It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.
While the mustard seed is not the smallest seed in all of botany, that is hardly Jesus’s point. Leveraging a metaphor of his day, Jesus uses the smallness of the mustard seed to cast light upon the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The mustard plants that grew beside the Sea of Galilee in the time of Jesus could reach as high as eight to twelve feet in height.* The contrast of such a small, functionless seed transforming into a large, shelter-providing plant spoke volumes as to the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Jesus quickly follows this parable with another, explaining that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a piece of last week’s dough hidden in a large quantity of flour until all of the flour was leaven and rising.*
Certainly each of these two parables demonstrate that in the Kingdom of Heaven the very smallest can be used for great impact, but two other characteristics of the Kingdom emerge as well.
First, we must see that in the Kingdom of Heaven growth happens in obscurity. The seed is hidden under ground, beyond of the view of others for much of its growth. Only the gardener knows that it’s there. Even for the early and mid stages of its life, the mustard plant seems to be nothing more than a small shrub or bush. Eventually, over time, the mustard plant passes its peers and reaches into the sky, creating a home for sparrows and the like.
The leaven does its work, hidden in the flour in some dark place. No one knows that the leaven is there but the hands that placed it. The slow movement of chemical reaction permeates the entire mass. Not much can be observed until the bread is baked and it comes out warm and larger than expected!
Second, the seed and the flour have no power to change themselves. This transformation from small to big, from powerless to powerful, from least to great, from invisible to visible, from potential to impact comes only by way of an act outside of itself. The seed requires water, sunlight, and good soil. The flour requires leaven, the right temperature, and undisturbed time.
God has a purpose for you in the Kingdom of Heaven. Much of the preparation looks like quiet growth in obscurity. The change that needs to happen in your life comes from being hidden in Jesus and hiding Jesus inside of you. You cannot change yourself in the way that you need to be changed. The transformation that God wants to do in your life is so dramatic and radical that it moves beyond behavior and involves changing your very being.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to embrace the obscurity. Perhaps God wants you to lay down your efforts to earn your place in the Kingdom of Heaven by changing yourself. Maybe God would like you to take a step by allowing God to do His work in your life to change you at His pace rather than yours.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a step today… just one is fine.
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*Leon, Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew. Pillar New Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992), 351–353, and Keener, C. S., Matthew (Vol. 1, Mt 13:31–33) (InterVarsity Press, 1997).