At the End of the Story There Is a Tree

Mark 4:26-34

I love gardening, but I’m not a master gardener. In fact, I’ve pretty much given up on zucchini (squash bugs infest it every year) and cucumbers (because cucumber beetles). The peonies get fungus I have to cut or spray off. The rose bushes attract Japanese beetles, for which I set traps. There’s only one species in my garden that grows without any help from me after first planting: garden mint—in all its varieties of pineapple, spearmint, chocolate—is so invasive I have to rip it out every few days to keep it from strangling the raspberry bushes. In fact, if I let it, garden mint will turn my backyard into a fluttering field of fragrant green. For something that grows so prolifically here in Iowa, I wish we’d figured out a way for it cure cancer.

Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to an invasive species, much like mint, but in his parable it’s mustard, which would, if undisturbed, reach a tree height of 9 feet and spread in a horizontal trajectory as well, reaching its limbs this way and that, easy access for birds of different feathers. The small, unassuming mustard seed can become a wild, unruly, expansive, and sheltering tree.

So, too, the Kingdom. The seed (the “word”)¹ is thrown upon good soil and the Kingdom manifests itself, twisting this way and that into a large, unwieldy canopy that cannot be bent or coerced back down into something smaller (like the seed) or more tidy (the seedling).

But to be honest, I often have my doubts about small seeds delivering promised fruit, let alone large shrubs. I bought several packets of seed this spring, sowed the seeds them in the ground. Weeks later, less than half have sprouted. So, too, this life of faith, which often feels like a constant sowing of small seeds—small acts of faith, small steps of obedience, small prayers, simple blessings. In any given moment, I search for sprouts and find few. The sprouts I find are, obviously, small.

In America, land of monster trucks, megachurches, and supersized drinks, we aren’t impressed by many small things (not counting gemstones, rare stamps, and currency). We go big or go home so soon when it comes to the life of faith. Do you, like me, long for big spiritual experiences and want to give up when the Bible study or the retreat or the conference or the book or the class or the evangelism or the ministry doesn’t result in mega-transformation and miraculous life change? Do you, like me, become discouraged when you consider the “smallness” of your faith, your faithful contributions, the small moments or small responses to your sharing the news of Christ with others? Perhaps you, like me, hope and pray for big, faith-inducing miracles in their lives, but instead see and experience mostly small wonders and opportunities.

Additionally, when we stop and take a snapshot of our world at any one moment in time, we can’t make out the big Kingdom-tree there either. Sometimes, it’s obscured by the disaster of Gaza, Russia and Ukraine, disease, hate, strife, crime. Do you wonder how in the world the Kingdom is at work and how the Kingdom-tree will ever take over the ransacked garden of this world? Where is God’s rule and reign?

The only way to answer this question is to look at our snapshot through a new frame, from the end of the biblical story, at which point, Scripture promises, all of creation will realize and behold the Kingdom of God on full display. There, in the last chapter of the last book, we see a mustard-seed-turned-tree-of-life, a tree of nourishment, sustenance, and healing in the new Jerusalem where the Lord dwells with his people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

“...on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”²

Friends, keep this end in view at all times. Sow your seeds and, sometimes, expect the world’s chaos to obscure their growth for a while and for longer whiles. God quietly does the mysterious, breathtaking work of renewal and redemption. How do we know? Because so many small wonders point to a final, encompassing Wonder. And because the tree at the end of Jesus’ parable is the tree of life that bookends the Story from Genesis to Revelation, from garden to city, beginning to end.

Thanks for reading. I’m a book-obsessed pastor, seminarian, podcaster, author, and life and leadership coach. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.

1. In Mark 4, Jesus unlocks the meaning of the seed in the parable of the sower. The seed is the “word.”

2. Rev 22