He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which someone took and planted in a field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”
(Matt. 13:31 - 35, NIV)
The two short parables in today's reading, taken from Matthew 13:31 - 35, subtly depict situations of scandal. The mustard tree (or bush, depending on which commentary you read), was an undesirable plant that most persons would prefer to root out of their field or garden.
Yeast was a symbol of that which was unclean and generally unwanted. (Note that the Jewish festival celebrated "Unleavened Bread," not "leavened bread.") The presence of yeast was scandalous.
Yet, these two undesirable elements are likened in differing ways to the kingdom of heaven.
The first image has often been misrepresented in preaching and teaching. Matthew records Jesus' words, not as, "the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed," but as, "the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in a field." While there may be connections between the mustard seed and the kingdom of heaven (the tiny seed having influence beyond its proportionate size), at least here, Jesus connects the kingdom of heaven to the entire process of planting the mustard seed in a field.
In other words, it is not enough to hold a mustard seed in your hands and say, "this is what the kingdom of heaven is like." No, the kingdom of heaven is like holding that scandalous seed, and then throwing the seed where it does not seem to belong, where you would not want it, where the seed does not seem to fit.
As an undesirable plant, one that has a corrupting influence on its surroundings, it will take over. [I wonder if mustard trees/shrubs were the "kudzu" of the Ancient Near East. Kudzu is the invasive vine that has taken over much of the Southeastern United States over the past couple of decades. I saw a couple of acres of kudzu last weekend on a road trip through rural Arkansas, and was reminded of its corrupting, invasive nature. It had overtaken trees, telephone polls, and even houses alongside the highway.]
So the kingdom of heaven is likened to the act of putting something small and subversive where it doesn't seem to belong . . . planted into human lives . . . tossed into political systems . . . sown into social dynamics . . . dropped into vocational decisions . . . this small seed gets thrown into places it doesn't seem to belong and it begins to alter the shape of those realities in what some might consider perverse or counter ways.
The seed of this kingdom is sown in me . . . in humans . . . in the landscape of the world. The act of sowing, planting, throwing, and scattering is an unmistakable part of the kingdom of heaven, so that the scandal of the kingdom is embedded where it does not seem to fit.
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