I was able to speak at Renovatus last week about Matthew 13. I had been looking forward to it for quite some time. I am only the primary speaker about once a month so I always anticipate and dread that day. In this instance I felt like I had something to teach, something God had been teaching me for some time that I greatly desired to share with the community. In the end I believe my presentation to be weak, but the message to have come through honestly enough (God has a way of doing that you know). I mostly spoke concerning the Mustard seed.
It was a common plant to Palestine, I imagine as Jesus sat in a boat on the edge of the Sea of Galilee he looked and saw such a plant growing on the shore and thus causing him to point and tell a story.
The message that we're often taught from his parable is: small seed, big plant=God can do great things in small packages. That is a good message. But it only scrapes the surface of what I've come to understand the average Jew (joe) would probably have understood. Let me unpack it a little bit...
The Black Mustard Plant was a feared plant by those who knew anything about gardening. It was a dangerous weed in those days (in fact, it is still quite dangerous today, considered a noxious weed by the USDA). The Mishnah (the Jewish oral tradition put on paper) actually forbade planting it in small gardens because of its rapid and overwhelming growth patterns. The Mustard plant grows so fast and easily it quickly takes over any other crop. It was a dreaded and terrible thing if a wheat farmer found a mustard plant growing in their field. It meant the potential destruction of their crop.
The mustard plant could grow anywhere. It would grow in the cracks of rocks, it was known to grow on the side of buildings, even to the point of splitting stones apart by its roots...all from such a tiny seed.
The Jewish people were waiting for a kingdom. But they waited for one that came with strength and power, one like their ancestor David. But, instead of talking about a kingdom represtend by a great tree where eagles nested and the whole world could see; Jesus spoke of a weedy kingdom where fowl (you know, the kinds that scarecrows were meant to keep out of gardens) could rest.
Nobody likes weeds. Weeds are plants growing in the wrong spots. If grass grows where it doesn't belong it is a weed. Weeds are a nuisance. Weeds get in the way.
Is that what the Jesus kingdom is supposed to be about? Intriguing...so what does that mean? To an audience who most likely knew all of this (being that it was their cultural reality), what were Jesus' words communicating?
My guess is that the kingdom is supposed to grow. It's supposed to be a miraculously growing movement of people. But it does not grow though external means of power, it does not grow through good looks or popularity, it does not grow through brute strength. Rather it is subtle, even subversive. It is a grassroots movement. It is weed-like. It does not bow to the culture of the world, a culture that tells you to love only those who deserve it and to buy lots of stuff before you die and that you're not worth it. Rather it loves people one at a time, its seeds fit in the small cracks that people leave available and then love until it overcomes and splits them wide open.
I won't say anymore.
Oh, and the best way to keep mustard from taking over is by segregating itself from the crops. If it stays by itself the rest of the garden will remain unchanged. It excites me that the common world view in Christianity is changing. We aren't supposed to be in this world to stay to ourselves, rather we're here as salt and light to wheat around us. I think that great things will be done in the name of Jesus in the next fifty years and I hope to be a part of it (I'm not implying that great things have not been done, rather that this possible shift will allow Christ followers to have a greater impact in the world around them).