Godly Growing

Mark 4:26-32, Matthew 13:33-35

Welcome! Today we look at several parables of Jesus that relate to growing. The first parable comes from Mark chapter 4.

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” – Mark 4:26-29

Last summer we planted several tomato plants. There was one variety we planted last year but did not plant again this year. However, at the location where we grew this variety last year, a tomato plant is growing again. What happened? Well, we had at least one tomato that was touching the ground as it grew, and bugs got in it. What we think happened is that seeds from that one fruit found their way to the ground and this year began to grow. We did even less than what the man did in this parable, and the man didn’t do much, did he? 


He threw some seed on the ground. He didn’t dig holes for the seeds, he didn’t improve the soil with fertilizer or soil conditioner, he didn’t water it, etc. etc. And if you remember the old Frog and Toad story, neither did he put his head close to the ground and say, loudly, “Now seeds, start growing!” or read the seeds a story, or sing a song to the seeds, or play music for the seeds. He simply scattered them, and the seeds began to sprout and grow, all by themselves.

Now, what is this parable about? Well, the seed is the gospel, the news that although humanity is lost and fallen and separated from God, Christ came and bore our sins on the cross and suffered and died for us, the just for the unjust, and whoever believes on Him has eternal life, forgiveness in Him, rebirth in Him. The man scattering the seed on the ground is a believer who shares the gospel with others. Is this the only possible meaning of the parable? No, but it is almost certainly a primary meaning. The context if this parable is the parable of the sower with the seed scattered on the path, on the rocky places, among the thorns, and in the good soil. In verse 14, Jesus explains: The farmer sows the Word. And so this is the context for today’s parable as well.

In our parable today the seed sprouts and grows of its own accord, and the man doesn’t really understand how that really happens. So it is with the scattering of the gospel – people hear it and take it to heart and believe, and through the miracle of faith (which we don’t understand), their lives begin to exhibit true life, true growing, in Christ. Even the best scientists in the world really know very little about exactly how plants go from seed to living plant; they have identified lots of steps in what is a shockingly complex process, but do they fully understand it? No. And can they reproduce it? Absolutely not. Even simply taking a seed and grinding it to a pulp, so that all of its components are still there, you arrive at a state that, like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s men (scientists in this case) cannot put it back together again. Seeds are wonderful mysteries, testimonies of God’s creation, and so is the way that hearing the gospel leads to eternal life in Christ. How do you feel knowing that the message of Christ has a mysterious power, the power of life, in and of itself? I feel encouraged, amazed, and humbled.

We often think we need things we don’t really need. I remember reading about a person who became a concert pianist in China who, growing up, didn’t have a piano due to his family’s poverty. Instead of giving up, his parents made a paper “keyboard” for him, simply a drawing of the white and black keys, a drawing he could roll up and take with him wherever he went. Although the “keys” didn’t push down or make any sound, he “practiced” on this “keyboard” anyway, and despite not having a piano, he was able to become an outstanding pianist.

The same is true of the gospel. Give the person a Bible, and that is all he needs. A man with a Bible, and who studies it and practices what he reads is one who can become wiser than kings, wiser than a whole convention of scientists. And even a whole Bible is more than is necessary; there have been many accounts of those in prison who never even had a Bible; not a whole one anyway. At some prisons in countries where Christians were persecuted, all you might have is a few pages at a time. Yet even this is enough for those who believe to grow in faith and lead others to Christ. And even if a prisoner had nothing to read, a person in a neighboring cell reciting memory verses would be enough. Such is the mysterious power of the gospel.

The farmer in our parable does take one additional action – when the plant has grown to maturity, he harvests it. For many plants, including grains such as what is described in this parable, harvesting kills the plant. But in harvesting, we also procure more seed, which can be used to grow even more plants. In this I am reminded that Jesus tells us in Luke 9:23 to take up our crosses and follow Him. I am also reminded of what Jesus says in Mark 8:35: For whoever would save his life will lose it, be whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. And, again, I am reminded of what Jesus says in John 12:24: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Martyrs, those who die for their faith in Christ, often scatter the most seed of all. But too, even if we are not to be martyrs, as we die to selfish living and to other beliefs and practices that are opposed to God, we too sow seed.

