The excerpt below comes to us from Rachelle McCalla, author of the Bible study. Rachelle is a Presbyterian minister in Iowa, but the Bible study is intended for Christians of any denomination, living anywhere in the world. The entire Bible study is available for free from https://iowafaithandclimate.org/growing-faith/. Iowa Interfaith Power and Light, which funded and distributes the Bible study project, is a non-profit faith-based organization in Iowa that focuses on bringing people of faith together to care for the environment. Individuals and groups are encouraged to download the study and print as many copies of the materials as they need for their group members. The resource download also includes publicity materials to help groups advertise their Bible study to potential participants. Please help spread the word about this free resource.
One key intersection of science, technology, and our Presbyterian faith is caring for creation. Science and technology can help us take better care of the earth. Though it is an ancient book, the Bible can teach us a great deal about caring for the God’s creation.
Below, you’ll find an excerpt from the free downloadable Bible Study Growing Faith: What the Parables of the Bible Teach us About Caring for the Earth. The entire Bible study contains six lessons, along with discussion questions and project ideas for use with groups in your church or community. The six-week format is perfect for Lent, or a springtime study leading up to Earth Day. The lessons are intended to be accessible to a general audience, from older youth through every age of adults.
Each lesson in the Bible study focuses on a different parable from the Bible. Many of these parables involve nature, animals, and the earth. The parables teach us about living out our faith. Through the Bible study, participants can learn how to live out their faith specifically in ways that benefit the environment. Discussion materials with each lesson encourage participants to apply these lessons in ways that can have a positive impact on the ecosystems around them.
The Parable of the Mustard Seed
Jesus 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.”
Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”
With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. Mark 4:26-34 (NIV)1Scripture Quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Jesus taught with parables.
For those of us who seek to follow Jesus, it makes sense that we should study these parables if we’re going to understand what Jesus wanted to teach us.
What is a parable, anyway?
A parable is essentially a story—usually a pretty simple story—which is told to illustrate a point. Sometimes we confuse parables with analogies, allegories, and metaphors, all of which involve specific kinds of representation. In parables, some things can represent other things—for example, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed—but not everything in a parable necessarily represents something else. Sometimes the story just is what it is.
Jesus taught with parables.
According to Mark’s gospel, parables were Jesus’ favorite and more-or-less exclusive way of teaching. Yes, Jesus was a teacher, but it might be more accurate to say Jesus was a storyteller.
This Bible study, Growing Faith, focuses on parables. Not just Jesus’ parables, but all the parables of the Bible. The Old Testament is full of parables, proof that God was a storyteller even before he came to walk among us.
The Bible is full of parables, and Jesus taught using parables. Perhaps most interesting of all, as Jesus drew nearer to the cross—that is, as his earthly ministry progressed and Jesus set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem—Jesus’ teaching became even more story-filled.
Instead of doubling down on his teaching points and intensifying his talking-points, instead of yelling and pounding his fists and shouting to get his point across, Jesus almost seemed to relax into these stories—not high-stakes stories of intrigue and conflict, but mundane, commonplace stories about everyday life, all of which served to make Jesus’ point: this is what life is all about. A cup of cool water. Helping a stranger.
Making wine, lighting a lamp, planting a seed.
The kingdom of God, Jesus tells us, the kingdom of God is like this: a man scatters seed on the ground.
It was called broadcasting.
Broadcasting seed.
Literally, casting the seed on the ground, much like when we had some rainy days recently and I took my big bag of grass seed and a random old plastic cup and scooped up seed and tossed it all over in the bare patches, casting it broadly around.
I was broadcasting.
It’s where we get the terms for broadcast journalism and news broadcast. Because sharing news stories widely is a form of scattering seed—the seed of ideas—which is the same thing Jesus did when he told these parables.
Jesus said the kingdom of God is like this: a man broadcasts seed. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows.
When I planted grass seed recently, it took less than ten minutes all told, probably closer to five minutes!
I’ve watered those grass seeds a few times and the rest of the time God watered it. When I look out over my lawn, it gives me such joy to see what’s happening in my yard, right under my nose. Where there was once bare dirt, now there is a carpet of fuzzy baby grass that’s growing and getting thicker and stronger every day, and all I did was spend about five minutes broadcasting seed.
The kingdom of God is like this.
The kingdom of God is like broadcasting seed and then—whether you sleep or get up—the seed sprouts and grows. You don’t even have to get up. The seed grows even while we’re sleeping, even when we’re out of town, not looking, not worrying about it or even able to check on it—the seed sprouts and grows.
Sometimes we overcomplicate things.
Sometimes, maybe even most times, we think we’re supposed to do significant things. We think it’s about us and what we do.
What if it’s not about us, but about the grass, about the seed, about the growing that God does, rather than what we do?
Honestly, what could I do to make that grass grow better? Even if I tried doing something like extra fertilizer or checking on it more often, I’d be just as likely to trample it or hurt it as to help it.
The seed grows all on its own. All we do is broadcast it.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like this.”
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.”
Teeny tiny.
So small, if you drop it, you probably won’t ever find it again. But from that tiny seed grows a great big shrub, practically a tree, with birds that perch among its branches.
This is perhaps the heart of the lesson Jesus is trying to teach us here—that sometimes it is the smallest things that yield the biggest results.
