Mustard blooms between the rows of vines even before bud-break promises the arrival of grapes. And the mustard reaches above the heads of the vines, before the sprout of new growth. But it is not a tree. Why didn’t Jesus choose a redwood tree or a saguaro? They are big and their seeds are small. And birds nest in them. But as Michael Gibson pointed out Sunday, he was cooking a different fish. It wasn’t just about large from small, in the realm of seeds. It was about small to large among men and women. A few people, not noticed by the great, could rest in the convenient shade of an assuming bush, which thereby made itself and them mighty. Mighty -- that is, powerful -- because of their modesty. For they would depend not on their own size but on the size of God. And that is big enough for anyone.
In Jesus’ land and in his day there were great and small among the ranks of people. Some had high status and great power, as some do today. And some, Jesus’ particular friends, not so much.
So the faith he sought to find he found on a small scale, among the ordinary, among the vines, where the promises lay still dormant as the mustard bloomed: but the promise was already there.
Soon a new harvest would come. One that depended on God for its abundance and its joy.
That is the kingdom of God. So small to see and so great in effect.
