banhocheiroso

This week we have our Tom and his girlfriend Emily with us. The time is short, but we are making the most of it: Andew has taken his two nights at IBE as holiday, and we are being lazy and touristy. Please pray for a good time. There are photos from the week here.

As Emily does not speak Portuguese, Tom helped her on Sunday by typing the sermon into English. The result is not a perfect text for publication, but perhaps it is worth including on the Blog, to give a flavour of current ministry. Thanks Tom! On Sundays we are in Mark, having just got the parables, in chapter 4.

Mark 4:1-34

I want to start by speaking about disappointment. I was very pleased with what Marquito said earlier in leading the meeting because it’s exactly the way I want to deal with this passage. We all experience disappointment in one way or another. The circumstances of life aren’t what we wanted. Sometimes disappointment comes in a target that wasn’t reached; we wanted to do something, but the years go by, time goes by and the chance is gone. Or we start in a new direction and suddenly the dreams aren’t realised. I know that in terms of our conversations with each other, many of them are to do with disappointment; people who feel frustrated or disappointed. Frustrated because things aren’t turning out the way we’d like.

This is part of being human. We dream a lot and we lose out a lot. We always have dreams, expectations, but since the fall in Eden we have the curse of disappointment. Obviously, the biggest disappointment, is the end of life. Death comes to us all - life cannot deliver. However sweet your life may be, it has to come to an end.

But even before the end we are doomed to disappointment. The thorns and thistles and sweat and pain of a cursed world haunt us all our days. Nothing is easy, nothing lasts, nothing is perfect.

And that comes down to personal relationships too. Because of the sin in all of us, any relationship will always disappoint. We can’t find in any one person – boyfriend/spouse etc – everything we’d want to find.

What a positive start for a sermon! Very suitable for an Englishman this weekend – rugby, Formula 1. etc.

What does the Bible tell us though? Jesus is the son of God, who entered this world of disappointment. In a way, he also experienced disappointment: friends who let him down (as the three disciples did who couldn’t even back him once by praying in Gethsemane), rejection, mistrust and betrayal. He was even confronted by a type of fame that didn’t help in his ministry – as we’ve already seen in Mark. His fame grew but this fame got in the way of his ministry. He was beset in this sense by “disappointments.”

Finally, and most shockingly: Jesus was a disappointment. Jesus didn’t disappoint by sinning, but by the fact that he didn’t fulfil expectations and desires of the people around him. He disappointed them e.g. Chapter 1 when there was a crowd wanting to be healed, and the disciples were all very excited, he said ‘I came to preach the Word in other places.’ This clearly left the crowd disappointed. The perspectives of Jesus didn’t fit with the expectations of the people.

At the same time he disappointed the religious leaders – they were expecting a great Messiah, who would get rid of the Roman invaders from the country. He didn’t deliver. Even worse, he ended up having dinner with prostitutes, tax collectors and the worst kind of people. This disappointed ‘more qualified’ people as to his understanding of the word.

So Jesus disappointed. But we can say more: Jesus can disappoint us as readers of Mark. This is a shock, isn’t it? It seems almost heresy. But here we are in Chapter 4 and there’s already a problem. Why?

Because in Chapter 1 Jesus has authority which is absolute. He can speak the word, call someone, and in this way, penetrate the heart of a human being. He speaks, and they follow immediately! And we’ve already said: not everyone can do this. If you try it, you’ll have problems. Because we don’t have this authority, but Jesus does have this authority, as we see in Chapter 1. He speaks and lives are transformed. So for me the big question at the end of Chapter 3, when even his own family are saying he’s crazy, and the religious leaders are saying he’s possessed, we have to ask “What’s going on?” How can this authoritative figure have so much opposition? Already in Chapter 3 there are people saying we want to kill him.

It’s into this disappointment that Jesus teaches the parables. I am trying in this introduction to put this all into context… because our method so often is to take the parables out of context. The correct context for them is rejection. And this is very important to remember. The response of Jesus to the rejection of the ‘experts’ is to teach the parables – to help us.

I want to give a general panorama of the parables in Mark. What Jesus gives us in this chapter is a vision of history – a vision of God’s plan in the sweep of history. The first parable is the key to understand all the others (v13). I thuink that we need to read Jesus' words in that way. What he’s saying isn’t ‘Well, this one’s easy, so if you can’t even get this one you won’t have a chance with the others!’ but ‘The others all have themes that relate back to this one’.

What Jesus says in the parable of the sower is something very natural and normal. It’s just what happens every time a sower does his work. Maybe it happened because a sower was working near Jesus at the time he was speaking – who knows. What’s the first thing that happens when a sower works? The birds come. And there’s always that part of the field which has been walked on, where the seed can’t get down into the soil, and a bird swoops and the seed’s gone. So it’s all pretty normal.

And there are other parts of the field which have rocks underneath, and the soil is warmer because of them, and the seed doesn’t get into the soil that far and so it grows very quickly - at least, a shoot appears above ground very fast. But this soil’s fatal, of course – more sun arrives and the plant has no way to get a root down to get water, so the plant which grew so quickly dies just as quickly.

