Mark 4:26-34
Sustain and Grow
Don’t trust anyone that promises success in five “easy” steps. Likely, it’s not only too good to be true; it’s a complete scam. Now, I’d like to say that such scams are out in the world only, but we find quite a few targeting the church as well. It’s no surprise that as evil and corrupt as our world is, they don’t have any reservations of abusing the sacred and holy for their own gain. For the premise of every scam is someone coming along and offering a product or service that will make your life better instantly. They’ll tend to say, “I can fix ‘XYZ” if you just follow my guidance or buy my product.” They’ll also say that they alone know the secret and that they don’t normally share it with anyone but will give it to you just because they’re feeling nice. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people or even pastors say that they can fix the church, but all you need to do is follow their simple process, or have the right programs, worship, or whatever. The reality is there’s no magic bullet to the church’s problems. There’s no one change that will instantly make the church stop shrinking or bleeding money. Now, not to sound like a hypocrite, that’s not to say there’s nothing we can do to help the church. Indeed, our Church partnership is founded on this premise that some things are more advantageous than others. However, the one thing we’ve always said with our partnership is, there’s no guarantee. We don’t know whether our partnership will succeed or fail in the long term. But we do know, or at least hope, that it will help.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus gives us two parables that relate for us the ways of the church and faith. The only thing we can trust to help the church is God’s word. God’s word alone is the key to a healthy and growing church. For so we shall learn:
TRUST THAT THE WORD ALONE IS SUFFICIENT TO SUSTAIN AND GROW THE CHURCH!
I.
This entire chapter of Mark is a compilation of parables. Parables as we know are one of the main ways Jesus taught the crowds, but in private he would explain his teachings to his disciples, as is mentioned at the end of our text. Yet, the problem we have is that not all of these teachings are recorded for us. We’re stuck with the parables alone for which the general sense is our best and only interpretation. Consider then our first parable, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how,” Mark 4:26-27. The man is often equated with Jesus who scatters the seed, and the seed is the word of God. But when it comes to the growth of the seed, the growth of the word, Jesus simply says “He knows not how.” Rather, the word grows “automatically” … by itself. For the automatic growth of the word brings us to the entire life of faith and the hope of the “harvest”. These things are intricately connected. One cannot have faith that doesn’t grow into maturity and eternity.
I want you to consider the implication of our lack of knowledge to how the word grows. Jesus isn’t telling us that it’s some secret for us to discover. Nor is Jesus telling us that its growth is outside of our care. For the farmer rises every day to tend to his crop just as the Christian should sleep and rise everyday to tend to faith. But it’s this automation of growth that is most significant. For it’s even to simply say, faith seeks out its own growth. True faith will always seek out that which grants it the “nutrients” and conditions it needs to grow. We ought not act like we know better than God, nor that these conditions are unknown to us. This is our sin that we commit so often. We act like we’re the masters of our own faith, that we know better how to grow faith or the church than God. Such has been our church’s conflict over what we termed the “worship wars” battling over worship styles, thinking one would “grow the church” more than another. So too, the church growth movement which equated church growth to a specific recipe of church programs. But after many decades of these running rampant, all we have to show for them are church divisions based on nothing but human ego.
II.
This is what should always confound us. This is the greatest mystery of the faith… how the church grows despite our worst attempts. And I do mean worst. Yes, the church is often looked at as the sum of its human parts. It’s looked at as feeble and frail and tiny on its own. But it defies every expectation we set. This is our second parable, as Jesus teaches, “It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade,” Mark 4:31-32. Many people look at the church like a grain of mustard seed… if you’ve never seen a mustard seed, look at your bulletin… it’s so small that you’d have to squint just to see it on your finger. And yet… once it is grown, it’s the largest of all garden plants. Jesus seems to be teaching us not to underestimate the church, his kingdom. It may look small, but it will grow larger than any other! Such was the journey of God’s people from the twelve apostles, to the hundred and twenty gathered on Pentecost, to thousands, millions, and now even billions of Christians that have walked this earth.
All this growth has just happened despite our best and even worst attempts. The church has grown despite it being persecuted throughout the world and from its inception until now. For we need no fancy program, no flashy music, no modern culture to make the church grow… all we need is Christ! For it’s been said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church… and it’s one martyr above all others… Jesus Christ. The Church grows only when we hold true to speaking and teaching about Jesus and his death upon the cross, his burial in the tomb, and his resurrection from the dead. It’s this word alone, the grace and mercy given to us through Jesus’ all atoning death that yields much increase in the church. It’s going out and telling people how much God loves them, that he would send his own beloved Son to die in your place so that you may have paradise! This is the mustard seed. It seems to many people to be such a small, minuscule, and insignificant proclamation… but when it has fully grown, it grants us the shade of salvation!
Let us trust not in the means of this world to increase the church, but in the very means that God has given… in Jesus’ word. For through this word of the cross, the church shall be sustained and given growth so that people from all nations may come into its shelter. In Jesus’ name! Amen!