God's Power in a Mustard Seed ~ Mark 4:26-34 ~ Third Sunday after Pentecost ~ June 17, 2012

There’s a scourge growing along the shores of the Kiski River:

The scourge is Japanese Knotweed.

Japanese Knotweed grows in stalks that can reach a height of nearly nine feet.  Its leaves can be as large as elephants’ ears.  It has heads that contain hundreds of small seeds that even the slightest breeze can spread upon the soil.  If a stalk breaks off, it can grow roots and start a new plant.  All told, Japanese Knotweed spreads rapidly—and wherever it grows, it literally takes over the soil so that nothing else can grow there.

In spite of our neighbors’ best efforts to eradicate the weed, some environmentalists say that its spread is unstoppable...

And the mustard shrub that Jesus talks about today (for better or worse) is much like the Japanese Knotweed.  Even though mustard seeds were used to season food (like we do today), the mustard shrub was a weed. 

Unlike most flowers and food crops, weeds thrive totally on their own.  They don’t need anyone to water them or fertilize them or prune them.  Weeds spread and thrive in spite of our best efforts to eradicate them. 

That’s exactly what happens in Jesus’ parable.

Some seeds are scattered on the soil.  In time, the seeds sprout, grow up, and spread totally on their own.  The person who scattered the seeds didn’t do anything to make that happen... 

So it is with God’s Kingdom.  Jesus says that God’s Kingdom comes as a tiny mustard seed that grows and spreads on its own, so that it puts forth large branches where the birds make nests in its shade.  God’s Kingdom grows and thrives totally on its own.

Now anytime you hear Jesus speaking of God’s Kingdom, do not be thinking strictly in terms of a place. 

When Jesus speaks of God’s Kingdom, he’s speaking of God’s ruling power that is being established over all the cosmos.  So he’s not so much speaking of a place as he is speaking of a reality..

Yet God’s power comes as something as small as a mustard seed—something so small and so insignificant as to be completely unnoticed.  And in the same way that seeds do not immediately sprout up and grow, so, too, must we wait for God’s power to take hold.

That’s the real challenge this parable presents to us today.

And when times are tough, this really isn’t good news.

When I pray, I don’t want God to me answer me in mustard seeds!  If answers to prayer were to be likened to plant life, I want God to tear open the heavens and plant a huge California Redwood right in my front yard!

And considering the state of our world today, we need more from God than just mustard seeds...  We need God to come down and do big things; like eradicating hunger; wiping out diseases and natural disasters; ending wars and violence; reviving the economy; and bringing the unbelieving to faith. 

All told, we want a God who operates according to our expectations—and our timetables.  We want a God whose power we can see, so that, in turn, we would believe.

Yet God’s power comes as a tiny mustard seed—and it takes great faith and great patience to wait upon a God who comes in this way. 

But small and invisible does not equate to powerless and insignificant when it comes to God.  The seeds of God’s power are being sown as we speak—which means that God’s power is around us, working in ways that can’t see or comprehend.  The fact that we’re hearing the good news of God’s Kingdom today is proof that God’s power is taking root in our lives. 

God has sown the seeds of redemption in everything and everyone he created.  And those seeds are coming to life.

Soon and very soon, God’s power will bring to an end all that is broken and evil in our world—and the peace and security we long for so much today will become a reality.  New life will come to everyone and everything.

And as sin and suffering continue to infect our world, remember: the coming of God’s Kingdom is unstoppable—because God is unstoppable. The devil and all the powers that defy God are trying their hardest to uproot the Kingdom of God.  And they are going to fail.  God’s will shall be done on earth as in heaven.

So as God sows his mustard seeds, let us sow ours. 

So often, our acts of faith can so often seem as insignificant as mustard seeds.  Our prayers, our coming to church, our reading the Bible, our acts of charity—when no good seems to be coming out of them, we wonder, “what’s the use?”  “Why bother?”

But God can take these little, insignificant offerings of mustard seeds and accomplish things more awesome than we could ever ask or imagine. 

We never know how God will work or when—and that is not for us to know.  And we cannot force onto our timetables.  God’s power is not at our command.  But we can act on the simple faith that our Jesus loves us—and that he will bring us his strength and his healing, and ultimately, his deliverance. 

So we sow our seeds in hopeful expectation.  God’s power will come upon us and we shall be saved.  We will be swept up into amazing grace; we will be swept up into redemption.  

God’s Kingdom is on its way.