The third thing – fields have ditches, for drainage or irrigation. Either way, they are always really green, lots of water, lots of good nutrients in the soil – so lots of things grow very well. So the seed grows well, but so do the weeds and the thorns. And they just out compete the seed, and finally choke the growth of the seed.

And the fourth thing – the end of the process of sowing – the harvest.

So Jesus is saying this is all pretty normal. This is something you see every year, this exact situation and sequence. There isn’t anything wrong with the sower or the seed in this because this happens every time. No problem with the seed or the sower – completely normal! No one says ‘Ahh.. must be a problem with the seed, or with the sower.’

The situation also shows there’s an implicit order in events. The first thing to happen is that the birds come. The second thing is that there is quick growth which dies away. The third thing is a stronger growth which is suffocated. And the fourth thing is the genuine crop. And Jesus applies all this to the preaching of the Word.

So what’s he saying? He’s saying we expect mixed results in the short term. Don’t worry, don’t go mad over the fact that ministry is being rejected, or that there is a mixed reaction. Don’t be shocked that there are people who love or hate what is being said. Jesus is saying that his target is a long-term one. The farmer who says ‘Oh, look! There are already some shoots in my field!’ and thinks that that is the end of the story has lost sight of the long-term goal. The mature farmer says ‘I’m waiting for the harvest.’

So Jesus says there will be mixed results. But he also says the long-term target is going to happen without doubt. It’s definite. In v8 30 times is the biggest harvest imaginable in Jesus’ day, so 60 or 100 times is a ridiculous number, way outside the imagination. And this is what he brings out in the other parables in the passage.

The arrival of the kingdom of God is INEVITABLE. V26-29. See what Jesus is emphasising? He’s speaking about the kingdom of God as something inevitable, almost automatic! As soon as the seed is in the ground, the process of the harvest is under way. The moment when someone sows the word, inevitably, the harvest will come. Doesn’t even matter what the sower does afterwards – he can be nervous or relaxed, but it’ll still happen.

Sometimes the church in its evangelism resorts to saying, in effect, ‘The Kingdom of God NEEDS YOU!’ Jesus is saying the opposite: the kingdom of God doesn’t need you. The kingdom will come, and Jesus will be the King of all things, as we’ve seen in Revelation 5. That will happen whether you get on board or not.

Ironically, that is the real argument for getting on board. Not because the kingdom NEEDS you, but because it WILL come. Who wants to come to that great day as an outsider, acknowledging Jesus by compulsion, and not with joy?

The kingdom also is coming in glory. The last parable says this. V30 – mustard seed. Jesus says ‘don’t get scared because the kingdom looks small. It might look worthless, but inside the seed there is the biggest plant in the garden.’ The fact that the kingdom looks small at any moment says nothing about the long-term.

The long-term is guaranteed and glorious.

And see how this fits into Jesus’ life at that point. Just because he’s getting rejected by so many influential people doesn’t mean everything’s gone wrong. He says, “It is normal! It is natural! It was to be expected!”

What Jesus says here is a biblical vision. The girls have been studying Daniel, and have probably already noticed that this vision in the parables is totally at one with his vision. He speaks of a great kingdom that will rise during the Roman era, that will come (gradually but inexorably) to dominate the world, and to which ultimately every other kingdom must show allegiance and submission. So the kingdom of God of these parables is prophesied in the OT.

The kingdom has begun with the coming of Jesus - and yet is still to come. We speak about the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’. The kingdom is here, the kingdom is yet to come. And because of this, the world still disappoints us. Because we’re still not in the complete kingdom, and that’s why we wait eagerly for the finished work.

The kingdom may look small and weak to us. In fact - it often does. that is God's way. Sometimes it is like a grain of mustard. Look at the cross of Jesus. There is the ultimate expression of the mustard grain! All the plans, all the kingdom of God, diminished to one dead man on a cross – the hope of the world and the glory of God focussed down to and dependent on one dead body. That is crushing disappointment. But there is the seed. At exactly that moment, the seed of salvation and Kingdom glory is planted.

Whenever the church has gone after glory and power, it has lost the kingdom. And whenever the church has been content with the "grain of mustard seed" public image, it has been mighty. God doesn't work by the great structures and the power-plays - he works through the simplicity and apparent weakness of the word - and so brings his kingdom, his harvest, in.

I want to try and apply this to us. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear! Those who have ears to hear will invest in the kingdom of God. Those who think in terms of what they can get: career, person, car, house, etc, will end up disappointed. But those who put their trust Christ and in the coming kingdom of God will not be disappointed. Nothing can take it away from us.

The point for today is: Bury the disappointments of this life in the certainty that the kingdom to come is guaranteed and glorious. The hurts and pain, the missed chances and people who let us down. Our own self-hate and disillusion, Spend your time, effort and thought working for God in the future, and let God take care of your present. (Sometimes we say the opposite – worry about today, not about tomorrow, and that is Biblical, but actually there is no contradiction – we are to look for eternity.)

Look to the eternal goal. It is guaranteed, and glorious. It is the goal worth striving for.

So go for it! Because that is what Jesus did. He fixed his eyes on the great eternal glory, and he bore with patience the time for "mustard seeds." If that’s what he did for us, how much more should we strive to do the same for him.