Our New Testament reading today is from Mark
4:21-34. Listen for God’s word to you….
He said to them, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under
the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is
nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come
to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” And he said to them, “Pay
attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get,
and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given;
and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would
scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the
seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself,
first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the
grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has
come.”
He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of
God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when
sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is
sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large
branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
With many such parables he
spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them
except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
In our text for today, we have four parables in a very short
space and each has its own point. First,
there is the parable of the lamp. Jesus asks a very basic question, “Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed,
and not on the lampstand?” Of course, the answer is that a lamp is brought in
to be put on a lampstand. You don’t light a lamp and then hide the light. Just
so, truth is meant to be seen. The light of Christ in us is meant to be seen
and shared.
Jesus says that one day all things will be laid
bare; there will be no more secrets. In other words, the truth cannot
ultimately be hidden. Sometimes we try to hide the truth, but that way of
living does not work for long.
Think of Copernicus who lived in the early 16th
century. He was the one who made the discovery that the earth is not the center
of the universe; the earth revolves around the sun and not the sun around the
earth. Copernicus kept his discovery a secret for thirty years. Then, when he
was on his deathbed in 1543, Copernicus persuaded a printer to publish his
great work, Revolutions of Heavenly
Bodies.
In the early 17th century, Galileo
learned of Copernicus’ theory and publicly stated his belief in it. In 1616,
the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church summoned Galileo to Rome to present
his beliefs. The hierarchy of the Church denied these beliefs categorically.
Galileo gave in, figuring it was better to conform than to give up his life.
For many years, he remained silent.
However, when Urban VIII became Pope, Galileo
thought he would try again, thinking Urban might be more open to a new line of
thinking than the last pope. Galileo was wrong. He had to sign a recantation in
order to avoid execution, but he could not avoid prison. Later, Galileo was
even denied burial in his family tomb.
Lest we blame the Catholic Church alone for
shortsightedness, it is important to remember that even Martin Luther opposed
Galileo. Furthermore, despite the fact that few could accept the truth at
first, eventually everyone has come to accept the understanding of our solar
system first propounded by Copernicus and Galileo. It took 350 years, but in
1992 then pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo had been right and that the
Church had been wrong. As Andrew Melville once said, “It lies not in your power
to hang or exile the truth.”
Jesus’ second parable in this collection is the parable of the measure. The point of
this parable is that a person’s getting is determined by his giving. This is
true in many areas of life. The more diligence a student gives to his or her
studies, the more he or she will get out of them. The more energy and devotion
we give to worship, the more we will get out of worship. The more love we give
to the people in our lives, the more love we will get in return.
Our giving also has a snowball effect. When we
give more diligence to our studies, we learn more, and this learning lays the
foundation for even more learning in the future. Those who give their heart’s
devotion to worship, lay the foundation for growing ever deeper in their
worship of the Lord and getting more and more out of that worship over time.
The more we show love to others, the more others will want to be our friends.
However, Jesus says the converse is also true. If
we fail to give diligence to our studies, devotion to worship, love to the
people in our lives, then even the little that we have will be taken away from
us. The adage is true “use it or lose it”. If we do not put to good use the
intelligence we do have, we slowly find our mental capacities slipping away. If
we do not take care of our bodies through proper nutrition and exercise, we
lose physical energy and fitness over time. If we do not develop our skills in
service of our jobs, eventually we may lose the jobs we had in the first place.
However, more than anything else, I believe we
need to apply this parable to the issue of love. To illustrate what I mean,
think back with me to the 1950s, and the acclaimed
play by Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. As you may remember, it
was turned into a movie with Sidney Poitier in the lead role. After Sidney
Poitier’s character, Walter,
… gets cheated out of
a large sum of money, he makes the unpopular and demeaning decision to accept a
buy-out of their new home from a white community association that didn’t want a
black family moving into their neighborhood.
Walter’s sister, Beneatha, emphatically
tells her mother, Lena, “He’s no brother of mine. That individual in that room
from this day on is no brother of mine!”
Lena admonishes her daughter, “You’re
feeling that you’re better than he is today? Yes? What did you tell him a
minute ago, that he wasn’t a man? Yes? You, give him up for me? You’ve written
his epitaph, too—like the rest of the world? Well, who gave you the privilege?”
