustard seed is planted.  It germinates, and grows.  The plant that results is large enough that birds can rest in its branches.  

 The presence of God is small, often imperceptible, but that presence continues to have impact and effect on people and much later significant changes and differences can be seen.  As you look closely at those changes and differences, you can trace them back to the small, imperceptible action of God that had gone unnoticed.                 

The mustard seed parable is so consistent with Jesus' approach toward ministry.  Jesus always was swimming upstream.  He seemed always to be moving against the tide.  Jesus really never was very popular.  There are a couple of stories where large crowds gathered but they didn't stay with Jesus for very long.  When people sought Jesus after the huge crowd had had lunch, Jesus made a strong statement, "I am telling you the truth: you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles" (Jn. 6:26).  So much for Jesus being impressed with large numbers and his own popularity.  So much for our desire to make a big splash.  So much for our bigger is better philosophy.  So much for our drawing attention to ourselves and what we are doing.  So much for our equating large numbers of people doing something religiously as being of God.  So much for our view that if there are not a lot of people involved or responding, then, God's work must not be being done.  So much for our caving in to the temptation to play to the gallery.  So much for our doing the popular thing, justifying any means that results in large numbers.   

With the parable of the mustard seed Jesus clearly states that the magnitude and might of the rule of God had small and unpromising beginnings.  From the small, minuscule beginnings the rule of God evolved into a universal fellowship.  The rule of God does not come with outward show or worldly power.  It does come with revolutionary force that changes people from within.  There always are those who want the use of strength, force, power, manipulation to make people change.  But the change that the rule of God brings in a person's life is from within.  It is like a mustard seed being planted and that seed falling on good soil where it can grow and flourish.