The Amazing Mustard Seed

The 16^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 19, 2020. Matthew 13:24-43.  Theme: The Amazing Mustard Seed

Jesus gives us several parables in today’s gospel, each one saying something different about how we experience the Kingdom of God in everyday life. It can be like a field with people who are a mix of good and bad seed, with only God knowing which is which because he alone can read the human heart.  Or it can be like leaven, like yeast, that can elevate the ordinary routine of daily life into something extraordinary from the inside out when life is lived for God and in service to others.

But the parable that catches my attention today is that of the mustard seed.  I think what Jesus is saying is that even just a little faith, small as a mustard seed, contains within it the power to do the impossible.  This mustard-seed sized faith, planted in the hearts of those who trust in God and who believe in the cumulative power of small things, can enable the Kingdom of God to emerge from within us and confront the evil and injustice we see in the world. We have proof of this in the lives of some heroic Christians who have gone before us.

In 1948, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was just an ordinary nun like many others, teaching high school to wealthy girls in India. But every day she came face-to-face with the destitute poverty and desperate hunger among the poor outcasts in the streets.  Her mustard-seed sized faith that God could somehow use her to do something about it moved her to leave her comfortable convent and live among the poor. It didn’t seem like much at first. It was a simply a thing she could do to try and become closer to them to help them.

Many years later, after she was world famous and the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa was asked how it all started. She replied, “I never thought of doing anything big. One day, I just saw one poor abandoned dying man lying in the street and so I picked him up and brought him home.” Today, there are over 4,000 Missionaries of Charity Sisters and Brothers relieving the suffering of hundreds of thousands across the globe. All because the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows to become a large world-embracing bush.

In 1964, Rosa Parks, a devout Christian black woman in Montgomery, AL, was on a segregated bus-ride home after a long day at work. At one of the stops, 4 black passengers were told to give up their seats for on-boarding white passengers.  3 of them got up but Rosa stayed put. The mustard-seed sized Kingdom of God within her was enough to inform her that she had dignity just as much as anyone else and so she remained seated.  Rosa was arrested on the spot and also lost her job.

Once the word about Rosa’s actions got out to the public, this Kingdom of God mustard tree grew and began to spread its branches among the black population. They boycotted the local bus system for 381 consecutive days, bringing it to its financial knees. This ultimately resulted in the US Supreme Court ruling in favor of racial equality and jump-started the civil rights movement.  All because the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows to become a large world-embracing bush.

Their stories might make us ask ourselves: “What small mustard-seed is Jesus asking me to plant for the good of others?” Allow me to suggest a mustard seed that you can plant right where you live and work and socialize. The idea for it came to me a few weeks ago when I saw all the terrible anger, hatred, violence and destruction breaking out in cities across our nation.  I asked God what I might do to plant a mustard seed here in my limited life in Marin County.

And then the Peace Prayer of St. Francis came to mind. I am sure you know it, it begins, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…”  The conviction came to me then and there to make a commitment to recite it daily from the heart and put into practice what it says.  No use just saying it; the mustard seed of the Kingdom is in the living of it.  It’s simple and easy enough for anyone of any faith to do, though it’s so much easier to say than to live consistently!  It’s a wonderful summary of Kingdom-living, of Gospel-living. I like to call it living as a Peacebearer of St. Francis.

Now this commitment by one person to pray and live the Peace Prayer of St. Francis certainly doesn’t seem like something that can have an effect on the whole world.  But imagine if there were many Peacebearers and if each one did this wholeheartedly, just in their own little slice of life! Imagine the cumulative effect this could have! We may be tempted to think that what we are able to do is too little, too insignificant to make a difference. But remember that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows to become a large world-embracing bush!

Never forget that Mother Teresa did not have the slightest clue that picking up one dying man would result in an international movement of service to the poorest of the poor.  And Rosa Parks had absolutely no idea that her refusal to give up her seat on that segregated bus would become the catalyst for a worldwide racial equality movement.  They were, each one of them, simply acting upon their mustard-seed sized faith and doing what little thing they thought they could do, at that time and in that place.

And so, let’s each ask ourselves how Jesus might want to use us to plat mustard seeds of peace and unity in the midst of so much injustice and suffering. Trust him if he puts an idea into your heart and be willing to step out of your comfort zone because…it’s absolutely amazing what God can do even just through one person who decides to plant a tiny mustard seed of the Kingdom of God in the soil of everyday life.