The mustard seed: a story aching to be told

Does the mustard seed realize what it is destined to become?

In the familiar parable, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, “the smallest of all the seeds on earth.” From such a small, seemingly insignificant start grows “the largest of plants,” with branches that attract the birds of the sky.

It’s all so…improbable.

Let’s face it: the mustard seed is so small, it’s the sort of thing most of us would easily overlook. But it holds something tantalizing; a tiny grain contains growth and life, shelter and shade. Its future is vast—a story aching to be told, a purpose waiting to be fulfilled.

How often we forget that. And how often we forget, too, this simple but humbling reality: life is full of mustard seeds. We share the world with so many who are easily neglected, abandoned, swept away: the elderly, the poor, the disabled, the lonely, the unborn.

But Jesus assures us that every seed, even the smallest, contains possibility and purpose. Hold a seed in your hand and you’re holding a future still unwritten. We can’t begin to imagine what will come.

Faith is like that. God’s kingdom is like that, too: a place where even those who feel small and forgotten are given the grace to grow. We become more than we ever thought possible.

In this way, we are all mustard seeds.

Do we realize what we can become?

— My reflection for today, published in Give Us This Day, by Liturgical Press