SOWING SEEDS WITH UNDERSTANDING AND PATIENCE
June 18th
Tera Dyck
Texts:
1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13
Mark 4:26-34
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh, our rock, and our redeemer.
Let me begin by telling you a reoccurring dream I have. I’m in exam time. I’ve studied SO hard for my exam, and I’m feeling quite good about it. In fact, I feel SO good about it that the day before the exam, I only study a couple of hours, and take the night off, watch a movie, and go to bed early. On the bus to school, I look over my notes quickly, and remind myself “TERA! You’ve studied SO hard for this! Don’t even worry about it! You know this stuff”—then I chant to myself “you know this stuff, you know this stuff” as my mantra—and it produces a calming effect. Perfect! That’s exactly what I need to feel—calm! Because “I know this stuff.” I approach the BIG EXAM ROOM where several exams are taking place at once. My hands start to shake—but I keep on reminding myself “you know this stuff, you know this stuff”. I take my seat—each seat is numbered, and has an exam booklet in front of it. I fill in my name, student number, and all other pertinent information. I give a “thumbs up” and a smile to my classmate beside me, and reassure them “Hey! We’ve studied so hard! We know this stuff!”. They give me a confident nod, and the professor says “BEGIN”. I anxiously flip open the first page. I don’t know it—but that’s not a problem! I’ll go to the next Math question, and sure enough, I know it! The rest of the exam follows in this way, and I walk out, praising myself “Tera! See! You really DID know this stuff!” The night follows is a celebration with all my friends, because we are have successfully finished our exams! And seemingly, my dream has a happy ending.
BUT THEN IT KEEPS ON GOING! The next day I get a personal call from my professor, letting me know that I have received a failing grade, and that I was one of the most unintelligent people he or she has ever met in his or her life! I proceed by saying—I thought I knew it all! —And then he or she says, “Oh—you thought you did well? Now you really are the MOST unintelligent person I’ve ever met in my life.” I wake up in a cold sweat with a very large knot in my stomach, because how my teacher views my intelligence level is so important to me—even the professors in my dreams have an effect on me!
Now, I realize that I am at a time in my life when grades, and teachers, and the whole learning process IS EVERYTHING…However, teachers, whether academic OR not, have SUCH an influence on anyone’s life. Remember back—whether it was just last Friday, or several years ago—what made a teacher great? What made a teacher not so great, or downright terrible?
There is little use in questioning the fact that Jesus was a teacher. Teacher OOZED from his every pore. He taught people through his miracles, his parables, his death and resurrection, and most importantly, his whole entire way of living life. God in the Old Testament, too, lead and guided the people of Israel, and taught them through the prophets and priests and judges and—the list goes on.
The scriptures for today are quite commonly known and used often. The Old Testament passage deals with the anointing of David, and the New Testament passage tell the parables of the growing seed and the mustard seed.
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 document the anointing of David to become the king of Israel. God tells Samuel to stop grieving the less than satisfactory reign of Saul, and go to Bethlehem to the house of Jesse, because there he will find a new leader. Samuel first finds the strongest, and tallest son, Eliab. Surely, he is to become King! But to everyone’s surprise, God rejects him. Next in line is Abinadab, but God also rejects him! And one by one, each of Jesse’s sons passes in front of Samuel, until the last son present, and still, God rejects them all. Confused, Samuel inquires if Jesse has any other sons—and indeed he does! David, the little shepherd boy is working in the field—and so he is called before Samuel. David is beautiful, but VERY young—too young, in fact, to be considered a candidate by his family; however, GOD CHOOSES David, the least of all the family of Jesse. And so, David is anointed to become king.
Mark 4:26-34 is an account of Jesus in the midst of teaching, drawing upon one of his most frequently used teaching tools: the parable. This section begins with a parable comparing the Kingdom of God to a growing seed. Verses 26-29 read: “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” The second parable, the widely known parable of the mustard seed, is as follows: “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 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.”
Coming from the farm, these parables really resonate with me—I really understand this transformation. Coming home at Christmas time, the farm is SO barren, so dead-like, that the homecoming in spring is always a bit of a surprise. It is amazing how big the trees get, and how beautiful the blossoms, like popcorn on their branches, become. Though my dad works very hard on the farm—it is not HIM who produces the blossoms and leaves—they seem to appear overnight sometimes, and surprise us in the morning. Spring happens SO suddenly on the farm—even to the people closest to the trees, who see them every day.
Even though I have read these passages many MANY times, something NEW struck me when I read them through for this sermon. When I read them as a child, I only saw the theme of small beginnings producing large or important outcomes. Even though the mustard seed is the SMALLEST of all seeds, it grows into one of the BIGGEST shrubs! Even though David was the SMALLEST of his brothers, he became a God loving, and important king!
However, what struck me most about these scriptures this time was an overwhelming sense of the desire of God, in the Teaching role, to understand God’s pupils. Samuel’s life was filled with sorrow over the anointing of Saul. Saul blatantly disobeyed God’s command, and proved to be a very self-serving king in the previous chapter. Even though God said all Amalekites must be killed and their possessions destroyed, Saul kept their best livestock, and their leader, thus showing himself to be a very selfish king. Samuel’s heart just BROKE—and God felt it. God felt Samuel’s pain, as I Samuel 15:35 states: “Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD was SORRY that he had made Saul King over Israel.”
