THE GROWING SEED

BIBLE REFERENCE BIBLE (cl)


Mark 4:26-29
The Kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed on the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he doesn't know how. For the earth bears fruit: first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, immediately he puts forth the sickle, because the harvest has come

No one knows how the Kingdom of God grows amongst us.
It is like a virus springing up where it is not expected
growing in the darkness, then appearing ripe and ready
for the sickle, the exploitation, of man.

We cast our bread on the waters;
do a good deed, a loving act, say a wise word,
but never see how that grows from our example.
It may be that others reap where we have sown.
Even if the seeds were sown deliberately
we may never see the result.

The church tends to think that the seed
grows only under its supervision,
within its doctrine and care.

Maybe that is a misunderstanding
that Jesus is trying to expose,
for today we can see that
the characteristics of God's Kingdom
are often more freely found in secular groups
than in the rule-bound church that bears Christ's name.