Right out of seminary, I pastored a small church in north Georgia. The church I pastored was about 1.5 miles from one of the biggest and fastest growing churches in the United States. I used to joke that our church was the church everybody drove past on Sunday mornings to go to this megachurch!

One day I was talking to another pastor and he asked me if I heard about what happened in this great big church. I said I had not. He told me that the church had hosted a conference on leadership the week prior. Thousands of pastors attended. A big-name national leadership guru had been brought in. The book table held his many best-selling books.

My friend who was telling me this story had attended the conference. He was in the room when this happened.

Now, this megachurch was surrounded by multi-multi-acre asphalt parking lots. They had shuttles that would bring folks from the far end of their parking lots to the sanctuary. The church sat on a big highway on one side but, on another side, it actually sat on a fairly typical road. Whenever I drove down that road, I always found the sight of that massive church and sanctuary overwhelming!

Well, it just so happened that on the other side of the small road that bordered the megachurch there was a very small house church. It was basically a ranch-style house with a little steeple on the top. And a few folks attended that church.

I will not deny that the shocking contrast between the two churches when you drove down that road was sometimes humorous. It was just such a contrast: the massive, huge megachurch to the left and the little tiny house church to the right. The megachurch looked like it could just eat the little church like a chicken nugget!

So my friend was at the leadership conference at the megachurch. And he told me that the famous speaker was talking about the great things God can do, the big things God can do. He extended his arms out and looked upwards and swayed left and right, saying to the crowd, “I mean, just look at what God has done here! Look at this amazing sanctuary! Look at this crowd! Look at how many baptisms this church has! Look at this staff! Look at how amazing this is!”

Then he paused. Then he continued: “And, compare this with that little church across the street. It is so small. It is so tiny!”

At this, a number of people in the audience laughed.

“Now,” he continued, “you have got to ask which church you want. This? Or that?”

A number of people amened.

Then, there was movement at the front of the sanctuary. Somebody stood up. It was an older man. He stood up by himself. He made his way out to the aisle and then slowly up the aisle to the exit doors. And he left.

That man was the pastor of the little house church across the street.

By this time the speaker had started back up and was moving on to his next big point.

My friend said it was terrible. He felt terrible. And he suspected others did as well.

And I think the reason why he felt terrible was because he knew something about the Kingdom and about the great God we serve, and it is this: God does great big things out of little tiny things so little tiny things must never be despised. In fact, the little tiny things are a good picture of  how the Kingdom of God comes into the world.

Matthew 13. Listen:

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

I would like to talk about the Kingdom of God. I would like to talk about the Kingdom that is at first dismissed as too small, too insignificant, too paltry, but, in time, will be shown to be mighty indeed.

The Kingdom of God appears small and insignificant in the world today.

We begin with the way the Kingdom appears in and to the world.

³¹ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. ³² It is the smallest of all seeds…

The Kingdom of God in the world appears small, tiny, insignificant. It is “like a grain of mustard seed” which “is the smallest of all seeds…”

Of course, critics and skeptics have seized on the fact that technically speaking, scientifically speaking, a mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. Technically, there are some smaller. But to say this is to completely miss the point.

Craig Keener notes that Jesus is employing hyperbole, not making a scientific botanical statement.

Scholars still dispute what plant is meant by the “mustard seed.” Nevertheless, by no conjecture is it the smallest of all seeds that Jesus’ listeners could have known (the orchid seed is smaller); the point is that it was recognized as very small and yet yielded a large shrub.[1]

Keener also shows from extra-biblical sources (like, for instance, the Mishnah) how, in the first century, “the mustard seed had become proverbial for small size…”[2]

Iain Duguid highlights how small these seeds are.

The mustard seed is tiny, the smallest of cultivated seeds at that time, with a diameter of 1/12 to 1/16 of an inch (1.6–2.1 mm).[3]

Frederick Dale Bruner points out that “[t]he mustard seed is extremely small—it takes about 750 of them to weigh even a gram…”[4] Michael Card writes, “In Jesus’ day, it is the smallest seed anyone could imagine…”[5] Craig Blomberg notes:

Jesus is not speaking in absolute terms as a biologist but in the frame of normal experience in Jewish agriculture. Mustard seeds were the smallest seeds commonly planted in Palestinian fields.[6]

But of course. Jesus is not writing a botany textbook. He’s speaking to common folks and farmers and fisherman in the parlance of their day.

I was once walking down off a hill in Honduras with some other members of this church. We passed by a farm and fell into conversation with a farmer. He pulled out some seed and put a little pile in each of our hands. I asked what it was. He said, “Mustard seed.”

I marveled at it. You could barely make the individual grains out. It was so small.

