What is the Kingdom Like?

Focus: The kingdom of God is revealed yet mysterious, hidden yet powerful seen in mustard seed ministries.

Function: To provoke this congregation to start one mustard-seed act of love this week, trusting God, not their own skill, for its growth.

Reading: Mark 4:10–13

Now that is a tough passage. Listen again,

‘they may indeed look but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

Now that’s one of the more complex sayings of Jesus to understand. Jesus essentially says, “I teach in parables so that they cannot understand.” The parable collection of 4:1–34 is the longest Marcan discourse of the Galilean ministry, organized around the secret of the Kingdom. The disciples’ ability to hear does not depend on special perceptiveness; they too need further explanation (4:34). And sometimes, the simplest of stories push people away. How often the story of good news is the aroma of death to many. And wide is the road and broad is the gate for those who listen to the parables.

And parables are tough to hear. They often call us to strange ways of seeing the world. The everyday American who operates via capitalism—the exchange formula of economics, where an honest day’s work for a fair wage will not pay the last day hour workers the same wage as the person who works all day. He would go bankrupt.

• And the farmer does not sow seed on rocky or thorny ground.
• The shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to search for one would be fired for reckless management for endangering the other 99.
• The farmer who lets weeds grow alongside the wheat until harvest would be accused of neglecting his crop.
• The businessman who entrusts his entire fortune to servants and leaves town without accountability would be courting disaster.
• The judge who grants justice only because a widow refuses to stop pestering him would be criticized for failing to do his job. His verdict would be appealed to a higher court.

Such lack of common sense, human logic, and basic economics makes the parables hard to understand and turns people away from the Gospel. This is not what you read in textbooks or learn at school. Why? Because the very story of Jesus is a parable.

• In order to be first, you must become last.
• In order to be great, you must become a servant.
• In order to gain your life, you must lose it.
• In order to be exalted, you must humble yourself.
• In order to overcome your enemies, you must love them.
• In order to inherit the kingdom, you must become like a child.
• A king whose throne is a cross.
• A Messiah whose victory is death.
• A kingdom where the poor, the meek, and the persecuted are called blessed.
• A Gospel in which death is the doorway to life.

Foolishness! Paul says that the Gentiles call it foolishness!

Christianity deliberately overturns the world’s common sense. Parables challenge our assumptions about how the world works. That is precisely what can make the Gospel either offensive and unbelievable or radically compelling. Understanding depends on relationship with Jesus. The hardening is descriptive of a refusal to attend rather than God’s decree of exclusion, and that is Jesus’ own interpretation in verse 22 “nothing hidden except to be disclosed.”

So, parables do not decorate truth. Learning what the kingdom is like requires faith and discipleship. What is the kingdom like? It is like lamps and seeds. What might lamps and seeds promise us? Perhaps faith sprouting in hearts, ministries shining on lampstands, churches displaying God’s glory.

And Today’s Text

A Lamp under a Bushel Basket

²¹ 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? ²² For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. ²³ If you have ears to hear, then hear!” ²⁴ And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and it will be added to you. ²⁵ For to those who have, more will be given, and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”

The Parable of the Growing Seed

²⁶ He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

³⁰ He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, ³² 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.”

The Use of Parables

³³ With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

The request comes to me about once each year. The last time was from my brother, an elder in a church in North Carolina. “Do you have a curriculum for us to reach out to the community that works? What is the latest program that will help us grow?” In many ways, this honest and sincere inquiry is asking for a magic formula or miracle cure. And the long history of Christianity pushes back. You cannot engineer the Gospel. And let’s be honest, the parables push back.

Jesus says, the kingdom is about lamps because lamps shed light. AND disclosure—coming to light, shining the light (4:22), is the purpose of revelation. Jesus is not trying to hide the nature of the kingdom but to illuminate it; a lamp is brought in to be put on the lampstand. You do not hide it under a basket or a bed. Such a practice might end up burning the house down. God does not intend to keep his good news available only to a select few. Many ministries are like that too, plain, small, easy to overlook, never meant to stay hidden. The exhortation “pay attention to what you hear” (4:24) is key: the attentiveness of listeners is the real issue. This is Mark’s version of “ask . . . seek . . . knock” (Matt 7:7–8). God is willing to reveal the kingdom to willing seekers. And as God, by grace, gives you the kingdom, you best pay attention. With gratitude should come responsibility to nurture the faith that has come to them as gift.

The measure (4:24–25): Jesus calls his listeners to pay careful attention to how they hear. Those who receive the word with openness and eagerness will gain greater understanding—”and still more will be given.” But those who refuse to listen will eventually lose even what little understanding they have. The disciples are blessed because they have received the news of the kingdom, but that receptivity also carries a responsibility: those who have been given much are expected to respond faithfully through changed practices, virtuous living, flourishing ministries.

So, Jesus says, take seeds for example. The Kingdom of God are like seeds because seeds are full of promise! As any good gardener knows, one can plant seeds carefully, water, and fertilize, but the key transformation happens mysteriously, underground, beyond our observations and control. The tiny dry seed goes beneath the soil, time passes without any observable changes. Even here the farmer has so little to do with making the seed grow that in the parable the gardener sleeps through the process of sprouting and maturation. The kingdom of God is like a sleeping gardener. And suddenly a small green plant emerges and the harvest is great.

