One day, the disciples asked Jesus, “Why do you use parables when you speak to the crowds?” And he replied, “Because they haven’t received the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but you have. Although they see, they don’t really see; and although they hear, they don’t really hear or understand. What Isaiah prophesied has become completely true for them,
You will hear, to be sure, but never understand; and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing. For this people’s senses have become calloused, and they’ve become hard of hearing, and they’ve shut their eyes so that they won’t see with their eyes or hear with their ears or understand with their minds, and change their hearts and lives that I may heal them.”[1]
Jesus tells parables to get through to people whose senses have become calloused. They may be people who have heard too many lies, too many promises that evaporated into thin air, too many speeches that only add heat and little light. They may be people who have seen too much of the heart-breaking stuff, and now their vision is clouded with the cataracts of cynicism and despair, and they can’t see the things that heal.
Jesus tells parables to make us wonder, to make us ponder things that are worthy to receive not only our full attention, but the devotion of our lives. Jesus tells parables to heal our calloused senses so that we too might perceive the secrets of God’s reign.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 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 their nests in its branches.
Now you can call a mustard plant a shrub or a bush, but you wouldn’t call it a tree. It grows about five feet tall, maybe six in a good year, or even nine, but even at nine feet tall, mustard is still only a scrawny, twiggy thing. If you want a tree, you don’t start with mustard seed.
The prophet Ezekiel compared Assyria, Israel’s powerful neighbor to the north, to
a cedar of Lebanon, with fair branches and forest shade, and of great height, its top among the clouds. The waters nourished it, the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place it was planted, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field. So it towered high above all the trees ... All the birds of the air made their nests in its boughs; under its branches all the animals of the field gave birth to their young; and in its shade all great nations lived.[2]
In Israel’s imagination, big, towering trees represented the great empires of Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, and Rome, and in Jesus’ day, many hoped that God’s coming kingdom would be the mightiest, most magnificent tree of all: it would be the very tree of life, with the nations of the world finding peace and security in its shade, together with the birds of the air and the animals of the field.
When we hear the story of the mustard seed and the tree with birds nesting in its branches, we may notice at first the contrast of small beginnings and wondrous endings, but it is about more. Perhaps farmers in Jesus’ day actually did grow mustard to eat the greens or use the seeds as medicine. Perhaps they knew about mustard as a rotation crop that helps improve the soil. If so, they also knew they had to get it plowed under before the plants seeded—otherwise their fields would produce very little the following spring except a bumper crop of mustard. Mustard behaves like a weed—it’s invasive, fast-growing, drought-resistant, and impossible to control. It begins with a seed only slightly bigger than a pin head, and before you know it, it’s taken over your field and garden.
Jesus tells a parable with mustard in it. Yes, the mighty tree of God’s reign on earth begins with the tiniest of seeds, but this is about more than small things growing tall. Mustard is a necessary ingredient here, and there’s nothing mighty or majestic about mustard. It grows anywhere, not just on the heights of Lebanon or by the great rivers of Egypt or Babylon. It doesn’t just grow in the places where power tends to be at home, no, it grows like a weed wherever the tiny seeds get dropped. It is invasive, fast-growing, drought-resistant, impossible to control, and common as thistles.
I hear in this kingdom parable a powerful affirmation of ordinary things and people. The planting of the Lord, the oaks of righteousness don’t sprout from acorns, genetically engineered in an agro lab and pampered in beds of privilege in the greenhouses of power. No, the great tree of God’s reign on earth begins with ordinary seed, common as mustard and just as invasive. Ordinary people, inspired and reminded by Jesus to live as citizens of God’s reign, together transform the world until it shines with the glory of God in all things. Common people, committed to small acts of love and compassion, are the ones who continue to sow the tiny seeds. Every unsung moment of forgiveness a seed. Every word of encouragement a seed. Every small step of great courage a seed. God’s reign is like a weed that finds the tiniest crack in the concrete and it grows and nothing can stop it until the birds of the air make nests in its shade.
