I’m not sure we should have favourite parables, but I find myself reflecting on, and speaking of, the parable of the growing seed in Mark 4 more than any other.

26 And Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

The reason I love this parable is because in many ways it gives us a blueprint for our work as a church. It tells us of our limitations and gives us our confidence.

In the previous parable of the sower, we’re told the seed is the word of God (v14). In the next parable,  we have the parable of the mustard seed on the certain growth of the kingdom.

I love the picture given here of the church. In v27,  the farmer is up night and day, going to sleep and rising early. Each day, there is the relentless work of sowing the seed. There is the slowness of the whole venture: you put the seed into the ground and at first nothing seems to be happening … but you have to persevere.

I have friends who are farmers. Their days are long, there is always more to do and there is a sense in which the job is never finished. Things often need redoing. There is a rhythm to their weeks and years. Often things happen which are out of their control. Holidays are difficult to manage because the work of the farm never stops. The farmer has to wait and trust. He needs to stick at it and persevere. It is relentless, back breaking, gut wrenching work. So much of the farmer’s life is monotonous.

Jesus tells us this seed that the farmer puts in the ground begins to sprout and grow. Then at the end of v27, we are given one of my favourite lines in all of the gospels: this hardworking farmer sees the growth, ‘and he knows not how’.

He has worked hard and he has begun to see growth, but he cannot tell you how it has happened. He does not understand it.

Verse 28 moves on to tell us about the nature of this growth. It is slow and it is gradual, ‘The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.’ The farmer doesn’t get up one morning and there is a full blown grain harvest. The slowness of growth would be frustrating at times. Different years, with different weather conditions, means growth is not uniform.

Then v29 teaches us the certainty of harvest. Despite the slowness and the gradual nature of the growth, there is a harvest at just the right time.

This parable is a beautiful picture of Christian work in the kingdom and in church life.

The sowing of the seed of God’s word happens both morning and evening, sleeping and rising, keeping on keeping on. The work is slow and monotonous. Christian ministry is all of that. We are utterly convinced that God works through his word and so we will keep on sowing. For some of us that has meant years, even decades, of faithfulness in various ministries keeping teaching God’s word. That is a beautiful thing. The temptation is to look for something else to build the church, to depend on our ingenuity and efforts. But the path of faithfulness is to keep teaching God’s word. 

The minister is to devote himself to ‘preach the word’ (2 Timothy 4:2) and there are only two seasons when he is to do that: ‘in season and out of season’. He is to keep on doing it and not give up. He is to be relentlessly sowing God’s word.

In the farmer’s life there are disappointments, and so it is the same in ministry. I heard of a minister who when once asked how he had lasted so long said, “I developed an infinite capacity for disappointment”. That is the nature of Christian ministry.

As well as the keeping on sowing, the first lesson we can learn from this clueless farmer is so important: ‘he knows not how’. We are living in an age of the minister being encouraged to be the CEO, to look at his systems and metrics, inputs and outputs, measuring growth. Some of this is of course right. As elders we are to manage the household of God. But fundamentally, when it comes to how people come to a saving faith in Christ, how they grow, how and why God blesses, ‘we know not how’. 

There are many books on church – Pure Church, Total church, Simple Church, Messy Church, Everyday church, Mission shaped church. If I was going to start a ministry, using Mark 4: 27 I’d call it ‘Clueless Church’ – the strapline would be ‘Levy: he knows now how’.

Then we need to remember the gradual nature of the work. Disciples are not made in a flash, and leaders are not trained instantly. Don’t expect the church to go from 0-60 quickly. It’s long, slow, hard work sowing the seed. Things happen slowly and gradually. The change of sanctification you see in your own life – which is so painfully slow – is what we see in the lives of others.

So the faithful farmer/ elder works and waits and trusts. The work of the gospel in a church’s life is often little by little. I feel like I constantly have to repent of the sin of impatience.

And finally, there is the certainty of harvest. There will be definite results, we just don’t know how much or how many, or what shape those results will take. But at the right time, in God’s economy, there will be a harvest. We labour in the light of a certain glorious harvest.

Don’t you just love the simplicity of it all: sow the word, work hard at it, keep sowing. This obviously includes the work of prayer. But go to sleep! God gives the growth, but you don’t know how he does it. Be sure of a gradual, but certain harvest. Keep going.

Yours cluelessly,