The gospel of Mark describes the kingdom of God as a farmer or gardener scattering a mustard seed on the ground, and goes to sleep and rise, night and day, and has no clue how the seed sprout, grows 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.
Everybody knows it doesn’t work like that. Gardening, farming, require commitment, hard work, steady attention—a kind of deep and holy love. Someone has to plant the seeds and then cultivate and weed and water.
This is what Dallas Willard calls “ the scandal of the Kingdom.” It is a description of the Kingdom that illustrates counter-intuitive values that people did not expect . There is God’s irrational outpouring of love and mercy on sinful humanity
This is Jesus’ point—a trust in the wonderful mystery of growth, about which the farmer, gardener, you and I, can do nothing but wait and watch and be astonished when it happens.
Sometime, somewhere, someone planted a seed in your heart, dropped the seed of a dream of what you could be and do into the soil of your soul: a teacher, a coach, a college professor or dean, a parent.
Sometime, somewhere, someone planted a seed of what you might believe and do and give and love: a dream of a world better and more fair and just, a dream of a world more kind and compassionate, a seed of God’s kingdom on earth and your part in it.
Dr. Willy L Mafuta Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525