Truth XII

The third of three parables in Matthew 13 is the Parable of the Mustard Seed. As with the other parables, we will examine it to see if it can offer any insights, themes, or ideas into the truth about god. This is the one parable of the three which Jesus does not explain to the disciples, leaving us with less direction and more flexibility for interpreting it.

The parable in Matthew (13:31-32) goes:

He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

In Mark (4:30-32) it reads:

And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”

And in Luke (13:18-19) there is a slight difference:

So He was saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.”

In each of the three versions there are three components: Diminutive size of the seed, the great size of the plant that grows from the seed, and the rapidity of growth of the plant.

Mustard (of which there are many species, but based on its size, this is probably a black or white mustard seed, the kind we use today) is not typically grown in a garden; rather, it is cultivated in fields. There are smaller seeds, such as dandelion and thistle, but Jesus’ point may be that this is the smallest cultivated plant seed.

Mustard is not a tree, but an herb that bushes out to the size of a small tree, big enough to accommodate nesting birds. It is an annual, so has to be regrown from seed every year; and birds would not typically nest in any annual since it would be too young and small in the Spring nesting season. Some people think the word should be “resting”, not “nesting”.

In terms of yield, this parable shows production far greater than the 100-fold of the Sower and the Seed parable—the maximum yield of the richest soil. A question that arises is whether this productivity is natural, unnatural, or supernatural?

Another question is whether the birds are incidental embellishment or are they significant, like the birds in the first parable, whose significance is that they are evil?

Leviticus 19:19 prohibits sowing different kinds of seed in one field:

…you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.

Deuteronomy expands on this, forbidding the mixing of milk and meat. But in the field of the mustard seed parable, there are mixed species of plant, deliberately planted.

To recap a few key points: In the first of the three parables in Matthew 13, the seed is distributed everywhere, ubiquitously, indiscriminately. In the second, the field that has been sown with good seed is contaminated with bad seed. In the third, the seed has supernatural growth.

David: This parable is another of those pieces of scripture so obtuse that one can read practically anything into it, especially since Jesus did not interpret it for us.

Kiran: Maybe the exponential growth is referring to the growth of the Christian church.

Don: This is the first in a series of very short parables about the leaven and the pearl that is in the field, which may also help clarify what this parable is about.

David: Perhaps the rapid growth is irrelevant. Perhaps the important element is the size differential between the seed and the mature plant. As I read the three gospel versions of the parable, I see that difference of magnitude mentioned, but I do not see an explicit reference to a time element. I do not think it is implied, either. This is the problem of obtuseness: Anything or nothing may be implied!

Robin: Maybe it is repeating the idea that in the kingdom of heaven, the least shall be the greatest.

David: There is no question that this is about the kingdom of heaven. That is absolutely explicit. So the metaphor of the seed in THIS parable cannot be likened to the Christian church, or to us as human beings. The kingdom starts out tiny and ends up being huge. That’s what the parable says, on its face.

Esam: So is the kingdom of god on earth or in heaven?

Joyce: Is mustard seed good or bad? If it represents the kingdom, then it should be good. But might it represent the sons of the kingdom, as in the parable of the wheat and the tares?

Don: Is it about the kingdom of the future, or the kingdom here and now? Jesus said the kingdom is within us, which suggests it is here today, and is not some work of the future.

David: Pliny the Elder, quoted in Wikipedia, has an interesting take on mustard seed: He pointed out that “when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.” So it almost like a weed. Why did Jesus not choose another seed—an acorn, say—which would have brought out the magnitude differential just as well or maybe even better?

Another commentator wrote: “Though the dominion [i.e., the kingdom] appeared small like a seed during Jesus’ ministry, it would inexorably grow into something large and firmly rooted, which some would find shelter in and others would find obnoxious and try to root out.” (Wikipedia entry is here.)

Don: The traditional view is that the seed is the ministry and message of Jesus, that takes root in a tiny way in his time, but eventually grows into something mighty. There are elements—the mixing of the seeds in the field—that surely have some significance, or would have had to his contemporary audience, who would have questioned the commingling of seed, which was counter to Jewish law.

Joyce: In Jesus time, one would not have planted mustard seed in one’s garden. It would have damaged the garden, and it would have violated the law. So what if it was Satan? It can be argued that he too has grown exponentially large, and we know that he was responsible for planting the tares, so why not for planting himself also? This is a frightening interpretation, I know, but it seems at least conceivable to me. Let’s be honest: Satan is pretty powerful today. Not as powerful as god, but still….

Kiran: Jesus’ audience would have no idea about the future growth of his church. In their eyes, he was still just a carpenter, a nobody. He might be a revolutionary and a potential savior from Roman oppression, but the notion that this was the man to build the kingdom of heaven would have seemed ludicrous to them.

