Mark 4:26-34
The parable of the mustard seed. This has to be one of Jesus’ most familiar and well-known parables. What does it mean to you? What does it say to you about your own faith life?
As I consider this parable I am going to draw very heavily on a reflection I read recently by David Lose. (Posted here on Working Preacher.) He teaches preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.
But before we get to his thoughts, what does the parable of the mustard seed mean to you? What does it teach you?
I think the primary meaning I have long drawn from this parable is the understanding that the Kingdom of God is a wondrous and miraculous place. Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom. The Kingdom, even as we know it only partially in this life, is a wondrous and miraculous place. A place where something seemingly insignificant is transformed into glory.
The parable invites us to think about the mustard seed’s size, about how something very small becomes large. But Lose gives us another way to consider this parable.
The primary way I've heard the parable of the mustard seed interpreted and preached is as an allegory or fable. First the allegory: just like the mustard seed starts small and grows, so might your faith if you tend it. Second, the fable: sometimes very large things have small beginnings, so don't be discouraged if you exercise your faith in small ways, because God will use it to do great things….Hope. Seeing the kingdom of God as an invasive plant offers hope. The kingdom of God takes over, crowds out the kingdoms of this world. Once it takes root, there is no containing the Kingdom of God.
[Fables] and allegories are meant to teach, to instruct, and to edify. Parables, on the other hand, are meant to overturn, to deconstruct, to cause frustration and, for those who stay with them, transformation. (Trust me, no one has been transformed by a fable!)
So consider an alternative, even subversive interpretation. What if the key to reading the parable of the mustard seed were to understand what a peculiar seed it actually is? The things about mustard seeds, you see, is that while some varieties were used as spice and others medicinally, in general they were considered at the very least pesky and often somewhat dangerous. Why? Because wild mustard is incredibly hard to control, and once it takes root it can take over a whole planting area. That's why mustard would only occasionally be found in a garden in the ancient world; more likely you would look for it overtaking the side of an open hill or abandoned field.
So pick your favorite garden-variety (pun intended) weed -- crabgrass, cinquefoil, dandelion, wild onion -- that's pretty much what Jesus is comparing the kingdom of God to. Oh, and that part about the birds seeking refuge. Maybe it's meant as a comforting image -- birds finding shelter from the elements. Or maybe, given the unfavorable reference to birds in the previous parable about the sower -- eating the seed off the path -- it suggests that once mustard shrubs take root, all kinds of things happen including the sudden presence of "undesirables."
Looked at this way, Jesus' parable is a little darker, even ominous. As John Dominic Crossan puts it: The point, in other words, is not just that the mustard plant starts as a proverbially small seed and grows into a shrub of three or four feet, or even higher, it is that it tends to take over where it is not wanted, that it tends to get out of control, and that it tends to attract birds within cultivated areas where they are not particularly desired. And that, said Jesus, was what the Kingdom was like: not like the mighty cedar of Lebanon and not quite like a common weed, [more] like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties. Something you would want in only small and carefully controlled doses -- if you could control it (The Historical Jesus, pp. 278-279).
And I think that's the point: this kingdom Jesus proclaims isn't something we can control. And it's definitely not safe, not, that is, if we're even minimally satisfied with the way things are. Rather, the kingdom comes to overturn, to take over, to transform the kingdoms of this world.
But if you're not satisfied, if you can imagine something more than the status quo of scarcity and fear and limited justice and all the rest we're regularly offered, then maybe Jesus saying that God's kingdom is infiltrating the kingdom of the world offers a word of hope…
The Kingdom of God is a world where mercy, compassion, reconciliation, and inclusion guide and motivate people’s interactions. The Kingdom of God is a place of mercy, compassion, reconciliation and radical inclusion.
The kingdoms of this world are governed by the need to control, by self-interest. Peoples’ actions and interactions are motivated by dominance and fear.
The Kingdom of God is invading the kingdoms of this world. Look for it. Look for the Kingdom of God. In your daily lives, look for the invasive mustard plants of God’s kingdom crowding out the carefully managed and controlled “gardens” of this world.
Lose encourages us to actually document these Kingdom sightings. Collect photos or ideas of examples that you personally see or encounter where the Kingdom of God is taking over. Make it a family project. We’ll find some way to share and compile these examples.
There aren’t really any rules for this project except one. I’m not interested in where YOU think God SHOULD be working in the world. We’re looking for examples of where God IS working in the world. Where the hope of God’s kingdom is taking root in the world around us.
This about training our eyes to see God’s kingdom in the world around us. (It’s less about moments of personal grace… times when you know God with you in your life. Those are definitely worth noting, but that’s a different project.) So look for the invasion of the Kingdom of God. Places where mercy, compassion, reconciliation, inclusion are taking root and growing against all odds. And maybe as we discover and discuss the Kingdom in our midst, we’ll also discover ways that we can help… help the Kingdom of God grow.