“Momma, will you be on my side for once?
Now, you saw what he did. You saw him down there on his knees. Wasn’t it you
who taught me to despise any man who would do that? Who would do what he’s
going to do?”
“Yes, yes, I taught you that. Me and your
Daddy. But I thought I taught you something else, too. I thought I taught you
to love him.”
“Love him? There’s nothing left to love.”
“There’s always something left to love.
Have you cried for that boy today? Now, I don’t mean for yourself and for the
family because we lost the money. I mean for him, and what he’s gone through!
God help him, what it’s done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love
somebody the most? When he’s done good and made things easy for everybody? Oh,
no. It’s when he’s at his lowest and he can’t believe in himself because the
world done whipped him so. When you start measuring somebody, measure them
right, child. You make sure you take into account the hills and valleys he’s
come to, to get to wherever he is.”[1]
The measure we give to others will be the
measure we get back, and the measure we always need to give is a heaping
measure of love, even or especially when we think others do not deserve it.
Then, when we seem undeserving, when we are down, God will send someone to
measure that love back into our lives.
The third parable that Jesus uses here is
another parable about seeds.
This parable tells us a few things. First, it tells us something about the
helplessness of human beings. The farmer is not the one who makes the seeds
grow. In fact, do we human beings really understand what makes a seed grow? Oh,
I know about water, and soil and sunshine and all that. However, every seed really
has the secret of life and growth inside of it. We can arrange seeds so that
they have the best water, the best soil, the best sunlight, but we do not
actually make seeds grow.
The same is true of the kingdom of God. We can get
in the way of it. We can hinder it. Or we can do things to make room for the
growth of the kingdom. However, we do not actually make the kingdom grow. God
does.
I have seen the truth of this with churches. I
have served in churches that did not grow and I have served in churches that
did. You can be doing all the right things in a church, but if it is not the
right time and place, if God does not want it to happen then and there, then it
is not going to happen. God is the one who adds to the church and makes it
grow. Sometimes human beings try to take the credit for that, but the credit
belongs to God.
So we learn some things about the kingdom in this
parable. Often, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to things in nature. Growth
is often imperceptible in nature. The same is true of kingdom growth. We can
quantify numerical growth and even structural/ministry growth in a church.
However, we cannot quantify spiritual growth.
Still, Jesus says that kingdom growth is
constant, just like growth in nature. The seed grows day and night, even though
that growth is sometimes imperceptible. The same is true of the kingdom. We may
not see that kingdom growth happening here and now as we would like, but that
is because our vision is limited. Do you realize that around the world today, and
every day, more people are being added to the Church of Jesus Christ than the
number who were added on the Day of Pentecost? We may not see it happening
because it is not under our noses, but the kingdom is advancing constantly.
Nature’s growth is oftentimes unstoppable as
well. Think of a little green weed that pushes through a concrete sidewalk in
the city. Is that not amazing? Furthermore, the growth of the kingdom of God is
even more unstoppable than that. God is going to accomplish his purpose for the
world.
Thirdly, this parable tells us something about consummation. The harvest is coming. We may not see the kingdom harvest coming right
now. Jesus said that even he did not know the day or the hour, not in the same
way we know that there will be a natural harvest every autumn. However, the
final harvest is coming nonetheless. Therefore, we need to be patient as we
wait for God’s final victory; we need to prepare for it, by working for the
kingdom now. Furthermore, we can also look forward to the final kingdom harvest
in hope because as Paul said, “the one who began a good work among you will
bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)
The fourth parable that Jesus uses in this brief
passage is another parable about seeds, it is the parable of the mustard seed. This little story shows us that we
need to be careful about reading the Bible as though it were a science book. It
is not and this parable is an example of that fact. Jesus says here that the
mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds on earth, when in point of fact it is
not. I have read that the smallest seed in the world comes from an orchid and
it weighs only 1/35,000,000th of an ounce. However, Jesus thought of
the mustard seed as the tiniest seed that he knew, in his humanity, and his
first listeners probably agreed with him so the story made sense to them.
The mustard seed that Jesus was talking about did
in fact grow to be something like a tree. Some of these plants could grow to be
taller than a horse with a rider on top. Birds were attracted by the little
black seeds of this mustard plant and could often be found all around them.
