The Kingdom is like Kudzu
Tuesday
July 22nd, Matthew 13: 31 He told them another
parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took
and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the
smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden
plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its
branches." From my experience with
mustard, my first thought is that I don’t have the foggiest idea what Jesus is
talking about here. I used to pull lots
of mustard out of the oats when I was growing up on the farm. It had a green stem and leaves and yellow
flowers and it wasn’t much bigger than the grain among which it grew. But hearing the parable contextually, perhaps
we could substitute a Redwood seed for a mustard seed. The kingdom of heaven is like a small little
thing that finds root and grows and grows and lives and lives. Or, the Kingdom of heaven is like an apple
seed that grows into a full beautiful tree providing shelter and nourishment
for all in the kingdom. Or to take on
the obnoxious nature of the mustard pant we could say the kingdom is like
chickweed that takes over your garden.
The Kingdom is like Kudzu that you planted in your garden, that took
over and covered over all the things you planted. The kingdom of heaven is like, and Jesus
offends his hearers by suggesting the Kingdom of God is like a garden in which
an unclean weed is planted, violating the diverse kinds rule from Leviticus
19:19 and making your garden unfit to produce anything to be used for holy
purposes. My take??? The kingdom of God is like an invasive weed
you plant in your garden and takes over, covering all the things we think are
important until all you see is Kingdom stuff.
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