Faith of a Mustard Seed
31 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 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 nests in its branches." Matthew 13:31-32
Some of my favorite parables throughout the gospels are the ones where Jesus is speaking to us about growth; specifically, the idea that something big can emerge from something small.
The parable of the sower, for example, focused on the yield produced by the seed that fell on good soil. Then, in the parable of the growing seed, Jesus poses the scenario where a good seed of wheat is corrupted by weeds planted by the enemy to overtake all that is good.
In scripture, God doesn’t do us the favor of equating growth with good, as we often do. Instead, God gives us something much more valuable – truth. The truth is, bad things are just as likely to be nurtured and grow, the same as good things. It's a cautionary tale for us to be careful about what we plant, water and give room to grow -- no matter how small -- because we might be giving life to weeds that suck up all the oxygen in the soil.
Covid-19 is one of those tiny bad seeds that fell on good soil and grew like a weed sucking the air out of our lungs. Something so small you can’t see it with the naked eye, and yet it blossomed into a global pandemic that has killed millions, and affected millions more. Unfortunately, we've been watering it and nurturing it -- whether by our ignorance of the disease, or our failed leadership, or our inability to do better once we knew better and distance ourselves from one another or do something as simple as wear a mask.
Luckily, Jesus is in the business of uplift, so He doesn’t just leave us to struggle with hard truths, without also offering hope with a parable about the power of positive growth in the story of the mustard seed. Whereas weeds purposely and aggressively compete for the water, nutrients, and sunlight of your crop, the mustard tree provides protection for the birds of the air to come and make nests in its branches creating a sanctuary for new life.
That's how you know if what you're nurturing is good mustard seed, or if you’re wasting all your water on weeds. You know by whether the growth you're experiencing is life-giving or life-taking. The events of the last year have changed us all, for better and for worse. However, while the past has changed us, we cannot change the past. But, we can certainly use it to help inform our futures.
The same way in which scientists have used what we know about a virus we cannot see to figure a way out of this pandemic scientifically, people of faith must also use what we know about a God that we cannot see to figure a way out of this pandemic spiritually. She’s a BIG God that’s challenging us to have the faith of a mustard seed, because mustard seed faith that’s deeply rooted in good soil and showered with living water is the best faith for positive growth.
By Ulysses Burley III
Founder, UBtheCURE LLC
CRS Board Member