Let’s continue in our passage.

Again He said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” – Mark 4:30-32

So I was surprised to learn that in atheist circles this passage is sometimes used as an example of supposed errors in the Bible. They say that the mustard seed is not the smallest seed on the planet; there are plenty that are much smaller; and certainly it is not the largest plant. (The NIV here uses garden plants, but some translations are not so specific.) Thus, they say, the Bible shouldn’t be trusted for anything else it says either.

Well, the problem with this is that is not what this passage really says. It doesn’t say the mustard seed is the smallest seed on the planet Earth; the word translated as earth here, gae, often simply means the arable land, or the ground. And the word translated as smallest here is mikros, from which we the prefix micro, which simply means small. Literally, this says that the mustard seed is little among all the various seeds of the ground. Similarly, the world translated as largest is mazon, a word related to mega, and the word translated as garden plants, lachanon, can also be translated as herbs or vegetables. The root word is lachaino which means to dig, so think of plants like garlic or carrots. So how big do the middle-eastern varieties of mustard plants grow? Often to  6 to 8 feet tall, with a spread of as much as 6 feet outward from the stem. So yes, it can provide shade for an awful lot of birds.

So what does the parable mean? Again, our context is the parable of the sower with the seed landing on the four types of soil. And this parable comes right after the one we have just discussed. So again, the seed is the gospel. And the point here is that the gospel, even in the hands of a humble few (the disciples), can grow into something unbelievably large (as it has and is continuing to do; there are believers now in every nation on Earth.)

What about the birds? I think they may simply be a literary device to point out just how big the tree is. There is Biblical precedence for this; one example is Ezekiel 17:23, which says, “On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it [a cedar sprig]; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches.” A second example is Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 4:10-12: He says, “I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land. Its height was enormous. The tree grew large and strong and its top touched the sky; it was visible to the ends of the earth. Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed.”

If there is a deeper meaning to the birds, it might refer back to the birds who stole the seed in the parable of the sower with seed landing on the four types of soil. If so, the birds might represent those opposed to the gospel, who yet “take shelter” from it. (I think of our atheists mentioned earlier.) Jesus might have been referring to the Pharisees; it certainly wouldn’t have been the only time he veiled his criticism of them.

Now, we know Jesus chose the mustard plant because it has such tiny seeds and yet it produces (in the variety common in the Middle East) such a large plant, but there are some other curious oddities about the mustard plant I want to relay to you.

It turns out that one variety of mustard plant, the Sahara mustard (which is one of the varieties that would have been found in the Middle East) is an invasive plant that is rapidly invading the southwest part of the country. From the website www.desertmuseum.org,

“Numerous Old World mustards have invaded North America. Of these Sahara mustard is the newest and by far the worst. It is a robust, fast-growing, drought-tolerant winter annual that prefers sandy soils. The basal rosette of divided hairy leaves can span three feet in wet years. The nearly leafless flowering stems branch profusely and grow to a height of about two feet, creating the appearance of a shrub from a distance. [These grow much bigger in Africa and the Middle East.] The small light yellow flowers are self-pollinating, so each of the thousands of them sets a seed pod. Large plants produce up to 16,000 seeds. Dried plants break off at the base and tumble like tumbleweed, spreading seeds rapidly across the landscape. When wet, the seeds are sticky with mucilage and can be transported long distances by animals and perhaps vehicles. This weed grows very fast, smothering native herbaceous plants and competing with shrubs for light and soil moisture. The famous wildflower fields of the sandy valleys of Lower Colorado River Valley Sonoran Desert scrub are in grave danger. In the winter-spring of 2005 about three-quarters of the most famous wildflower areas in California and Arizona were overrun with Sahara mustard. In wet years Sahara mustard covers the ground almost 100% and can carry fire when it dries. It is a frightful thought that hyper-arid desert, including sand dunes, can burn because of this weed. There have already been documented fires in the dunes west of Blythe, CA and the Pinta sands in the Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge. This latter site is a remote, uninhabited, and previously pristine habitat. The fuel source of the Pinta fire was not documented, but Sahara mustard has been seen in that area as extensive stands five feet tall and too dense to walk through. Most Sonoran Desert plants cannot tolerate fire; burned areas become wastelands of nearly pure exotic weeds.”

