Pocket Full of Pebbles

I’ve been thinking a lot about the parable of the mustard seed. In my small group on Tuesday morning we’ve been looking at the parables, trying to approach them in a fresh and childlike way, full of wondering and simplicity. It’s harder than you might imagine setting aside pre-conceived ideas about these very short stories that Jesus told. I’ve heard them so many times over the years that they barely penetrate my curiosity anymore. But in taking another look at them I’ve discovered they are much like a pebble you pick up on the beach. They slip easily into your pocket and as you finger them over the course of a day, a week, the nuances start to appear.

In the case of the mustard seed story, I have revisited one of the most troubling aspects of this parable. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like the mustard seed, tiniest of all seeds, which grows into a tree in which the birds of the air take shelter. What is he talking about? We have mustard growing alongside the roadways here and it does NOT turn into a tree, ever. Hardly any bird is small enough to perch on its flimsy branches, let alone build its nest there. I began to wonder about whether they have some type of Mustard Tree in Israel that I just never heard of. Thanks to modern technology, answers to these kinds of questions are only a few clicks away. But no, they have the same mustard that we have. It sprouts up in the spring, grows into a small bush and then dies off in the winter. Not really anything like the Kingdom of God. So I have rolled this stone of a story over and over, wondering what in fact Jesus was saying about the Kingdom of God. I think the answer I like the best is that the Kingdom is not what we expect it to be. We plant a small seed and expect a small result. We would be satisfied with a few bright flowers that last a season, but in fact the Kingdom is bigger than our imagining. It flourishes in mysterious ways and produces enduring results that take us by surprise.

I would like to encourage you to take a fresh approach as you read the scriptures. Maybe you would like to join me by reading one parable a week and letting the strange bits make you curious. Don’t look for ways to explain away the troublesome spots, but let them cause you to start wondering. And if you have any idea why the woman in the parable of the yeast used 60 pounds of flour, I’d love to hear what you think!