With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?



With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? What parable will we use for it?
Go ahead, how might you describe the Kingdom of God? Would we even use that language?
Kingdom isn’t such a helpful phrase. Even the reign of God has its problems. Our experience of kingdom is celebrity monarchs who live far away and really don’t have a lot of power or influence. The queen does offer us a model of call, duty and honour – but is that the Kingdom of God?
In today’s gospel reading from Mark Jesus offers two pictures, which are at once familiar and comforting and a little bit disturbing.
The Kingdom of God is like someone who sows seeds and lets them grow. We are so used to mission being all about what we do. And yet in this story the important part is the harvest – the fruit, not the activity of the sower. That is almost incidental. The harvest is produced from the earth itself, not from the labour of the person who sowed. What fruit or harvest are we looking for? People coming to church? People growing in the fruits of the Spirit as Paul describes them in his letter to the Galatians? Something else?
Or, the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Really! A mustard seed? Surely the Kingdom of God is like something really impressive and powerful. Our reading from Samuel has something to say about things like that.
But Jesus is clear. The Kingdom of God is like this teeny little unimpressive seed. And mustard seeds are a nuisance. They are small. They grow where they will. They will not be tamed and kept in order. They sprout up in all sorts of places that defy our sense of order and mess up our pre planned notions. But it grows to provide shelter and a place to be. Fruit again.
The Kingdom of God defies our logic. It defies our sense of how things should be. It is not reliant on our activity. And it defies our understanding. Jesus told parables because these are all big ideas. The disciples needed extra tuition. And still they struggled. All of which gives me some hope as I try to get my head around what Jesus on trying to say and as I try to pay attention to the ways I experience this Kingdom.
So… with what can we compare the Kingdom of God? What parable will we use for it?


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