“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field.”
I have seen mustard growing on the hills of southern California. Mustard grows everywhere. I saw it last week in Malibu. In spring and early summer, mustard flowers turn entire hillsides yellow.
Mustard is not native to California. But no one really took and intentionally sowed the seeds that grew into these plants. Mustard spreads easily and quickly. It chokes out native plants. It’s wild. It’s a nuisance. A weed.
More than once I’ve volunteered with various environmental groups to pull out mustard from wilderness areas so native plants have a chance to grow.
For someone from California who likes nature, a mustard seed is a strange thing to compare the kingdom of heaven to.
Of course, Jesus was talking about cultivated mustard plants… mustard plants that someone would grow in their garden. They’re not really all that different, though.
A mustard seed is small. Technically it’s not the smallest seed; some orchid seeds are so small that they are like dust; they float away on a breeze. But perhaps mustard seeds are the smallest seeds that a first century person would recognize as being a seed.
And, like I said, mustard seeds do grow easily. But they don’t grow into trees. They don’t get very big. The biggest types of mustard plants - I’ve never seen them get this big, I’ve only heard - do get woody and can grow higher than your head, but calling them a tree is quite generous.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed… Don’t you wonder if the people listening to Jesus describe the kingdom of heaven thought to themselves, “A mustard seed? Is that the best you could do?”
The cedar trees that grow in Lebanon - they have small seeds. Not as small as mustard seeds, but look at what magnificent trees they grow into! Wouldn’t that have made a better comparison? Better than… mustard?
A lot of preachers over the years have tried to figure out a way to make the mustard seed parable more than it is. They might clarify what Jesus meant, saying that mustard is the largest garden plant. They try to work their way around the disappointing truth, that mustard plants just really aren’t all that impressive.
Why would Jesus compare the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed?
Jesus tells another parable about the kingdom of heaven:
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
Yeast is another interesting metaphor. Amy Jill-Levine - who I’m happy to say is the featured speaker at next year’s Founder’s Day at Chapman - has written about biblical yeast metaphors.
She mentions another occasion in which Jesus used yeast as a metaphor. He told his disciples to “beware the yeast of the Pharisees.”
The apostle Paul also used yeast as a metaphor; to a group of Christians who tended to boast and brag, Paul said: “Be careful. Your boasting is not good. A little bit of boasting can destroy an entire community. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?”
Neither of these two comparisons refer to yeast positively. Yeast is negative. According to Amy Jill-Levine, biblical metaphors using yeast present it like the one bad apple that can spoil the whole bunch. In making bread, yeast obviously has a positive effect, but as a metaphor in the Bible, it’s most often used negatively, as a bad example.
But Jesus uses it to describe the kingdom of heaven.
I’m sure that those who were there and who heard Jesus describe the kingdom of heaven as yeast or as a mustard seed were not impressed. If someone asked you to describe the kingdom of heaven, would you say it’s like yeast? Would you say it’s like the seed of a weedy shrub?
But for Jesus, mustard seeds and yeast were the perfect metaphors for the kingdom of heaven. In every parable, there is a challenge to one’s way of thinking. And obviously, we are being challenged here. It’s hard for us to think of mustard seeds or yeast as something to which the kingdom of heaven can be compared.
But parables challenge our way of understanding things. Parables always present what we do not expect. For this very reason, parables are not easy. If you don’t find some challenge, some discomfort, in the parable, then you haven’t understood it properly.
The challenge for us is to see the kingdom of heaven in mustard seeds and in yeast, two things that are not all that impressive, two things that are so very common, two things that could be found in any garden or kitchen…
Our first instinct is to look far away for the kingdom of heaven. Our first instinct is to look for great, inaccessible magnificence. Surely heaven cannot be so close to us as the seeds we plant in our garden or the yeast we use in our kitchen!
Yet that is the challenge: to seek and find the kingdom where we are, in what is common, everyday, at-hand.
The kingdom is not in a grand cedar tree in a far away land. Is that where you are looking for the kingdom of heaven? Someplace far away where the grass is greener or where the streets are paved with gold?
Because that’s not where you’ll find the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is all around you. It is present. It is where you are. In your garden. In your kitchen.
And I think that when Jesus called the mustard plant a “great tree,” he was speaking tongue-in-cheek. People were expecting him to describe the kingdom of heaven as something great and magnificent. They were anticipating something big.
But Jesus says, “Ladies and gentlemen, you want to know what the kingdom of heaven is like, what God’s kingdom is like? You want to know what the kingdom of the almighty God, the creator of the universe is like? Well, the kingdom of heaven is like - brace yourselves! - it’s like a mighty mustard shrub!”
He’s having a bit of fun, playing with people’s expectations! Don’t you think?
The point is, when it comes to the kingdom, don’t go looking for greatness. To find greatness in the kingdom of heaven, you need to think small.
