Mustard Seed Faith and Hope in Action
Mustard Seed Faith and Hope in Action
Mark 4:26-32
Nov. 2, 2025 Stewardship sermon
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
Jesus also said, “The reign of God is like this: a sower scatters seed on the ground, then goes to bed at night and gets up day after day. Through it all the seed sprouts and grows without the sower knowing how it happens. The soil produces a crop by itself – first the blade, then the ear and finally the ripe wheat. When the crop is ready, the sower wields the sickle, for the time is ripe for harvest.
Jesus went on to say, “What comparison can we use for the reign of God? What image will help to present it? It is like a mustard seed which people plant in the soil; it is the smallest of all the earth’s seeds, yet once it is sown, it springs up to become the largest of shrubs with branches big enough for the birds of the sky to build nests in its shade.”
In the first part of chapter 4 of Mark’s gospel, we read the parable of the Sower where a sower throws seeds on rocky ground, thorny ground, and good ground alike. It is a “How to” parable about how to be good sowers.
If we are the sowers, then we are supposed to share God’s Word, Holy Love, everywhere. Not only in what we think is the good soil. We aren’t supposed to withhold it from places where the rocks are too plentiful. We are supposed to throw it to the people we think are in the weeds and the thorns. We are supposed to just leave it on the path as we walk it, even if birds may come along behind us.
And then Jesus explains the parable. Jesus tells his disciples, “To you has been given the mystery of the reign of God”. Sometimes the translation changes the word to ‘secret’—the secret of the reign of God—but it is the same word as ‘mystery’. Mysterion
That word translation matters because a secret is something meant to be kept hidden. A mysterion, on the other hand, is not private knowledge. A mystery that is made clear through revelation. We will know it when we are open and paying attention. We don’t know when or how we may see more clearly. The reign of God is a mystery.
In today’s passage, Jesus says that the kin-dom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground. The farmer goes to bed. He wakes up. Days go on. And seeds sprout and grow. He does not know how. It’s a mystery. As I have shared with you, planting and keeping plants alive is truly a great mystery to me. I am not successful at growing plants or keeping them alive. This word is both good theology and completely accurate for me.
I found Marci Glass’ sermon on this passage very helpful. She writes - We can learn the biology and botany of what happens when a seed dies, and germinates in the ground, and sends up shoots. We may get it on that level. But sometimes we know the same seeds are planted and some grow and some don’t.
Let’s push the analogy. We don’t know why one person who hears an invitation to worship service or a spiritual retreat takes you up on it and the next person doesn’t.
We don’t know why some people hear the Word of Christ’s love, an invitation to this deeper life and are transformed by it and begin a spiritual exploration and relationship. And we don’t know why others, who hear the same Word and invitation and seem to remain unchanged.
Our task is to throw the seed of the mystery of the kin-dom of the Holy One around liberally, extravagantly even. Our task is not to hoard it and parcel it out in small doses to the people or places we think look like they have good potential to be good soil.
Jesus did not hoard the Word of Love. He threw those seeds everywhere. He never told the crowds to stop coming. He did not need crowds to feed his ego. He did know that in those crowds, somewhere, were people with ears to hear and hearts to open.
The Reign of God is mystery.
I think much of Christianity has taken the sowing the seeds part very seriously, but has gotten confused about the mystery part. God wants us to sow an abundance of the seeds - like the number of grapes in Napa Valley, that number of seeds. Keep scattering and planting.
When I look back at my life, at the people who sowed a seed of God’s love in my life, it was deep and broad. We can look back at the saints in our lives, on this All Saints, All Souls Sunday.
· It was the love of Sunday School teachers who were willing to listen to little girl who always asked questions.
· It was the people from church and community who cared for me and my family during difficult times.
· It was the people who saw my gifts and challenged me to be more.
· It was people in the churches I have served that continue to shape me.
Most of them, most of you, don’t know that what they said to me, or how they loved and cared for me, was a seed of the very word of God that would take root in my heart. They were just people who were always just throwing God’s love around, without worrying about running out of it, or worrying about whether or not the recipients were good soil for it, or worrying about making sure it took root. They just spread it around generously, abundantly.
