The Mustard Seed

We are currently in the Easter season between Ascension Day (June 2) and Pentecost Sunday (June 12). Pentecost begins with the Feast of the Pentecost, fifty days after Easter. Because Pentecost celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit from heaven to all Christians, Pentecost is a season of evangelism and outreach as Christians look for the presence of the Holy Spirit in everyone on earth.

It was the Lord Jesus Christ at the time of His ascension who commanded His disciples to tarry in the Upper Room and wait for the Holy Spirit in order to receive power to transform the Church. The result was Pentecost and the birth of the Church. The season of Pentecost is a time in the church year for thanksgiving, growth and renewal. It is also for reflecting on the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The ascended Christ has not left us as orphans (John 14:18).  We who are disciples of the Risen One are now empowered by the Holy Spirit to make Christ known “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The mustard seed becomes a great shrub that shelters the birds, recalling ancient images of the tree of life. We’d expect a cedar or a sequoia, but Jesus finds the power of God better imaged in a tiny, no account seed. It’s not the way we expect divine activity to look. Yet the tree of life is here, in the cross around which we gather. The tree into which we are grafted through baptism, the true vine that nourishes us with its fruit in the cup we share. It may not appear all that impressive, but while nobody’s looking it grows with a power beyond our understanding.

O God, you are the tree of life, offering shelter to all-the world. Graft us into yourself and nurture our growth, that we may bear you your truth and love to those in need through Jesus Christ, our savior and Lord.

Images of sowing and growing reflect the vitality of God’s kingdom.

 (Mark 4:26-34)

26 [Jesus said,] "This is what the kingdom of God is like. 27 This kingdom of God is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the harvest has come.”

 30 He said, “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it?  31 It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. 32 But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.” 33 With many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to understand it, 34 He did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

The seed of the mustard plant is among the smallest of seeds, yet from this small seed grows a large shrub. Jesus used the analogy of a mustard seed to show how something small and seemingly inconsequential can rapidly grow and have a powerful influence on all the world. The mustard seed has faith, power and transformational properties within it.