Matthew 13:31-32
Did you know there is a website: I Love Mustard? There are only 59 members so it has not exactly gone viral. The site promotes itself this way: Read true personal stories, chat & get advice, support, and help from a group of 59 people who all say I Love Mustard. And then there are nine testimonies. Here are two of them.
First of all, one of my nicknames is “mustard”, because I love it soo much. I put it on everything, and people started calling me “mustard” to tease me. I think ketchup is just alright, and I absolutely HATE mayonnaise! I’ll basically try anything with mustard, within reason. And people who eat french fries with ketchup (which is the norm), don’t know what they’re missing… mustard is way better!!! I’m a sucker for regular yellow mustard. I also like honey mustard, and spicy mustard. However, I do NOT like Dijon mustard. Just my opinion. Mmmm… mustard :)
And then there is this one:
Many times I find myself in the need of a snack. What better to eat than mustard? I just rip open a little packet of yellow mustard and insert it between my teeth. Then in a slow fashion I’ll squeeze the living daylights out of that mustard packet causing the mustard to flow from the packet to the inside of my mouth. When that mustard hits my tongue it’s like a fireworks show of emotions that my tastebuds go through. My word, from excitement to complete joy, the mustard makes my day.
I get the impression these people all work for one of the companies who manufacture mustard.
It takes 20 hours to manufacture yellow mustard and 32 hours to manufacture Dijon mustard. The extra time needed comes from 12 hours of fermentation that gives Dijon mustard its strong, distinctive flavor. But all mustard comes from mustard seeds and that is the source of this morning’s parable. (Matthew 13:31–32)
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
First of all, let me get rid of some misconceptions. The mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. The seeds of orchids are so small they are like particles of dust. But the mustard seed was the smallest seed sown by Palestinian farmers. The seed sprouts and grows quickly but does not grow into a tree. It is the largest of garden plants, growing up to four or five meters and it becomes like a tree. It is not a tree, but compared to other crops grown by Palestinian farmers, this plant was most like a tree and birds could perch in its branches.
The point Jesus was making with this parable is that a tiny, tiny seed grows into a large plant which becomes a blessing to the creatures who use it and he used this to describe the kingdom of heaven – or as Mark and Luke call it, the kingdom of God.
When Jesus traveled around Palestine telling people about the kingdom of God, what did people hear? They certainly did not hear what we hear when we read about the proclamation of Jesus. (Mark 1:14–15)
Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
What we hear is that the kingdom of God entered into history and is continually advancing as more and more people are brought into the kingdom. We are waiting for the end of time when Jesus will judge the world and we will all come into his kingdom for eternity.
What did the Jews of Palestine hear when Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is near”? What they heard was that the Roman occupiers of Palestine would be kicked out and the Messiah would rule over Israel as it had been under King David.
They heard that it would come all at once in a supernatural return to Israel’s former glory.
So the surprise in the parable of the Mustard Seed might be that the growth of the kingdom of God would be gradual, over time and not immediate. Jesus taught in John 12:24:
I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
A seed is planted, it dies and then the kingdom comes.
Let me make four observations about the kingdom of God from this parable.
First, the kingdom of God grew quickly.
N.T. Wright, a British New Testament scholar, talks about the striking speed of growth of the early Christian church. I will paraphrase what he wrote: ‘In AD 25 there is no such thing as Christianity: merely a young hermit in the Judean wilderness, and his somewhat younger cousin who dreams dreams and sees visions. By AD 125, just one hundred years later, the Roman emperor has established an official policy in relation to the punishment of Christians. In one hundred years Christians went from a small handful to so many followers of Jesus that the Roman emperor was forced to deal with them.
In AD 125, when the makeup of the world is presented to the emperor Hadrian, he is told there are four races in the world, Barbarians, Greeks, Jews and Christians. Pliny speaks of the poison of Christianity spreading into villages and countryside. Ignatius finds churches wherever he goes throughout Asia Minor. Tacitus, in the tone of voice of one who has come across a dead rat in his water-tank, comments that all the worst features of world culture find their way to Rome sooner or later.’
