Scattering seed & asking better questions

[part of Susan’s reflection shared with The Well community during our gathering on 2.4.24]

Here is what the kingdom of God is like: a man who throws seeds onto the earth.  Day and night, as he works and as he sleeps, the seeds sprout and climb out into the light, even though he doesn’t understand how it works.  It’s as though the soil itself produced the grain somehow—from a sprouted stalk to ripened fruit.

– Mark 4:26-28, The Voice

I wish I could tell you I was savvy enough to come up with today’s text on my own. Instead, though, Mark 4 (a text about farming) was slated for today before I knew we would be having a conversation about partnering with Overalls Farm to share space. These strange little alignments have been happening a little more often lately.

Because everything is so condensed in the gospel of Mark, it’s hard to tell exactly how long this growing group of fishermen, tax collectors, crowds and critics had been following Jesus. By now though they are noticing something is quite different about this Rabbi. Unlike other rabbis, Rabbi Jesus came to them and invited them to join him. He also can’t seem to stay in one place very long. He is constantly on the move and he is also going about this kingdom-building business all wrong.

Jesus has been using the word “kingdom” from the beginning. That word may not be in our repertoire but it was very familiar to his friends. It conjured up images of buildings, of well-protected land, of armor, of wealth, of certainty and security.

Jesus is using “kingdom” language, but he is defying expectations of what “kingdom” looks like.

If you want to build a kingdom, you ought to be eating and drinking with the elites, not those deemed sinners. You ought to be rubbing elbows with the powerful, not ruffling their feathers. You ought to be playing by the rules, not challenging them. And for goodness sake, you want your reputation to be stellar - you don’t want to get yourself canceled for committing a faux pas.

Oh, Jesus, [we in the church have seemed to say for way too long] let us help you…you clearly are not good at this kingdom-building business. We can do it much better and so we went and built churches that often look like the very kingdoms Jesus was cultivating an alternative to.

One pastor [Jefff Woods] put it this way: “The church has sought to guide the spiritual lives of its members in very practical, reasonable ways. That sounds like a compliment. It’s not. Contrary to Western thought, spirituality is anything but reasonable and practical” (from The Shaping of Things to Come). Perhaps that is why it will be hard for us to get and why we will resist it getting into us.

Instead of reducing this kingdom life or faith to a formula that his new friends can follow, Jesus has started telling stories instead.

The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888.

It’s like a farmer, he will tell them, and then he will describe a farmer who scatters seed around with little care or caution about its placement. This is not how you farm if you want to feed your family or if you want to ensure there is a good harvest for your landowner. This kind of farming will put your life at risk, unless….surprise, surprise … somehow …. in a way you can’t explain … some of the scattered seed gives way to a crazy amount of crop.

Earlier, Jesus had just told them a story where the post-seed-scattering harvest ended up being so large that it would make it possible for the farmer to stop farming someone else’s land and to become a landowner himself.  This turns out to be the point of this kind of kingdom - it is not about control, it is about liberation. We might better call it “the Commons”.

You may have guessed by now that Jesus is not giving his followers or us a how-to manual for growing good crops. He’s offering an invitation instead: keep showing up, keep listening, keep paying attention, keep opening your hearts and minds and imaginations. Get ready to be surprised. Something will take root & sprout up.

How unsettling is that?! Are we really expected to entrust our future to something so mysterious, so subversive, so surprising and so seemingly foolish as this? Something that is guaranteed to get us into trouble? Something you may not see working until it has sprouted to the surface?

I really hate that.

I want risk-free and a guarantee. Yet, here is Jesus cultivating something that is not found in seeking security, but in walking toward what brings wholeness (which a friend in AA recently described as the best / most terrible journey you will begin).

As we continue to have conversations about our future, let’s make sure we are asking the right questions. Rather than will this make us successful(?) or will this give us certainty(?), let’s ask: how does this possibility align with who we are and what we are here to be and do together? Let’s ask: how does this possibility sound like a step into the surprising, just and generous kingdom Jesus kept pointing toward?