Continuing with the construction of a theological framework for evaluating the success of mission work, I turn to the parable following the one examined last post. Mark moves from the uncontrollable dynamics of kingdom growth to the mysterious humility of the kingdom. It is indeed mysterious, because what we would call “the kingdom of God,” when God is the almighty sovereign creator of the universe, ought to be fairly impressive as far as kingdoms go. Of course, Jesus being the king in question, we know that his entire story challenges such assumptions. This parable in particular, though, issues that challenge as directly as a parable can (which is still pretty indirectly!).
He also said, “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.” (Mark 3:30-32)
The parable pivots on the “yet.” It asks the hearer whether she can believe that the kingdom will eventually be revealed as far more than its beginnings suggest. The same point might be made with virtually any seed, of course, but the force of the parable lies in the comparative “smallest” and “largest.” The kingdom begins in a truly unimpressive way, and it will end in conversely extreme glory.
Undoubtedly, the implicit comparison is with other kingdoms. The parable is not about “church planting,” as though Jesus were saying, “Expect few conversions” or some such. Only to the extent that church planting is a part of the whole vision of kingdom sowing can we draw parallels there, and we have a broader scope in view for our work anyway. It does bring me to ask the question, though, as to what one should expect when sowing the seeds of the kingdom in Jesus’ way with church planting as a part of that.
I’ve no doubt that there will be resurrection moments, when the future manifests in the present. There will be times when society looks at the effect of faithful, sacrificial proclamation and says, “These people are turning the whole world upside down” (Acts 17:6). But the parable warns us against false expectations, for the resurrection lies beyond the cross. I will return to this point, but for now the issue is the parable’s challenge. Taking it together with the previous teaching, two important truths emerge to qualify our great expectations, as sowers, for God’s kingdom: we cannot make it grow, and it starts off in what we might call lowliness.
The problem, often, is that our egos get wrapped up in our ministry. We confuse what God will do with what we can do. Culture plays an important role, which I hope to examine in future posts, but another component is the sin that entangled the twelve throughout their time with Jesus–and the reason that he speaks these parables: pride and ambition. It is not just that they had a different kind of kingdom in mind; that is a historically accurate claim but a theologically insufficient explanation. It is that their desire for a different kind of kingdom was deeply rooted in their own hopes to sit at the right and left of the Messiah, to lord over others as Caesar’s minions were privileged to do, to call down fire on the unreceptive, and in general to avoid the death to self to which Jesus called them. As a one-sided reconstruction, that perhaps seems harsh, but it is certainly no harsher than the Gospels themselves.
This struggle is something that many of us would admit to on a personal level. We are, it seems, generally willing to talk about how our personal sin wars against the call to take up the cross and die to ourselves, imitate the sacrificial and servicial humility of Jesus, and live the kind of lives the Apostles eventually modeled. But it strikes me that there is a prevalent failure to apply the same honesty and critical self-evaluation to our corporate existence as church. Rather, we often reflexively strive for impressiveness, attractiveness, respectability, strength, influence, stability, comfort, and moderation as a social entity. And here’s the kicker: we do so without recognizing how our sinfulness distorts our expectations about what it is to be representatives of God’s kingdom and without letting teachings such as these parables cause recognition.
Justifications are easy to come by–making them all the more suspect. We can easily reason that if we are indeed representing God’s kingdom, then of course we do not want to be unimpressive, unattractive, unworthy of respect, and so forth. But that is not the point, just as Jesus’ teaching about the cross is not a call to suicidal behavior. The point, rather, is that the kingdom when it is really the kingdom is subject to the sin of those who perceive it, and there is nothing about the seed itself that ensures they will be able to see beyond its obvious and evident “smallness.” There will in fact be those–sometimes many at once–to whom it is quite attractive, respectable, and the rest. But that will not be the case because its representatives portray it as such in the other kingdoms’ terms.
How does this inform our evaluation of the work in Arequipa? I believe it establishes a baseline. It does not “lower the bar,” because the bar, as it were, is the full-grown mustard tree. We witness to the already-not-yet kingdom, the unseen glory of God. But the parable of the mustard seed demands that we recognize the seed we are planting as what it is–profoundly unimpressive by the world’s standards. We dare not attempt to manipulate the hearer’s perception of the message (which is the seed), and therefore we cannot expect the mustard seed to seem any bigger than it is. Some will recognize the tree in it; most will not. But whatever it will grow into, it is the smallest of seeds. As a baseline, that does not change the conversation completely, because there is much more to say, but it does shift its center.
How does this parable affect your theological framework for evaluating mission work?
