Of Faith and Mustard
At church the other week, the preacher mentioned Matthew 17:20 - “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move.” He only touched on the verse in passing, but it got me thinking. I occasionally wonder if I ought to be thinking more about what the preachers actually say; but for better or worse, I frequently find that what they say is not nearly as interesting to me as the thoughts that are sparked by the stuff they gloss over or move past. Anyway, in this particular case, I started thinking about mustard seeds.
I’m only familiar with one other time Jesus mentions mustard seeds, and that’s Matthew 13:31-32, in which he describes the kingdom of heaven as, “like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. Although 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.” The thing that strikes me about this parable is that a man planting a mustard seed in a garden in that time and place would have been widely regarded as an idiot.
As I understand it, mustard is a very opportunistic plant; given anything like a beneficial climate, it will spread like plague. It is not decorative, and is in fact very difficult to effectively prune (or even contain) once it has a foothold. And it is attractive to birds - who in turn are extraordinarily destructive to a managed garden. Essentially, the man in Jesus’ parable is trading an ordered and productive yard for a chaotic wilderness over which he has no control whatsoever. And that is the kingdom of heaven.
So let’s go back to that faith, the faith like a mustard seed. The faith, perhaps, to sacrifice order and control. The faith that, once planted, spreads chaotically until it has completely taken over your life; until all that is left of your carefully tended garden is a riot of vegetation and birdsong. Perhaps it is only when we sacrifice our gardens that we become aware of God’s Garden - and then, when there’s nothing left of our lives but God’s Garden, perhaps then the mountains will move.
It’s also worth noting how consistently Jesus regards physical needs as of secondary importance. He’s not concerned with bread, or storms, or injury, or disease - unless dealing with those issues is necessary to make people pay attention. This is especially evident in the story of the paraplegic (Matthew 9:2) - Jesus’ first move is to announce that the man’s sins are forgiven, and he clearly expects this to be sufficient. He only provides physical healing after the watching Pharisees challenge his authority to forgive sins. Thus it may be a mistake to assume that those mountains in need of movement are part of the physical terrain.
Perhaps, then, the real message (or a real message) of that first quote about the mustard seed could be said thusly: Plant faith in your heart, let it grow wild, and your inner landscape will become unrecognizably different. You’ll lose your mountain garden, but you’ll also be free of its weight. You’ll lose everything you understand, but your life will be filled with Creation.
Or, to put it even more succinctly: Surrender. The kingdom of God is at hand.
I’m only familiar with one other time Jesus mentions mustard seeds, and that’s Matthew 13:31-32, in which he describes the kingdom of heaven as, “like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. Although 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.” The thing that strikes me about this parable is that a man planting a mustard seed in a garden in that time and place would have been widely regarded as an idiot.
As I understand it, mustard is a very opportunistic plant; given anything like a beneficial climate, it will spread like plague. It is not decorative, and is in fact very difficult to effectively prune (or even contain) once it has a foothold. And it is attractive to birds - who in turn are extraordinarily destructive to a managed garden. Essentially, the man in Jesus’ parable is trading an ordered and productive yard for a chaotic wilderness over which he has no control whatsoever. And that is the kingdom of heaven.
So let’s go back to that faith, the faith like a mustard seed. The faith, perhaps, to sacrifice order and control. The faith that, once planted, spreads chaotically until it has completely taken over your life; until all that is left of your carefully tended garden is a riot of vegetation and birdsong. Perhaps it is only when we sacrifice our gardens that we become aware of God’s Garden - and then, when there’s nothing left of our lives but God’s Garden, perhaps then the mountains will move.
It’s also worth noting how consistently Jesus regards physical needs as of secondary importance. He’s not concerned with bread, or storms, or injury, or disease - unless dealing with those issues is necessary to make people pay attention. This is especially evident in the story of the paraplegic (Matthew 9:2) - Jesus’ first move is to announce that the man’s sins are forgiven, and he clearly expects this to be sufficient. He only provides physical healing after the watching Pharisees challenge his authority to forgive sins. Thus it may be a mistake to assume that those mountains in need of movement are part of the physical terrain.
Perhaps, then, the real message (or a real message) of that first quote about the mustard seed could be said thusly: Plant faith in your heart, let it grow wild, and your inner landscape will become unrecognizably different. You’ll lose your mountain garden, but you’ll also be free of its weight. You’ll lose everything you understand, but your life will be filled with Creation.
Or, to put it even more succinctly: Surrender. The kingdom of God is at hand.