Now I feel bad for the fact that this weed is threatening pristine areas and rare species; don’t get me wrong. But as a picture of the spread of the gospel, this makes me excited. May it be so for the gospel! May the word of God spread like crazy! By the way, other websites point out two other interesting facts. First, the plant grows to seed bearing stage remarkably quickly. This is why it can proliferate in a desert that might only have a one-week rainy season. Second, although the Sahara mustard caries fire, it doesn’t normally get killed by it. After a fire, the Sahara mustard becomes more pervasive and entrenched than ever.

I am also struck that the description of the weed, how quickly it spreads, how hard it is to contain, and so on, sounds a lot to me what the atheists (and in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees) might say about Christianity. Even the fact that “persecuting” it (the fire) just makes it stronger! I think it is no accident or coincidence that the plant Jesus uses in this parable has all of these characteristics.

I think we tend to forget just how incredible/miraculous it is that Christianity spread at all. Starting from a dozen misfits, with dubious backgrounds and abundant signs of immaturity, it could only be the life-changing power of the gospel that went from these tiny seeds to the worldwide “tree” we have now. Books such as “What’s so Great About Christianity” by Dinesh D’Souza point out that the ideas and ideals of human dignity and equality, the systems of checks and balances and limited government, the predictability and order of the universe and the principles and methods of science, and caring for those who are unable to care for themselves all arise out of a worldview uniquely based on the tenets of Christianity.

But while looking at the forests, it is essential that we not take our eyes of the seed, the tiny mustard seed, for this is what changes us, the gospel, and through it, saving and transforming faith in Jesus Christ. I am reminded of I Peter 1:22-25, which says, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’” We are born again, of imperishable mustard seed.

And that seed grows within us; I am reminded of James 1:21 which says, “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” The seed is in you. It grows within you, if you humbly accept it, if you humble yourself before Christ.

One more “growing” passage is this: Paul writing, in I Cor. 3:6-9: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.” It is God that changes hearts, it is God that changes lives. We participate in the process, we have roles to play, but God makes things happen. We have no more ability to do that than the scientist does who tries to rebuild the smashed seed and make it bring life.

This invasive, pervasive behavior of mustard plants has of course been known for a long time. I really like this quote, from Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, published around 78 AD: “mustard… is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.”

May the same be said of us!

One last factoid on the mustard seed:  Mustard today is by far the largest spice by volume in world trade. May the same be said of us! May the gospel dominate the conversations, the religious thoughts, the hopes and dreams of the world!

I have one further parable to talk about today, this one from Matthew 13:

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” – Matthew 13:33

Now before we get into this parable, let me mention that the verses immediately preceding give again the parable of the mustard seed. So that parable and this one really do go together.

Now yeast is really interesting stuff. A quick chemistry lesson: Flour is made by milling grain (which is seed) such as wheat, barley, or rye. In crushing these grains, starch molecules and proteins are released. Starch molecules are made up of sugars; proteins are made up of many amino acids chained together. Two particular proteins, gliadin and glutenin, swell up like sponges when water is added and the dough is kneaded, and they form a tough elastic substance called gluten. Gluten is able to trap and hold air bubbles – which can lead to light, fluffy bread.

Where do we get air bubbles from? A leavening agent. One such agent is baking powder, a purely chemical agent. But another, more ancient approach (though still used today) is to use a living organism called yeast. (There are actually many kinds of yeast; one is used for bread.) Yeast are round tiny single-celled organisms only a few micrometers long; in contrast, a mustard seed is about 1 millimeter long, about 300 times longer than a yeast cell.  

When you combine yeast with flour and water, fermentation is occurring; enzymes from the yeast cells break down the starch molecules into sugars, and other enzymes from the yeast break down the sugars into carbon dioxide gas and ethanol. The carbon dioxide bubbles get trapped in the gluten. (Adding salt slows down additional enzymes that break down the proteins in gluten, and as a result, the gluten is more effective at trapping bubbles.)