He gave them these parables to try to get across this enormous message to an audience that was likely to be pretty sceptical.

David: I think Kiran is onto something! “This guy is just a carpenter; what does HE know about seeds?”

Candace: I wonder if this is not a micro-meso-macro argument: The mustard seed is micro—the individual with a little faith that grows, the weeds are meso—like a congregation that grows in faith, and the macro is the whole world, that grows in faith.

Don: Certainly, from the Jews’ point of view, if the parable was predicting the reach and scope of the mission and message of Jesus, would it not seem that it was contaminating their field? That this new faith was a contaminant, not at all something good, but utterly evil?

Jay: If we interpret the parables as being about people, churches, religions, etc., rather than about the pure concepts of good and evil, then we are binding them to time, and they lose their power. The kingdom is eternal, timeless. Truth speaks to all people at all times. Introducing individuals is a stumbling block to understanding the power and timelessness and Truth of the parables.

The mustard seed—the kingdom of heaven—is a good seed that should be sown everywhere, even in places where the Jews thought it ought not to be sown. The parable tells them frankly that it will grow into something beyond their power to control.

I think we should think of the parables in terms of “goodness” and “evil” as opposed to “good people” and “bad people.” Otherwise, we fall into the same trap as Jesus’ contemporary Jews, who did try to define god by discriminating human behaviors based on Jewish law. The inclusiveness, the lack of discrimination shown in the sowing of the seed, is at odds with the message in these parables.

Robin: Leviticus 19:19 is a time control statute of god. When the messiah came, then the mustard plant would be the way to open up the gospel to the gentiles.

Jay: Possibly. Some (like Harry!) might see this as another instance of biblical inconsistency: The Old Testament saying one thing; the New Testament saying something contradictory to it. I don’t see it that way. I see them both as saying the right things at the right place and time to help people build their relationship with god. Having eaten the forbidden fruit, we messed up that relationship, but god persists in trying to relate to us. We make it it more difficult, more complicated than it should be.

We make rules and make them prerequisite to a relationship with god. Jesus was telling them not that the law was bad, but that it ought not to be their central preoccupation as far as a relationship with god was concerned. The parable was essentially telling us (and his contemporary Jewish audience) to think outside the box of laws, which confine and restrict. It prevents us from thinking in truly revolutionary terms such as “The first shall be last” and “Turn the other cheek.”

Being told what to do does not re-order one’s thinking. Being left to figure out what to do, does.

Esam: I grew up in Egypt, planting things with my dad. We always planted just one type of seed. My dad’s fields were scattered; they were not all together. But we still planted the same seed. Furthermore, we would plant just the same seed as the neighboring farmers.

Is the parable really talking about contamination? I read that there is a field, and that it is sown with mustard seed. I do not see mixing with other seed.

Jay: I note the gospel that calls it a garden, not a field; which implies multiple plant species.

Robin: Does a mustard seed have to be sown by a sower? It can self-propagate when it simply drops its seed and they may be carried by the wind.

Kiran: In saying that the mustard plant became the biggest plant in the garden, it clearly implies that there are other plants besides it.

Robin: Jesus also said that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains. So it is not a weed. In Luke 11, Jesus tells the disciples that the seed is the word of god. Those by the wayside are those that hear, but the Devil comes and takes away the Word out of their hearts. This seems to be like an atheist who hears the Word and says “This doesn’t make any sense.” It Luke continues (verse 13-15):

Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance.

Jay: Luke 17 is where scripture talks about mustard seed and moving mountains and faith. But before that, he talked about all the stumbling blocks: The tares are stumbling blocks, thrown out by the Devil. Jesus talked about the danger of these stumbling blocks.

Robin: Matthew 34 (?) talks about Jesus saying he will talk in parables about things not spoken since the Creation. Then he talks about our forefathers having known these things.

Don: In Ephesians 3:1-6, Paul wrote:

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel,…

For Paul, the gospel, the work and the message of Jesus was intended not only for the Jews. It is as though he were planting another seed in the Jewish garden. It’s the grace of god, covering everyone, Jew and gentile alike. His contemporary Jews would not have thought of the gentiles as being their “fellows.”

Robin: The Jews would have looked at the mustard plant as an interloper, a trespasser in their garden. The birds saw it as shelter, so maybe the birds represent the gentiles.

David: In an eternity, time has no meaning. Without time (or with infinite time—which is the same as no time) there can be no “fast” or “slow.” The only theory that would make sense and significance of the “rapid” growth of the mustard seed is process theology plus omega point theory: Process theology posits god as both a Being and a Becoming. God the Being is timeless; but god the Becoming is timebound. Omega point theory says the bounds are the alpha of the Big Bang and the omega of the Big Crunch (“in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity or causing a reformation of the universe starting with another big bang”—Wikipedia). It is an infinite, eternal recycling of a timebound universe.

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