Don’t think you need to go somewhere far away. The kingdom is right where you are. It’s in your kitchen. It’s in your garden. It’s in your neighborhood, it’s on your block. That’s where the kingdom is.
The last time I preached, I told you about working in the mud in Hawaii, harvesting kalo (which is what the Hawaiians call taro root).
Before we went out into the field to work, we had a brief orientation session.
The orientation took place under a tarp canopy. We joined the interns who were spending their summer on the farm. We sat on old, rustic wooden benches. To be honest, this did not look like a place where I would find the kingdom of heaven.
We were welcomed by a man who introduced himself to us as Uncle Dean. He stood before us with no shirt on, and with shorts that looked like they were made from the mud in the fields.
I thought, “What are we doing here? What, exactly, did we get ourselves into?” At this point I certainly was not expecting to experience the kingdom of heaven. Not in this place. Hawaii may be paradise, but that paradise must be at the beach resorts in Waikiki, not in this muddy place. That’s what I thought, but I was wrong.
We went around and introduced ourselves, and then Uncle Dean gave us his mana’o okala, his thought for the day. And since you probably can’t read what it says on the whiteboard in the photo, I’ll tell you that the thought for the day was “ma ka hana ka ike” -- “through doing, one learns.”
Uncle Dean talked about what that means, and the very moment he started speaking, I realized how wrong I had been. He spoke with incredible wisdom! I quickly opened up my daypack and grabbed my notebook and pen and began taking notes.
It was that good.
Uncle Dean talked about how people work. Not just the work they do, but their attitude doing their work. “When you do the dishes,” he said, “do them well. Focus your mind on your work. Whatever work you are doing, whether it’s harvesting kalo or doing the dishes, give your work the attention it deserves.”
Uncle Dean’s talk reminded me of Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was part of a Carmelite monastery in France in the 17th century.
Brother Lawrence lacked the education to become a cleric, so he worked in the kitchen. And there, he made washing the pots and pans a spiritual practice. He was present in his task. He saw his work as sacred. And the profound sense of peace people felt around him led visitors to come to him seeking spiritual guidance.
Yes, they came seeking spiritual guidance and wisdom from the dishwasher.
After Brother Lawrence died in 1691, letters that he wrote and records of conversations he had were compiled into a book, which was given the title, The Practice of the Presence of God. In his work - in washing the dishes, mopping the floor - in all his chores - Brother Lawrence found God. In doing this work, he found the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.
I didn’t ask Uncle Dean if he had read Brother Lawrence. But I do know that, after Uncle Dean finished with his thought for the day and we went out into the mud to work, we found God. We found the kingdom of heaven.
We found the kingdom of heaven in the work we were doing - work which was done in traditional ways, connecting us to people who lived centuries before us.
We found the kingdom of heaven in conversations we had with the interns who worked alongside us. Many of them are at-risk youth and young adults who have had challenging lives, but who have found meaning and purpose and a connection to their culture by working in the kalo lo’i. In talking to them, we learned about their culture and background, and they learned about ours.
We found the kingdom of heaven in our own development as a group of travellers from across the ocean. I already told you how diverse we were, from different races and cultures, in a world where tensions between different races and cultures is in the news on a daily basis. But we overcame those tensions.
And one of the places where that happened was in the mud of the kalo lo’i. There, in the mud, we found the kingdom of heaven.
I think we have a hard time finding God’s kingdom because we’re looking for it in all the wrong places. We’re looking for a hundred or a thousand pearls, but it’s found in just one pearl. We’re looking for a treasure hidden in a field, and yes, we found treasure in that kalo field, but it wasn’t a treasure of gold or jewels or money. The treasure was in the mud itself, and in the community and the friendships that were formed when people willingly jump into chest-deep mud to work.
The treasure we seek - the kingdom of heaven - is found where you are. It’s on your block, it’s in your neighborhood.
It requires some work on your part, and some sacrifice. You can’t just sit back and wait for the kingdom to arrive. You have to plant the seed. You have to knead the dough.
And you’ve got to know which fish to keep and which fish to throw out. You’ve got to know what in your life is helping you find meaning, and what is a distraction. You need to know how to prioritize your life so that you are living a kingdom lifestyle.
And you need to let God do God’s work in your life.
The kingdom of heaven is indeed something great and sacred, but it is found among the mundane and the lowly. It’s found among the mustard and the yeast and the mud and the kalo.
So in every task you do, do it mindfully. Do it with purpose. Wash the dishes with intention. Be present. The kingdom of heaven is there, in your kitchen, in the dishwater. The kingdom of heaven is there, in your office, in your living room. The kingdom of heaven is there on the bus you take to work or school.
If you want to find the kingdom of heaven, that’s where you should be looking.
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