God is Sorry? When I read that I was completely mystified. The God of the Old Testament is a very confusing facet of our multi-faceted God to me, in particular. The God of the Old Testament seems to carry titles like GOD THE WARRIOR! Or GOD THE HARSH AND UNSTOPPABLE! Or GOD THE UNYEILDING. However, one re-reading of this passage, and the view I held, namely that the God of the Old Testament was strictly a god of war, was shattered. One cannot completely dismiss God as a warrior—because that facet of God can still be found—however, through my re-reading, I realized that the God of the Old Testament to also has compassion.
What does it mean for God to be sorry? The root word “SORRY” in the Hebrew text is nacham (NAW-KHUM), which means to be sorry, be moved to pity, or to have compassion. God had compassion on the student Samuel—and moved by Samuel’s pain regarding Saul, God chooses another anointed one to fill Saul’s place.
In our New Testament scripture, the author of Mark emphasizes the fact that Jesus preaches so that all may hear. Mark 4:33 states: “It was with many such parables that Jesus kept speaking the word to them, suiting his instruction to their ability to hear it”. SUITING HIS INSTRUCTION TO THEIR ABILITY TO HEAR IT—what an amazing teaching strategy. The abilities of the pupils are so important to Jesus—he wants all to hear—that he will tailor his message—choose his words wisely—so that all may hear what Jesus is saying.
These two verses are connected in that they both demonstrate our God as an UNDERSTANDING TEACHER. God will meet us where we are at when something new must be learned, or done. These two passages are VERY important bookends, when reading these passages together. God understands our situation, and will tailor the lesson plan to incorporate our abilities and feelings.
And so, God goes on and teaches lessons in both cases. In the I Samuel passages, God chooses the new anointed king of Israel, the youngest—David, despite the strength and height of his older brothers, because the spark of God resided in DAVID. In the Mark passage, Jesus continues to teach parables, and perform miracles, and go around spreading the good news of the gospel.
However, Jesus’ parables highlight an important point. Seeds take a long time to grow. Mark 5:26 and 27 state: “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day.” Teachers scatter seed all around them—sowing the potential for people to grow. However, to see the full extent of growth, the teacher must be patient. Teachers, after seeding, must have patience as they watch and wait—even if the seeds lay dormant for a long time.
In the story of David—it was YEARS before his anointing came into fruition. David’s kingship was not an overnight occurrence—rather, it was a slow growth process, filled with many deterrents. However, our patient God was right in anointing David, for he became a God-loving, though easily distracted, king. Though David was not perfect, God had patience with him.
I remember once, as a little girl, taking a rosebud, and trying myself to make it grow into a flower. So, I loosened the petals by tugging at them, and I opened the flower up. It ended up not looking too good. It sort of resembled a rose, but not as beautiful as it potentially could be. I thought I was teaching the flower how to bloom. However, if I would have let it be, and not picked at it, it would have blossomed into a flower far more beautiful.
God, being a good teacher, strives to understand the people being taught. However, after the seeds of knowledge and experience are sown, patience must be exercised in order for the fullest outcome to occur.
However, a good teacher is only half the process. It is true that teachers in our lives can be very influential, but if we are not willing to be good students, the fantastic teaching is wasted on us. Not that I claim to be a FANTASTIC math tutor, or anything, but it is simply not my fault if one of my tutees fails his or her exam after never doing homework, and leaving all studying to the last night. There have to be good habits on BOTH sides to really receive the best education possible.
And so, we can see in the Mark passage, the other half of the teacher/student relationship. Mark 4:34 states: “He did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to disciples.” Parables have a revealing/concealing quality. While the parables open up the listening audience by using examples and settings and situations of the audiences’ lives, they also conceal by dealing with topics that everyone might not understand, like the kingdom of God, for example. Because Jesus’ disciples drew close to him, they not only HEARD the stories, but UNDERSTOOD them as well, as Jesus would explain the meaning behind the seemingly simple stories. Our story about Da
vid also exemplifies this necessity to draw close to our teacher, as Samuel was very close to God, and listened for divine instruction intently.
There are so many examples in our world where this perceptive and patient sowing occurs. Let me touch on one example, which occurred in the early eighties. As Pope John Paul II entered St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City on May 31st, 1981, an attempt was taken on his life by Mehmet Ali A ca. Agca shot at the Pope, and critically wounded him. Immediately siezed by people around him, Agca was quickly arrested, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The pope survived the assasination attempt. What happens next is an astounding act of sowing seeds—The Pope visits Agca in prison in 1983, dispite strong suggestions not to. He sows seeds of forgivness, and calls Agca his brother. As time went on, John Paul II and Agca grew to be very close friends—and the Pope was not only close with Agca himself, but also with Agca’s family. Though the simple act of forgivness, and visiting a man in prison, John Paul II, understanding that the world needs forgiveness, has sown a reminder in everyone to love those who harm you. These seeds have taken root in Agca’s family and countless others—and still we must be patient as we see these countless seeds grow, as they take root and flourish.
Let me reiterate: God, being a good teacher, strives to understand the people being taught. After the seeds of knowledge and experience are sown, patience must be exercised in order for the fullest outcome to occur. However, we, being pupils MUST take this patience seriously and draw near to God in order to gain the greatest potential through the learning process.
As we go from here, let us be reminded to draw close to our teacher, patiently tending the seeds we sow, and the seeds sown in us. For only with patience and understanding can a mustard seed grow and flourish into place of rest. Amen.