A Grain of Mustard Seed
Mark 4:30-34

To what would we compare the Kingdom of God? A mighty oak? A majestic mountain or maybe a mountain range? The depths of the sea, the heights of the heavens? Surely, something grand and breathtaking.

“It is like a grain of mustard seed,” Jesus says. The mustard seed was used proverbially of something deemed small and insignificant. This parable seems to be a paradox.

But, God chooses the simple to confound the wise. (1 Corinthians 1:27) The King was born in a stable, reared in a carpenter’s home, and spent his adult life as an itinerant teacher without a place to call home. The Kingdom of God rose up from obscurity and insignificance.

But the mustard seed grew into one of the largest plants in the herb garden, a resting place for birds. And so, the Kingdom grows. Deemed by many as irrelevant and insignificant, all who take flight to its ever-expanding branches find rest and shelter.