In just one hundred years the followers of Jesus grew from being a problem to the Chief Priest and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, to being a problem to the leader of the Roman empire, the greatest empire in the known world.
The kingdom of God grew quickly and it has grown consistently.
The church began with a hundred or so followers of Jesus and exploded to 3,000 men on the day of Pentecost. At the time Peter preached his sermon in the Temple, the number had grown to 5,000 men. There were now, including men, women and children, perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 members in this new church.
The church quickly spread around the Mediterranean Sea and in 100 AD there were perhaps 500,000 believers. In 1000 AD that number had doubled to 1,000,000. Five hundred years later in 1500 AD there was a fivefold increase to 5,000,000 followers of Jesus. Four hundred years later in 1900 there was an eightfold increase to 40,000,000. That number doubled in just fifty years, so that in 1950, the year I was born, there were 80,000,000 believers in Jesus. Thirty years later in 1980 that number had more than tripled to 275,000,000. The growth of the church has been exponential.
Today with a world population of 7,000,000,000 there are 840,000,000 Bible believing Christians. At the time of Jesus there was 1 follower of Jesus for every 250,000 people in the world. Today there is 1 follower of Jesus for every 8 people in the world.
Pentecostals, charismatics and evangelicals are together the fastest growing group of all world religions. They are growing at a rate of 3½ times the growth of the world’s population.
Despite discrimination and often violent persecution, the church grows. 14,000,000 Christians were martyred between 33AD and 1900 and yet the church expanded exponentially. In the 20th century, 26,000,000 Christians, almost twice as many as in all the preceding years of the church, were martyred and the church continues to grow at a rate of 3½ times the growth of the world’s population. The gates of Hell cannot overcome the church.
The church grew quickly, it has continued to grow steadily and the kingdom of God advances in every generation, never losing members.
Here on planet earth, church membership rises and falls. There are periods of time in church history when whole cultures have turned to Jesus and other times when the culture turns its back on anything to do with Jesus. Church organizations rise and fall. Churches are started and churches are closed, the buildings used for other purposes.
Where Christianity first started, in the Middle East, it is difficult to find Christians and the Christians who are there face discrimination and persecution. Paul made his missionary journeys, but two thousand years later, where are the Christians in the cities he visited?
Many of the denominations of the West that have been around for two or three centuries seem to be moving toward extinction. This is not new. At various points in church history, the church has seemed to be shrinking rather than growing.
The French philosopher Voltaire, in the 18th century, observed a church so weakened and ineffective that he confidently predicted that in a hundred years, Christianity would be extinct and the only Bibles would be found in museums. A hundred years later the French Bible Society was located in his house.
When Voltaire looked around there was good reason to make his prediction. Attendance in churches was declining. The influence of the church on society was minimal. The great awakening in Europe and the United States was now thirty years old.
Voltaire died in 1779 and eleven years later came the Second Great Awakening that once again breathed new life into the church.
Voltaire’s Scottish contemporary, the philosopher David Hume, said, “I see the twilight of Christianity.” His eyesight was not as good as he thought; what he thought was a sunset was actually a sunrise.
After listening to a visitor ranting against God, the Bible, the church and Christian doctrine for an hour while he worked on the man’s wagon, the blacksmith ceased his hammering, looked up, and quietly observed, “You know, this old anvil has worn out many a hammer.”
The persistent, constant, creative, powerful, life-giving work of God has overcome obstacle after obstacle over the years and the kingdom of God has added to its numbers in generation after generation. When a follower of Jesus dies, the church on earth loses a member, but not the kingdom of God.
The church is moving forward. While the church in the West is weakening, the church in Africa and Asia is expanding. God had not yet finished his work. This is not to say that there are not lots of problems and weaknesses in the church, but there have always been problems and weaknesses in the church. The church is moving forward. It is inevitably and irresistibly moving forward.