Jesus was using an image that would be familiar
to anyone who read the Hebrew Scriptures. Great empires were often compared to
a tree where birds find shelter in the branches. Therefore, it probably came as
no surprise to Jesus’ first audience that he would compare the kingdom of God
to a tree.
This parable has much to teach us. First, we learn from this story that we
should not be disappointed with small beginnings. The mustard plant starts
very small but grows to be rather large. So it is with the kingdom of God.
Sometimes when we sow for the kingdom what we sow starts out small, but we can
trust that by God’s grace, it will grow big.
This parable speaks of
the Church. The Church began with one person, and now billions around the world
are finding shade in its tree.
Furthermore, the Church is like a tree with all
kinds of birds in it.
We may think that certain birds in the tree are rather strange, but that is
what we should expect with a big tree sheltering birds from all over the world.
William Barclay once wrote, “We have a tendency to brand as a heretic anyone
who does not think as we do.”
How much better is the
example of John Wesley who said, “We think and we let think.” “I have no more
right,” Wesley said, “to object to a man for holding a different opinion from
mine than I have to differ with a man because he wears a wig and I wear my own
hair.” Wesley had one greeting for everyone, “Is thy heart as my heart? Then
give me thy hand!” Before Wesley, the German theologian Rupert Meldenius had a
wonderful slogan:
In essentials unity,
In non-essentials liberty,
In all things love
I believe we need to make that our slogan. Furthermore,
we need to learn once again what things are essentials to our Christian faith,
what are non-essentials, and how to practice love toward those with whom we may
disagree about the essentials and the non-essentials.
In summary, these four parables of Jesus teach us
four important lessons:
·
The truth is meant to be
seen
·
What you get is determined
by what you give
·
Kingdom growth is
unstoppable so you better get on board
·
The church is like a tree
with many birds, and a few nuts, so learn to love them!
Let me close with this story from William
Barclay….
Once a new church was being
built. One of its great features was to be a stained glass window. The
committee in charge searched for a subject for the window and finally decided
on the lines of the hymn,
“Around the throne of God in
heaven
Thousands of children
stand.”
They employed a great artist
to paint the picture from which the window would be made. He began the work and
fell in love with the task. Finally he finished it. He went to bed and fell
asleep but in the night he seemed to hear a noise in his studio; he went into
the studio to investigate; and there he saw a stranger with a brush and a
palette in his hands working at his picture. “Stop!” he cried. “You’ll ruin my
picture.” “I think,” said the stranger,” “that you have ruined it already.”
“How’s that?” said the artist. “Well, said the stranger, “you have many colours
on your palette but you have used only one for the faces of the children. Who
told you that in heaven there were only children whose faces were white?” “No
one,” said the artist. “I just thought of it that way.” “Look!” said the
stranger. “I will make some of their faces yellow, and some brown, and some
black, and some red. They are all there, for they have all answered my call.”
“Your call?” said the artist. “Who are you?” The stranger smiled. “Once long
ago I said, ‘Let the children come to me and don’t stop them, for of such is
the Kingdom of Heaven’—and I’m still saying it.” Then the artist realized that
it was the Master himself, and as he did so, he vanished from his sight. The
picture looked so much more wonderful now with its black and yellow and red and
brown children as well as white.
In the morning the artist
awoke and rushed through to his studio. His picture was just as he had left it;
and he knew that it had all been a dream. Although that very day the committee
was coming to examine the picture he seized his brushes and his paints, and
began to paint the children of every colour and of every race throughout all the
world. When the committee arrived they thought the picture very beautiful and
one whispered gently, “Why! It’s God’s family at home.”
The question is: will we let the truth shine for
all to see, or will we suppress it? Will we measure to others in love or in
judgment? Will we get on board with God’s unstoppable kingdom growth, or
criticize from the sidelines? Will we paint the picture of God’s kingdom tree
the way he wants it, or the way we want it, with children of every color, every
race, every gender, every orientation, or will we paint the inhabitants of
God’s kingdom tree to look just like us?
[1] A Raisin in the Sun (Columbia
Pictures, 1961); directed by Daniel Petrie, screenplay by Lorraine Hansberry;
submitted by Jerry De Luca, Montreal West, Quebec, Canada, to http://preachingtoday.com
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