He Does Not Know How
“He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain, first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.””
— Mark 4:26-29 (NIV)
This is the only parable that appears in Mark and nowhere else. The farmer does two things in it: he scatters, and much later he reaps. Everything in between happens without him and against his understanding. Mark says plainly that he does not know how. The growth is real and it is not his doing.
Some good things take longer than anyone has patience for. A child learning something, a habit changing, a person coming back. If nothing looks different after a month, that is not proof that nothing is happening. The farmer in the parable also had a long stretch where the field looked like bare dirt.
Leave Something Alone
- 1Name one situation you have been checking on constantly.
- 2Decide not to touch it for a week, and tell God you are leaving it there.
God, I want to see progress and I want to see it now. There are things I keep digging up to check whether they are growing. Please give me the patience to leave them in the ground. And do the part I cannot do.
Something can be growing while I sleep.
Where else does this parable appear?
Nowhere. It is the one parable found only in Mark.
What does the farmer actually do?
He scatters the seed and later brings in the harvest. Everything between those two acts happens without him.
Why read this on 8 September?
In Poland today is the Nativity of Mary, called Our Lady of the Sowing. It falls when winter grain goes into the ground.