Kingdom of God

January 29, 2006

Mark 4:26-27

“The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows – how, he himself does not know.”

It’s interesting how Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a man who casts seed upon the soil. It’s not a place, or something to be grasped. It’s not even a noun! He likens it to an action, a verb. That is quite puzzling for me. But at the same time, it’s not really something that we do. We might initiate the process, but the process runs into autopilot and somehow, someway, it works itself out. Jesus says “how, he himself does not know”.

I wonder sometimes as I think about the hours and hours of work that I put into teaching my students, have I got it all wrong. I spend so much time planning, “solving” problems so that they go away, planning research and presentations to “further” our understanding of education, but do I have it all wrong? I can’t say I understand what “the kingdom of God” is, but it definitely seems like something I want to attain, something worth striving towards….and yet, all I need to do is to cast seed upon the “soil”. Presumably thinking about what “soil” actually means, but in the context of teaching my students, that changes a lot.

I had a really good talk Friday afternoon with my students. I had been really cranky in the morning. Everything was making me irritable. I snapped a couple of times at my students for not doing this or that. And then at lunch, I decided to go out, get some fresh air, and I felt better. Returning to my classroom, many of my students were sad and downtrodden. One was being taunted by a friend, another was being excluded, and another was tripped. What a mess! But somehow, because I came with such a different attitude, seeing the kids at that moment was no longer a “problem” to be solved to be rid of, but a moment of learning that we could share together. I shared with them the fact that I was cranky in the morning and apologized to them for it, and hoped that we could move on. We worked out their problems (which were largely accidents or misunderstandings) and talked about moving on, and not letting bad feelings or “bad seeds” fester in our souls…while instead letting the “good things” be planted in our hearts. We all felt better afterwards. That was the Kingdom of God that afternoon. J