And Jesus said that this is how the Kingdom of God appears in the world: tiny, small, insignificant.

And is that not the case? Our world loves the grand and the grandiose! Apparently, so does the church, for we celebrate and platform the grand and the grandiose. Go to any Christian conference or rally, and the grandness of the speaker’s ministry will at some point be highlighted, if not by him then by somebody else.

And sometimes we are just absolutely crass about our devotion to grandeur. For instance, one very famous preacher from California once said of his massive, beautiful cathedral and why they built it:

We are trying to make a big, beautiful impression upon the affluent non-religious American who is riding by on this busy freeway. It’s obvious that we are not trying to impress the Christians!…Nor are we trying to impress the social workers in the County Welfare Department. They would tell us that we ought to be content to remain in the Orange Drive-In Theater and give the money to feed the poor. But suppose we had given this money to feed the poor? What would we have today? We would still have hungry, poor people and God would not have this tremendous base of operations which He is using to inspire people to become more successful, more affluent, more generous, more genuinely unselfish in their giving of themselves.[7]

Sometimes we say the quiet part out loud.

But the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed…and God can do great things with mustard seeds! Jesus, in Matthew 17, says this when the disciples asked why they had been unsuccessful in casting out a demon.

²⁰ He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

God does not despise your mustard seed faith, your mustard seed ministry, or your mustard seed efforts.

I chuckle to think of the time when I was called to pray over a very sick teacup poodle at a veterinarian’s office in South Georgia. I received a call from a church member who was the local veterinarian. A lady was there in their practice and she was distraught. Little Princess, her teacup poodle, had cancer and appeared to be near the end. The veterinarian apologized and asked if I might possibly come and pray over the little dog. So I did!

I will never forget it. It was so sad, the sight of that little poodle. She was laying there weakly on the table, a little IV in her leg. Her eyes barely open. I spoke a word of comfort to the struggling owner, then placed my two index fingers gently on the poodle’s body, and prayed for Princess! I prayed that God might heal her! I prayed for life!

I hugged the owner and left.

A couple of days later I asked the veterinarian how little Princess was. She said, “Do you know, she’s better! She strong and energetic and seems to be much, much better!”

I still laugh and bring up my “poodle faith healing ministry” to my wife! Did God heal Princess? I suppose He did! But what is the bigger point? The bigger point is that our God is the God of the little tiny things just as He is of the great big things.

If the Kingdom of God looks small and overlooked in the world, do not despair: God is at work in the mustard seeds! If you feel that your ministry for the Kingdom is tiny and small and unnoticed, do not despair: God does great big things through the little things! He sees you and He is working mightily through you!

But the Kingdom of God is destined to grow and expand and eclipse all other kingdoms.

In fact, God will take His mustard seed Kingdom and grow it and expand it and do amazing things!

³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree…

Once again, snarky critics clamor to point out that the mustard plant is not a tree. And, once again, we must remember that Jesus is not writing a botany textbook. He is speaking to farmers in Palestine 2,000 years ago and using the phenomenological language they would have understood.

In point of fact, the mustard seed’s final form could indeed appear quite treelike! Craig Keener writes:

Around the Sea of Galilee, it can reach a height of ten feet and has sometimes reached fifteen feet. Its usual height, however, is about four feet; because it would grow anew each year, birds could not nest in it when they built nests in early spring.[8]

One commentator calls Jesus’ usage of the word “tree” as “[a]n excusable exaggeration in popular discourse.”[9] But of course.

The point is that latent within the mustard seed Kingdom is volcanic growth fueled by divine power! God takes little tiny things and does great big things with them!

Consider, for instance, the growth of Christianity. The growth of Christianity around the world is nothing less than astonishing! The late historian, Larry Hurtado, writes:

From our earliest sources, it is clear that at a very early point the movement that became “Christianity” practically exploded trans-locally, and continued this geographical spread all through the early centuries…

Hurtado then sites the research of others:

…Rodney Stark…[writes] “Keep in mind that new religions almost never amount to much and that it is very rare for a new faith to sweep through a large-scale social system in the way that Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam did”…“…no more than one religious movement out of 1000 will attract more than 100,000 followers and last for as long as a century…” “Even most movements that achieve these modest results will become no more than a footnote in the history of religions.”…

…Robin Lane Fox observed, “no other cult in the Empire grew at anything like the same speed…”

