Week 5 Sunday

Planting Seeds

Today’s scripture selection: Matthew 11-13

Key verse: Matthew 13:31-32

Jesus came preaching and teaching – and some only complained.  He came healing – and some claimed he had his “nerve,” – doing work on the Sabbath.  He came warning of impending doom to those who just wouldn’t listen – and they said, “Isn’t that the carpenter’s boy?  Who does he think he is anyway?”  He drove spiritual evil from their midst – bringing deliverance to those held captive by it -and some just shrugged and said, “That’s a good trick.  What else can you do?”

So He told them a few stories.  He compared the kingdom of heaven to good seed sowed in weeds; to yeast mixed into dough.  And then he compared God’s kingdom to a tiny mustard seed – which though “it is the smallest of seeds, yet when it grows, it . . . becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

No doubt some just shook their heads and walked away; such strange stories from such an odd man.  They went back to business – going to work and play; raising their families; living and dying.  And they never got it.

But some did.  Some caught the vision of what he had to say.  Some looked not just at what he said about the kingdom heaven, but how he embodied it.  They took the preaching and teaching to heart and received the healing grace he offered.  And with faith – sometimes just a little bit of faith, no bigger than a tiny mustard seed – they grew – along with the kingdom unfolding all around them.

Its funny how two people can look at the same thing and hear the same thing – one finds nothing in it – the other finds nothing to compare to it.

Jesus and all the followers of the Way since he walked the earth have been about planting seed – the seeds of faith and truth and hope and life.  Sometimes the seeds have grown into something beautiful and sometimes not.  But what has mattered is that they were planted.

Prayer: Lord, I know I cannot control how the message I proclaim in your name is received, but give me the courage to proclaim it just the same.  Make me a planter of seeds – seeds of faith – in your holy name.  AMEN.