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.

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.

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