…[Keith] Hopkins postulated 1000 Christians ca. 40 CE and roughly six million by 300 CE, citing sociologist Rodney Stark’s use of such figures and his calculation that this sort of growth across this time-span would have required only an average increase of about 3% per year. Hopkins further posited the numbers of Christians at various points on this time-span: e.g., perhaps 100 churches (in as many towns) comprising ca. 7,000 believers by 100 CE, and some 200,000 Christians in 200 to 400 towns by 200 CE. Indeed, Hopkins judged that by the end of the second century CE in each of the large cities such as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Carthage there are “substantial” Christian communities of several thousand believers. Nevertheless, Hopkins held that throughout most of the first two centuries CE “Christians were statistically insignificant,” and that it was only in the third century that Christianity gained “the prominence that made it worthwhile persecuting on an empire-wide scale.”…

            In comparison with the many other religious groups of the time, this was, to say the least, unusual. Indeed, although historians are often loathe to use the term, we probably have to say it was unique. For there simply is no new religious group of the time that had the same growth sustained over such a long time.[10]

In the growth of Christianity the mustard seed has become a tree!

But we must be careful here. We must recognize as well that the greatness of what Jesus can do with His mustard seed Kingdom need not necessarily be quantifiable. Think, for instance, of the lady in the local church who quietly teaches a 1^st grade Sunday School class year after year after year. She will never be famous in the eyes of the world. Most likely, her name will not make it into even books about Christian history and Christian growth. Yet, her impact is enormous. How does one measure years of young people who have been nurtured in the gospel? How many missionaries, teachers, preachers, musicians came out of her class over the years, equipped and strengthened by her faithful service to the Lord. In this case, has the mustard seed also not become a tree? Has God not taken a small thing and done a great work…even if the greatness of that work is not measurable by normal standards?

The seed becomes a tree. God does great things with tiny things in His Kingdom!

And the Kingdom will be a home to people the world over.

And then there are the birds!

³² It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

At this point it should be acknowledged that some see this parable as a negative parable, a warning about the institutional, bloated swelling of the people of God. In this reading, the birds are nefarious agents who nest in the branches to disrupt! It is pointed out, in this reading, that earlier in Matthew 13, the birds are seen as agents of the devil (see verse 4). What is more, the parable immediately following this one points to leaven, which is usually a negative image.

Yet, I reject this reading. I believe the clearest reading of this parable, and the leaven parable that follows, is that the Kingdom starts small and grows in the hands of our great God!

What is more, the image of birds nesting in trees is a symbol of the nations coming to the Lord elsewhere in scripture. Consider Ezekiel 17.

²² Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and will set it out. I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain height of Israel will I plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar. And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest. ²⁴ And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.”

This is most decidedly not negative, and it fits well with what Jesus is saying in our text. So too, in Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream in which this happens:

¹⁰ The visions of my head as I lay in bed were these: I saw, and behold, a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. ¹¹ The tree grew and became strong, and its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth.¹² Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in it was food for all. The beasts of the field found shade under it, and the birds of the heavens lived in its branches, and all flesh was fed from it.

There is reason to think that Jesus is saying the same thing in His parable: People the world over—from every tribe, nation, and tongue—will come into the Kingdom! The tree is the Kingdom and the birds are the peoples of the earth!

It is also difficult for me not to observe that in Galatians 3 the cross is called a tree.

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

How are we able to enter and rest on the branches of the tree of the Kingdom? We are able to only because Jesus was fixed to the tree of the cross! Jesus gave Himself to be crucified upon the tree of Calvary in our stead so that we might be saved and become citizens of the Kingdom!

By the tree of cursing we are able to enter the tree of the Kingdom!

And there is another tree that is consistent with Jesus’ Kingdom parable. It is the tree of Revelation 22.

¹ Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

In glory, our final home, there is a tree. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations! This too is an image of us nesting like birds upon the branches of the tree of life, for it is on the branches that we encounter the healing leaves of glory! And, John continues:

³ No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

And to this we say “Amen! And Amen!”

 

[1] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 80). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[2] Keener, Craig. Matthew. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Series Editor Grant R. Osborne. Volume 1 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), p.243.

[3] Iain M. Duguid. “ESV Expository Commentary: Matthew–Luke.” Apple Books.

[4] Bruner, Frederick Dale. Matthew. Revised & Expanded. (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004), p.36.

[5] Card, Michael. Matthew. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), p.129.

[6] Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. The New American Commentary. Gen. Ed. David S. Dockery. Volume 22 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1992), p.220.

[7] Sider, Ronald J. Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, ), p.36.

[8] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Bible Background2005 Commentary Set) (p. 80). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

[9] Robertson, Archibald Thomas. Word Pictures in the New Testament. Volume I (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1930), p.108.

[10] Larry W. Hurtado, Why On Earth Did Anyone Become a Christian in the First Three Centuries? (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2016), p.20n.12/19/29/30-31/45.