It also has me wondering if we’re generous enough in the way we toss God’s love around during the course of our lives. Do we expect a quick response from the seeds we throw? Or are we willing to just share them and trust in the mystery of God’s kin-dom?
I can think of many examples of your abundant seed sowing. Our church is in the seed sowing, hope growing business. We invite people to explore their deepest questions about life, Sacred, Holy Love we call God, Jesus, Bible, meditation, spiritual practices, prayer, justice, peace, truth, life, death, the mystery, the thin veil. We invite people to develop friendships here. Engage hearts and minds. We serve the community through community partners, as a More Light Church, the unhoused, underserved children —it is all seed that is sown without expectation that those seeds need to belong to our garden. Ian Cummins talked about all the flowers in the garden of spiritual practices and paths. God, the Holy One, as the gardener. So we keep tending the garden here at 5th & E.
Think about the people 156 years ago who came together to start a Presbyterian church in San Rafael. Some of them had come here from Scotland. Others had been in the U.S for a generation or two from other countries. Could they have pictured the world we live in now? I am grateful our forebears threw those seeds so generously back then, so we could reap the harvest today of having such a beautiful worship space and experience God’s grace here.
What will be the harvest of the work we’re doing now?
It isn’t ours to say what the outcome will be. But we can rest in the mystery of God’s kin-dom. To be people who plan and are open to the mystery of growth of the seeds. We are called to share with such abundance that people 50 or 100 years from now might wonder about how we met the challenges of this time in our country and community.
In the verses before our passage, Jesus says, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. For to those who have, more will be given…”
What if this is about how we share God’s love and throw those seeds around? Our time, our skills, our interests, our spiritual practices, our compassion, our money.
If you take the seeds you’ve been given, and you hang on to them, waiting for the right situation so you can carefully plant them, all you’ll have is those few seeds.
But if you take them, and share them and plant them, you’ll end up with more to share, because they will grow, and they will produce a harvest.
Our stewardship theme this year is Hope in Action. And perhaps we know some of the reasons that First Presbyterian community is a vital congregation where hope lives. The staff with whom I get to work is really remarkable. The elders and deacons, you have elected to lead and care for the church are really faithful wonderful people who are trying to respond to God’s call here in this place. I could go on. We have lots of reasons why things are growing here.
But the truth is, it is also a mystery. There’s an element of how our community grows here that I can’t explain with budgets, org charts, and service projects.
Part of the way we sow these seeds together is our annual pledges. The Stewardship Committee are asking you to make a financial pledge for the coming year. If everyone in our church family were to contribute something and some who are able contribute a bit more toward the budget, we’d have enough and a balanced budget. Jeffrey and I have talked about our pledge for the coming year and increasing it from last year.
This passage described the kingdom of God as a mustard seed. Which wouldn’t have been a complimentary image to people in Jesus’ day, who if asked which plant represented God’s majesty and power, would have answered the cedars of Lebanon or something.
On one level, Mark is being challenging ideas of ultimate power. He describes God’s kingdom not like a sequoia or a coast redwood, growing majestically, tall, and powerful. God’s reign is not like the Roman Empire. The kin-dom of God is like …… a teeny tiny seed of a plant, a shrub that spreads and grows.
The point is that when we’re thinking about budgets, and growing community, and the kin-dom of God, we don’t have to have a redwood grove sized, big, strong faith to do what God is calling us to do. Because some days that feels a little out of our reach.
We just need a mustard seed sized amount of faith. Maybe that is all we have some days.
Most days I feel like the challenges of the world are big right now. And they can seem overwhelming to face. But maybe we have a mustard seed sized amount of hope and faith in us. And that’s what the kin-dom of God is like. As if a bunch of people faithfully gathered as God’s people, planting their little mustard seeds of faith, and God grew it into the greatest of shrubs so that birds could build nests in its branches and find shelter from the world.
If we each have just a mustard seed sized faith and love and shalom, we have enough to make a difference in God’s world.
Friends, to you has been given the mystery of the kin-dom of God. Let’s go and share it in absurdly generous ways and then see what God will do. For to those who have, more will be given. May it be so. Amen.
Resource
Rev. Marci Glass, “Mustard Seed Faith,” Oct. 16, 2023 https://marciglass.com/2023/10/16/mustard-seed-faith/