THE MIRACULOUS GROWTH OF FAITH

(Preached on Sunday, June 14, 2009)

Then Jesus said, “God’s kingdom is like seed thrown on a field by a man who then goes to bed and forgets it.  The seed sprouts and grows - he has no idea how it happens.”                                                             -Mark 4:26-27

 

I came across a story this week about a young pastor serving a country parish in outback South Australia.  This fellow used to jump in his car and disappear each Monday morning.  One curious parishioner decided to follow him to see what he was up to.  The young man drove for an hour and a half until he arrived at the Indian-Pacific rail line, which crosses the continent.  There he waited patiently until the next long train came through.  He got out of the car and watched it intently, until it receded into the distance, which took a considerable time, given the dead-level nature of the terrain.  Then the pastor had a drink of coffee from a thermos, got back into his car and drove all the way back home.  Back in town, the parishioner (our nosy sleuth) who had witnessed the performance through binoculars from a secure distance, confronted his minister; “Why on earth, when there is so much to be done, did you do that?  Is that what you do each Monday?”  The young pastor nodded and replied: “Once a week, I like to go and watch that glorious train.  I say this prayer: ‘Thank God there is something in this region that moves without me having to push it.’”  An apocryphal story, of course!  But it

illustrates the mistake we so often make, thinking that everything depends solely upon us!  If anything is going to get done, I have to do it!

 

The call from last Sunday’s sermon was to action on our part.  Remember the call to Isaiah from the vision he had in the temple of God, high and lifted up, asking “Whom shall I send, who will go for us?”  Isaiah invited us to consider the question “What if God ACTUALLY needs us?”  And there is truth in that question.  God does want and need our involvement in spreading the good news of God’s love for all people and for the world.  But, the danger, especially for us Western folk steeped in the Protestant work ethic, is we will take that notion and run off thinking it all depends upon us, or more specifically, it all depends upon ME!

 

Such an attitude can lead dangerously to an overwhelming sense of despair.  When other people do not join our cause, do not seem to “get it,” do not work as hard, we can grow resentful and often withdraw from the relationship or community.  It can also lead to great anxiety on our part.  Then when the times grow anxious, we can be driven to deeper despair, restlessness, overwhelming feelings of being all alone, and estranged from God.

 

So it is that we need the corrective balance of this teaching from Jesus.  These parables of the seeds growing in the earth without the help of the sower, remind us of the important truth that even though God needs and wants us as partners, there is much in the work that is dependent upon God.  These stories bring a breath of sanity into the soul of busy and stressed followers of Jesus. 

 

Jesus teaches us that the realm of God, the realm of grace which has been established on earth, is like a farmer who does his part: he ploughs the soil, harrows it, and then sows the seed.  Then it is up to nature.  The farmer cannot control rain or sunshine, hail or heatwave.  He just has to wait it out.  Of course he can torture himself with worry, if he wants to put himself through that misery.  But worry will not alter a thing.  He is better off to get on with life, waking and sleeping.  Even while he sleeps, nature will be quietly at work.  The grain will sprout and take root, develop long blades and form ears of grain.  In due time, without any pushing from the farmer the crop will ripen.  Then will be the right time for the farmer to get busy again.  With his sickle he will harvest the crop, let it dry out, and finally bring into the barn for threshing.

 

There is a place and role for us in this work.  But it does not ALL depend upon us.  God’s mission in the world does not totally depend upon either me or this church.  With us or without us, God is at work; tirelessly at work.  There is no situation, in fact, into which we go in the name of Jesus where God has not been there before us, where God is not already at work.  This is tremendously reassuring knowledge for those of us involved in following Jesus.  Just as the growth of the seed is in some sense automatic, so the accomplishing of and completing of, God’s work is inevitable.  The coming of God’s realm is never in question, only its timing.  This is something we impatient, time-dominated human beings forget — God’s time is not our time. 

 

But within each seed is its future.  The seed cannot be coerced to grow.  The realm of God is like that.  The Christian faith is like that.  It is not our realm; it belongs to God.  The harvest is also God’s.  What we do as followers of Jesus is very similar to the activity of farmers and gardeners, which is cultivation.  We prepare the soil, plant seeds, till and weed.  We may even train and prune.  But we do not give the growth.  That comes from God.

 

This knowledge helps me tremendously as a preacher.  When I was a young preacher, just starting out, I knew a great deal about preaching.  But now, more than 25 years and over a thousand sermons later, I know less about preaching than I once knew.  Why do some of my “best” sermons — on which I have expended much effort — fall flat, roll over and die, greeted by a collective congregational yawn?  And maybe even more mysterious, why do some of my worst sermons (slapped together on a Saturday night, held together with tape and twine) succeed?  I mumble something out, wandering around in scripture, throwing out this or that undeveloped idea, and you come out at the end of the worship, grasp my hand, saying, “Thank you, thank you.  God really spoke to me today, preacher.”  I’ve come to understand that preaching is not really something that I do.  Preaching is what God does.  It’s not a sermon until God’s speaking makes it a sermon. 

 

Today we have honored those among us who attempt to teach the faith.  For you teachers, this knowledge can be empowering as well.  Like in preaching, only rarely does the teacher see the seed sprout and bear fruit.  That can become very discouraging.  Yet teaching is vitally important in the life of the church.  Jesus was a teacher; his early followers were teachers; in truth all of us in the church are teachers, for we teach by everything we do.  And while it is God who gives the growth, we have a role to play with God in nurturing the seeds of the future trees which will provide shelter and care for future generations.  The way we do that is by sharing with those around us, with those we are invited to teach, what we know of God and God’s love in our own hearts and lives.  This is our role.  Then the growth is up to God.

 

Let me close with another parable of seeds.  A handful of wheat, over five thousand years old, was found in the tomb of one of the kings of ancient Egypt.  When it was planted, amazingly the grains came to life.  Their power had not been lost in the darkness of the pyramid tomb, the passing of centuries or the changing of earthly kingdoms.  Five thousand years previously an ancient Pharaoh of Egypt, then a great empire, had spent much of his life watching his magnificent memorial tomb grow before his eyes.  And yet despite all of his care and all the labor of thousands whose backs pulled the fitted stones one by one across the desert sands and whose hands grew callused under the dry Egyptian sun, no one has kept his memory alive.  Yet it was the lowly seeds, possibly placed there by one of the workers before the tomb was sealed and its entrance hidden, that kept hold of their promise of life, however long deferred.  They had simply waited patiently, in secret, for the right conditions to release the life that was still within them.  At the right time and in the right place they rooted themselves, pushed their leaves into the sunlight and blessed their faith-filled sowers with a near miraculous harvest from the distant past.