That’s probably more than you wanted to know. But it is interesting to me that the Greek word for yeast is zyme (zoo-may), from which we get the word enzyme; zyme is in turn based on the word zeo which means to be hot or to be fervent or bubbling with activity (like boiling water or bubbling dough). An example where the latter word is used is Acts 18:24-25 which says “Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John.”

So in this short parable, this woman is making large amount of dough; she takes a small amount of yeast and works it through the dough. So what happens? It starts to bubble and rise and become, well, fervent, zeo. So this parable is kind of like the parable before it, the one about the mustard seed, in that a small, humble beginning can lead to something big and dramatic.

What is His message? It is that the kingdom of heaven, though it starts small with a few disciples, will change the world. And that is exactly what has happened and is continuing to happen.

Why do you think Jesus told His disciples these three parables? Except maybe for the first one (about the man scattering seed on the ground and it spouts and grows and produces a crop on its own) they aren’t exactly practical, are they? They don’t tell you what to do, other than to “scatter seed.”

I think He told them (and us) these parables to encourage them (and us). The kingdom of heaven is growing, and although we have a role to play, God has a dramatically larger role to play. It is His work, through the Spirit, behind the scenes, that is building the kingdom. Christ is the cornerstone; as Paul continues in Ephesians 2:20-21, “in Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.” God is not only the cornerstone, but He is the architect, and He is the master builder. We are His bricks, His stones.

God has made you just as you are so that you perfectly “fit” into His kingdom! He wants to use you and your unique background, skills, talents, and even weaknesses in ways that only He could foresee and design.  I want to finish today with two examples of this; these are both true accounts I have heard from other faculty in our Faculty Commons group on the Clemson campus.

One professor shared with me that He is a believer because His parents were strong Christian believers, and His father is a strong Christian believer because His grandfather came to Christ late in life. His grandfather was Jewish, and pretty hostile to Christianity. He ran a newspaper in the lower part of the state. The people who worked for him all wanted Saturday night off so they could go to church on Sunday morning, so he would typeset the Sunday himself late on Saturday night.  One of the things their Sunday paper had was a sermon by the famous preacher Billy Sunday; perhaps you learned about him in your US history classes. Well, week after week, month after month, year after year, he typeset Billy’s sermons, and when he became very ill, and close to death, he put his faith in Christ, as a result of Billy’s weekly messages.

Here is the second story. A female professor’s husband was quite good at baseball and even used to play minor league baseball. He had given it up, focusing on an entirely different career, being a good Christian family man, etc. He recently went on a mission trip to a small town in a Latin American/South American country I cannot remember. His group was there to build some kind of facility for a Christian ministry of some kind. The team was working with locals, who were paid to help, most of whom were not believers. At some point, one of the shovels broke, snapped off, and the man to whom this happened picked the handle up and started swinging it like he was pretending to play baseball. Well, his stance was really poor, and this professor’s husband couldn’t help but start to instruct him in how to have a proper stance. Through translators, the locals learned that not only could he play baseball, but that he could really play baseball. They begged him to go to the park with them so they could play. He told them there wasn’t time; they needed to use the daylight hours to build whatever structure they were building. Well, that night, unknown to the professor’s husband, the locals got together and agreed to work twice as hard as they had previously so that they could finish early and then go to the park and play baseball. And that is what they did. The husband and the rest of the team were amazed at the local’s sudden eagerness to work hard. In the early afternoon, one of the locals asked the team if they had done a full day’s work so far; they said yes. Then they sprung their real intention: Come to the park and play baseball with us! And so he did. It turns out the entire town came out. It became an awesome time of fellowship and friendship building. The missionary for whom they were working said that more progress was made that day in building friendships with the town than in the years before that he had been there. The husband came back on fire (fervent, bubbling, zeo) and is now looking to use his baseball past as a vehicle to building relationships in many more towns in countries where baseball is a huge thing.  

What about you? Believe the parables! God makes living things grow! God is working, and He desires to grow His kingdom through you. Submit to Him, offer yourself freshly to Him, and allow Him to use you as He sees fit. Ask Him to stir you up, to make you zeo for Him.