The Parables of the Mustard Seed and Yeast (Mt. 13:31-33)
31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”
While the previous two parables (The Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Weeds in the Field) tell of an inherent uncertainty surrounding the kingdom, these two parables speak to its mystery. Mystery and uncertainty are quite different and that difference must be carefully considered. Uncertainty grows out of competing interests. We see both God and Satan sowing seed in the field of humanity. Even when the good seed is sown, humans can be of two minds, attracted to the goodness of the Gospel while at the same time distracted by worldly cares or suffering. Mystery has none of those dynamics. God is faithful and God is singular in his purpose, so there is no possibility of double-mindedness in God. But at the same time, God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are far beyond our thoughts. We cannot comprehend God’s purposes. Furthermore, being sinful, we are blinded to the spiritual world and are only seeing half the picture when we consider the kingdom.
In its most common biblical usage, a mystery is something that is yet to be fully revealed. The early church writers used this term to refer to the union of the spiritual and the physical. This is a logical extension of the original meaning of the word. Because of the blindness of sin, we are unable to perceive the spiritual, so God uses the physical to reveal the spiritual to us. The primary mystery is therefore the incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus Christ). In the incarnation, God revealed himself in human form. While the incarnation is a unique event in the divine plan, it made possible the union of physical and spiritual and this became the primary means of God revealing himself. This “incarnational principle” is reflected in things like scripture, Holy Communion, Baptism, etc. We are more familiar with the Latin word “sacramentum” (English, “sacrament”) in relation to these things; that term was an attempt to translate the early church’s use of the Greek word “mystery” into Latin. To this day, the sacraments are typically called the mysteries in the Orthodox churches.
The latter two parables are not about the sacraments, they are about the kingdom of heaven. But this discussion of the incarnational principle and the mysteries, or sacraments, helps us understand the principle at work in these two parables. With this context in mind, let us specifically consider the two parables.
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It appears tiny and insignificant. I am more acquainted with mustard seeds in cooking than I am in farming. If a mustard seed falls out of the measuring spoon onto the counter of floor, it is hard to find, because it is round and tiny. It’s very easy to lose if you aren’t paying close attention. So it is with the kingdom of heaven. From the physical, earthly, or human perspective, one has to be attentive, or you’ll miss it or lose it.
But the mustard plant is quite big. The size of the plant is completely out of proportion to the size of the seed. This is the first mystery of the kingdom. It is also the reason we can have such confidence in the kingdom of God. While God’s work in the world is not necessarily obvious or noticeable, it is huge and it is powerful. The first two parables by themselves do not necessarily instill confidence in the believer because they describe the inherent uncertainty surrounding the physical manifestation of the kingdom. But the mystery laying behind this physical manifestation is the overwhelming God-ness of the kingdom. It is so solid and protective that even the birds can make their nests, raise their young, and find protection in it.
The second mystery is the pervasiveness of the kingdom of heaven. One tiny packet of yeast in three large measures of flour seems insignificant. And yet the yeast permeates and penetrates all the flour. The whole loaf is leavened, not just a tiny corner. This is the “mysterious” (or sacramental, or incarnational) answer to the uncertainty of the weeds in the field of grain. We can look at the weeds and wheat from two different perspectives. On the one hand we can be pessimistic and full of doubt, and focus on the tremendous and unending work that Satan is doing in the world. We might lose confidence because everywhere we find growth in the kingdom of heaven we find the field full of weeds and we see the effects of the tireless sowing on the part of Satan’s minions.
The parable of the yeast offers us an optimistic alternative view of reality. Because of the effects of sin, the world is Satan’s field. Because of the pervasiveness of sin we ought to expect Satan’s work to be manifest wherever we look. That is simply the consequences of Adam’s sin. The exceedingly hopeful miracle is that no matter where we look, if we have eyes to see, we can see the mysterious kingdom at work, growing, and transforming the lump of sinful creation into a glorious loaf, and “people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God” (Lk. 13:29).
Copyright © 2006 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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