God continues to work his great miracle of building and growing the church. It is our responsibility not to give up hope. It is our responsibility to continue to pray, continue to study the Bible, continue to share our faith, continue to listen to the will of God for our lives. It is our privilege to work with Jesus for the growth of the church.
We do not give up. We go not give in to despair. We do not retreat into discouragement. We step out with faith to give a good answer for our faith. We step out to love people in the name of Jesus. We move forward with the inevitable progress of the church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
The fourth observation from this parable of the mustard seed is that our one act of obedience has far greater consequences than we can imagine.
Every Christmas Annie and I watch It’s A Wonderful Life, a 1946 movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. It is a movie about a man who is discouraged and wants to end his life. But an angel comes to help him and when the Jimmy Stewart character, George Bailey, says he wishes he had never been born, the angel gives him his wish and Bailey gets to see the world in which he had never lived. The pharmacist is a drunk who served time in jail for poisoning someone because George was not there to spot the mistake. A ship is sunk in WWII because George’s brother was not there to shoot down the plane attacking the ship because George had not been there to save him when he fell through the ice when he was a young boy. It is a great movie and makes the point that our lives have a greater effect on others than we imagine.
Thirteen years ago at a missions conference in our church in Princeton, New Jersey, a couple staying in our house told me about a church in Rabat looking for a pastor and thought I would be a good fit. While my response was not immediate excitement (the thought of moving to Morocco seemed far to exotic too me), I exchanged emails with Mike Russon who was chairman of the board and was invited to come for a visit in September 1999. I came, loved the people and the church, was invited to come, and arrived on Monday, January 10 of 2000.
I have often said that these years have been the best years of my life and that is true. But my decision to come was not only good for me. Many lives have been affected because of my act of obedience. Because I obeyed God’s call, there are churches and individuals who have come to Morocco to love people and help with the needs of Moroccans. Because of my act of obedience, there are people who have decided to become followers of Jesus and others who have been encouraged to renew their life with Jesus. I have the smallest glimpse of how God has worked through my obedience to him and I anticipate that in heaven we will delight in seeing all the ways his creative power worked through us.
This does not mean I am indispensable in God’s plan. If I had chosen not to come to Morocco, God would have found another way to accomplish his purposes, but I did obey and have had the privilege of being a part of his work.
Out of my act of obedience, many have been blessed. This is my story and it is also our story. The consequences of our decisions to resist sin, to obey God’s call have implications far beyond our own lives. We decide not just for ourselves but for all those who will be affected by our decisions.
When I first became a follower of Jesus, I read Psalm 40 and had a very strong image of my life with Jesus.
Psalm 40:1–3
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.
My image was of floating in a stream and at some points it was relaxing and pleasurable, floating with the current, enjoying the view. At other times I came into the rapids and I plummeted over waterfalls and was dashed against the rocks. In the midst of one of these moments, Jesus picked me up and set my feet on a rock.
I saw life from a different perspective now that I was no longer being swept along by the current and it was wonderful. But sometimes the rock seemed so small and slippery I worried I would slip off and fall back into the current. Over time the rock grew as my faith grew and became more stable and eventually became large enough that I could invite someone to stand up with me. And today the rock is a small island with trees and grass where others can come and be encouraged.
This is how God works in our lives. He loves us so we can love others. He blesses us so we can bless others. Out of the obedience of our lives, he provides space for others to come along and receive his blessing.
On this Easter morning, as you are encouraged and renewed in your faith, I want to remind you that you do not live alone. You have been brought into a community and God wants to use your life to bring others into this community.
As you resist temptation, you do this for yourself but also for all those in the future who will be blessed by your obedience to Jesus.
As you grow in your faith, you will be blessed and many others will be blessed through you.
I am a follower of Jesus. You are a follower of Jesus. But we are the community of faith that God is using to bless the world and expand his kingdom. Even today there are new sons and daughters being brought into the kingdom of God. Jesus was the seed that was planted and we are the fruit of his sacrifice. May God continue to bless us by working through us and may we be privileged to see, at least in part, the blessing that is coming through our obedience to him.
