Mark 4: 26-29

²⁶ He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸ All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. ²⁹ As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Here we have a new parable which tells us what the kingdom of God is like. God’s kingdom will arrive when God takes control of this world when, as we say in the “Our Father”, “thy will” is “done on earth as it is in heaven”. There is nothing we can do to bring this about and that is what this parable tells us

The vision of farming here is absurd: the farmer plants the seed and then does nothing until the harvest. Obviously, no real farm would survive this way. Jesus is not giving us a treatise on agriculture but rather a picture of how God works in this world. The focus is on the seed which contains within itself the ability to grow. The farmer knows the seed will grow but neither causes it nor can he explain it. The development seems to happen automatically.

Jesus has proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God but his disciples must be wondering why it does not seem to be happening. Here, Jesus seems to tell them that it will happen in God’s good time. They can neither hinder it nor help it and must leave everything to God.

But, of course, the best way to interpret the Bible is through other passages of the Bible and in other places Jesus sends his followers out to preach the word. So, the message here is not what it may at first appear to be. God’s subjects do have a significant role in spreading the word and should do so.

Jesus’ point seems to be that we should not imagine that we can take over God’s work or that we can do everything for him. We cannot make God irrelevant through our actions and must be humble about our own role. It is his power, not ours, that will bring the kingdom into full existence. So we must proceed with our task with humility but we must also be confident that the harvest will come. God himself will produce it.