Proper 6, Year B, Track 2
Ezekiel 17:22-24
Psalm 92:1-4, 11-14
2 Corinthians 5:6-17
Mark 4:26-34
"A couple years ago, I found myself suddenly in possession of a mature, potted wisteria plant that belonged to my mother. It had not been her intention to part with it at the time, but amidst a frenzied move to Texas, she had forgotten to take it with her and instead opted to leave it in my care. There was just one snag in that plan: at the time, I was living in a fourth-floor apartment with no outdoor space to speak of, and this plant needed to be outdoors to thrive. Ultimately it was decided that the plant would live at the home of a close friend with plenty of backyard to spare, and that is where it still lives today. I resolved that eventually I would get a cutting or a seed of that plant to grow one of my own once I had the space, and perhaps one I could send to my mother in Texas as well.
I have successfully grown plants from cuttings and seeds many times in the past, but as my fellow gardeners know, there are benefits and drawbacks to each method. Growing from seed is the best—and only—option for certain types of plants. Palms, for instance, cannot be grown from cuttings. Seeds also keep longer and are abundant. The challenge of growing from seed is that we don’t know what is going on below the surface before those green shoots emerge. When sowing outdoors they are at the mercy of temperature, weather, insects, animals, and so on. When propagating indoors they may still be at the mercy of mold or rot, and sometimes, despite your best attempts, the seed is just a dud that won’t grow at all. Finally, even should you successfully coax a new sprout from that seed, its mystery endures, because seeds are not identical copies of their mother plant. Like children, they may grow up to tower over their parents, or they may have unexpected flower colorations the way our hair and eyes might differ from our parents. In short, you never know for sure what you will end up with.
Cuttings, on the other hand, are a true copy of their plant of origin. You know exactly what you’re getting with a cutting. You can also often see how effectively they are growing by whether new leaves and roots begin to emerge. When they develop an independent vascular system, they are often much easier to acclimate and establish out in the garden if you choose to transplant them outside. But, as with seeds, many plants simply cannot grow successfully from cuttings. Many that do often require considerable micromanagement of their early care to succeed, and this sometimes requires an advanced level of expertise and experience on the part of the gardener. You know what you’re getting with a cutting, but it may take a lot of extra work to make it root successfully.
In the poetic prophecy of Ezekiel, we witness God taking a cutting from a mighty tree that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon sought to tear down earlier in the chapter. Nebuchadnezzar blinds the king of Israel and executes his sons, he tears down the walls of Jerusalem and loots and burns the Temple, he takes the people of Israel away from their home in chains to toil in slavery. But from this once mighty tree, Ezekiel tells Israel that God shall take a tender branch, a true copy, and plant it high in the mountains where Babylon cannot reach. He will plant it and nurture it until it becomes “a noble cedar” under which “every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind. I the Lord have spoken; I will accomplish it.” And truly, only the Lord can accomplish it, the restoration of a people from ruin to glory, from despair to joy, from death to life.
Jesus—never one to shy away from an agrarian metaphor—speaks of a different means of growth in the two parables in today’s Gospel. In the first, “Jesus said, ‘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.’” Now, from a scientific standpoint, the modern reader knows exactly how a seed grows. That is no great mystery to us. What we don’t know is if it will grow, and what, exactly, it will look like if it does. You also may note that the sower in this parable assumes a passive role once the seeds are in the ground. That’s not to suggest they have no concern about what becomes of the seed. Before sowing, any good farmer would have tilled and fertilized their earth to provide the best possible growing conditions. But the sowers cannot compel the growth of their seeds any more than they can compel the sun to rise.
The second parable is the Parable of the Mustard Seed, which is recounted in all three synoptic Gospels. It is a teaching we know well. From tiny things, like the mustard seed, great things can emerge. Again, we hear echoes of the mystery which takes place between seed and plant, and see the marvel that such a great and verdant thing can come from something so small. There’s one thing I like more about Mark’s account of this parable rather than the versions in Matthew and Luke, however. In Matthew, the mustard seed grows into a bush, and then into a great tree. In Luke, it skips being a bush altogether and becomes a great tree instead. In Mark, the mustard seed grows into a bush…and it stays a bush, and Jesus still admires what it becomes, because it is fruitful. We do not have to be a great tree towering over all those around us in order to be judged fruitful, we are simply expected to nourish and shelter those who take refuge in our branches.
When we consider the modest expectations of us laid out in these parables, why does it often feel like we’re being asked to raise up a mighty cedar instead? Perhaps one reason might be that we find ourselves too caught up with concerns about what the seed might be. Will it be exactly what we envision once it’s planted and starts growing? The answer, of course, is no. That doesn’t mean we’ve failed as sowers. We only fail as sowers when we fail to plant the seed.
When I was deciding the best course of action for propagating the wisteria plant, everything I read discouraged me. It turns out that it can take 15-20 years for wisteria to flower when it is grown from seed, and just as long if grown by cutting. So I decided it wasn’t worth the effort, because I wouldn’t get what I expected in a time frame suitable for me. Friends, don’t let the seeds which seem small or futile go unsown. The mystery of the seed is that we never know what marvelous thing may emerge, because what we sow, God raises up. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” Amen."