How often do we refuse to do anything at all because we’re afraid it’s not big enough? There are seeds we could plant every single day—seeds of change, of growth, renewal, new life—seeds which are tiny all by themselves, but which have the potential to grow together and become an entire field or forest.
Planting seeds is an act of faith.
We can’t make the seeds grow, but we trust they will grow. Planting seeds is an act of hope. Some seeds show results in a single season. Corn! Pumpkins! Marigolds!
Other seeds can take a very, very, very long time to bear fruit.
Fruit trees like plums and cherries often take more than five years before they produce fruit. Pecan and other nut trees can take a decade or more from the time they sprout until you pick your first tasty pecans. And while the trusty olive trees mentioned so often in the Bible may produce a few olives in their younger years and a full harvest every few years during the decades that follow, it’s not until the trees are sixty to eighty years old that they produce significant, reliable yields each year.
We can’t make the seeds grow.
But we can plant them.
This Bible study is specifically about growing faith the way the Bible teaches us through the parables. There’s one other part of the subtitle that’s very important, though. The full title is, Growing Faith: What the Parables of the Bible Teach us About Caring for the Earth.
Why do we care about the Earth?
Lots of reasons! God made the Earth and entrusted it to our care (see Genesis chapters 1-3). God promises to renew the Earth at the end of time (see Revelation chapters 21 and 22). God may be going to renew the Earth, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to take care of it. If anything, it means we should take better care of the Earth because God has plans for it.
Finally, Jesus taught us how to be his followers by telling these stories, these parables, each of which highlights different aspects of caring for the Earth, as we’ll be discussing in each lesson in this Bible study.
The kingdom of God is like this
What do the parables of the growing seeds and mustard seed teach us about caring for the Earth? They teach us that small things get big. Actions that may seem inconsequential—like those five minutes I spent broadcasting grass seed in my yard—can have effects that last for years and years!
This lesson should strengthen our faith and give us hope.
So often when we consider what we can do to care for the Earth, it seems really small. What does my recycling matter when so many other households and corporations have so much more recycling to do? What does it matter if I put solar panels on my roof when there are so many other roofs in town that don’t have them?
It can begin to feel hopeless. It’s tempting to think that because we can’t do everything, there’s no point in doing anything.
This is precisely the attitude Jesus challenges in these parables.
If the farmer hadn’t broadcast the seed, would he ever reap a harvest?
Of course not! That’s completely obvious!
And yet, how often do we fall prey to defeatist thinking, convinced we will fail before we even start to try?
Yes, I am just one person.
But Jesus said, one person went out and broadcast seed.
The seeds were small.
And yet, the seeds were enough. They grew, night and day, the seeds grew to produce a harvest that was many times over what had been planted.
When we think about the lesson of the tiny mustard seed becoming a large shrub almost like a tree, we can remember that small things get big, and take hope knowing that even the smallest acts—tossing that bottle in the recycling instead of the trash, setting our thermostats on more energy efficient settings, even hanging a load of laundry out to dry instead of using a machine—all of these small things are like tiny seeds planted in the ground. They may be small, they may even seem to “get lost” among all the other things we and others do each day, but they matter in God’s sight and in God’s kingdom.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is like this!”
There’s another lesson in these parables, besides small things getting big, and that is: we don’t control the growth. God does.
When the farmer planted the seed, whether he slept or got up, the seed grew. We can’t make things grow. We can’t guarantee our efforts will be successful. I confess, I sometimes wonder if it matters that I bother to recycle. How do I know if the recycling company is being good stewards of the recyclables I haul out to them? What if they just turn around and bury it in the landfill with all the trash? Doubts creep in and cause me to wonder if my efforts mean anything.
In the parable that Jesus told about the seeds, the farmer broadcast the seed and then went to bed. We can’t be sure, but from the way Jesus tells the story, it sounds like the farmer slept peacefully. He wasn’t up at night wondering if the seed would sprout or worrying about germination rates or watering schedules. In fact, in Jesus’ day, God did most of the watering for the farmers—center pivot irrigation systems wouldn’t be invented for many more hundreds of years!
Who makes the seeds grow? Not the farmer. The farmer plants the seeds, but God makes them grow. In this parable, we who plant seeds are partners with God in bringing about the harvest.
This should be reassuring to all of us, especially when we feel frustrated or afraid of the state of the world. Yes, there is much work to be done. It can feel overwhelming. However, as Jesus reminds us in this parable, whether we sleep or get up, God is at work bringing growth and new life.
We don’t do it alone. God helps us! We just plant the seeds.
Questions to consider:
- When you think about caring for the Earth, what “seeds” would you like to plant? That is, what small steps can you take to be a better steward of God’s good creation? Are there things you are already doing? Is there more you would like to do?
- Share two (or more!) aspects of God’s kingdom that you thought about when reading this parable Jesus taught in Mark’s gospel. How might these relate to the idea of caring for the Earth?
- According to this parable, what is God’s kingdom like? When you think about earthly kingdoms and nations, what aspects of them are the same as those of God’s kingdom? What aspects are different?
- Jesus used parables and stories to convey the ideas he wanted to teach. What do you like best about parables? Do you ever disagree with the ways some people interpret parables? Do you agree with the interpretation of the parable of the seed presented here?
- What are your favorite kinds of seeds to plant? What feelings do you experience when planting seeds? Do you feel similar feelings when you do things to care for the Earth? How are these activities similar? How are they different?
