Who needs Mustard Seed?

A new angle on one of Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom of God

I am not a gardener and I fear that I lack the patience. I also know that I don’t have “green fingers” and that my few attempts at “creative gardening” never seem to work – the precious, vulnerable, tended things never seem to flourish, but the weeds take root again, and again, and again.

Some weeds are pernicious and promiscuous. The ubiquitous Ground Elder just spreads and spreads. Worse still, the infamous Japanese Knot Weed is almost impossible to eradicate without a flame thrower and a defoliant. It is not something you want in your garden.

Yet when Jesus describes the Kingdom of God in one of his shortest parables that is, amazingly, the image he evokes. The Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:30-32) sounds at first like a simple parable of small things growing into great things, and it is often read that way, but it is far more radical than that. We miss the point if we don't recognise that in the ancient world wild mustard seed was a fast growing, all encompassing weed, which you didn't want it in your kitchen garden because it takes over, it gets out of control, and grows and grows and grows, just like Ground Elder or Knot Weed .

Then the Parable makes disturbing reading and hearing, since it evokes the Kingdom and presence of God when it comes upon you and breaks into your life, not as something controlled like a traditional English Country Garden, but as something that takes over, and you cannot have just a little bit of it.

Most of us want to compartmentalise our lives and perhaps to have a spiritual corner, sweet and special and managed, but the Gospel that Jesus proclaims and embodies is not like that – it will take over my life and change it utterly. The poet TS Eliot spoke of “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything” – the Kingdom is like that.

Archbishop Rowan Williams says in one of his books on Spirituality ("The Wound of Knowledge") that throughout Christian history men and women have attempted to domesticate God, and cut him down to a manageable size, and that it is an attempt doomed always to fail.

Do I want to keep God in a spiritual world, an inner world, a Sunday world ? The God of Jesus breaks out, and the Gospel spreads into every part of my life.

Do I want to keep him out of my finances, my possessions ? The Gospel challenges me there and will not let me shut him up. All is held in stewardship from him and to be used justly and rightly. Do I want him to stay out of my relationships and my emotional life ? His Kingdom has claims there: gifts and capacities to be used rightly and not exploitatively. Do I want him to stay out of my politics and my public life ? There is no chance there either, for there is the challenge, the values and the standards of the Kingdom. Sometimes the very presence of God is like the mustard seed – then I will never be the same again.

Jesus’ Parables are often a shock, a challenge to all religious systems that try and fit God to our agenda, because he will not stay there. On one level it is bad news, for nothing will be the same again and we cannot stay in control. On another level it is very good news indeed, for the Gospel is about lives turned round, transformed, reordered, enveloped by the Kingdom of God and made into what they were intended to be. Those who have come to Christ will never be the same again, and I for one am looking forward to the Lord completing his work in me when everything is his, and no part of me is resistant to him and his good purposes. As the hymn has it: "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

And the Parable of the Mustard Seed goes on being startling when we concentrate on its images. The mustard seed grows uncontrollably, and then the birds of the air sit in its branches. Here is another image of God’s power breaking in and disturbing our nice safe systems, and agendas. Birds in those quantities are not welcome in the nice ordered garden, but the effect of the Kingdom will be like that – we will have to deal with visitors, guests, we never expected and would not have chosen. All are beckoned in to the Kingdom and sit under its shade – even those we would rather not have there for the Kingdom, and Church which is meant to image it, is inclusive and all may come in.

To embrace the Kingdom of God is to lose control – to embrace inclusivity – a community which lives the values of the Kingdom is one where all may find a home – not just our friends, our type, our sort of people, but all – including the most weak and marginal and despised and rejected.

And what Jesus proclaimed in his Parables he revealed in his ministry, in his scandalous, radical fellowship at table with those who others despised and rejected. They were beckoned and called into the Kingdom, and into the excessive, uncontrollable love of God.

When we re-read this Parable, like so many others, (*) it becomes much more radical and more dangerous than a nice easy, pretty story of growth. It tells us of the living God who will fill all things, whose will and purpose and grace will touch all things, and who will beckon all people into his fellowship. Disturbing stuff perhaps, and I for one, am still struggling with it, but it is also good news, exciting and liberating. Who said being a Christian was boring ?

Roger Clarke

July 2006

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

³⁰Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. ³²Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

(*) There has been some fascinating work done on the Parables of Jesus in the last ten years, mainly by Biblical Scholars in the USA . You can find much of it presented in a popular and accessible way in Bernard Scott's book: "Re-Imagine the World" (Polebridge Press, California, 2001) - I have a copy. Would anyone be interested in an extra Study Group on the Parables of Jesus in the Autumn ?