Scattering Seed

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.
--Mark 4:26-27

Seeds that sprout and grow are as wondrous to me now as they were in kindergarten, when we planted marigold seeds in Dixie cups and left them on the basement classroom window-ledge. Sometime after we had forgotten they were there, Mrs. Snodgrass handed them down and there were little green plants! Look at that! I was so proud to take that little green plant home to my mother. Proud, not of what I had done or made, but proud of that little seed, that it had managed to rise up out of the dirt and seek the sunshine.
The kingdom of God is as if a child should bury a seed in a cup of dirt, and should come and go, day after day, to learn about letters and numbers and colors and shapes, and the seed should sprout and grow, she does not know how. But when it does, there is such joy.
Even now, whenever I plant a row of seed, I am amazed that something happens, amazed at the power contained in each little seed, bulb, corm or cutting. And I am amazed at how generous plants are. Since I started the parsonage perennial beds, several years ago, my garden has received seeds and bulbs and corms and shoots from other gardens, and in turn has produced an abundance to share with my neighbors. Iris, bleeding heart, peonies, day lilies and chrysanthemum I have received from you have been divided many times over, and you will find their descendants in gardens up and down the street.
The kingdom of God is as if a gardener should prepare the soil to receive the seeds and bulbs and shoots from other gardeners, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the garden should sprout and grow, she does not know how, but when it does, there is a giveaway.

Even more amazing to me is the knowledge, wisdom, and will contained in the garden. We lived in Vermont for a summer. Vermont is a state that was once more populous than it is now. The forest has reclaimed land that once had been cleared for grazing and farming, but, it is possible to make out the old dooryards, for that is where the lilacs grow. Lilacs planted by folks who moved on, a century-and-a-half ago.
The summer after Vermont we lived out west in the Sandhills. Our second summer there the hills were covered in wild sunflowers. Sunflowers as far as the eye could see. People our age had never seen such a thing, the old-timers had heard of such, from their parents, and some claimed they remembered one summer of sunflowers, way back. In Stories of the Souix, Mari Sandoz’s collection of tales that she heard as a child, there was mention of one summer back in the buffalo time before man came to earth, when the hills were covered with sunflowers, so that the buffalo wrapped flowers around their horns. Legendary sunflowers, they were. Who knows how many years the seeds lay dormant in the sand, to be awakened by just the right amount of rain and sun and wind.
The kingdom of God is as if the homesteader should plant a hedge, or the buffalo should scatter seed, and long after both have returned to the dust from which they came, the seed is still sprouting and growing, and children weave crowns of flowers for their hair.
The seeds of God’s mercy have been scattered, and have taken root and grown in you. You are God’s garden. Go to seed! Scatter that love and mercy and compassion generously, wastefully even—because nothing is ever really wasted. Seeds may lie dormant for ages, generations even, but seeds will sprout and grow, and so will the kingdom of God, the love of God, life in God, we do not need to know how.