In the second parable, Jesus takes us from the field to the kitchen. “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
If you’ve never baked with yeast or sourdough, you need to try it. Popping a can of cinnamon rolls makes nice enough rolls in the morning, but it’s only a parable of convenience and sameness. To know leaven, you must smell it, watch it, better yet, touch it and work it. You know what I mean if you’ve got your hands in it, perhaps you’re among the many who have made their own sourdough starter from wild yeast during the pandemic.[3] But if you don’t have starter in your kitchen, yeast will do. All you need is flour, water, yeast, and a little salt. You make the dough and knead it and place it in a bowl. It looks OK, feels a little heavy, and it doesn’t smell much like anything. Now you cover the bowl with a dish towel, and then you go and take a nap or walk the dog. Just give it time.
An hour later you come back to the kitchen, and it smells lovely: fresh and tangy, like somebody squirted a little vinegar in the air. Then you notice the kitchen towel: it doesn’t just hang over the bowl, no, it rests on a perfectly rounded mound of dough that is light and springy, and touching it reminds me every time of touching baby skin.
The parable points to this beautiful process of slow, barely noticeable and powerful transformation, and it doesn’t begin in any of the great centers of power, it begins in a woman’s kitchen. She hides the leaven in three measures of flower — that’s about nine gallons — enough to make bread for the whole neighborhood. The kingdom is like that, says Jesus, and it’s like treasure hidden in a field — again, hidden, not seen with a quick, casual glance.
“There are people who stumble over the reign of God purely by chance,” writes Gerhard Lohfink. “They were preoccupied with something completely different, but then, one day, they are confronted with the treasure. Others, like the rich merchant, have sought and looked everywhere, and finally they find what they have long dreamed of.” Both finders in Jesus’ parables, as different as their paths have been, once they see, immediately jump into action. With great joy, they give what they have in order to acquire the thing found.
How do God’s purposes find fulfillment in the world? “Only through people and their freedom,” writes Lohfink.
It happens only through the fact that people are drawn and moved by that which they can desire with their whole hearts and with their whole might. But apparently it is only possible for them to desire in freedom what God also desires if they see, vividly, the beauty of God’s cause, so that they experience joy and even passionate desire for the thing that God wills to do in the world, and this passion for God and God’s cause is greater than all human self-centeredness.[4]
The most moving thing I heard on the radio this past week, was a recording of John Lewis’s acceptance speech at the National Book Awards in November 2016.[5] He and his two co-authors received the award in Young People’s literature for the third and final installment of the graphic memoir, March.
“This is unreal. This is unbelievable,” he said, and he talked about growing up in a very poor household in rural Alabama. Books were hard to come by.
“I had a wonderful teacher in elementary school who told me: ‘Read, my child, read’, and I tried to read everything. I love books,” said Lewis. “And I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, some of my brothers and sisters and cousins going down to the public library, trying to get library cards,” Lewis said, clutching his award. “And we were told that the library was for whites only and not for coloreds.”
“To come here, receive this award, this honor — it’s too much,” he said, his voice trembling.
It was a long and painful road he walked, and he walked it with immense courage and unwavering hope, encouraging countless others along the way. Clearly he had seen, vividly, the beauty God’s cause and, with passionate desire for the thing that God wills to do in the world, he gave his life to the cause that is us, all of us.
He had found the pearl of great price, the one thing worthy of giving his whole life to acquire it. And he’s still marching with us.
[1] Matthew 13:10-15 (CEB) quoting Isaiah 6:9
[2] See Ezekiel 31:2-9; see also Daniel 4:10-12
[3] The woman in Jesus’ story didn’t use rapid rise dry yeast, that wasn’t known until World War II when Fleischmann’s laboratories developed it for the U.S. military. See https://www.bakerybits.co.uk/resources/a-look-at-the-history-of-yeast/
[4] Gerhard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church? Toward a Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 47.
[5] https://youtu.be/uqmYNOPVyO4