The might works of God

Our readings this morning — the story of David and Bathsheba and the parables of the sower and the mustard seed — don’t seem to have a lot in common. It seems an unlikely pairing, but there is a connection there.

When we hear the name of David invoked in Scripture, it’s usually in a positive tone. Anointed of the Lord, slayer of Goliath, and chosen out of obscurity to become the king of Israel and the first in the Jewish royal line. “Son of David” was the great acknowledgement of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies, the great Messiah. Clearly David was held in very high esteem by the ancient Jews, and even by us today.

But that doesn’t really reconcile with the David we see this morning — a king overcome with lust, who forces a married woman into adultery. And then orchestrates her husband’s death to take her as his own. It’s hard to match that ugly picture with the exalted forebear of the Messiah who was to come.

Then we have the two Kingdom of God parables from Mark. The farmer sows the tiny seed into the earth, and simply waits for it to sprout, to leaf and flower, and ultimately to yield fruit for the harvest. Or the tiny mustard seed, so small as to be almost overlooked — but once planted, it springs forth and becomes a mighty plant capable of sheltering God’s creatures in its branches.

But it’s not the farmer who brings forth the fruits of the harvest. Or the tiny mustard seed which erupts spontaneously into a sheltering plant. Through the slow, continuous, and miraculous works of God, they are transformed from something insignificant and easily overlooked into something fruitful, bountiful, and life-giving. The parables remind us that God brings forth greatness from even the tiniest beginnings – the broken, the small, the overlooked. It’s true for plants and it’s true for people.

That’s why the story of David fits. It reminds us that David was a broken, weak, and sinful man — damaged goods, like most of us. But through the Holy Spirit alive in him, God brought forth from his line the Lord and Savior of all mankind. God has planted his seeds in each one of us, just as he did in David. And he’s calling us to patiently help them nurture, to grow, and to bring forth his glorious bounty into the world.