In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Here in our worship services at Elmwood, we follow a three year cycle of scripture readings that is called the Revised Common Lectionary. Beginning with the readings for Year A we work our way through to the end of year C and then the cycle begins again. Each Sunday a Gospel reading is provided by the lectionary drawn from either the Synoptic gospels-Matthew, Mark and Luke or the gospel of John.

Now reading the Gospels free from conventional opinion or church dogma leads us to some startling conclusions. Nowhere is this more obvious than when we turn to the subject of Jesus’ central message. Many people believe that the central message was primarily concerned with Jesus himself. Here, the Gospels say, is God in the flesh (incarnated) walking around with a motley crew of disciples proclaiming himself as the only way of salvation.

But if we look closely at the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke we find that is not the case at all. Beginning with the Gospel of Mark which is the earliest of the four gospels written around 64 C.E., we find Jesus came preaching a message concerning the Kingdom of God. “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” 1:15. It was only decades later that the messenger Jesus became the message itself.

The breaking in of the kingdom of God is Jesus’ central message and because the Kingdom is a spiritual reality it is in a deep sense a mystery beyond mere literal description. It is both outside of us and inside of us. So in order to speak of the Kingdom Jesus uses a rich series of parables in order to teach about it. Two of which we heard just a few moments ago-the parable of the growing seed and the parable of the mustard seed.

“He also said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like…
“ Again he said, ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like….

Mark speaks of the unfolding of the seed, the inner template that guides a tiny, tiny mustard seed to become an enormous plant. All of us know that much of the growth and change from seed to bush takes place sight unseen. It is an invisible process. We see only the product or the fruit.

During the time that the seed is below the soil, there is no way we can know whether it is alive or dead. We cannot know when it will emerge or what it will look like when it surfaces. We might even forget what it is that we have planted. “This is what the kingdom of God is like…”

Now to explore these two parables on a metaphorical level-more than literal, we all carry within us the seeds of greatness and the seeds of mediocrity. These are characteristics that lie below the soil of our humanity. Some seeds carry within them a genetic code that we are powerless to control.

Our appearance- height, colour of eyes, gender is all thought to be inherited. Our mental state also may be to certain degree inherited. I think of diseases like schizophrenia and other inherited mental illnesses. Some physical diseases like haemophilia are passed on genetically. Even our sexual orientation, heterosexual or homosexual, is now seen as part of the seeds with which we are born.

Other seeds are in our control to nurture and develop. Artistic gifts bear fruit with practice. Relationship skills or gifts can also flourish and bear fruit with practice.
Each of us possesses a variety of seeds that make up our very being, which set us apart from other individuals and make us unique.

And yet the hidden gardener has also implanted the mustard seed of the kingdom in all of us. The kingdom is in the world but it is also within you secretly growing from a tiny, tiny seed. It is hidden from the eyes of the world. One cannot look at your physical appearance and say there it is but God is at work secretly.
Its presence known only by the fruit that it bears-peace, love and compassion.

It was really no different with Jesus. A major part of Jesus’ own life was hidden. Even the years of his public ministry were invisible as far as most people were concerned. Sure the crowds and even his disciples sought to push him into the limelight for the sake of popularity and publicity. But he always seems to slip away to a lonely place or to another Galilean town.

The ancient pagan writer Celsus once wrote a book against the Christians. In it he argued that you would expect any man who had a divine spirit (kingdom) in him to be of distinguished appearance in some way. He should be tall, noble and with regular features. But he goes on to write that Jesus was not at all like that:
‘his body was as they say, little, ugly and undistinguished.” We might put this down as simply a piece of pagan propaganda. However, the Christian scholar Origen replying to Celsus, does not deny the charge.

God, the hidden gardener, prefers to work in secret through the little and undistinguished, even the scandalous (I think of the cross) and in God’s sight the things that really matter seldom take place in public. That is why these parables are for us today. Perhaps you have recently accomplished something great. Rejoice in God because the seed of the kingdom is bearing fruit.

But I know that many more of you are toiling in the shadows of a world marked by greed, competition, violence and indifference to suffering. And I know that if you continue to say yes to God, to nurture and cultivate the kingdom seeds within you,  you will bear fruit so often hidden from the eyes of the world. You will see that God is using you and other ordinary saints like yourselves to sustain our fragile world. When will the seeds of the kingdom come to full completion? Only God knows not even the son. Don’t ask, believe and bear the fruit of the kingdom in the ordinary moments of your lives.
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.