Have you ever tried to retell a funny story or joke, only to have it fall flat as a pancake the second time around? When you add two thousand years between the telling, this is especially likely to happen.
The parables of Jesus come from a distant time, an unfamiliar place, a completely different culture than the ones in which we are church planting. How are we to grasp what first century, predominately Jewish listeners likely did when Jesus told a parable saying,
“The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his garden; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32 Mark 4:30-32, Luke 13:18-19)
A mustard seed becoming a tree? Did Jesus fail botany or are we missing something: the joke?
Could Jesus be Joking?
Could Jesus be saying this: The mustard seed is very small. When the sower plants it, they expect little more than a shrub. But God can and will use it to do great things?
Our 21st century ears might miss the Old Testament passages to which Jesus alludes. Ezekiel 17, for instance, compares the Kingdom of God to the cutting from a cedar tree that God plants. The cutting grows into a huge tree that all the birds come and make nests in… sound familiar?
Jesus uses the same words but with a subtle or not so subtle twist… He starts with a mustard seed! A thousand of which are needed to fill a thimble! Where the kingdom of God is concerned, we can expect more than we can expect! When we invite the people on our street over for an open house, we get more than we expect!
One neighbor creates a contact list for the block. Another neighbor raises funds for a flower and fruit basket for the recent widow on the corner. Others neighbors stop to talk with one another. As Paul explains, when we sow grace and love with our prayers and actions, God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).
There’s more to this parable than Kingdom miracle growth. In Jesus’ day, mustard shrubs were weeds. Perhaps it should be translated “the kingdom of God is like dandelion seed, which, when someone took it and sowed it in their lawn….” Dandelions in the lawn! Need I say more?
A Jewish Mishnah forbids sowing mustard seeds in your garden because, according to it, “they are useless, annoying weeds.” Nonetheless, common people would grow mustard elsewhere because it was a cheap spice and had for medicinal uses. This analogy would have put off Jesus’ listeners, especially the righteous and well-to-do (you know, the ones with the annoyingly perfect front yards)! “How can an unclean thing, a forbidden weed, be like the kingdom of God?” Jesus had to have been smiling when he told this parable.
His chuckle begs the question: could it be that the kingdom of God has more to do with weeds in the back alley than manicured gardens?
Could it be that God passes by the powers and principalities, the authorities and kingdoms of this world and uses the rejected instead?
Could the kingdom of God be sown in all of the messes and earthiness of our lives? Could it be sown in all of my uncleanness, and grow into something good and beautiful and larger than life? Could the kingdom of God come to hearts and to homes? Could it come into neighborhoods and nations that haven’t got it all figured out, aren’t ‘manicured’, who seem to be more like dandelions than roses?
A Home for the Birds
There’s more. This tree, this Kingdom, Jesus says, is a home for the birds of the air. “Birds of the air” in the Old Testament is most often a reference to Gentiles or non-Jews. These outsiders were often portrayed in a negative way. But not by Jesus.
This parable describes the kingdom tree as a home and shelter for all the birds of the air, all the outsiders! All are welcomed, belong, are invited to flourish! There are no ‘non-native’ species in God’s kingdom.
We’re not done yet. There’s another Old Testament reference here that can’t be missed.
In Daniel 4, King Nebuchadnezzar, the great powerful ruler of Babylon’s massive empire, has a dream. which Daniel, God’s servant and prophet interprets. In the dream, the King and His Kingdom are portrayed as a great tree providing shelter for animals, and, you guessed it, birds of the air and this tree is cut down!
The dream depicts the tree of the kingdoms of this world being destroyed. In Ezekiel, an unfaithful vine. According to Psalm 75:10, God will take all power away from the wicked, but the power of good people will grow.
Who’s Good News?
Could Jesus be making a comparison here that tells us something more? The great and powerful of this world will be cut down. The smallest of seeds, the humble, the outcast, the sinner, the dandelions that we ignore or dismiss or devalue, will become great and produce the abundant fruit of the kingdom?
Let’s take that thought one step deeper. The language Jesus uses is the language that the Roman Empire of His day employed when referring to Caesar. According to Roman law, Julius Caesar was a god. His son was referred to as the son of god. The Roman empire was his kingdom.
According to this logic, the gospel was the good news of Caesar establishing peace and security for the world through his conquering rule. A similar proclamation is made throughout the world today, that peace and security are at the point of a gun? Consequently, to proclaim Jesus as “Lord” and “Son of God” was to contradict the Roman Emperor. In other accounts, we hear Jesus proclaiming “Shalom” in striking and direct challenge to Caesar’s “Pax.” To say that Jesus’ teachings were the “gospel” and that they, not Caesar’s imperial army, would bring peace, was a radical departure from the conventional wisdom and authority of that day and a challenge to it!
Might we be called to challenge the paradigms of our day too? What if we said no, we’re not going to leave it up to governments and social agencies. Let’s be citizens. Let’s be community. Let’s take responsibility for and care about those around us, our neighbors and neighborhoods.
Let’s recognize that God is amongst the ordinary everyday people that hang out on our streets. The Lord of the heavens and earth resides in our back alley. His Kingdom is not established by weapons, power, wealth, manipulation, command and control. His kingdom is established by feeding the hungry, providing shelter for those on the margins and by loving our neighbors—whether they look and smell like us or not. The kingdom of God is like a weed in the garden.
Sowing
The text presents us with a choice. Parables are never just given for information, they demand a response. They are not designed just to sharpen our thinking, but to shape our lives. So I wonder: do we put our trust in imperial trees, or in Jesus’ weed seed? Do we imagine the Kingdom in our religiously appointed pews and programs, rules, rituals and righteousness or in the every day, weedy stuff of our lives rooted in Christ?
Two thousand years ago an unlikely handful of weed seeds, filled with the Holy Spirit, spread through the mighty Roman Empire like dandelions! How might it grow, spread, flourish today?
Jesus said that The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed. Seeds left in the cupboard do nothing.
How are we sowing? Someone took and sowed in her field, her neighborhood. The old axiom applies, bloom where you’re planted, as you are, where you are.
May we take the Kingdom weed-seed we’ve been given, however small and insignificant we imagine it to be, and sow it in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
In so doing, may we trust and believe in, and dream of the day when, by the power of the Spirit, it grows up to become the greatest of all shrubs, putting forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its branches.
“Let’s Plant a V3 Church in my Neighborhood”
Share on Facebook!
Tweet This!
About the Author
Share this Post