Seeds
If the tree had to bring forth its own fruit, without any efforts from the man who tends it, then the Sermon on the Mount would have been unnecessary, nor would any of Jesus’ moral teachings have any weight, for they all call his listeners to concrete action.
Jesus Christ: His Life and Teaching, Vol.4 - The Parables of Jesus, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev
I will cover two parables in this post, beginning here:
Mark 4: 26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
Metropolitan Hilarion offers that it could be that the man casting the seed is the Son of Man – the one who is throwing His seed into the heart of man to begin the process of growth and bringing forth good fruit. From here, it grows within.
Yet, in the parable, the man who cast the seed does not know how it grows and rises up. So, there must be something more or something else to this understanding.
The parable does not include a single indication that the plant needs to be cultivated.
Does this mean that man need not labor to acquire the fruits of the kingdom – that God has done all the work and expects nothing of him? That doesn’t seem to comport with much of Jesus’s other teaching, and His teaching must be taken as a whole.
One might respond to Metropolitan Hilarion’s comment in the opening quote by saying, “Well, the man cast the seed. That’s something.” Yes, it is. And if the man in the parable is one of the workers, and not the Lord Himself, then, yes, the man did something. This would fit the overall picture of Jesus’s teaching as well as the understanding of Metropolitan Hilarion.
Even though it is not clear in this specific parable, from the general context of Jesus’ preaching, it is evident that he does not expect mankind to passively imbibe his teaching, then wait for it to bring fruit within them automatically.
Metropolitan Hilarion sees “fruit” in Jesus’s teaching as always the result of man’s labors. I don’t see it quite this way. I see good fruit coming via some form of cooperation between God and man. Can God choose to grant to one tree good fruit and another bad fruit. Certainly. But I don’t really know what to do with this. There is no such thing as an arm chair Christian.
As there was no specific interpretation of this parable offered in Scripture, Metropolitan Hilarion offers a few possibilities:
With regard to Jesus’s ministry: the goal for which He came to earth will be fulfilled regardless of external circumstances or people’s cooperation / antagonism. With regard to the spread of the gospel through the preaching of the apostles, that this good news will spread no matter the antagonisms and hindrances placed before it.
Some ancient commentators see in this parable the gradual development (shall we say, revelation?) of divine truth within the history of mankind. Finally, it can be understood with reference to the spiritual life of each individual believer – that righteousness and virtue gradually bear fruit.
Whatever the view, there is a Christocentric focus: Jesus is speaking, in some manner or another, about His mission on earth. In the end, this parable concludes with the image of some form of reaping or harvesting, as do earlier parables in this same line.
To the second parable:
Matthew 13: 31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
The mustard seed is truly quite small – about one millimeter in diameter; in Palestine it can grow to three meters tall.
In Jesus’ preaching, the mustard seed is usually used as a synonym for something very small, insignificant, unnoticeable.
His preaching began small – He had a small group of followers, preaching and performing miracles for only about three years. After His death, there were only about one hundred twenty people left who considered themselves members of His community. A real mustard seed.
Then came Pentecost, and the exponential growth of the Church. By the fourth century, the followers numbered in the millions; in our time, at least nominally, two billion. The greatest among herbs.
Jesus knew of this trajectory, but those to whom He was speaking – how could they comprehend such a thing? How to explain this growth? Jesus offered an answer, in the gospel of John:
John 12: 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Yes, it is corn, not mustard. But the idea remains – the theme of death and resurrection, beginning with that of Jesus.
…in the general context of Jesus’ mission, the path between seed and fruit had to pass through death.
In the early Church, this image of the seed and death was closely associated with martyrdom – the blood of the martyrs being the seed of the Church, per Tertullian. St. Ambrose of Milan would note that the grain, when crushed, spreads everywhere.
This is the potential of the seed that falls on the good soil of the human heart. It brings a plant that produces one-hundred-fold. It cannot be choked even if tares are sown amongst it. It brings forth fruit in and of itself, because of the goodness in it – it is good seed.
This seed, which is externally insignificant and unobtrusive, grows into a great tree, in whose branches birds can find shelter.
Conclusion
Regarding the mustard seed and the plant that grows from it:
The Greek name of this plant (sinapi) comes from the word sinos (hurt,” or “lesion”) and opsis (“vision”). This combination is based on the fact that if mustard oil gets in the eyes, it causes tears.
A point not made directly by Metropolitan Hilarion, but which I think is an appropriate deduction given his development of this parable: The seed dies a martyr’s death. From this, we have life. But this death – whether of Jesus or any of the countless and often nameless martyrs that followed – does bring us to tears
"...the Sermon on the Mount would have been unnecessary, nor would any of Jesus’ moral teachings have any weight, for they all call his listeners to concrete action."
Addendum to my previous comment.
The heart of man can be compared to an orchard of apple trees, some of which bear good fruit, some bear bad fruit, some don't produce at all. The Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' moral teachings are directives to the orchardist to prune, cut back, graft in, water, and, in general, to tend his heart so as to make the entire realm more pure, pleasant to the eye, and producing good fruit.
It takes concrete action to keep an orchard. Without constant, concentrated effort, it rapidly reverts back to its "sinful" nature, wild, unkempt, and overgrown with branches which grow nothing but leaves.
So it is with man and the Sermon on the Mount is the pruning saw.
"If the tree had to bring forth its own fruit, without any efforts from the man who tends it,..."
This simply doesn't make sense. An apple tree does not need any input from a man to grow apples. It just does, according to its own kind--wild, wormy, small, and sour, although that is not always the case. Human effort and ingenuity takes what already is and makes it better: more tasty, more palatable, more appealing, more productive.
This is the way it has been from the very beginning. God told Adam and Eve to bear children and to work their habitat, dressing and keeping it. Even though the Garden of Eden was sinless, it was untended and wild--until man was brought into the picture. The introduction of sin did not eliminate that directive, but it did make it more difficult.
There is a story about a man who was working in his flower garden one day when the local preacher walked by and made a comment about how lovely it looked because God and the gardener had worked it over. The man simply said, "You should have seen what it looked like when God was doing it alone."
Does God need our help? Absolutely not! Does God give us the opportunity and the means to improve our environment? Absolutely, yes!