Just Some Stuff
So things have been wicked busy in a holy way lately. I've no time to blog and certainly haven't had much time to Twitter. I'm putting the finishing touches on the sermon I am preaching in Michigan on September 6th. Pray for this opportunity to serve these wonderful folks (this is an interview). I thought I'd just post a couple thoughts regarding this passage in Mark 4:1-20. Here's some (random) stuff from my manuscript:
So Jesus is able to get away from the crowds and speaks only to his disciples and the others in the messianic community. They ask him what he was talking about and he responds in a most peculiar way (vs. 11). Jesus admits his coded teachings to the “outsiders” however, those “inside” (i.e., his messianic community) are given the “secret” (musterion) or “hidden revelation” regarding the gospel of God’s reign.
God’s Kingdom initiation project in Jesus doesn’t come like people were 1) Hoping for, and 2) Expecting of him. Only some get it and others don’t. This is key to what Jesus means by telling this story. And the verse he quotes here is from Isaiah 6:9-10 which speaks of the hardness of Israel’s hearts towards the message of God’s restorative justice. Jesus is taking this prophetic remark in Isaiah and putting it up against what he is doing right now. Undoubtedly the disciples were curious as to why so many different people had so many different reactions to what Jesus was doing and what this Kingdom was all about. Jesus’ answer is this parable. The Kingdom comes like a farmer sowing seed.
Let’s revisit what a parable is and does. Parables function like codes. The codes, these political cartoons of sorts, are often taken from Jesus’ own (Jewish) biblical background. A sower sowing a seed isn’t simply a Galilean farming illustration. What Jesus is doing is explaining how God is sowing Israel again in her home land after 600 years of exile. It’s about God restoring the fruit of his people after the thorns and thistles have taken care of business for too long. Isaiah 40:8 reads,
“The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever.”
Since the beginning of time, God’s mission is to restore Eden to Earth and he does so by using his people. The problem however is that the vision of a first century Jew was altogether different from what Jesus was doing. In fact, it was politically (and apparently religiously) incorrect. People were expecting one final and great moment of renewal (the Day of the Lord) when God would restore Israel to her rightful place in Canaan and the nations would bow down to Yahweh. Of course Jesus was pushing a Kingdom Movement but it was not this catastrophic shift of sizable proportions. In fact, Jesus directly challenges this view head on by explaining that it is more like a farmer sowing a seed.
But how do we incarnate the Gospel? I think we have to do it fresh ways with fresh expressions of what it means to be followers of Jesus in the 21st Century. Sometimes it is going back to the basics before Jesus was at the center of the town square. Sometimes it is taking risks for the sake of the gospel. Sometimes we must recall what it means to suffer for the Kingdom of God. If we are to be disciples, we must take up our cross and be about Jesus and his mission. Sometimes though, it's not comfortable.
