In the Unexpected

Read: Mark 4: 30-32

By all accounts, the mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds--its diameter is roughly .0075 of an inch. One would hardly expect much from such a tiny seed. Yet from this tiny seed blooms an enormous plant. So what is Jesus trying to tell us about the kingdom of God, as it is compared to a mustard seed? Let us consider that, when given room to grow, the mustard plant grows very quickly and overtakes many of the plants around it. So it is with the realm of God in us and in the world. When the realm of God is given the space to grown and take root, it has the power to crowd out anything that is not of it. It has the ability to spread quickly and become the dominant, even only identifiable, force in its area.

At the same time, Jesus alludes to the mustard plant as providing shelter for "the birds of the air". In the Old Testament, the branches of a tree were sometimes used to sybolize the protection a kingdom or realm afforded its citizens. Perhaps Jesus is speaking of the nurture aspect of God's kingdom and its welcoming of those who are in need and who are vulnerable to the world around them...those on the margins of the world--those who are weak, powerless, and are considered insignificant in the world.

It was persons such as these that Jesus chose to surround himself with. Numbered among Jesus' disciples were women, tax collectors, fishermen, and others who weren't very high up the social ladder. In his community of disciples, Jesus nurtured them and shared with them the secrets of God's realm. He shared with them that the Gospel was not limited to the grand Temple or was not the property of the wealthy and publicly "religious". Instead, the Gospel was in them, the insignificant and lowly. Instead, the Gospel was found in the simplicity and ordinariness of life. How remarkable that in just a short period of time, these mustard seed-like disciples had managed to sow the seeds of hope and salvation from Jerusalem all the way to Rome! The lesson in all of this...there is nothing to small and there is no person or thing too insignificant or unimportant that it does not bear within it a seed, a glimpse, of God's coming realm.
Surpise us today God! Surprise us in how you will show your realm to us. Surprise us in what will give us a glimpse of you. Open us to be aware of those surprises. In Christ's name, AMEN.