Faith perceives the promise of the seed. Like the flourishing of the plant that sprouts from the seed, all creation flourishes by the power of our Creator God. The flourishing of the kingdom of God is God’s doing. Preachers can preach, teachers can teach, Christians of all sorts can provide good examples of faith and upright conduct. But conversion to Christian faith does not follow neat recipes. It happens, indeed, underground, in the heart, by the hand of God.

There is no way to proclaim the kingdom that ensures its fruitfulness. Teaching about the kingdom is necessary, but neither parables, straightforward explanations, miracles, nor compelling sermons can guarantee its reception.

There is promise in these parables—still the kingdom grows! Seemingly on its own the seed sprouts and bears fruit, though the implication of who gives the mysterious growth is clear. The kingdom will grow, but not by human design: not by the clearest communication, not by overwhelming proof, not by the greatest skill, and certainly not by force. You cannot legislate the Gospel. The promise of the harvest is in the seed itself. The Kingdom may come quietly, followed by the harvest (4:29). And when it does, it can be quite amazing and dramatic. A mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds in Palestine at the time, can produce a bush nine or ten feet high, a promise no farmer would have guessed by looking at the seed in his hand.

As Daniel said, speaking about being in exile

There was a tree at the center of the earth,

And its height was great.

The tree grew great and strong,

Its top reached to heaven,

And it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.

Its foliage was beautiful,

Its fruit abundant,

And it provided food for all.

The animals of the field found shade under it,

The birds of the air nested in its branches,

And from it all living beings were fed.

—(Dan. 4:10–12)

As Ezekiel said, speaking about being in exile

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will plant a tender sprig on the mountain height of Israel, that it may become a noble cedar.

Under it every kind of bird will live,

in the shade of its branches every winged creature will nest.

I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree;

 I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.

 I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.

(Ezek 17:22-24, excerpted)

Daniel and Ezekiel both promised Israel a towering cedar, visible to the ends of the earth, the kind of tree an empire plants. Jesus takes that same exile hope and gives his people a common, invasive shrub instead, the sort of thing that spreads whether you want it to or not. The mustard bush is the one plant every farmer works to keep out of the ground. The Kingdom is not like the cedar of prophecy but more like a weed. And yet this weed keeps the cedar’s promise. Birds still nest in its branches. Shelter still comes, not from size or strength, but from a growth nobody can stop.

Now the mustard plant is an annual plant. It needs planting each year anew. Its perennial promise depends on the life of the seed that is planted every year. When I use the phrase like lampstand ministries, or mustard-seed ministries, I mean a ministry defined by an ordinary act of love, planted again and again, small enough that most people never notice it, until someone finds shelter in it. So, even what others might consider small and insignificant, even unwanted, the Kingdom uses for God’s glory.

What does a lampstand ministry look like? What does a mustard-seed ministry actually look like? Here is one that sticks with me.

• I know a church where every child under two who enters the emergency room or is admitted to the hospital, for decades, received a “Care Bear” with a single tag that reads, “We Care!” —A Care Bear sewed together with hands of love. Dozens given away each week.
  • Now imagine Bobby with a broken leg carried by his anxious mother with tears into a frenzied, cold and bustling emergency room. The waiting room alone is frightening. So many other sick people with their coughs and groans.
  • Then the bear is given, taken to X-ray, taken to the room, taken home.
  • Imagine that bear, worn and torn, twenty years later sitting treasured on the shelf.
• I know a couple who send newspaper clippings in the mail to every child at church who appeared in the newspaper (honor roll, sports notes, orchestra recitals, engagement announcements).
• And a teacher who keeps $15 grocery cards in her desk for students who quietly say, “We don’t have any food at home.”
• And the barber who gives free haircuts to people preparing for a job interview.
• And the church that gives every grieving family a small tree to plant in memory of someone they have lost.

Mustard-seed ministries are small acts of love that become larger than the person who performs it could ever see.

I do not know your stories, your faithful examples, your mustard-seed ministries. But you do. We could stay here all afternoon telling those stories.

Parables create a new way of seeing that could not have been said directly, and resist “curriculum” solutions. Remember, from a tiny, unimpressive seed comes the greatest of all shrubs.

1. Because God is bringing the hidden kingdom to light like a lamp set on its stand, we are able to become attentive listeners by watching for the kingdom’s quiet presence in our ordinary days.
2. Because God gives the growth of the kingdom while we sleep and rise, we sow the word generously and trust God for the harvest we cannot produce.
3. Because God delights to raise the greatest of shrubs from the smallest of seeds, we are able to honor humble beginnings by tending the mustard-seed ministries no one else notices.

The Kingdom of God is destined for victory. The Kingdom of God is glorious and powerful, but it begins in weakness and, as Mark’s story will show, apparent defeat and death of its King and Savior. It is not a product of conquest; it is small and humble. Understanding the character of the kingdom is vital for recognizing the character of its king. Through the attentive eyes of faith, disciples see the greatness of the kingdom in its humble origins, for faith perceives the promise of the seed.

Do you have a mustard seed ministry that is acting as a lamp on a lampstand? Are you longing for your mustard seed’s cultivation and sprouting today? Do you have ears to hear? Are you subject to the Lord’s invitation to faith? Then plant one. This week. And see what God will do.