Learn to love the unassuming.
There’s this wild passage of Scripture in Luke 13 vs 18–19 where Jesus finally answers a question so many were asking:
What is the Kingdom of God like?
Finally, time for Jesus to win over his listeners, to tell them about his mighty kingdom coming to cover all the earth, the long-awaited King about to let the world in on Kingdom-vision.
And do you know what the listeners hear him say? “The kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed.”
I can imagine a few faces scrunched up in confusion, a few heads dropping in disappointment. Really, Rabbi? A mustard seed? I can imagine a few people thinking to themselves, ‘I don’t need a mustard seed kingdom; I need an oak-tree kingdom, I need a sequoia-kingdom. I need the big, the powerful, the mighty, the clear-as-day, the seen, the attractive.’
But, as he always does, Jesus challenges what we perceive to be powerful and attractive. Jesus brings our attention to the small and the unassuming, that which doesn’t look like much. And boy do we need a bit of that in our large-living world. We want the flashy, we want the easy, we want the immediate, we want the seemingly successful. But Kingdom Come is a slow-moving symphony, steadily sinking its roots into the depths and stretching its branches to the heights.
Jesus promises that if we sow the sacred-small, it will become the blessed-big. He does not just end with the seed, he goes on to speak of it growing and becoming something beautiful. It’s a strange thing, this human desire for success. So often we actively chase after that which has been proven time and time again to do little for our souls. Yet still we reject Jesus’s call to the unassuming, we forget that he described the Kingdom of God (the most excellent and glorious kingdom) as a seed — alive with potential, but unassuming in its posture.
If we forget the Kingdom we’re supposed to be sowing and building, we will be quick to create kingdoms that look nothing like the Kingdom of God. Our kingdoms will be focused on appearance: they will be mighty but lack grace, they will be beautiful but lack depth, they will be seen but will neglect the unseen. When we chase after a kingdom that wants to be successful we will ultimately leave behind all those we believe will hold it back from this success — those who make our kingdom unbeautiful. If we chase after our own kingdoms, we will end up neglecting the very people Jesus has called us to love and see.
But the Kingdom Jesus speaks of flips all of this on its head. Jesus came for the unbeautiful in all of us; he isn’t concerned or insecure about what people think about his Kingdom thus he calls the unexpected. He calls a murderer called Saul, he calls a denier called Peter, he calls a woman caught in adultery — he calls those we consider unbeautiful. These aren’t generally our first choices — right? If I was building my kingdom, this would not be the starting crew I would commit to. But his ways are higher than mine, his plans and thoughts so absolutely perfect and beautiful. Jesus chooses the unbeautiful because the seed promises growth and change — he sees the opportunity for Kingdom come to transform us.
We’re called to a mustard seed kingdom. We’re called to the unassuming and unexpected. We’re called to lay down our own ideas of success, community, advancement, influence. We’re called to pick up the seed, to sow it faithfully and watch as it bears fruit all over the world, as the faithful Gardener himself tends to it and brings many to rest in its branches.
I’m not very good at this a lot of the time, but here’s to asking God for new eyes, new thoughts, new dreams. Here’s to letting God change our minds one day at a time.
