Jesus teaches in parables – simple, yet intricate stories that explain complex realities with everyday items or experiences. He’s often describing the “Kingdom of God,” a world healed and guided by everything God intends for the creation and humanity: love, peace, justice, abundance, inclusion, hope, and new life. God is already moving us toward the Kingdom of God or God’s Reign, but it is not yet fully here.
One of the parables in this week’s gospel is about the tiny mustard seed that grows into a huge plant. Mustard would not be something Jesus’ hearers would typically plant in their gardens. It is a quick-growing, opportunistic weed that will take root wherever it gets a chance. It’s the kind of weed that will take over.
I love that this is the plant Jesus references in talking about God’s Reign. The example isn’t a plant growing in neat rows, or a delicate plant that needs careful tending or just the right kind of soil or light to grow. Nope. Jesus uses the example of a plant that will enthusiastically grow virtually anywhere. A plant that will start small, then spread and spread and spread. A weed that only needs a bit of dirt here or there to begin and then grows into a huge presence.
All around us are tiny seeds of the world as God intends it to be – little starts of the transformation God is in the midst of bringing. Like mustard, they may begin to grow unseen, yet these beginnings of a world of love, peace, justice, compassion, forgiveness, faithfulness, and inclusion grow quickly and spread. Like a weed, these tiny glimpses of God’s grace take root and grow out of control.
May our lives and our world be overrun with God’s love and compassion, peace and justice, compassion and forgiveness, faithfulness and inclusion, spreading like weeds. May the tiniest beginnings lead to great growth and then become an overwhelming presence of everything that God intends for the world.
Peace,